When a legally blind man calls you “Gorgeous”

Life is really super-duper absolutely inarguably funny.

Two days ago I wrote a Farewell for a Little While post.  See ya @ Thanksgiving, readers, because creative fields must lie fallow.  (Oh how Munira and Lisa and I love the word “fallow”.  Isn’t fallow the coolest word?)

I was so happy about my upcoming blogging break.

But the Universe had other plans.

Drum roll, please!

Don’t take me too seriously.

Yet another tree

Seriously.

Don’t.

I have to honestly admit–cross my heart, can’t tell a lie!–that I often write these blogs with tongue in cheek. 

If you come visiting often and read a blog with an outrageous title like “It’s the Veggie Burger Lady!” please realize that the author is probably laughing herself silly under this desk.

Do not–as one family member recently did–(and you know who you are)–say, “Why do you care what a server thinks of you?  Why do you care if you’re predictable or not?”

Here’s the secret.  Lean closer to your computer.  {Said in a whisper…}  “I don’t care.  I truly don’t care.  It just struck me funny to say that in the moment.  Maybe 5% of me cared.  Just enough to mention it, laugh about it and let it go.”

One of the purposes of this blog is that it makes me laugh.  A lot.  Let’s say a feeling arises.  Take any feeling that might arise for you.  Say you’re feeling ambivalent about Facebook.  So you write a blog about your feelings (which might only be 1-2% of the totality of what you’re feeling) and you resolve–or mostly resolve–your issues about Facebook.

Phew!  That was over.  Quick.  You felt, you blogged, you let go. 

But people–two days later–a week later–a year later–think you’re having trouble with Facebook.  They think that 99.6% of you is having trouble with Facebook.

When 1-2% of you had some ambivalent feelings about Facebook and you let it go and that’s that.  (OK, OK, I am not being entirely honest again.  I am still 6.9% ambivalent about Facebook.  One day I will write a blog and resolve it all within 24 hours.  I’m sure.)

Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it isn't. This sign is serious.

When I wrote the blog Hark!  Who goes there in the swamp?  I laughed for six days straight.  Hark?  Hark?  Who says the word Hark?  Where did that come from anyway?

Comic sans blog?  Ohmygosh!  (I personally don’t care two hoots about whether comic sans type face exists or doesn’t exist. )

Sometimes I will moan to Barry, “People really think I’m (sad) or (worried) or (angry) or (fill in the blank).”  He will look me straight in the eye and say, “That’s because you said it.”

Alas.  He will be right.

It’s just that you feel your feelings–you express them (OK maybe you even exaggerate them a bit because a 1-2% feeling looks funnier when it’s expressed as 43-44%–and besides when you exaggerate a little bit it’s easier to see the humor in life and just let go.)

Got that last sentence?  I love assigning percentage points to feelings.  Except you can’t do that in polite society. 

“How are you doing today?”

“Fine!  I am feeling 57% good, 11% snarky, 20% bored and 10% wishing I were someplace else.”

But no.  How do we respond?

“I’m doing good–how are you?”

People don’t want to hear about the 11% snarky, do they?

Back to the original point–what was it?–yes, don’t take me too seriously.  Except when I say something serious.  You can tell the difference, right? 

Not serious.

Blogs about tsunamis or murders or where your grandma and grandpa lived are shared from the bottom of my broken or aching or nostalgic or wondering heart.

Please take those seriously.

I suppose you think I’m concerned that people are taking me too seriously, right?  I mean–I suppose that’s what one would think upon reading the above title. 

OK, let’s be perfectly clear.  I am only 3% concerned about being taken too seriously.  71% doesn’t care.  16% thinks this blog shouldn’t be written at all and 10% is already laughing. 

Don’t take that last sentence very seriously, please.  Percentages are all approximate–and possibly downright false.

Have a good day (make that over 50% good anyway!)  Seriously!

Serious for crows. Not for humans.

