Heartwings says, “The acronym for fear spells false evidence appearing real.”
Recently I had a small series of bumps in the road of life. Taken individually, none was particularly serious. Taken as a whole they were a reminder to me to be grateful for what I ordinarily might take for granted. For instance, when I run the water in the sink I expect it to go down the drain, don’t you? Yet when it is reluctant to do so, something must be done. And I did all the things I could think of to do: plunging, pipe clearing liquid, more plunging, hot water, waiting patiently, more pipe clearing liquid, etc. When nothing did any good I opted for the plumber. He took care of it nicely and that was that–until the refrigerator refused to be cold.
A series of attempts to make it run properly failed and another repair person was summoned. Now I have a guarantee I have paid for that lasts a full year, and although I hope the refrigerator will continue to provide cold, at least I feel secure about further repairs should they be needed. It is so easy to take things like the refrigerator for granted. Naturally I expect the washing machine, the dryer, and the vacuum to function efficiently and when needed. However, these little glitches in my everyday life have alerted me to the fact that I do need to remember to be thankful for what I might otherwise take for granted.
Then there was the little popup that kept appearing on my computer screen. It reminded me that I needed to renew my virus protection. “Your computer may be at risk,” it proclaimed. Ought I to tremble in my shoes? I reminded myself to be careful not to download anything potentially hazardous and waited patiently until my computer friend was able to remedy that difficulty. The popup too reminded me to be grateful for my remarkable computer and its gifts to me.
When I was growing up, I would read stories about robots and the marvels they could perform. Somehow, they always walked on two legs and had arms and fingers. Mostly made of metal, like the tin man they had a kind of brain and could speak. Unlike the tin man they performed a multitude of tasks and cared for their owners. Today I am surrounded by “robots.” They don’t walk around or have conversations with me yet they can be programmed to do what I want them to do when I want them to do it and indeed, they do take care of me. They may not physically resemble the robots of the science fiction I once read, yet they fulfill many of the same functions.
I am grateful for my mechanical servants. I appreciate the stove, the washer, the dryer and the vacuum. Having read once in an article on the Feng Shui of India that suggested it, I have even given them all names. I praise them when they do my laundry and cook my food. Most of all I am grateful to them for the hard work they save me from. Truly I am grateful for the little bit of “rain” that fell on the garden of my daily life, it has been good for the garden and even better for the gardener.
May you handle your rain with grace and strength.
Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert
How do you handle your rain? Can you avoid getting wet or find good ways to stay dry? I do love it when readers share their stories. Write to me at Tashahal@gmail.com and make my day.
I used to chafe sometimes at my lists of things to do—sigh and say to myself, oh if I only had more free time to write poetry or organize, edit and tidy up my writings. It seemed to me that what I thought of as my daily or sometimes weekly drudgery took too much of my precious time and energy and I resented it. However, that was before the onset of the pandemic and the seeming disintegration of all that has constituted daily life and living, both personal and for my country.
Were I learning to read today I feel sure my picture books would include children of all skin colors and ethnicity. The closest books about anything outside my everyday experiences of white America that I can remember, was a series about twins of various countries. However, these were not living in my town or even my country. My history lessons were primarily about Europe and even the myths I studied were Greek, Roman or Norse, and all the gods and goddesses had white skin. Black culture or history was not included in my grade school or even High school studies. This in and of itself forms a kind of prejudice against non-whit, non-Europeans.
When I was a young wife in the fifties, my father helped us buy a house in the small town where I had grown up. Just outside my kitchen door was a garbage pail sunk into the ground. I would step on the lid, dump in my orange peels, potato peelings, stale food, etc. and once a week a man would come by with a big truck, pull out the bucket, empty it into his truck, and along with all the other garbage he had collected, take it to feed his pigs.
Do you take satisfaction in what you may have accomplished? Or do you tell yourself you could have done whatever it was better, or done more? Most of us have a critical voice inside that will not let us be satisfied with what we may have done, even though we may well deserve it. That critical voice can originate early in life from a parent, a teacher, or a boss. Now it has become a part of us as adults, and it robs us of the joy we might take from our satisfaction. To be satisfied may actually take courage, the courage to admit we have done something worthwhile.
In the fifties, when I was a young mother with two small daughters, my friends and I often gathered in one another’s kitchens for visits and chitchat. One day one of my friends looked at me, shook her head and said, “You are so brave, hanging your copper-bottomed pots for all to see without polishing them. Most women wouldn’t dare.” I smiled at her. “It doesn’t seem important to polish them,” I told her. “I’d rather play with my children or read to them.”
I’ve never been a competitive person. Usually a sense of competition kicks in around the age of four, when a child gains a clear understanding of “me” and “mine.” Even then there is often a desire to share unless the child is surrounded by competitors. When I was growing up competition was the rule and the idea of a game that required cooperation instead was unknown. I did not enjoy the competitive world I grew up in.
Pujakins 