tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27290985592661942772024-03-08T07:16:56.488-08:00Coyote TracksMusings Of The Old CoyoteDenes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-56675879501835732522016-11-02T13:25:00.000-07:002016-11-02T13:36:16.224-07:00My Last Best Friend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Chica</i>, the red, floppy-eared Doby in the soon-to-be-published novel (<i>Rafael</i>) that I’ve just finished writing has actually been my dog, and best friend, in real life. The descriptions of her; her actions, her behaviors, proclivities, and sensitivities, as described in <i>Rafael </i>are taken from actual accounts of our life together. <i>Hombre</i>, the red Australian Shepherd in the book has been Chica’s friend and running mate in real life as well. He is actually two years younger than Chica. The three of us have all lived together on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Everything else in this novel is fictitious. My dogs are not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Chica and Hombre came from different litters (obviously), Chica being a Doby, and Hombre an Australian Shepherd. They are both red with tan markings, the same markings, and the same patterns. Both dogs were the last one’s left in their litters when I found them, and the only ones red in color. Both were the runts of those litters. It was providential, and serendipitous, that they both ended up with me. But it was not coincidental.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I’m more than sad to say, and in fact I am devastated to even have to acknowledge, that two days ago (the very morning after I finished writing <i>Rafael), </i>Chica, my best friend and constant companion, died suddenly from what I now know was <i>Dialated Cardiomyopathy</i>, a heart condition that affects Doby’s, often without notice, and in disproportionate numbers to any other breed of dog. She was just seven years old. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> As is true of many, I have experienced tremendous loss throughout my life; loss after loss along the way; more loss than I can sometimes even bear. But never have I experienced the kind, or degree, of grief that I have been suffering since losing Chica. She has given me joy when I have lived, what has too often seemed like, a life of perpetual sadness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> She was (is) that significant in my life.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> At about eight in the morning I took the dogs down to the river for a swim, and to let them fetch some sticks in the water; their favorite activity ever. After about ten or fifteen minutes of play Chica got out of the water, and wandered off about thirty yards away. She walked around on the river rocks, through, and under bushes, kind of wandering around in circles. She told me somehow that she was looking for a place to die. I led her back down to the waters edge and she collapsed to the ground. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Chica lost consciousness, went totally limp, her eyes glazed over, and she stopped breathing. I began to pump her chest, and pour cold water on her from the river. I tried to breathe for her, but with her long snout it was impossible to seal my mouth around hers. After a few minutes of this frantic treatment she revived. I intuited that her heart was not pumping blood to her lungs, and determined that if I left her lying there she would die. Wanting to get her heart pumping again I raised her up on her legs, held her steady, and asked her to walk with me and Hombre back to the truck to ‘go home’ (knowing that she would feel compelled to try and get home with us). We walked together about a hundred yards to within about forty yards of the truck, and then she collapsed again. I ran to the truck to bring it to her. When Chica heard me start the truck she got up, took about eight more steps toward me and collapsed for a final time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I lifted her into the truck cab and, knowing there was a veterinarian eight miles away from where we were, I took off at about sixty miles per hour on a curvy two-lane mountain road, flashing the emergency lights, honking the horn, and driving on the wrong side of the road to pass the cars ahead of me. I did everything I could to get us to the vet. I was too late. With Hombre by her side, Chica died in the truck about a minute away from the clinic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I pleaded with the vet for a hot-shot, some medication, anything that could revive her. She listened to Chica’s heart, and simply said, “She’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I took Chica home, laid her on her bed, and spent the better part of the day just being with her, petting her, comforting her in her absence, comforting myself in her absence, and giving her all the love that I held (hold) in my heart for her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I spent the late afternoon/evening digging her burial site.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Chica always loved to have my scent near her. Sometimes I’d put my shirt on her bed at night, and she’d lay her nose on it for comfort. I took off the tee-shirt I was wearing when she passed and pulled her head and front legs through it so that she was wearing it, and could wear it for all eternity. I wrapped her in her favorite blanket, and then wrapped a white sheet around the blanket.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span>I laid Chica to rest where I thought she would like to be. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I have been in tears since the river. And I feel like I will be for the rest of my life. I have never felt such profound, or boundless, grief.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> But I have never been as inspired by a creature as I have been by Chica. She has given me love immeasurable, devotion unqualified, and protection at her own risk. She has given me comfort in times of distress, calmed me in my anxiety, made me laugh when I needed a good release from stress, and has asked nothing in return except to simply be with me. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Chica has raised my consciousness, and enlarged and enlivened my heart. She has been ever-present, and ever vigilant as a guardian for me, for her pal, Hombre, and for anyone else she considered to be friend or family. I cannot even entertain the thought that she will never be here in my company again. I see her in every room in the house, in my studio, where she was my constant companion, on the deck, and all over my property. She’s in my truck with me, as she always has been, when I’m out driving. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Some people might say that my experience of, and with, Chica is anthropomorphic in nature, rather than an authentic understanding of her. And all I can say about that is, “Obviously they have never lived with Chica.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 15px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I buried her outside my studio window, where I wrote so much about her in <i>Rafael</i>.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Hombre is very sad, has been laying on Chica’s gravesite, and has taken to peeing about ten feet away in an arc around the grave; a notice, I’m sure, for any intruders to stay the hell away from our beloved fallen friend. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 15px; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Chica has been (is) for me, symbolic of, and a rare accumulation of, the best of all that is good in life. I will miss her like I’d miss the sunrise were it suddenly, and permanently, missing from the morning sky.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-39621716886526097272016-02-14T21:25:00.002-08:002016-02-14T21:25:51.228-08:00Rafael <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> <i>(The following selections are a brief introduction to my forthcoming novel, 'Rafael')</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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My father:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have never known a man like him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is more than he appears to be, but less than he expects of
himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know if he was
born too late, or if he just came into his own too early for everybody
else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants to be honest, from
the inside out, but from the outside in as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he is. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are those, however, who never wanted to allow that in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were just not comfortable with
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not because they didn’t
respect him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But because they were just not willing
to comply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too high a
standard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too much work,
they said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just too hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unfortunate part about it is that
he did not require their compliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He required it only of himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But honesty is not linear, it is a revolving glass door; the kind you’ll
see on the entrance to a fancy hotel in the City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people find it to be clumsy, though; more unwieldy than
they are willing to live with, more difficult even than deceit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They continue through life with the
door of truth open only inadvertently at times, or closed up deliberately, but
never transparent, as it were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is not circular for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone
else’s honesty, they feel, does not necessitate their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no, it does <i>not</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for them, but it does in the broader interest of
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many continue to hide behind opaque disguises, even though it doesn’t
need to be that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father was
never one of them. </div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
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Dad put up a teepee and camped on the property with very
little in the way of creature comforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He constructed it entirely from the bounty of the land, the natural
resources, by his own imagination and with a practical, no-frills utilitarian
sixth sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He focused on being
alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the absence of his
wife, and his youngest son, he wanted to feel everything he needed to
feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted to remember every
moment they each shared throughout their many years together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted to miss them both, he wanted
to grieve their absence, and he wanted to become friends with the void.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During that first year on the property
he explored every acre of his new world like a young boy would explore the
insect world beneath an old decaying log.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He got to know every nook and cranny, every bend in Pilot Creek and the
Rubicon, every pool, falls, rock, wooded glen, canyon, and anomalous
outcropping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also got to know
himself, better than most would have, even over the course of a full
lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dad became sole guardian
of both his property and his own sanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Eventually his sanity began to mirror the 350 acres, changing quite
noticeably with every change of season. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must
admit, after so many months apart early on, seeing my dad in an old hotel bar
in an ageing gold rush town was a very difficult challenge, an unexpected first
impression for me to get past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With his grey scraggly beard, and weather-worn demeanor, he looked as if
he’d wandered out of the makeup trailer of a spaghetti-western movie set in the
hills of rural Italy, or like he’d been lost in history, waiting for the world to
come back to catch him up on things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I got a cramp in the pit of my stomach, my heart raced with anxiety and
bewilderment, and my eyes moistened like a mirror in a settling fog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when he opened his mouth he
immediately became my dad again, the man I know, the dad I’ve always
known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, almost under his
breath, “Had I known you were coming, son, I would have shaved, and worn
something more appropriate to the occasion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both laughed, and we were back on familiar ground.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was a long time ago, but I remember that we met up at the Georgetown
Hotel on Main Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We spent a
couple of hours catching each other up on the previous year, then jumped into
his 4-wheel drive light beige 1972 Ford F-250 pick-up truck for the twelve mile
drive out to his property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d
named the truck Henry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still has
that old dinosaur today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Says he
wouldn’t trade Henry for a Hummer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was anxious to see how my dad was living, where he was living, and
what it was about that particular place that had so captivated him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was it that had the kind of hold
on him that nothing, or no one, had ever had, other than my mother?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The picture of our meeting is still
vivid in my mind, like an old Polaroid photo you might have carried around in
