Tag: Writing a Book

This is a writing accountability blog. I have committed to publishing a book by March, 2024. I invite you on the journey as I plough through the internal and external obstacles I face. As the great Bette David loosely said in the movie “All About Eve.” “Buckle your seatbelts. It’s (likely) going to be a bumpy (ride.)”

Fight, Fight, Fight

Fighting fascinates me. I wonder about its purpose sometimes. Its many manifestations. Its goals.

Defense obviously. But what mysterious forces in us are triggered to know it is time to fight and when it is time to beat the retreat? Hope figures large in this I think. If there is a fight spoiling to happen, and we have a notion we can prevail, we engage.

I am currently in that position where I have engaged in the fight. I am operating on hope and will until I no longer can.

There are so many different kinds of fights. Boxing comes to mind. Fencing, too. And then the largely orchestrated (think WWF) and much narrower world of competitive sports. Not a platform available to everyone and not “fighting” per se. There is fierce competition at play in every basketball, football, baseball, soccer and every other sports match.

And then there is the big one: life. I’m not sure how intentionally we are prepared for the daily fight we all engage in. The methodologies of how we fight that every day fight vary as wildly as the individuals in it.

Preparation for life takes many different forms. We call it education. We call it character building. We call it “learning to play nice with others.” Through our activities growing up, we learn the rules of how to be in life and act on what we believe it takes to succeed and excel.

The fallacy that is perpetuated, of course, is that we all have an even shot at the spoils of living. We know it isn’t true. We know that many different factors influence our chances for success in life. Indeed, it is our background that determines the type of education we get or have access to.

I am currently engaged in a fight that matters to me. A lot. What I am currently reflecting on is how to approach this fight. In the past, I sat on committees and boards where I went to the wall for what I believed I wanted or believed in. I researched ad infinitum. I spoke ad nauseam. My perception of what I wanted to get out of the fight often seem a bit silly in retrospect.

I am fairly aware I am fighting a losing battle. Still I am compelled to fight. I believe it will be important to me to look back and know that I stood up for myself. That in the face of odds weighted in my opponent’s favor, I did not back down or just slink away.

I am less shrill and desperate than I have been in past fights. I am using different strategies. Stall tactics. Dragging my feet. Asking for more information. Digging desperately through building codes and wildlife preservation regulations. Approaching our HOA for advice and background and direction. (A largely impotent exercise based on early information that came back to me.)

Doing it this time while maintaining my cool.

That’s a big difference from my usual modus operandi. In the past, I left a lot of broken relationships and bad feelings in the wake of my certitude and aggressive “take no prisoners” approach.

I am approaching it differently this time. I am doing so if, for no other reason, these people may very well be my neighbors in the not-too-distant future.

I don’t like it one little bit and I am doing everything in my power to avert that outcome. Meanwhile, I have to concede that may very well be the outcome.

Best prepare myself to suck it up.

If it is, what am I going to do about it? The bigger fight about that is going on within me. Most of the greatest fights in my life always have.

Quick Fix, Not

Here is a basic dichotomy these days.

We are inventing fools. Interpret that however you like.

Forget the industrial revolution and the upheaval it brought.

The technological revolution is on a whole other level.

There are so many new and improved appliances, processes, gadgets, vehicles out there for us. They are supposed to make our lives “easier.” And “better.” And “happier.” And more “personally satisfied.”

You feeling all that, yet? I know I’m not.

I laugh now at the early promises of “new technology.” We were all sold on how these new abilities were going to make our lives easier. The four-day work week. Paperless offices. More time for “leisure” and “creativity.” I snort in my coffee.

That ship sailed a long, long time ago.

So here we are awash in the daily frustrations and idiocy as a product of countless “technological solutions.” I’ve talked about this before.

What I’m experiencing later in life is the huge social deficit caused by diminishing face-to-face interactions. Like connection. Like getting to know each other. Like shared experience. Isn’t that quaint?

