On a tangent

I had to run errands after work, and letting the dog out of the kennel for a bit.  Managed to not do the first couple things on the list, and the reason I went to the store in the first place, so will have to find time before tomorrow morning.  I have a singing gig tonight.

Anyway, I walked home to get the music for the gig.  By the time I headed back out, this massive dark sky had built up, and it looked like it would rain soon, so I tried to hurry, not that I could out-walk a storm, but you know, to limit the drenching.  I did beat it, and then I forgot about it once I started cooking dinner, feeding the pets, etc.  They were unconcerned when the lightning, thunder, and hail finally struck, finding themselves much more interested in watching me cook and waiting to see if I would share with them.  I'm gonna have to start eating in the bathroom.

The dog is still moping, wishing, I suppose that I would turn into his person, but I don't.  They did let me sleep with my legs stretched out, so that was progress.  The dog jammed his face in my armpit at one point, but thankfully, quickly resorted to putting a paw on me for safe keeping instead.  They held their respective territories until morning.  I got a little bit of sleep.  Passing storms woke me up off and on: rain and branches hitting and creaking against the windows, the sound of wind.

It's been snowing this morning, the clumps falling in the rain, vanishing as they touch down.

When the sky cleared, March 23/L Herlevi 2018

Later, the sun came out, people began returned to the rain-soaked Quad.  I rushed home to let the dog out before the singing gig, and then rushed home after, to let him out again: been long stretches.  Both of the pets were stir crazy tonight, and he and I had a stand-off; he frightened me a bit, so I walked away from him.  Now he's pouting.  (I don't know him well enough to know what the behaviors mean.)

The singing gig was part of a discussion regarding the continuation of the Finnish Lutheran Church in Seattle.  I don't have say in the matter, but joining the community through the choir changed my life for the better, got me in touch with a part of me I didn't know about.  Would be a huge loss for me, but like many groups (religious, cultural, language, stories, to name a few) now, too few people are trying to hold things together, and many of those people are elderly; if you can't get vibrant multi-generational involvement, the communities will dissolve.  The visiting pastor from Finland recently asked an Estonian interpreter what the Finns could learn from the Estonians, where, when under Communist rule, religion was banned (as were traditional songs), and she said, "Don't lose the tradition."  And that made me think of all that we're losing now, all the knowledge (language, cultural, stories, histories, species, genes, diversity) we are losing every day.  When they are gone, we can't get them back.  Why are we so willing to let them go?  What would we be willing to fight for?  What would it take to get us to care?  How do you have a cohesive society that's multi-cultural, without recessing to the blandest common demoninator?  How do you survive in multiple worlds, or is that even possible?  And if you can do it, where do you fit in?  (I'm all over the place with this, apologies.  I think about this a lot.  I'm writing down so that I can wrestle with it more.)

Strange weekend

The residue comes out in my thoughts and my skin.  As if it all had meaning.  Plot twists of distant worlds colliding.  Everything thrown off axis.  A voice I can't distinguish telling me, "I'm still here."  Since Thursday, nothing went as planned, and everything somewhat strange.  Not bad, but altered.

Doors opening, seeing into someone else's universe, different than mine.  Radical generosity.  Fierce love. Running all over town.  On a long bus ride home, (from an early show...an unexpected wedding reception, and rock-aroke jam, a gutsy one at that) a man ranting, realizing it was only to himself, the predominant mood of the entire bus was one of compassion, and I realized also that in my normal daily routes, that wouldn't be the case, we need too much control, more calculated in what we give, we want to know the outcome first.  Today, walking home from a memorial service (for someone who embodied openness and love to me, someone who recognized people mattered more than things, and practiced that) a man beckoned me into his shop, offering food.  We talked about tennis, he fed me garbanzo beans, translated poetry to me.  When I got up to leave he said, "What we have is meant to share. Ten percent won't hurt you any to give up, if you have, you share what you have."  Seeing what love looks like. Radical generosity.  Love.  And it's not that it's not always there, it's that if you just swim in the sea without noticing the details, you mostly see greed and fear, but if you look closer, at an individual level, the opposite is more true.

Holding all the things that matter: Not for sale.