P.S.  Do you ever feel like putting “LOL” after 77% of the things you say?  Just so people know?   LOL!

Dare to walk where you have never walked before.

Bird house in the bog

Today I dare you.  Find a place where you have never walked before.  A brand new place!  A place of hidden intrigue.  Sights never before seen by your eyes.

You can do it. 

Perhaps it will involve ducking in the woods behind your  house.  Perhaps it’s a neighborhood where your feet have never been properly introduced to the sidewalk.  Perhaps it’s a park where you have never wandered.  A cemetery.  A stream.  A hidden lake.

Susan walking where she's never walked before...

OK, OK, I admit it.  I HAVE walked to this hidden lake before.  Maybe twice.  maybe three times.  I discovered it during last year’s Outdoor Adventures and ooohed and ahhhhed over the possibility of something being hidden in a landscape one think one knows. Click here to read of this first discovery.  Took Barry back there in November to show him the secret lake.  Click here for the second visit.

Last night it unexpectedly developed into Susan’s night to visit the Hidden Lake.

Overgrown out-of-the-way hidden path to the hidden lake

We aimed for a walk before dinner at Carla’s Restaurant.  We hadn’t seen one another since early in the winter.  Time to reconnect. 

We drove down to Lake Superior, behind the Pow Wow grounds. 

“Want to go left or right?” I asked.

We pondered the possibility.

“We walked left last time,” Susan mused.

“Then we must go right,” I stated authoritatively before–suddenly–remembering the Hidden Lake.  Susan must have the opportunity of glimpsing something rare and hidden jewel never before seen by her eyes!

Of course she willingly agreed, even though our trek would take us deep into Mosquito and Black Fly and Tick Country.

Where we discuss the possibility of Falling In.

Off we walked, admiring whatever the eye noticed.  We noticed bright green algae–or was it simply tiny individual green plants?– floating in the water.  One of us suggested that we were perhaps odd to notice and admire things such as this.  We delighted at how it looked up close.  We congratulated ourselves on our ability to Notice and Admire.

I advised Susan to watch for rotting or missing boards.  We approached the end of the dock.  It is one of those bouncy docks that bobs up and down in the water, threatening to heave one overboard.  We discussed the possibility of falling in.  We discussed what that would do to our dinner plans.  Susan suggested we would go to Burger King instead.

Since we really really wanted to go to Carla’s, we quickly backed off the lurching dock.

Where we discuss the oddness of things that catch our attention.

We then left the backwoods hidden lake and walked to the Right.  We stopped to peer at an angel with missing hands.  Had someone chopped off the hands in a fit of anger?  Had the elements somehow de-handed the angel?  What is the story behind the angel’s missing hands?

Better yet, can the angel still bless the land without her hands?  I am thinking that she can.  She still smiles enigmatically.  She perhaps suggests that nothing can take away what she is.  That nothing can take away what we are–even if we imagine we are missing some vital parts.

An angel without hands

Susan and I caught up on our lives in between angels and shells and waves.  We laughed a lot and perhaps even cried a little.  (I don’t remember crying, but I think we covered the gamut of emotions in our reunion.) 

We dined at Carla’s, enjoying the whitefish and baked potatoes and green beans and salad bar.  We looked out over Lake Superior through the front window.

(Susan had never before walked through the door of Carla’s Restaurant, either–another first!)

Pearly openness of underwater shell

As we drove back home we found ourselves laughing almost hysterically about some synchronicity.  Some way in which our lives mirrored one another.  I have always admired the way Susan (and her twin daughters) laugh so joyously at Life’s Secret Delicious Jokes. 

She says she laughs and laughs when she reads my blogs sometimes.  I say I often laugh and laugh when writing them…

New vistas.  New places.  Remember your dare, dear reader?  Find some place new to walk today.  Or tomorrow.  Enjoy stepping where your feet have never stepped.  Let the path open before you…