If we were having coffee: In which I ramble on and on and on

A sunrise from this week.   (Taken with my phone.)

 

Love is the bridge between you and everything.

~ Rumi

A window on the sky just after sunrise.

If we were having coffee, I would be delighted to see you again.  Come on in out of the rain!  Hugs if you’re amenable to hugs.  Let’s have a seat in the kitchen today where we can look out at the pond and watch the Great Blue Heron and Kingfisher.  You might want to keep an eye on the juniper as well.  Several different birds have been coming over to eat the berries and, just above it, the Northern Flickers have been looking for something up on the roof.  Or maybe they just enjoy sitting there and surveying the front lawn.

On a frosty morning before the snow melted.

As for beverages, there’s the usual wide assortment of things to drink from coffee to tea to hot cider and hot cocoa.  You’ll probably want a hot or warm drink today since it’s so chilly and damp outside.  The weather oracles were originally predicting snow and ice for today, but it’s just a tad too warm for that.  It will be all rain for us this time around.  That’s too bad.  The snow is so much prettier.

Mother Nature’s sparkle.

How are you?  What have you been doing lately?  Have you traveled anywhere?  Seen or experienced anything new?  Taken any classes or workshop?  Written a book?  Painted a picture?  Have you read any good books or watched any good films?

Frosty covering.

I am still reading The Girls by Emma Cline.  I’m almost finished, and I’m not sure what to think about it.  The writing is good and the story is somewhat interesting.  Maybe the problem I have with it stems from the real story — that of the Charles Manson family — it borrows from.  There are aspects of the book and story that just don’t ring true to the time period.  Or at least they don’t for me and what I remember of the feel of  growing up in that era, but I was young and memories can be so malleable.

Speaking of what I remember and the 60’s era, M and I watched Steal This Movie! last night.  While I do remember hearing about Abbie Hoffman and the Chicago Seven (originally Eight), I didn’t remember the details.  I thought the film was entertaining, but most of all I thought about how we could use some of that sort of resistance from the young these days, particularly the satire.  I put Hoffman’s book “Revolution for the Hell of It” on my reading list.  Just because.  Perhaps the times call for it.

Traces of gifts.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I still struggle with blogging lately.  It’s not that I don’t want to write.  The problem is that every time I sit down to write a blog post, I end up writing and deleting whole sections dealing with current events and politics.  I’ve thought about starting another blog to deal with that aspect of life, but honestly, I don’t want to put the time into it.

Queen Anne’s Lace crowned with winter jewels.

If we were having coffee, tea, or something else to drink, I would tell you that I’ve done it again.  I wrote reams (maybe a slight exaggeration) about how I’m feeling about the political situation and then deleted much of it.  Here is what was left when I finished censoring myself (feel free to skip over this section and move on to the section just past the next quote from Rumi if you’d rather not be dragged into thinking about current events):

I saw a comment by someone I know on Facebook that mentioned how happy she was that people will no longer have to be politically correct under the guy that won the election.  She believes that political correctness is a violation of her free speech (some say, according to this Washington Post story, that it “stifles free expression”).  I believe being politically correct is about respect and kindness, about not being mean and not making fun of others who are different from you.  When I look at the way we approach just this one issue, I have to ask:  How do you reconcile those two differences?  How do we even begin to cross that kind of divide in beliefs and thinking?  Is love enough to bridge that gap?  And is the gap really as wide as I think it is or is this just another case of someone parroting what they’ve heard and read without giving much thought to what it means?  The whole issue of political correctness, when you delve into it, appears to be as bogus as the War on Christmas.  Another way to detract and deflect?

I ask these things because I thought this person was a friend.  I thought I knew my friend.  When I start questioning what I know about my friends and the friendships themselves, I also start questioning my own judgment.  (I could also question the judgment of people who fall for what is, to me, a red herring — keep your eyes on the shiny object of Political Correctness and ignore the man behind the curtain who won’t release his tax returns — but that is an entirely different kettle of fish.)

Brought into being.

If we were having coffee or some other beverage, I would tell you that I know there are a lot of people questioning a lot of things these days, and maybe, just maybe, that’s a Very Good Thing.  Maybe it means we will be waking up from our complacency.  It might also mean that there will come a time when I feel like I have to write about all the things I don’t write about now.  If that happens, it will be time for another blog.

You knock at the door of reality, shake
your thought-wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.

~ Rumi

Turkey tail (fungus).

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I just completed Week 1 of an online Coursera course titled Making Sense of the News: News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens.  It’s been very interesting so far.  I thought, when I signed up, that I am pretty good at discriminating between news and fakes news, but I forgot about bias and propaganda which, according to this piece, might be worse than fake news.  The suggested reading and videos have been quite thought-provoking, and I have already learned a lot of things I didn’t know (because I spend a lot of time in my own little bubble, it seems).

Skull in the woods.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that we had a couple of warm days this week, and all the snow from the weekend is gone.  It was even warm enough to open up some doors and windows and let the fresh air in.  I stood out on the deck one afternoon in shorts and a tank top, soaking in the sunlight.  They say the more skin you expose to the sunlight, the more vitamin D your body will manufacture.  It was quite a mood boost, all that sunlight.

Discarded bones of a myrtle.

If we were having coffee, tea, or some other beverage, I would say it is time I stopped rambling and turn this over to you.  Thank you so much for stopping by for another coffee chat.  I always enjoy your visits.  Please feel free to stay awhile and help yourself to more coffee, tea, or whatever you’re drinking.  I have a few chores I need to tend to, and then there’s dinner to prepare.  Rumor has it that M is cooking tonight (a fish stew and meatballs made with fresh tuna), and he’ll probably want a bit of help.  I don’t think we’ll see a sunset this evening given all the cloud cover, but if it should look like we will, let’s head to the Point.  It was beautiful there yesterday.  Sunset is scheduled for 5:06 PM.  The days sure are growing longer.

On the beach at the Point yesterday evening.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Driftwood and footprints.

This post is in response to Part Time Monster’s #WeekendCoffeeShare.  Thank you to Diana for hosting it. Put the kettle on, start the coffee maker, open a bottle of wine, or whatever your preference is, and join us.  I’d love to hear all about what you were up to this week.