Golden wisdom.

[Ray9]

It was eerily quiet in the bowling alley last night. There were fewer spectators and no children underfoot. The large bar was virtually deserted and though food was sold, it was on a meager level that reduced the girls working the crowd for tips from three to just one. As usual, I had to return to my car to get my mask to enter the place when I first arrived.

I live in a semi-rural area about ten miles from a mid-sized city in southwestern New Hampshire. It is a college town that once hosted over 5,000 students. One of my bowling teammates is on the faculty of the school and he has intimated to me that the student body is down to 1,600. He has informed me that about four students a week are testing positive for Covid-19 and they are doing some kind of quarantine that makes no sense to him and I am better off not knowing that these cases are not well reported to city authorities.

My relationship with the local newspaper where many years ago I worked as a reporter, has soured. The editor has blocked and cancelled my contributions saying that I am a cynical gas lighter and a conspiracy theorist. The paper that in the past had a centrist stance, has now joined the ranks of Soros-inspired leftism pragmatically adopted by its liberal publishers. The mission to take down Trump has a desperate importance this elections cycle and people committed to the mission have made a leap from wrongheadedness to just plain wicked.

I have now come to regret my footloose and fancy-free days in the 90’s when I was an after-work regular at local bars and taverns throwing left hooks with drinking buddies. My primary saving grace is that I am a lifelong athlete (runner and cyclist). Luckily, I did not drink and smoke myself to death like so many of my peers and, in particular, deceased relatives many years my junior.

I find new life and purpose in word craft that took a back seat to my 55 years of steady employment. It is like playing a musical instrument I kept in closet and then found joy that I could still make it sing. The music I can make is for you. I have golden wisdom extracted from all the mistakes I made in life. Unlike those I seek to expose, I do not hate the world.

 

[candycorn]

Experience is a comb life gives you after you've lost your hair.

 

[Ray9]

Experience is a comb life gives you after you've lost your hair.

I just hope that when I go, they don't make me come back and do it right.

 

[night_son]

It was eerily quiet in the bowling alley last night. There were fewer spectators and no children underfoot. The large bar was virtually deserted and though food was sold, it was on a meager level that reduced the girls working the crowd for tips from three to just one. As usual, I had to return to my car to get my mask to enter the place when I first arrived.

I live in a semi-rural area about ten miles from a mid-sized city in southwestern New Hampshire. It is a college town that once hosted over 5,000 students. One of my bowling teammates is on the faculty of the school and he has intimated to me that the student body is down to 1,600. He has informed me that about four students a week are testing positive for Covid-19 and they are doing some kind of quarantine that makes no sense to him and I am better off not knowing that these cases are not well reported to city authorities.

My relationship with the local newspaper where many years ago I worked as a reporter, has soured. The editor has blocked and cancelled my contributions saying that I am a cynical gas lighter and a conspiracy theorist. The paper that in the past had a centrist stance, has now joined the ranks of Soros-inspired leftism pragmatically adopted by its liberal publishers. The mission to take down Trump has a desperate importance this elections cycle and people committed to the mission have made a leap from wrongheadedness to just plain wicked.

I have now come to regret my footloose and fancy-free days in the 90’s when I was an after-work regular at local bars and taverns throwing left hooks with drinking buddies. My primary saving grace is that I am a lifelong athlete (runner and cyclist). Luckily, I did not drink and smoke myself to death like so many of my peers and, in particular, deceased relatives many years my junior.

I find new life and purpose in word craft that took a back seat to my 55 years of steady employment. It is like playing a musical instrument I kept in closet and then found joy that I could still make it sing. The music I can make is for you. I have golden wisdom extracted from all the mistakes I made in life. Unlike those I seek to expose, I do not hate the world.

Great read . . . a window into another life. Thank you.

 

[Mindful]

When my darkness seeps into my heart, when my bones bend with the sorrow.
When my flesh feels ready to welcome the end of this journey.
I remember the touch of wild water gliding over my skin.
The way the medicine plants give so freely.
I recall how the light of the moon kisses me as I sleep, and how the smell of rich deep earth feeds me.
The flight of swallows and the swoop of buzzard.
The sense of belonging in the arms of nature,
the kinship of my non human community.
I see the hearts I love, the ones I cherish.
And that darkness, that pain,
feels held, feels loved.
And I choose life, I choose me.
——————
• Words Brigit Anna McNeill •
• Art by Taryn Knight •

 

[Mindful]

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon and East of the Sun.
JJ Tolkien.

 

[Mindful]