the pocket of your coat for all these years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little faded, crinkled, ragged, but vivid, nevertheless,
because of its importance to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-42698236440966340332016-01-07T12:10:00.002-08:002016-01-07T12:10:51.667-08:00Honestly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> Honestly, what’s so damn difficult about being honest?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Telling the truth, and not misleading
people, is all that it ever requires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What’s so bad about the truth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s been said, “The truth shall set you free.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s so bad about being free? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kind of like being free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you haven’t tried it yet, I’m sure
you’d like it too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least try it
to see if you would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Lying has become so common in our world today that most
people no longer even consider it to be lying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To them it is simply a way of positioning themselves with
others like they want to be positioned; whether it be family, friends, bosses,
acquaintances, or strangers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it
involves being less than truthful, so be it<i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>‘To give a false impression’</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is actually one of the common dictionary definitions of lying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are not many people today who
even consider giving a false impression to be lying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I am not one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Giving a false impression is actually of deliberate and
conscious intent, the intrinsic character of a lie. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Sure, our political leaders lie, our national religious
leaders lie, our celebrity royalty lie, the corporate executives lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems as if all the ‘successful’
people lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our parents lie, our
grandparents lie, our teachers, mentors, coaches, and local priests, ministers
and rabbis lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it seems that
all of our role models lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the
question is, “Why can’t I?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Well, to be perfectly honest with you . . . . . . . . you
can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now you can lie via Facebook,
Twitter, and text messaging without ever having to look the recipient in the
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can lie any time you
want, and to whomever you want . . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>just like they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I
must say, “You will<i> be</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> just like them
when you do.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that’s what you
want, go ahead and continue to lie as much as you’d like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then let me know what you think of
yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me know how that has
impacted you in such a positive way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let me know how it’s elevated your self-esteem, and allowed integrity to
take root in your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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If you’ve ever taken to heart the admonition to build your
house on rock (rather than on sand), so that when the ground quakes and shakes
your house will remain solid and intact, then you understand the principal at
work in preparing wisely for the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or if you’ve ever considered the admonition to build your house on
higher ground so that when the river rises your house will not be swept away,
then you further understand the importance of planning ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Common sense says to <i>not</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> build your house on sand, or on a flood plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would just be stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, experience and common sense teach
us that lying is the life-equivalent of building your house on shaky ground, or
in a sketchy place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Building your
life on lies is stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will
often serve you temporarily, but your ignorance and deceit will come back to
haunt you, at various times, and in various ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can count on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, in fact, it hurts and offends other people too; especially those
who love you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why not avoid all
that personal and collateral damage in your life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not a question of conscience for you, it seems to me that
(at the very least) it would simply be the smart thing to do:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smartest thing to do.</span></div>
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Honestly.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-46032033655010453152015-11-09T13:48:00.002-08:002015-11-09T18:07:40.271-08:00No Longer Alone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I spent the evening in San Francisco the other day at my
son’s concert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hadn’t been back
there in awhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been living
in the mountains for about the past six years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do come down out of the mountains fairly regularly, so
it’s not as if I’m completely out of touch with the greater culture going on in
our world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also do read, listen
to the radio, and watch television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And If I were to guess, I’d probably say I’m at least as conscious of
our world as the next guy, and probably more so than most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being retired, I have time on my hands
to stay in touch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s one of
the beauties of my circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, I’m not retired in the purest sense of the word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spend a great deal of time writing
books, music, and recording albums of my original songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I <i>am</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> retired from the daily hustle-bustle of the work-a-day world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I like that part of
retirement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have lots of time on
my hands to choose what I want to do on a particular day, in a particular week
or month, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am also alone
quite often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not something I
ever dread, but quite the contrary, it is something that I relish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have time away from distraction, from
noise and visual clutter, and from people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is valuable time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I never had to learn to be alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have always coveted alone time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is something that is important to me; to every human
being actually, whether they realize it or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aloneness allows the opportunity for self-reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It allows time for understanding and
adjustment of who I am; my outlook, my behavior, my sense of my own
equilibrium, my degree of self-acceptance or dissatisfaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It allows time to listen to, and to
actually hear, my own conscience, the still small voice within me; the one
voice that is critical for every human being to hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some would say the voice of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would not trade my alone time for all the wealth in the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the one thing that
will give birth to the only kind of wealth that really matters. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have a cell phone like almost everybody else these
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make calls, text, check
email, send photos etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when
I’m out in the world I observe, and participate in, that world to one degree or
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where I am <i>not</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (when I’m out in that world) is on my phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As necessary, yes, but not because of
my own anxiety, for my own entertainment, or for a pervasive need just to not
be alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Invariably, the more
connected I would become, the more of myself I would lose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I have been observing most everywhere (and particularly
the other night in San Francisco because it was so much more exaggerated than
in many other places) is the dearth of alone time that people have these
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not by a deluge of
inadvertent circumstances, but by choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, by choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am
sad about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed people alone, and in groups,
being connected to others outside of their own immediate circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everybody was on their phones, talking,
texting, checking emails, taking pictures of their surroundings, sending
pictures of their surroundings, taking selfies, playing games; taking
themselves out of their own present to be somewhere else, to be in another
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What they were not doing
is . . . . . observing their own surroundings, observing others, talking to
other people, even their own friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I saw groups of five or six people congregated on the sidewalk in a
little circle, but nobody was talking to each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone was on the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw people waiting in line to get into a club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were on the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw people in the windows of restaurants
and café’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were on the
phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw loners waiting for a
cab, or a bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were on their
phones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw people on their
phones while crossing busy streets, never even looking where they were going,
or checking to see if a car was coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I even saw a father pushing an infant in a very small wobbly stroller
through an intersection with cars coming from three different directions; a
very large and dangerous intersection, even for somebody paying attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I watched the man very closely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He never once, not once, looked up from
texting on his phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to
snatch the baby up and give him to someone more conscious of the child’s
wellbeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More conscious
period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously I couldn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’re no longer alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, nobody has to be alone anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And very few will choose to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They choose to always be <i>connected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">I
pity them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will never
know the beauty of being alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They will never know themselves; truly know themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will never know self-reflection,
as would be necessary for the art and practice of pragmatic or objective
thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least not like would
be possible otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
shame that the future world will be ruled by the judgment and guidance of
people who are stunted, only partially developed, as deep as a puddle rather
than a well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For this I grieve. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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--> Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-12607444786427158322015-09-12T06:23:00.001-07:002016-11-03T07:40:27.380-07:00The Cosmic Cafe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Placerville’s got talent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, that’s a fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You may not know where Placerville is, but I live near the
town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a smallish community in
central California about 45 minutes east of Sacramento in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada mountains; kind of a gateway to the south shore of Lake
Tahoe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You might hear it described by some people as a hick town, a
redneck town, a backwater town, or a right wing bastion of conservatism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you visited <i>you</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> might even describe it as such.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you may not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m here to tell you that it may be