It has left us vulnerable to all manner of snake-oil salesmen. Because if we don’t know anyone well, and don’t have access to information about their track record and have never met their parents or siblings, anyone will do in a pinch. Right? We need to believe.

Ideas about belonging to a community of like-minded individuals who know and support each other seem quaint and pedantic now. We imagine, crave and seek out a community of similar seekers who might be out there for us to connect with. At this particular time, it is harder to do than it was in the past.

So what do we do instead? We join online groups. We have countless ZOOM calls. We sign up for Facebook groups with people who have causes or interests that we also believe in or care about. We “lol” and “ffs” and “FOMO” ourselves into low-grade stupefication.

No wonder FOMO is so prevalent. People are so disconnected from the ebb and flow of life and each other that the manic chase to “keep up” is reaching epidemic proportions. Young people no longer have a shared social history that taught them how to be part of a group or community.

I believe many believe the internet is the way, the truth and the life. What will happen to them if it ever fails them?

The anonymity of the internet nourishes all kinds of negatives: bullying, sexting, false information, false scenarios and facts. Oops sorry. I didn’t mean to post that. Oops sorry. I have no way to retrieve that post and obliterate it from the internet.

No problem. Instead of overcoming their shame or finding ways to deal with their pain, young people injure or kill themselves. Is that surprising?

What stupefies me is the tolerance we all exhibit in light of widespread social and psychological deterioration. Rigid, conservative, prejudicial attitudes and actions have always been with us. That needed shaking up. But the parameters of human civility and interaction were tighter then.

People once seemed to understand that humans had a limit to their capacity for enduring pain. They had enough sense of belonging that they understood their actions were a vital part of the collective whole.

How does that tee up with how you are experiencing life these days? Safe and happy with a community of people you know you can count on and who know you and support you and love you anyway? No wonder the internet and Facebook and who knows what else are awash in corrective “positive affirmations” and meaty memes that promise to guide us to the “meaning of life.”

Our heads are in such a constant twist scrambling after the next “big thing” in guidance and insight, we have collective whiplash.

My heart aches for young people today. Young people desperate for individuality and attention and belonging dye their hair fuschia, wear three inch fingernails and one inch eyelashes. They tattoo meaningful Chinese characters on their arsm.

For those for whom this is not enough, they simply pick up an AK-47 with their allowance money at the shop around the corner and go out and murder a bunch of people. That we have collectively managed to breed such troubled, alienated souls reflects our failure to inculcate the fundamental “rules” of becoming a human being in our children: with all the warts those rules contained.

I believe a majority are scrambling to make sense of life today and need to understand where we fit in it. I watch my adult children struggling to internalize the reality of out of control housing prices. Once a surefire road to financial security, more and more that is reserved for fewer and fewer. It has affected their future and family planning and stability.

Who wants to start a revolution?

Excuse My Dust

If I have a literary heroine, it is without doubt journalist/author/poet Dorothy Parker.

Some called her style sardonic, and labelled her a “wisecracker” (a term she apparently hated). Raised in a unhappy home, Parker went on to become one of the greatest writers of her generation.

Her legacy is – I hate to say and apologize to you, Dorothy – a body of the best wisecracks and witticisms in our modern era.

Her genius was her ability to manipulate words and offer up her wry, dry wit and perspective to turn heads and eke out a chuckle on just about every topic.

Damn she was funny. And smart. What follows below is a sampling of her poems.

She never fails to delight or provoke me. I hope her wiseacre persona impacts you likewise.

**************

Parker died on June 7, 1967, of a heart attack at the age of 73. In her will, she bequeathed her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. Following King’s death, her estate was passed on to the NAACP. Her ashes remained unclaimed in various places, including her attorney Paul O’Dwyer’s filing cabinet, for approximately 17 years.

