A cup of coffee and no agenda
It’s tough to live in these times if you keep current on government, politics and such.
For those of us who have been around for a while, who have fought the good fight and, on occasion even gotten into trouble for it, it is depressing to see a good portion of our nation reject the sensibilities written into our Constitution, denying human decency and elevating lies to truth.
I blame myself for the royal blue funk that such things bring into my head and home.
I do it to myself. Yes, these things are part of the responsibilities of being a citizen. But sometimes …I need something else.
I think I need, I want, some kind of respite from today.
Maybe a kind of head in the sand moment to refresh that part of my emotional makeup and my thinking, that can envision better days, acknowledge the good, the kindness, that people live every day.
You know what I want?
I want what to remember of my younger days. A healthy body? Sure. But that is not the focus of my desire. I want the joy that comes from meandering, a purposeless wander through things that have no pollical implication or monetary value, where the consequence and value are counted in peace, humor, anticipation and satisfaction. You might call it escape.
Every day I plunge, slower now-a-days, into my life.
Even with lists and thoughtful organization, I need to take time off, to step to the side, to enjoy things that make me feel happy, content, affirmed.
I want to get up in the morning and have nothing on my list. Nothing!
I want to give myself permission to do nothing or something, whatever catches my fancy moment to moment.
I need a cup of coffee with friends with no agendas.
Casual chats wherever they occur about the weather, a coming season, a shared experience, funny stories…inexpensive therapy in a worrying world.
I need walks in the woods. Sensate moments of sound and smell and sight that connect me to the earth.
I want television that lifts my spirits, reinforces my core values…I am not looking for “raw reality” I live that every day.
I need “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Bob Newheart.”
I need uncomplicated film noir movies starring Robert Mitchum where rain slicked streets shimmer with the reflections of neon lights.
I know these things aren’t real. These things bring faux adventure in a life where the adventure may be a broken washing machine or the hum drum repetition of daily chores or the soul battering care for a country facing a crisis of conscience.
I want well written books, books that engage my mind in stories, take me to other places, other lives. Fiction or non fiction, a good book is hours of pleasure. I want cups of Red Rose tea, hot but not too hot. I want a comfortable chair to read or to doze. Sybaritic pleasures.
I want family around, conversations of past, present and future holding a precious commodity together.
Easy family meals that reaffirm our identities, our love for one another.
I love sleepy little heads tucked into the beds that their mother or uncle slept in as children, warm under quits made by their great grandmother.
As the years pass so quickly, you realize how these things in the interstices, these things that exist in between the must and should do’s…are of inestimable value because they satisfy the soul.
I want the joy of a homemade loaf of bread.
Something I made out of simple things, flour, water and yeast.
In it’s simplicity I see what we have lost in the complexity of modern life.
I want a way to balance that complexity with the things that affirm what I believe. I want a return to a time when morals and ethics were in fashion. Until that happens…homemade bread and family and walks in the woods.