some of that, but Placerville is much more than that as well . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . . . . . much, much more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are communities within the
community, made up predominately of very interesting young people, and the
Cosmic Café attracts these different groups like a flower attracts a bee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The café is located on Main Street in downtown
Placerville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes when I feel
a change of scenery would do me good I’ll go over to the Cosmic Café to
write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll usually go in
mid-morning after the bagel and coffee breakfast crowd has gone, and before the
lunch crowd arrives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll set
myself up on the second floor where it’s quiet, and where I can concentrate on
what I’m writing, rather than being distracted observing the going’s on, as I
might be doing downstairs where most of the people tend to linger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday evening I went over to the Cosmic for
an open-mic music casserole that they hold every Thursday night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just a low-key night out for us, and an
opportunity to hear an array of different singers and musicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve always enjoyed the open-mic format
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a chance to be
entertained, but also an opportunity to encourage young artists in their
struggle against their own nerves; another small step for each of them in
expressing themselves, and in moving just a little bit further forward in
pursuit of excellence and recognition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last night the bad performances were good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good performances were really good,
and the really good performances were great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a mish-mash of young people there, and, in fact,
it reminded me of Greenwich Village, or the Haight-Ashbury in the sixties and
early seventies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different
though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different in that there
seemed to be a broader variety of social subgroups represented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember thinking how glad I was that
these young people had a place such as the Cosmic Café to hang out, to express
themselves, and to connect with others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It did seem like many of them might be the outcasts from their schools,
and perhaps even from their own families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It seemed as if they might very well be wandering aimlessly if not for
the focus they had with their music, and the embrace they’d found amongst one
another at the café.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a
real sense of acceptance, of family even.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was quite evident that they enjoyed one another, encouraged one
another, and by all appearances seemed to even love one another. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My friends and I never had a place like the Mystic to go to
when we were growing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many
of them had talent such as I witnessed last night, but nowhere to express it,
no place to channel their creative energy and find the acceptance and
encouragement of others. They’d been the outcasts from their schools, and some
of them even from their own families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not only were we not encouraged in our artistic inclinations and
endeavors, we were <i>discouraged</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> from
pursuing anything even closely related to creative expression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Too many of my friends died before reaching adulthood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps a Cosmic Café might have given
some of them the acknowledgment and support they needed to keep them from
wandering aimlessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-7219607998481179562015-09-04T00:53:00.000-07:002016-11-02T13:43:12.292-07:00Tears of Gratitude<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I stood on top of a mountain this morning and surveyed the
granite lake below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A wind was
blowing constant across the water raising waves no higher than a foot or so,
but aligned with one another in perfect duplication as if an artist filled a
canvas with the same stroke of a brush a hundred thousand times until he ran
out of space to paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw
evidence of the wind moving across the lake but could not see the wind itself,
only the hint of its existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I moved my eyes towards a peak to the east that rose another
thousand feet above the one upon which I was standing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I scanned the granite mountainside
while drinking in the splendor of its uncommon strength and beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took humble notice of the sea of
boulders scattered, seemingly, so indiscriminately across the slope as if
they’d fallen willy-nilly from the heavens, taking root, as it were, in the
granite earth. Wind-worn and time-tested pine trees bent their ageing knees in
homage to the sky, reaching rugged branches towards the sun, growing
astoundingly from out of the ancient rock as if to prove that their survival
was just a matter of will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
perhaps it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My dog, Chica, breathed deep to fill her lungs with the high
mountain air, as if inhaling helium from a living balloon, as if collecting the
best of her surroundings to take home as a remembrance of this very sacred
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dogs together paused in
wonder, temporarily foregoing their roles as guides and protectors to
acknowledge and appreciate the moment, to be mystified and amazed by the
grandeur of their surroundings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
stood in awe of the majesty of God, in gratitude for my life, for the wonderful
creatures that are my dogs, and for the remarkable place that I’d been given to
partake of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I allowed, for the first
time in a long time, tears of gratitude to leak from my tired eyes, to roll
down my weathered cheeks as if it were the first time I had ever encountered
such amazing grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-8753553555478055052015-09-03T15:15:00.000-07:002015-09-03T15:15:47.458-07:00Blogger Etiquette<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--> 1. No profanity. <div class="MsoNormal">
2. No racist or homophobic slurs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. No personal attacks on the author or other users.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. No impersonating real-life public figures, alive or dead.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5. You’re perfectly welcome to be negative or critical while
expressing your point of view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But be respectful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The above rules were presented on a SF Giants baseball blog
to ensure proper etiquette/decorum for readers responding to the writers
posting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inspired by them, here are my rules for ‘Coyote Tracks’.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No insanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re insane go follow
somebody on Twitter.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No
baseless or xenophobic slurs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re going to slur foreigners first walk a few miles across
the Sonoran desert in their shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No
impersonal attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re
going to attack me, at least make it personal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No other kind of attack will have the same impact.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No
impersonating fictitious figures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re going to impersonate a fictitious character, impersonate
a politician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them
have begun believing their own fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And everybody else believes they actually used to
exist.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">You’re
perfectly welcome to be positive and non-critical while expressing your
point of view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But disrespect
will get you noticed much quicker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-59078914496902683932015-08-24T21:52:00.000-07:002015-08-24T21:52:02.448-07:00Third Eye Blind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> There’s a band called <i>Third Eye Blind</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, but this is not about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is about us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We supposedly have what many religious traditions call a <i>Third
Eye</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. We can’t see it, but we’re supposed to
be able to see </span><i>with</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say we supposedly have a third eye
because with many of us you’d never know it, you’d never even get a clue that
it exists. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the Hindu culture it is often depicted by women with a
red jewel placed on the forehead between the eyes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The <i>Third Eye</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> belief
system is found in Hinduism, Taoism, Western Wisdom Teachings (Rossicrucian),
fringe Christian teachings, Gnostic, (Kundalini/Chakras), Buddhism/Shiva,
Kabbalah, in meditation schools such as Yoga, Gigong, Zen, and many Martial
Arts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these religions, or
practices, incorporate the idea of a third eye.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some even believe it is the partially dormant pineal gland,
which resides between the two hemispheres of the brain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, unfortunately most of us only see life with two
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Figuratively one eye sees in black, and
the other sees in white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look with
both eyes together and we see gray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What’s missing is the consciousness of dimension with which we were born
to see life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s missing is the
color, depth, imagination and stimulation with which we were intended to live
and experience life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For many of us that third eye truly is blind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to fix that.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-17529995326506882202015-08-07T10:56:00.001-07:002015-08-07T10:56:12.463-07:00Missing Joe and Janis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--</style>I miss Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Both of them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Equally powerful, equally mesmerizing, each in their own inimitable
and wonderful way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’ve never seen or heard either of them, you may not
know it, but you miss them too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And if you <i>have</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> experienced them
you </span><i>know</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> you miss them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More so than I can even express.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t need to be reminded about the void left in my once
well-satiated soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My psyche is
just a little out of sync since they’ve been gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My equilibrium is just a little bit off-kilter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pop-star-strippers the star-makers
keep running out in front of us are mere wannabe’s, pickpockets, and imposters
compared to the likes of Joe and Janis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These pretenders are not here to enhance our lives with their pop
drivel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They never have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re here to enhance
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they’re here to
allow us the privilege of purchasing four hundred dollar tickets to their shows
so they can maintain their mansions, their private yachts and jets, while collecting
costly wardrobes to impress their equally narcissistic friends, even though
their designer garments are dripping with the sweat of our own brows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Joe and Janis . . . . . passionate, authentic,
captivating, fascinating; each in their own peculiar way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each one as unique as the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each with a voice the size of their
desire<span style="color: #993366;">, </span>and a heart the size of their fiery voice.<span style="color: #993366;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Janis was the tortured soul-searing singer who could bring
you to your knees in a passionate plea for mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She could give you gifts you never knew existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘<i>Take it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take another little piece of my heart now baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know you’ve got it, child, if it