Her ashes were ultimately buried in Woodlawn Cemetery on August 22, 2020. Attached to her urn was a brass plaque that read:

Dorothy R. Parker

1893-1967

“Excuse My Dust”’

Here are some quotes and poems by Dorothy Parker for your consideration:

____________________________

“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

― Dorothy Parker

_________________________

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”

― Dorothy Parker

________________________

“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”

― Dorothy Parker

________________________

“Ducking for apples — change one letter and it’s the story of my life.”

–Dorothy Parker

____________________________

Résumé

Razors pain you,

Rivers are damp,

Acids stain you,

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful,

Nooses give,

Gas smells awful.

You might as well live.

― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope

__________________________

Men

They hail you as their morning star

Because you are the way you are.

If you return the sentiment,

They’ll try to make you different;

And once they have you, safe and sound,

They want to change you all around.

Your moods and ways they put a curse on;

They’d make of you another person.

They cannot let you go your gait;

They influence and educate.

They’d alter all that they admired.

They make me sick, they make me tired.

― Dorothy Parker

_______________________

A Dream Lies Dead

A dream lies dead here.

May you softly go

Before this place, and turn away your eyes,

Nor seek to know the look of that which dies

Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,

But, for a little, let your step be slow.

And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise

With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.

A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-

Though white of bloom as it had been before

And proudly waitfull of fecundity-

One little loveliness can be no more;

And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head

Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

–Dorothy Parker

_________________________

Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;

I’m bitter, querulous, unkind.

I hate my legs, I hate my hands,

I do not yearn for lovelier lands.

I dread the dawn’s recurrent light;

I hate to go to bed at night.

I snoot at simple, earnest folk.

I cannot take the gentlest joke.

I find no peace in paint or type.

My world is but a lot of tripe.

I’m disillusioned, empty-breasted.

For what I think, I’d be arrested.

I am not sick, I am not well.

My quondam dreams are shot to hell.

My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;

I do not like me any more.

I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.

I ponder on the narrow house.

I shudder at the thought of men….

I’m due to fall in love again.

― Dorothy Parker

______________________

Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you’re his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying –

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying.

–Dorothy Parker

____________________

“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”

― Dorothy Parker

Amusing Ourselves to Death

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” – George Orwell, 1984

Neil Postman first floated into my consciousness in the 70s. His 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, was a seminal critique of television and similar distractions and their alarming place of their increasing influence in society.

Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by Orwell’s work, 1984, where they were oppressed by state violence.

Postman’s theory was that the frivolity and ubiquitousness of “entertainment,” as so easily available and consumed on television, would ultimately diminish society in countless ways. Television, Postman argued, denuded thinking, originality, innovation and creativity in individuals.

Below Postman comments on two iconic works of the twentieth century. Both 1984 and Brave New World focus on the gradual dehumanization of society, if by two very different modalities.

As articulated in Brave New World, distractions (or amusements) would create, ultimately, a lessening ability of the masses to focus and apply problem-solving skills to solving social problems.

1984 takes another tack and is a study in a society subjugated by powerful politicians who keep the electorate in check through fear and violence.

Postman predicted back in his 1985 book what the future could eventually look like if frivolous entertainments took precedence over intellectual development and character-building.

Welcome to our overarching modern day dilemma.

“Postman references George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that was published in 1932.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

“In 1984“, Huxley added, “people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.”

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us.

Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. ~ Neil Postman

(Book: Amusing Ourselves to Death https://amzn.to/3OTfAfr)

Still, Small Voice

In university, I studied a concept called symbolic interactionism (SI). It was an evolutionary and revolutionary reframing of the fundamental worldview in the “science” of sociology.

The discipline of sociology started its’ explorations in the early 20th century based on a normative world view. That means, sociology aimed to understand humans and society through the impact of culture, social structure, and socialization on individuals and society.

I apologize if that is too academic. I realize it certainly is dry. Simply put, sociologists believed most humans act the way they do due to external forces that had influenced and molded them: where they were raised, how they were raised, what they learned and internalized from the world around them. In short, people usually acted in accordance with how people around them behaved. “To be normal.” “To fit in.”

