I think I have spoken often enough of going to the lakefront — specifically to Veterans Park — for you to know that water is particularly soothing to me and alongside Lake Michigan at this parkland is one of the places I find most restful of everywhere I’ve ever been. We’ve even talked about where we might like our ashes spread, and at the point of the landfill is where we’ve decided. But enough of the morbidity. On to nicer topics.
Where do you go when the world gets the best of you? I have always found fog to be particularly soothing (at least when I’m not driving in it). I really do find that on foggy mornings when I can get down to the marina and enjoy the sheer pleasure of seeing the city eaten up by the fog lingering on the bluffs, hiding all the mess and the mayhem, I am as peaceful and happy as can be. It goes without saying that implies that Peggy is with me; since retirement we go virtually nowhere without each other and I’m quite pleased to have it so. All my adult life we wanted to spend more time together and a retirement when we actually still like each other and have the health and means to enjoy life has made this the happiest time of our lives.
I have a special love of the little things (or not so little) that remind me that nature/God is bigger than we are and that something as whispy and transient as fog is sufficient to remind me that the things we worry about, the things we fret about, the things we obsess about are all, really, just a drop in the bucket of life’s experiences. I have not doubt that there is a greater being than ourselves. I know not all agree with me, but I find a great many reminders, every day, that whatever his/her/it’s plan in creation it surely is more fully thought out and expressed than anything I might conceptualize — and that no matter how brash I may be in deciding he or she or it doesn’t exist, my conclusion is no no more merit in the greater scheme of things than whether an ant thinks that humans exist, or whether a microbe can comprehend the Milky Way galaxy.
In a world gone mad, and surely the continuing presence of dRump in the White House – in spite of all he has done to violate our rule of law and appropriate behavior — this is a world gone mad. I continue amazed that legislators who have been discounted and ignored and insulted and abused sit happily on their thumbs and allow the abuse to continue. I hear people say that comparisons to Nazi Germany are wrong, but the willingness to tolerate abuses of power is exactly how the world got into the position of fighting a world wide war and the abuses today are of no less concern than those in the 1920’s and 1930’s leading up to WWII.
The morning we took this walk we came across another couple — about our age. They were (still are) obvious members of the Flower Generation. Their clothing gave them away, as did their blessings to us in talking, and their delight in stopping to play a flute for the geese — who seemed to assemble around them to listen to the soothing — or at least “pleasant” sounds of music. I guess, from their conversation, that they do that regularly — play music to animals. They have determined that the animals like it — determined it enough that their flute goes with them wherever they go, they say.
Personally, I found them almost as peace-inducing as the fog. They are simple people. I’m sure a Wall Street analyst might have zero reason to stop along the path and speak with them as we did. Nor, would I suspect, would any manufacturing tycoon bother taking a few minutes out of their busy day to chat with two souls who, by their outward appearance, might even have been a bit down on their luck. But, to me, they were a breath of fresh air. Like the fog, for a few moments they helped hide the madness of the world from sight and reminded me of the value of that which is simple, uncomplicated, and honest.
Namaste.
From the Far Side of '70 
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