makes you feel good’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Joe, the trembling vocal jester with convulsive soulful
gestures resembling both the agony and the ecstasy simultaneously in song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>‘You are so beautiful to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re everything I’ve hoped for, </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>e v e r y t h i n g<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>n e e d.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are so
beautiful to me’. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Joe and Janis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Gone too soon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gone but not forgotten.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never will be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not in my house.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-43696902034808842082015-07-25T13:24:00.001-07:002015-07-25T13:32:48.729-07:00 All Roads Lead Home if You're Lucky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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div.Sectio</style><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I did some traveling through Europe for
awhile back in the day, but also settled down periodically to live briefly in
various places around the continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just remembering some that still have pretty vivid, and lasting, imagery
for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I can see that,
although I was out there exploring the world, I was actually looking for the
one road home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They say that home
is where the heart is, and that’s where I really always wanted to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes you have to leave home to
find it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pack on my back, guitar slung over my
shoulder, and on a mission to find the right direction in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any direction is not necessarily the
right direction, but it is a different direction than the one I was pointed in
at the time, and sometimes a different direction is the only one left to choose
from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s kind of how I began
my months away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I stayed for a couple of nights with
people I met in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
organized a ‘<i>Welcome to the City of Lights’</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> party for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It stretched out over a couple of days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Invited all their friends over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drank wine and ate well, then spent
the afternoons in the sidewalk café’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No one I ever knew back home had ever organized a party like that for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I stayed in a little medieval stone
village for a couple of weeks, tucked away in the mountains in the south of
France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only way in or out was
by a long hike through the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No roads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No gas or
electricity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No running water,
just a gravity shower that was heated by fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gathered firewood every day in the forest, and water from
the stream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Huddled close to an
open hearth in a small stone cottage at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was wonderful, and it was peaceful, but I felt so
desperately alone. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I stayed for a couple of weeks in a
little pension just off the Puerto de Sol in downtown Madrid, Spain where the
girls on the street smiled at every passing, and the boys smiled even
bigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smiles painted across the
faces of the girls like children on Christmas morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although I was able to at the time, it
was hard to resist the company of such uncannily bright and inviting
propositions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Siestas in the
afternoon, evenings in the square, and late-night dinners in lively restaurants
with strangers who called me friend. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I stayed with a family for a bit in
Taormina, Sicily, in a house about a thousand feet above the sea where I gave
guitar lessons to a 12 year-old boy and sang my songs in a local restaurant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The family and I watched the <i>Godfather</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> together on their little black and white
TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talk about a Twilight Zone
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unequaled by any I’ve
ever had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 16.9pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
stayed for a while on a roof in Athens, Greece. A naked woman lived in a little
caretaker shack on the roof as well, like in some kind of dream sequence from a
Louis Malle film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I say
naked, I mean she was always naked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It didn’t bother me a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We had coffee together in the mornings, and wine in the evenings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Business as usual for both of us, as if
she weren’t naked at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
stayed in a centuries old hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey with bugs I’d never
seen before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Didn’t even know such
bugs existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big ones, like
reptiles, and a floor soaked inches deep with water every time it rained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I attached tarps above my bed to divert
the water that was pouring down on me from the ceiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just above the Pudding Shop, a
meeting place for vagabonds from around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the pudding was to die for. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
slept in a park in Lausanne, Switzerland at minus10 degrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My sleeping bag froze to the ground,
and my body froze in the bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
slept in the courtyard of an abandoned castle in Austria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Met a beautiful woman there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wandered in to the castle just to
kill a little time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was a
teacher from a nearby school who invited me to come and speak and sing my songs
to the student body at a hastily organized assembly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Invited me to stay with her for a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I availed myself of her generosity and
we found that we could trust each other with our honesty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It became the force behind our
platonic, but liberating, relationship. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
stayed in a remote hostel in the Swiss Alps across from The Eiger peaks, where,
through binoculars, one could see the skeletal remains of climbers who perished
there attempting to scale the mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cow bells echoed throughout the valley as cows meandered around the
mountainside grazing on the good green grass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
was on one of these peaks that I wrote, what I believe to be, one of my best
songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Atheist’s Dilemma.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
stayed in a myriad of places in Europe, Asia and North Africa, but really
always wanted to be home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
matter where I was it wasn’t home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The irony is that when I <i>was</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
home I often felt homeless, and when away from home I always wanted to be back
there once again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world is a
big place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the greater scheme
of things I was but a grain of sand in the desert.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
remember thinking, <i>All roads lead home if you’re lucky</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
they have.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
I am.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-52850363399145302552015-06-29T11:11:00.001-07:002015-07-01T09:01:52.752-07:00Rabbit in the Willows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style>Nothing of much importance to say today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I had a dream last night that someone was coming to get
me; that he was looking for my house, and that he was more than single-minded
about finding where I lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, he was dogged in his determination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was a faceless, nameless stranger wearing a baseball cap with the
shadow of its bill falling just over his eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was not afraid at first, but became increasingly concerned
because of the vagueness of his appearance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had a smile that betrayed, what I now believed to be, his
sinister intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His face
changed between that somewhat innocuous smile and the common cliché of a wicked
grin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It moved back and forth like
someone talking out of both sides of his mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was rather disconcerting that I could not get a solid fix
on his appearance, or, consequently, on who he happened to be, particularly
since I remember some suit and tie business guy proclaiming that appearance is
everything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A cold nervousness took root in my stomach, then rose up
from within me as I thought about this man, his probable mission, and the expected
consequences for me if he, in fact, did find my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pictured the 22-caliber handgun with
silencer that he would use, the one that assassins typically utilize to
dispatch their intended victims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
pictured him knocking on my door as if he were from the gas and electric
company on some routine inquiry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
pictured myself opening the door, and the man raising that cold black pistol
from his waistband and coolly putting one live round in the middle of my
furrowed brow as calmly as if he’d just shot me in the head with a rubber band
like kids do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fell beneath my
own lifeless self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stepped over
my crumpled body on his way to the kitchen to get a drink of water from the
faucet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw him stepping over me
again to exit back through the door, careful to pull it shut on his way
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He glided down the front
porch steps, down the long walkway to the curb, and slid rather gracefully
behind the wheel of a car as vague in my mind as the man’s own face had been in
my doorway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I had pictured had not yet actually happened in my
dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just my instinctual
summation of what was about to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the dream continued I found myself at the kitchen table ruminating
over a cup of old reheated coffee, mouth parched and dry at the thought of being
found by this man. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then, as I lifted the cup to my mouth for that first
sip of nerve- calming relief, and the hope of drinking in even a small
measure of courage, I heard a faint, but distinct knock on the door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was trembling like a rabbit cornered
by a fox in the willows when a voice in some kind of eastern European accent
calmly, but with very deliberate clarity, called to me through the door, “Mr.
McIntosh, I’m here.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I began shaking even more vigorously, like the proverbial
wet dog, and thought frantically about where I could hide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I held my breath, frozen to my
chair, scared to even set my cup of coffee back down on the table for fear of
being heard, when a second knock came louder, even more pronounced than the
first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mr. McIntosh, are you in
there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. McIntosh, your taxi is
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sorry for being late,
but I had a hard time finding your house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ll be waiting for you in the car, out front by the curb.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my dream I allowed myself to finally exhale, like a
pent-up hurricane breaking free of its inhibitions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like a big welcome sigh of relief.</div>
</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-40255317629370258822015-06-25T10:15:00.002-07:002015-06-25T16:09:27.353-07:00Insane Speech Police<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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{pag</style>It has recently come to my attention that some directives
have been issued from the desk of Janet Napolitano (the president of the
University of California system) to the faculty and administration of all the
schools in the state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ms.