My studies focused on this crossover evolution in sociology from a “normative” paradigm to a emerging and more individually centered theory of “symbolic interactionism.”

Symbolic interactionism posits that individuals form their ideas and act in concert with their personal interpretation of the world around them. Those interpretations influence their behavior and life choices more than what is expected from them as they grow up.

Think how you might answer a set of questions like this: What is a home? What is the definition of a good person? Create a list of animals that are good to eat.

Depending on your personal experience, the answer to those questions will differ widely. And how you feel and think about them will influence how you behave in the world.

To understand society and how it operates, the SI argument goes that you must understand how individuals personally interpret what is going on around them. They make life choices and decisions according to those beliefs.

If your home experience was full of joy, fun and excitement, you will seek that out in your life and recreate it when you are able. But if home wasn’t a “happy place,” it may be hard to know how to start making a “happy home” yourself. For one thing, you likely don’t have a clue how.

I am thinking of this these days in the wake of the rape of the old oak forest behind us. The builder isn’t doing anything “wrong” per se and certainly not illegal. But morally? Ethically? The answers to those questions are harder to answer. According to who?

I realize that I see what he is doing in vastly different terms than he does. He did not see the value of the old trees. He does not care about destroying the peace and tranquillity his neighbors formerly enjoyed. He sees a fun-filled, happy future for himself and his family.

Like many life experiences, how we see something is influenced by how we have personally experienced it. There are many universal experiences we can relate to with others, but the actual experience is different for each person.

We can all empathize with someone who is “going through something.” Especially if we have gone through it ourselves. Marriage. Childbirth. Divorce. Death of someone close. Failure. And success. But we cannot experience exactly what someone else is experiencing. We are all inherently alone.

I feel stronger than ever about the affirmative need for humans to follow their individual dictates and passion. Everyone – and I mean everyone – around you at various times in your life will have an opinion about what is best for you, what should and could work, whether a step you are taking is wise or not. Especially when you are young.

As we get older and stronger and more comfortable with our own views and perception of the world, those internal dictates should by then be better understood and adhered to. The succinct advice to “pursue your bliss” evens the odds of fulfillment and happiness in your pwn life. In the end and at the end of our lives, it will be all that mattered.

The biggest errors of judgment I made in my life were because I ignored the dictates of the “small, still voice” deep inside. Sometimes, in fact, it was neither small nor still. It shrieked at me like a banshee. I still didn’t listen. And I paid a very high price because I didn’t.

In light of the current environmental inconvenience and distress we are going through in our home environment, I am trying to rely on the messages coming from my own internal dictates and direction. I have already made some choices. I will make more. My future direction and plans are changing in light of this development.

This was to be our “forever” home. Turns out it is just another pit stop. Change of plan. It happens. The private, deep-seated grief I am experiencing is mine and mine alone.

As it always is.

Scorched Earth

“Happiness obtained by taking away the happiness of others is built on rocky ground. It will neither last nor grow.“

As someone who has lived much of her life waiting for the other shoe to drop, I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am by the depth of pain caused when “it” did.

You have to shake your head at the stealth, speed and secrecy with which the lot beside us was razed this week. I later realized it is part of the construction game.

Move fast. Destroy everything (scorched earth policy). Give your enemies (who in this case are their neighbors) no time or opportunity to consult or react.

In a capitalistic society, community doesn’t matter. In fact, people working together in community dulls the edge of capitalism. Capitalists don’t push the agenda that people can actually get more out of life by working and sharing together when they do.

We humbly approached the owners, in a state of great distress, about buying their lot. Their response was swift and decisive. They didn’t say no, but set an asking price so high, they might just as well have. I am all about profit but it was clear this was way above reason and fair market value. It was designed to deflect us. (I told you they were good at this.)

We are heartbroken and over this past week have watched a dream we saved and planned for our entire lives disappear. When I met him walking his dog, our younger next door neighbor was similarly shaken and did a sharp intake of breath when he talked about the owls in the forest.