Napolitano leads the university system comprised of 10 campuses, five medical
centers, three affiliated national laboratories, and a statewide agriculture
and natural resources program. The UC system has more than 234,000 students and
about 208,000 faculty and staff.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her directive consists of the following (what she calls)
potentially offensive, racist or sexist statements that should be banned from
use by anyone within the system.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* America is a land of opportunity.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* America is a melting pot.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* There is only one race, the human race.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* I believe the most qualified person should get the job.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>* Why are you so quiet?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Statements that we’ve all heard, that many of us have used,
and that, for all intents and purposes, are not meant in an offensive, racist, or
sexist context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, Ms.
Napolitano has proposed banning the use of all of the statements in order not
to offend, or hurt the feelings of, well, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>anybody.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not making this up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the mentality she not only holds, and is promoting,
but insisting on as well for those who work in the UC system, and for all those
attending the schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now let’s look at these phrases:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>America is a land of opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, to say such a thing is to imply that Lebanon, or
Afghanistan, or Cuba, or wherever, are not lands of opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we wouldn’t want to hurt their
feelings now, would we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nor would we want to think so positively about our
country. It might reinforce our own bias towards the U.S.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Better ban these words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>America is a melting pot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This statement would imply that we take in immigrants from
all around the world; every ethnicity, from every culture, political
persuasion, religious belief and ideology; and that these diverse people find
common ground here in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What a concept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We better
not express such a grandiose perspective about our own country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could cause some hurt feeling in
Saudi Arabia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ban these words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>There is only one race, the human race. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now this would imply that we are all created equal; that we
ought to recognize our similarities, our common origin, and our inalienable
rights as humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But wait, that
would tend to unite us rather than dividing and sub-dividing us into social,
ethnic, political, economic, religious, and sexual/gender groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t let that happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smaller groups are easier to control
than a people united would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Better ban these words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I believe the most qualified person should get the job.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now this is just an outrageous and egregious statement all
together, and it most definitely should never be spoken out loud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, if I were an employer I
would much prefer hiring the most unqualified, the most unprepared, the most
ill-equipped, the most immature, the most unkempt, and the most contentious
applicant possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wouldn’t you?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That being the case, we better ban these words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Why are you so quiet?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never ask this question to any living person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be overheard by an Asian
bystander who would experience it as a deeply offensive and racist
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must protect all people
at all times from being hurt by our words, even if those same words are being
misinterpreted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, we better ban these words. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, let’s ban even the discussion of banning these
words,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or even thinking them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You never know who might be listening.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And who might be offended.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank God for Ms. Napolitano.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without her we just wouldn’t know what to do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-56690987675935918802015-06-11T21:54:00.002-07:002015-06-11T21:54:46.820-07:00Selfies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I remember when I used to take pictures of other
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a novel occurrence
that has become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In today’s world
I just take photos of myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes there are other things in the photos with me, and sometimes
there are other people, but it’s usually just me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I like the world to be all about me.
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s me in the line for the outhouse at Bonnaroo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s me in front of the bar in El
Sobrante.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s me in the mirror
taking a picture of myself in the mirror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How do I look?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s me
checking my Facebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s me
eating a carrot in the car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s
my feet walking down the street.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
SSShhheeeeessshh.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What has become of me?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of these days I’m gonna just get over myself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-68416966278444654682015-06-06T05:39:00.002-07:002015-06-06T05:39:36.387-07:00Bruce Jender<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> You’ll have to excuse the pun, the misspelling of Bruce
Jenner’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not designed
to diminish or ridicule him, only to get your attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now that I have your attention, let
me say that it looks like the known world is weighing in on him transitioning
from a man to a woman; and the war of social-politics connected to it is fully
engaged as well, like dogs and cats locked together in a cage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone is taking up sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One side applauds him, promotes him
endlessly, calls him brave, and elevates him to hero status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the other side says that what he’s
doing with his gender transition is disgraceful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They say it’s perverted, they say it’s morally
reprehensible, and appalling beyond words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Jenner is not without fault himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bruce / Caitlyn Jenner publicity
campaign has been skillfully mapped out, and is in full swing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is money to be made here, and you
can bet he’s going to profit from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He says he wants to help other transsexuals to feel good about themselves,
and to be able to live comfortably in society, and in their own skin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A noble concern on his part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I have no doubt that his intentions
in that regard are good, even beyond the financial incentive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, I don’t have a problem with Bruce Jenner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, from what I know of him, I
kind of like him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I empathize with
him for the pain and confusion he has evidently endured through his life, and I
sympathize with his personal struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve had struggles of my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not his particular kind, but struggles, nevertheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one knows another persons pain
without having walked in their shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, a person willing to understand that pain should also be willing
to hope that Bruce would be able to find solutions for his dysmorphic disorder
that does not involve surgically and chemically carving himself into a
woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
psychological/emotional issue that was born within him, and it is fixable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is, Bruce will never be a woman, and I think the
people who are supporting him in that direction should be ashamed of
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The struggle is
between Bruce and his thinking, and not between Bruce and his body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand that it is easier to support
someone in what they want to do than to actually tell them the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is the coward’s way of
supporting those they care about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They know it deep inside, and so does the object of their support . . .
. . . . in this case, Mr. Jenner. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recognize quite acutely that the truth is not a popular
notion in today’s world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We prefer
to create different definitions of healthy than to define a particular
condition as unhealthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And just
as Bruce must come to grips with his own demons, society will have to come to a
different standard of honesty and integrity in order to actually solve some of
the problems we are, in fact, creating for, and among, ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although I believe that Bruce is too far down the road, too
strongly committed to turn back, I do wish the very best for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not a hero worshipper, <i>or</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a condemnation screamer, but I do fear what is
statistically, and experientially born out; that he is in for a very
unsatisfying and painful future, even in spite of his money and notoriety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God bless you Bruce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hope you find your way.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-45881490361054697292015-05-28T22:31:00.001-07:002015-05-28T22:31:46.257-07:00What's Wrong With This Picture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> What’s wrong with this picture?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, I guess that all depends on how you look at it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you look at the world from a negative perspective maybe
you’re going to think that everything is wrong with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you look at it from a position
of happiness maybe you’re going to think that there’s really nothing wrong with
the world at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this doesn’t
necessarily mean that life is either beyond repair or beyond reproach, it just
means that these kinds of observations and judgments are pretty much subject to
one’s internal influences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As much
as we might like to think of ourselves as impartial, or at least capable of
impartiality, we, in fact, are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are always at the mercy of our physical, intellectual, emotional, and
spiritual state of being. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I have a headache, maybe the world looks a little bleaker
than if my head didn’t hurt like hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I’ve been intellectually lazy of late, maybe the world looks too
complicated to even give it much thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I’m sad, or forlorn, or feeling rejected by someone that matters to
me, maybe the world feels very unwelcoming, or too uncaring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m feeling spiritually disjointed,
confused, or lacking in faith, maybe I just don’t care about the world at
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, on the other hand, if I feel great physically, the
future may look bright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m
been exercising my mind, maybe I understand the world just a little better than
had I been indolent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m happy,
maybe I experience the world with its arms wide open to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if my faith is strong, maybe I see
the majesty of God in the world around me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We don’t like to think that we look at things in black and
white, but in fact, black and white thinking asserts itself independent of our
own intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We credit
ourselves as liberal assessors of any given situation, as conscious evaluators,
as contemplative thinkers, as sensitive appraisers of the world around us, but
in any plausible judgment of life in and around us we fail in our thinking to
compensate for the influences that affect those same judgments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The only way I know to remain positive about the world
around me, however, is to put myself, and keep myself, in the best physical,
intellectual, emotional, and spiritual condition that I’m capable of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It, in and of itself, tends to produce
an <i>attitude of gratitude </i><span style="font-style: normal;">that enables a
positive connection to life and living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I’m going to err in black and white thinking, at least I know I’ll be
erring on the constructive side of things, and that always seems to do better
by me than the alternative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only then can I be confident that I see things as alive and
regenerative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only then can I
truly count on understanding <i>what’s wrong with this picture.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what is right with it as well.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-27154424054170497032015-05-25T21:32:00.003-07:002015-05-25T21:32:35.351-07:00A Broader Education<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> Way back in
Catholic grammar school I began, what was for me, my <i>broader</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>education</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
by watching the complex dynamics of teacher/student relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My teachers were nuns, stiff
disciplinarians, and generally unhappy and uptight individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were supposed to be a reflection
of God, but there was really nothing about them that inspired me to want to be
like, or even closer to, God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, some of them were downright mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were a couple of different nuns whom I considered kind and loving,
but for the most part they were pretty intolerant and scary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were the ultimate authority
figures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had the uniforms,
habits, and the stiff and unyielding posture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seemed like they never relaxed, and almost never
smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a general and
pervasive fear of displeasing them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anyway, I took it all in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
observed which student behaviors earned the praise and accolades from the
nuns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I took notes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately it was the phony,
kiss-ass gestures that garnered the most affection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the </span><i>do anything to please </i><span style="font-style: normal;">personalities that came out on top of the proverbial
pile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not in my
make-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was certainly not
in my nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was angry at them
for the way they wielded their authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And I was intent on not joining the status quo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBlockText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in;">
At the time
my educational experience was actually still ahead of me, and was really quite
beyond what was to be learned from the nuns, from the books, or from the
system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
As has been the case for most of my life, I have tuned in to the less obvious,
finding the obvious to be, well, <i>obvious</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been the underlying dynamics of
relationship, the psychology of behavior, the quiet innuendoes, the barely
visible manipulations, the system of punishment and reward, the need meeting,
the mating dance, the body language, the games, the </span><i>who</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> behind the mask, the flattery clubs and the social
climbing that have fascinated me the most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what has held my interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a glimpse into privacy, an understanding of
camouflage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what makes sense
of the world for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBlockText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
The
rest is just veneer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
I have never
earned a degree, and it has never bothered me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
I probably never
will, unless by accident.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-45662945590724355102015-05-22T22:25:00.001-07:002015-05-29T08:18:00.791-07:00My Hope, and My Desire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I surfed the California beaches for many
years, both as a teenager, and later in my adult life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I've found few experiences to rival
those early morning plunges into the cold Pacific Ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feeling naked, sensing every pore in my
body suddenly explode, the frigid water and brisk dawn air conspiring to awaken
my soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The expectation of the
adventure, paddling out through the waves as they crashed over me in a vain
attempt to hinder my progress, to turn me back, to deprive me of the pleasure
of that first ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Challenges
(obstacles) barely noticed for the focus of the reward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meeting the challenge becoming even
it's own reward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are no
words to describe the ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
more I could abandon myself to the rhythm of the wave, it's subtle changes in
personality, it's requirement for immediate response, the deeper I became
immersed in it's primitive, but natural intent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more integrated I would become with the water, the clearer
would become my understanding of it’s inherent freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time I learned to heed the casual
beckoning of the waves in their attempt to guide me gracefully, and safely,
through the ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes the
wave would hurt me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But more often
than not we'd end up shaking hands. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The optimistic energy in my life has been this same experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cold air, and water, being the
awakening from dormancy; the paddling out being the process of getting my
consciousness, and will, directed through the obstacles, taking up the
challenge; the ride being the freedom, and joy, inherent in the extraordinary
expression of it's boundlessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The simple act of abandoning myself to the mystery of the unknown, the
unforeseen, stripping naked before myself, and for myself, jumping gracefully
from the bridge of possibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
To live in this place, to truly live in this place, <br />
is my hope, <br />
<br />
and my desire.</span></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-43724751817821139842015-05-22T22:22:00.001-07:002015-05-22T22:22:23.147-07:00Absent the Approval of a Father<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> In my personal life, in my social experience, and in my
work, I became, through the years, increasingly aware of the void left by the
absence of a father’s approval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, my father loved me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, he cared about me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, he was alive, and just a phone call away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I never felt connected to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never felt secure in our relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never felt like I could talk to
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could never <i>feel</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> his support, or his love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In working for so many years with young people as a Youth
Center Director, a High School Counselor, a Mental Health Counselor, and a
Minister, I found in so many of them the same void, the same need for
acceptance, for love and approval that I’d lived with for most of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These were kids at risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I worked with many adults as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they were adults at risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were really just the <i>kids at
risk, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">but</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">years later</span><i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">I too grew from a
teenager at risk, to a young man at risk, to an adult at risk, and finally out
of the, </span><i>‘at risk’</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> part altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I didn’t exactly grow out of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I worked my way out of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I worked very hard, and for
very many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the common
thread with most all of these troubled souls was the disconnection from their
father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether they were male or
female, it was the disconnection from their father and the inability to feel
his approval that most often created the alienation and vulnerability in their
lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ‘</span><i>at risk’ </i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>part
played itself out in the same way with most, if not all, of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was the involvement in drugs and
alcohol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was dangerous and
impulsive behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was
flirtation with death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was
the seeking of love wherever it, or an imitation of it, could be found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In different periods of my teenage and adult life I personally
lived near the same edge, closer to it at times than at others, but near the
edge nevertheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike so many
young people who would eventually become subject to its intoxication, I was
able to recognize my vulnerability, my own overwhelming need for my father, and
not settle for the readily available, but inadequate fix of cheap love, cheap
booze, or cheap drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would
have been easy to lose myself in its grip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had been years craving the love of my father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There had always been other men more
than willing to offer themselves to me in various unfavorable circumstances,
and there have been just as many years of my understanding that it was an
imitation love they were offering, and that it would never fill the void I
carried within me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too many at
risk people have been unable to internalize that understanding for
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen so many
become first immersed, and then lost, in homosexuality, in sexual addiction of
various kinds, in grief, despair, and self loathing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have yet to know anyone who wound up truly happy, truly
fulfilled as a result of such personal compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have always felt very deeply for those in such need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I still do to this day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That will probably never change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some have had a similar relationship with their fathers that
I had with mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some have had
fathers who were brutal, sadistic, cruel, and even criminal, making mine look
like a puppy dog, albeit a pit bull rather than a big cuddly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But some have <i>never</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> known their fathers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some fathers were absent in body, some absent in mind, or
spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some absent since birth,
even.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some fathers were separated
from their children by divorce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some left, disappeared, or died later on in life before they and their
child ever connected in a deep and meaningful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But all of those whom I’ve known to have lived apart from
such connection, acceptance, and approval suffered many of the same symptoms
that I lived with for so many years. . . . . . . . . sadness, loneliness,
hopelessness and alienation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s what drives the teenage suicide rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It drives much of the gay and lesbian
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It drives a great deal of
the drug and liquor industries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
drives the psychiatric client lists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It drives the new age <i>spiritual</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
movements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It drives spiritual
feminism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It even causes people to
be driven down a compulsive road to success, ever needing to prove their
worthiness in order to gain the approval of their fathers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It also drives the search for meaning in ones life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it has always driven me to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fact that early on I was able to find a means of
circumventing many of the destructive ramifications of such a void does not
diminish in any way the powerful impact, the pain, and the regret that the
absence of a meaningful father/son relationship has visited upon me over the
years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not unique in that respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not by any means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In fact, I would consider myself to be the norm in such a common
dynamic, rather than the exception.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re a father please find a way to connect with your
son or daughter,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
no matter what their age.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or yours.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is never too late for such a redemptive union.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It could be life changing for the both of you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-63409983233364952982015-05-21T09:51:00.000-07:002015-05-21T21:05:08.321-07:00Your Own North Star<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> There is an element of life that, for me,
requires awareness, a soberness, if you will, that would enable me to be in a
kind of continuing self-analysis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not for the purpose of measuring myself against another, but to be able
to take accurate inventory concerning my progress in life and my development as