He said they had calmed him before bed each night. Since their habitat has been destroyed, they have not returned. They disappeared after the trees were taken down. Our young neighbor is confused and upset over why this had to happen to him in his very back yard so soon after the purchase of his first house. Like us, he closed in May, too.

The owners of the building lot are happy though. Full of dreams and plans. They tell us they are looking forward to making memories with their kids. It is clear it hasn’t occurred to them (or they simply don’t care which is my husband’s take) that they have diminished and destroyed the happiness and dreams of several other people around them to get there. Neighbors, in fact.

I am not so sure there will be many potlucks when the new house goes in. The entire neighborhood is quietly reeling and seething even though they are not directly affected. There was a shared pride and quiet pleasure in preserving that beautiful old forest. The 97-year-old gentleman across the way will surely miss its comfort and beauty out on his morning walks.

I hate learning about unpleasantness in another person’s character. I also don’t want to ever have anything to do with that type of person. I doubt very few in the neighborhood will either. Our neighbors’ comfort, happiness and peace of mind have been disturbed, too.

And the line of trees at the edge of the property the builder assured would be kept intact to help protect our view? Ya. They’re gone. High marks for consistency.

I sure hope the owners enjoy their new place. They are young yet and it is unlikely their hearts and minds have been too deeply etched with the lessons of loss and humility. Those lessons will come later as they do to us all.

My focus has now turned from personalizing our new house toward calculating the minimum operational requirements to get through the upcoming assault from the build. I am reminded of a story. Of course, I am not drawing any analogies with myself so we are clear.

On the cross at Calvary, Jesus said of his tormentors: “Forgive them. They know not what they do.” I believe this about our soon-to-be neighbors.

They have claimed their own happiness through utter disregard and disrespect not only for their new neighbors but for the ancient and beautiful natural forest that surrounded them. Those trees stood for hundreds of years before any of us came along.

The builder cheerily assured us as part of his “calm the concerned clients” pitch when we first met him: “I’ll be putting in trees 109% when the house is finished.” Next February. Maybe.

I am reminded of a small child who comes into the kitchen to “help Mom” but doesn’t actually know enough to be of much use. The eggs break on the floor. The milk is spilled. Flour everywhere. It’s okay. The little kid is just learning and doesn’t know too much.

Now that analogy is apt.

What I Said

I was your age, maybe younger, when I started hitting brick walls. Those brick walls were largely my own creation. It took me time to see and admit that.

My parents were no help. In retrospect, and even during my greatest struggles, I wondered how they might have helped me. If they had been so inclined. I know for sure that completely ignoring I had any legitimate or addressable emotional problems was not helpful at all.

This is what I thought they might have done. I thought it would help if they acknowledged they could see I was confused and suffering. I acknowledge that you are confused and suffering.

I also would have found it helpful if they acknowledged they could see through my “grown up” act to the struggling little child I still was within. I see that you are still a hurting and struggling child. Acting all grown up. 

It would have been helpful for me to have one of them say that they would be there for me and would stand by me as I resolved to solve my internal turmoil.

It was poet Alden Nowlan who said: “The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.”

You are still some distance from adulthood and I grieve that. I also grieve that you carry and disperse so much anger and vitriol to people who love you. 

My mom once said of me that she “loved” me but she didn’t like me much. Truth was, I didn’t much like myself.

I extend my hand if you want to seek help for whatever it is that is going on in you. I learned that the longer we ignore the source of our distress, the bigger it becomes and harder it is to resolve. 

I know you have great ambition but I also know they are unachievable or will quickly fall apart when you are tested (as you will inevitably be) with your level of  emotional turmoil and anger. The world won’t tolerate it. They didn’t tolerate it from me. I know that from hard experience.

I’m here for support if you want to make an honest effort at healing your wounds and repairing your relationships. It is easy to look a gift horse in the mouth until it is too late or ends in disaster. I hope that is not what awaits you. 