a person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is important to know
where I’m at in my journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
believe it is for all of us. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My own standards are much higher than any that might be imposed upon me
by the world at large.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I set
them according to what I feel to be my potential and beyond then I need not
give concern to someone else's expectation of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been a process of adjustment and readjustment
throughout my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has become,
however, a familiar and relatively comfortable position to take with myself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Life does assert it's unequal and prodigious power over me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes more profoundly than I even
care to admit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I <i>am </i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">harder on myself than anyone else ever
could be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also appreciate, more
than anyone, the numerous minefields I find myself walking through while at the
same time seeking to keep my balance, and my direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not subscribe to, or waste my
energy with, pop psychology or new age soul candy as a solution for
anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my view, there can be
no greater detriment to genuine spiritual consciousness, self-discovery, or
one’s personal equilibrium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is, it seems, a new ideology, and a new spirituality coming around every corner
of every neighborhood we walk through in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are distractions for each of us, and there are paths
for us to be led down that lead only around in circles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is important to not get lost in the maze of your own condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is important to know where you are,
to remember <i>who</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> you
are, and to know where you stand with yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your psychic compass cracks there is the North star.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the brightest star in the Little
Dipper formation, located very near the celestial North Pole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is always where it’s supposed to
be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Know where it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do not be lost within yourself,
floundering in the dark like a raft on a midnight ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is perhaps this spiritual
disorientation - more than any other in life - that extracts the most costly
toll on our psyches, our stability, and our balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It cuts to the very core of who, and what, we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It causes us to search for ourselves
while in a condition of compromised filters and clouded perception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It leads us through alleyways, and
doorways, into which we otherwise might not walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having
accurate bearings is paramount in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you find yourself lost in the dark out on that vast ocean learn to find the North star,
your own North star, something about yourself that will always be as it has
always been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Something solid,
something trustworthy, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">something deep within yourself.</span></div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-24244036373449830922015-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:002015-05-21T20:57:23.525-07:00A Disconcerting Dream<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoBlockText" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
I can’t remember it all clearly,
but I was being beaten by a man much bigger than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cleanly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deliberately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very surgically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not with passion, but with great
skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not with a belt, but with a
switch from a tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A willow tree
I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made cuts like a knife
across my skin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My skin was soft
and lily-white like a young girl’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like a freshly fluffed pillow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBlockText" style="tab-stops: 1.0in;">
I did not cry, and I did not
scream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in terrible pain,
but I was not upset, as if I were used to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was conscious of the violence of the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was conscious of the trauma, but not
affected by it <i>at the time</i>, except to say that I was sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I was lonely inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Like an orphan, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br />
in an empty room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</b></div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-47466645675634320652015-05-13T06:41:00.000-07:002015-05-13T06:41:31.088-07:00Message From Within<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> Hear my voice in your solitude, and in your pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will be with you in your grief and in
your joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will stand beside you
in your faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>I will embrace you
in your unbelief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am He who has
always been, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and who will be with you till the very end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Until the sands of
time have passed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And even longer. </div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-84626074402340749252015-05-12T21:07:00.001-07:002015-05-12T21:07:09.964-07:00It Keeps My Head From Exploding<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> Every so often I need to write just because my head is so
full of thoughts that I need to expel them or take the risk of going nuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My brain begins to twitch, and my
fingers begin to stretch looking for a keyboard to express myself on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I often don’t understand what it is I
have to say until it’s been said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then I can look at it and relate it to something that has either been
bothering or inspiring me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
sometimes it is neither.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes
it’s just to satisfy my need to not be tormented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kind of like why an addict needs a fix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also a means of circumventing
complacency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, writing can
often be comparable to stretching my body before a hike so that I don’t pull a
hamstring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose the
expression of my thoughts is the mental equivalent of that body stretch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Keeps my head from exploding.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I know that I <i>do </i><span style="font-style: normal;">have
something specific to say I’ll say it the best I can, but it seems my fingers
are never really able to keep up with my thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m always a few sentences behind what I’m thinking as I’m
racing on the keyboard to not let my thoughts get too far out ahead of my
fingers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they do I begin to
not make any sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But many of
you already think that of anything I might have to say anyway, so no real
worries there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll just continue to plow the fallow ground in my head, and
you can continue to feel like it doesn’t make any sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Works for all of us,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t ya think?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-13614253984710304962015-05-11T22:44:00.001-07:002015-05-11T22:44:18.594-07:00Playing Together Goes A Long Way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style> No one needs me to point out how difficult it is for people
to get along these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re
living in a cocoon you don’t notice it, but if you’re an active participant in
life, which most of us are, then you can’t help but be conscious of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Black people and white people don’t
seem to get along any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Christians and Muslims don’t get along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Democrats and Republicans don’t get along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rich and poor don’t, the urbanites
and the country folk don’t, and men and women don’t seem to get along too well
these days either. What has happened to our species?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if we’ve been infected by the notorious and deadly<i>
Me </i><span style="font-style: normal;">virus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing matters but me; what I want, and what I
believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘</span><i>I, Me, Mine’</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, as it were (a phrase that was coined by the late
George Harrison in a song of the same name).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was watching an Animal Planet program on television the
other day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was called, ‘<i>The
Worlds Oddest Animal Couples’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">It was about different species of animals thriving
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just getting along
with one another, but thriving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The emphasis of the show was that play seems to be the common element
among divergent species, enabling them to overlook their natural inclination to
fight with, kill, flee from, or just to simply avoid one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play was the magic potion, the primary
ingredient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what enabled
them to accept one another as friends, and as equals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what would break down the hard-wired instincts of
fear, caution, or mistrust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
program illustrated the friendship and trust that one species would have for
another even though, historically, they may have always been enemies; the
predator and the prey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Believe it or not the documentary highlighted the
relationships between a group of wild polar bears and a pack of husky
sled-dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Typically a polar bear
would kill and eat a dog in a minute, and without even giving it a second
thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this film showed them
romping around together, wrestling, licking each other, and even cuddling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolutely remarkable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show depicted a threesome also; a
friendly and loving relationship between a black bear, a lion and a tiger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even more remarkable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never has there been a more unlikely
relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a jaguar
and a Jack Russell terrier, a lion and an impala, a chimp and a leopard, a
Great Dane and a deer, a rhino and a sheep, a cat and a group of ducklings, a
bulldog and a lion, a chimp and a hyena, a lion and an impala, and a rhino and
a lamb. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, in the interest of accuracy I must point out that some
of these animals had been raised together since they were pups or cubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But many of them were not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Great Dane and the fawn got
together when the fawn wandered into the dogs yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They became friends on their own, and remained friends
throughout their lives, even sleeping and cuddling together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bears and the dogs found each other
on the Alaskan ice fields and became friends the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The polar bears were wild as the hair
on my electrified head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
huskies were raised and trained as sled-dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polar bears have always been their mortal enemies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their newfound relationships were of
nobody’s making but their own. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t have the inclination to describe all of the
relationships to you, only to say that if you get a chance to see this program
be sure and take the time to enjoy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Play, being the primary element in the unique connection
between the species, has caused me to look a little closer at group sports, the
most obvious arena where adults play with each other regardless of their
ethnicity, political persuasion or religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it seems to be one of the few places where people <i>do</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> seem to set aside differences and support one
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can think back on many
of the positive associations I’ve had with people who were not necessarily</span><i>
‘like me’</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and realize that it was usually
around sports or music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Competing
with or against one another, it just didn’t seem to matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was an acceptance, a mutual support, even a common
sense of humor accompanying the playing of the game, or the music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were playing together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, some took things a little
too seriously, but that was more about their own ego than any ethnic or cultural
differences a player might have brought to the event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