What I know now for sure is that I am not the sole source of your grievances and troubled soul. I am just another scapegoat whom you choose to blame. What I had to eventually learn – the hard way – was that I was the common denominator in my fractured life and relationships.

You may find yourself scared or uncertain by times now. Just wait until your emotional bank account is empty and all of your support has fallen or been pushed away and you are left to manage everything all on your own.

That will be a very hard day indeed. Whether I am still on the planet or not.

As always, your choice. 

Screaming Hypocrite

How calm and cool and reasonable was I in the face of the ravaged lot behind our house, I told myself last week? The destroyed view from our backyard. The disturbance of not only our solitude but our peace and quiet. And worse, the upending of our dream. That was the impression I wanted to convey to the world and to myself.

As the story and project have unfolded, the story is textbook irony. I had looked for a more suitable house for us for over a year. We must have looked at 20. Made an offer on a few. But there was always a dealbreaker.

The beautiful wood paneled walls of the three acre country estate with the many fruit trees but maintenance issues and the shredded birdcage around the pool. As we countered back and forth with the seller, I was slowly undone by the amount of work it would take to bring this beautiful property back to life and good health. And it was far too far to drive to amenities for my liking. Pass.

Then there was the country place that was called the “cow house” by our agent. Five acres and a massive, meandering house. Again in need of maintenance and much love. Too much of both were required for our taste. And there were no trees to speak of on the property. A definite dealbreaker.

There was the stunningly decorated “wow” house that t sat directly on a golf course. It had an adorable little lap pool. That deal fell apart over a misunderstanding about whether it was being sold “turnkey” or not. But we learned no furniture or decorations were included, as we initially thought. As tempting as it was, that deal fell through, too.

It is often said in real estate circles that buyers often know they have found “their” house within a few seconds after crossing the threshold. So it was with the house we recently chose. Perfection. For us. Until last week when trees began to fall.

When I wrote about my emotional evenhandedness in the face of lovely old oak trees coming down in front of our eyes and our old forest view being obliterated, I was kidding myself.

I now realize I was in shock. We had no forewarning of what was coming. I kept myself super busy on Friday just to get on the top of the situation and to quell my panic.

That denial fell away this morning when the dozers and chainsaws came back. When they were done, there was a huge hole in the view from our pool where there used to be lush greenery and old trees dripping with Spanish moss. And a pile of leveling dirt. The pain set in with a vengeance.

I am heartsick. And I realize that I am powerless. Except in how I react. And 72 hours later, I am reacting like a very sad and angry little girl. I am full of swear words and useless anger. So much for my great healing journey.

I know “this too shall pass.” Like other sudden losses and disappointments, this pain will lessen and change with time. We have talked to a landscaper to fill in the hole from our side with thick and fast-growing foliage.

So as much as I would like to experience all of life’s insults in a calm, beatific and philosophical evenhanded way, I have to accept I am only human.

It’s a sad and disappointing development. It is not the first time and will not be the last time that life throws me a curveball. I appreciate that it is also not the end of the story.

Best to shore up and fortify those emotional management skills now. Surprising to me is that short-term rage and anger appears to be one of them.

For Charlie

Not my words but words I agree with in every fiber of my being.

Have you ever thought about this?

In 100 years like in 2123 we will all be buried with our relatives and friends.

Strangers will live in our homes we fought so hard to build, and they will own everything we have today. All our possessions will be unknown and unborn, including the car we spent a fortune on, and will probably be scrap, preferably in the hands of an unknown collector.

Our descendants will hardly or hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us. How many of us know our grandfather’s father?

After we die, we will be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a portrait on someone’s bookshelf, and a few years later our history, photos and deeds disappear in history’s oblivion. We won’t even be memories.

If we paused one day to analyze these questions, perhaps we would understand how ignorant and weak the dream to achieve it all was.

If we could only think about this, surely our approaches, our thoughts would change, we would be different people.

Always having more, no time for what’s really valuable in this life. I’d change all this to live and enjoy the walks I’ve never taken, these hugs I didn’t give, these kisses for our children and our loved ones, these jokes we didn’t have time for. Those would certainly be the most beautiful moments to remember, after all they would fill our lives with joy.

And we waste it day after day with greed, greed and intolerance.

Anon

Change Happens

Today I had the kind of day I recently wrote about. I wrote about the Chinese farmer whose stallion ran away. What his neighbors initially thought was very bad news, soon became good news in their eyes. The stallion eventually returned bringing several wild mares with him. The new mares substantially increased the farmer’s wealth.

That story contains a wise lesson about perspective as it demonstrates a back and forth that can happen between “bad news” and “good news.” Is it really one or the other? It depends.

So “bad news” happened to us today. We woke up this morning to the sound of bulldozers and brush being cut nearby. I unraveled inside. The lot beside the lot behind our house was being razed. We only recently bought this house based in large part on the “back forty” behind us which is full of trees and bushes. It is essentially a forest.

The prospect of seeing this forest disappear before we’d even had time to enjoy it caused my stomach to turn and my heart to drop into my stomach. The dream we had for our home and cozy, private surroundings was falling apart before my eyes.

I did what I usually do in a crisis. I went into crisis management mode. “What can I actually control in this situation?” The bush whacking was happening. The trees were coming down. Outside my control.

What was in my control was information gathering. Who was building? What are they building? What is the plan for the “natural forest” in our backyard? My mind was racing. Would it all be ravaged and cut down to make way for a bunch of new houses?

First, I called the county property assessment office. I found out who owned the lot. I researched the adjoining lots. Different owner. Still the distressing niggle: is there a development going in back there?

Then I called the president of our homeowners’ association. What does he know about what is being built there? How could he help? Could he help? Would he help? All big question marks.

I finally found the name of the new owners on the county property assessors website. But no phone number. No email address. Just a street address. About a fifteen minute drive away from here. I jumped in my car and fired up the GPS.

I turned off the main highway and down a twisty road. One more turn and I landed in what I thought was the address I was looking for. No number on the house though. I was initially wary of the dog on the front porch. That was until I saw him wagging his tail so hard I thought he would fall over.

Encouraged, I braved the porch. My hands and legs were promptly and enthusiastically licked nearly to death. By, I later learned, Groot the dog. A love hound if ever there was one.

The nanny who met me at the door confirmed that her employers were indeed the owners of the lot and they were planning to build a house behind our house. Sigh. I gave her my name and address and phone number and email address and what I hoped was a cheerful note to the impending house builders.

Back at home, I comforted myself I had done all I could do and learned all that could for the day. I resigned myself to the uncertainty and started licking my wounds, inspired by Groot.

A couple of hours later, our insipid front door bell rang. (I really must do something about that.) Acting on the note I had left with the nanny, the builder/homeowner came directly to see us at the end of his workday. The stallion brought several mares back with him.

A standup guy. Concerned about some of the same things we are, specifically, taking down trees. Losing the “natural” vibe. We talked mitigation strategies to make up for our compromised view. Vibernum vines. Night-blooming jasmine. He even wants to do extra planting before the building begins. To give it a head start.

We shot the breeze for awhile. Found out where he came from. What his wife does for a living. The names of their two kids. And, of course, I reported on my near-death licking experience with the dog I then learned was known as Groot. His owner grinned. “He’s full of love.”

Look, if I could, I would revert to what we had yesterday. An unfettered view of natural overgrowth and old oak trees. The endless peace and the quiet. But in a nod to the inevitability of change, our new neighbor made all the right and wise moves.

Showing up immediately as he did and being as concerned about as many things as we are went a long way to soothing our distress over the impaired view.

In only a few moments, it felt like a friendship and alliance was made. The day ended much happier than it began. With a minimum of hand-wringing and drama. If change is inevitable, today was a master class for me in how to handle it. I look forward to meeting the mares.

Build on, Macduff!