what it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was PLAY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play is a good equalizer for
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s good for knocking
down barriers, building friendships, and accepting differences regardless of
previously held biases. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When one is habitually restricting themselves to their own
familiar group, whether it be a church, a shared ethnicity, a shared political
perspective, or a social commonality, it is very easy to cultivate, and engage
in ‘<i>Group Think’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">Once cultivated it becomes very difficult to think
for one’s self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Group Think is
never a good thing to practice, and never a path to peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will most often result in further
division, stunted growth, and personal unhappiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that everyone is entitled to, and likes to be around,
people with whom they are comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s nothing the matter with that, but if we never stretch, or step
outside of our own boundaries then it is foreseeable that the proverbial lion
will, most assuredly, never be inclined to lay down with the lamb.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s incredible, the things we can learn from animals.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How about we focus on our similarities for a change, rather
than our divergence?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How about a little more play with one another to help us
forget about our friggin’ differences?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Have some fun with someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Playing together goes a long way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You’ll see for yourself.</div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-86472728314250273222015-05-02T06:11:00.004-07:002015-05-02T06:11:51.396-07:00Shoes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’m old enough to remember when shoes used to be worn
primarily as protection for your feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regular guys had two pair of shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One for everyday to wear to school, or work, or play, and
another pair for what used to be called <i>‘dress up’.</i>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still consider myself a regular guy even though I’m much
older than I used to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
really even know how a regular guy would become not so regular of a guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have missed that class when I
was in school. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The main difference between then and now, however, is that I
have a couple of dozen pair of shoes now, rather than the two pair I had for so
many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m kind of ashamed to
know that I have as many as I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I want to know is, “How’d I get all these shoes?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never went on a shoe binge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not the kind of guy who picks up a
pair of shoes as an impulse buy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I’ve never bought a particular pair of shoes just
because someone I’ve admired had them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All I can figure is that I acquired them <i>‘as needed’</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I </span><i>am</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> an </span><i>‘as
needed’</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> kind of guy, I guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a boy, when I’d wear holes through the soles of my shoes
my mom would cut cardboard inserts to slip inside the shoes to protect my socks
from getting holes worn in <i>them</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were not really poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean we had money for food and gas,
and a roof over our heads most of the time, but we didn’t often have extra
money for shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wore them as
long as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually wore
them until I’d outgrow them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
the time I </span><i>would</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> outgrow them the
soles would be worn down to nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d actually be walking around on cardboard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today shoes seem to be symbols of one thing or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Many</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> people have dozens of pairs of shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people have dozens of pairs of the same shoe even, and
in several different colors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don’t know what that’s a symbol of, but it does seem to indicate a desire to
never again have to wear cardboard in their shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, I’d like to believe I’m not the only one whose
mother put cardboard inserts in their shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some women, celebrities, and athletes, have hundreds of
pairs of shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose
shoe-fetish aficionados might also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I shouldn’t be one to talk though because, as I’ve said, I’ve got a
couple of dozen pairs myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
what I know as well as I know my own name is that a person can only wear one
pair of shoes at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine
that some of those people with hundreds of them never even get to wear half of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s kind of sad, to have
all those shoes and not be able to wear them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose the unworn ones would tend to feel neglected, or
relieved, depending on whether or not their owner is someone who is
particularly hard on shoes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must admit that out of the couple dozen pairs of shoes
that I own, I have three pair of the same kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago I found a particular tennis shoe that I really
liked for about twenty bucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s pretty cheap for a good tennis shoe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there are not many that I really like, so when the shoes
I was wearing wore out I looked to get another pair of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wear a size 13, and the store I
bought them at didn’t have any more 13’s in stock for about a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t find them at any other
outlet either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, long story
short, when they finally got three pair of my size in I bought all three of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was afraid I’d never find
the shoes again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now I should
be fixed for the rest of my life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My wife and I have a couple of dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We love them, and care for them the
best that we know how.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve been
taking them on long hikes just about every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shoes are one of the ways that indicate to me how smart
these dogs really are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they
see me put my hiking shoes on they get as excited as is possible for a dog to
get over a pair of shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you
know, dogs don’t wear shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
often wondered what they must think about humans wearing shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder if they think we’re a little
odd for doing so, or if they think we might just be a little smarter than the
average dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know that
they’d ever admit that if it were true, particularly because I’m pretty sure
they know it’s not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have tennis shoes, dress shoes, river shoes, hiking shoes,
hiking boots, work shoes, work boots, cowboy boots, motorcycle boots, ugh
boots, moccasins, flip-flops, slippers, slip-ons, lace-ups, buckle-ups and
sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m quite aware that
there are indigenous cultures in the world that <i>only</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> wear sandals, and it looks like most of them do
alright with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I don’t
really need all of these different shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe I can get by with one pair of all-purpose shoes, or go real
organic with just a pair of sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Works for some of those societies we see on Animal Planet, or the
National Geographic channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the most important and influential people in human
history have been partial to sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Look it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus comes to
mind, but of course they killed him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think it was because he had ugly sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It probably had more to do with his
disinclination to walk a mile in Pontius Pilate’s political shoes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve often wondered what must have become of his
sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder if he wore a
size 13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d sure like to get my
feet in them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seriously.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2729098559266194277.post-73693971061903455682015-04-30T13:26:00.001-07:002015-04-30T13:26:30.327-07:00A Friend of Mine Said . . . . . <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> I heard a friend of mine say on her radio show, <i>“I feel
sorry for anyone who is not me today.”</i></div>
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Well now, that can certainly be construed as an egocentric,
vain, and self-righteous statement if one were looking to criticize my
friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be translated as, <i>“I’m
better than you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m more
privileged than you are, and I’m more certain of myself than you could ever be
of yourself.”</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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But I’m not here to criticize my friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m here to illuminate her words so
that they are understood in the context of how they might have been meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She does not consider herself better
than everybody else, she is not privileged, and is no more certain of herself
than you or I might be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe
her words were intended to convey to the listener an appreciation she has for
her life, and in particular for the day ahead of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her life is not without pain, and it is not without
struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wakes up every day
with her own doubts, with her own uncertainties, and with her own inadequacy
and insecurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although she is
unique as an individual, she is also just like the rest of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like you and me. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Our days consist of the up and down, the push and pull, the
ebb and flow, if you will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
days are actually pretty accurate microcosms of our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being that our bodies are made up of 60
to 75% water, is it any wonder we are affected in much the same way that the
ocean is by its own gravitational pull?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No one is high on life all the time, and no one gets through life
without the down periods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some
those periods come daily, for some several times a day, for some much more
infrequently, but we all experience them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a part of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
a part of our psychic, spiritual, physical and emotional experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same can be said of the high times.
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The point I’m getting at is that in our culture today we are
encouraged to reject the down times as if they were in opposition to the human
condition, as if they were fattening, or poison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people use the down times to gripe and complain, to
explain to whoever will listen how much life sucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some will feel sorry for themselves when they enter a down
cycle, and some will hunker down alone to indulge themselves in the misery. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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The pharmaceutical industry, psychiatrists, and many MD’s
even, would convince us that we must medicate in order to escape the down
times, or to moderate the up times, to even out our internal tide as if
everyone is manic depressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, I’ve got news for you, everybody <i>is </i><span style="font-style: normal;">manic depressive just like that ebb and flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we need not be subject to depression any more than we
are subject to feeling good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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We all go up and down with time and circumstance, with good
news and bad, with loneliness and friendship, with life and death, with joy and
sorrow, with love and indifference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is the human condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are external and internal forces that affect us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things affect us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just how we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But an attitude of gratitude, an
appreciation for the blessings we’ve been given in life and the pitfalls we’ve
been able to avoid, just might enable one to pronounce something as seemingly
simple and silly as, <i>“I feel sorry for anyone who is not me today.” </i></div>
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Thanks Cathy, for that thought.</div>
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Denes McIntoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08230020693813250592noreply@blogger.com