Presence, Security

Fertile Void

March 23, 2024

Spring officially arrived this week.

Outside, anyway. The daffodils and hyacinths are blooming in my front yard, but it is still winter inside me.

I was hoping that I would have gotten over this by now. I first wrote about not feeling very spring-like a few weeks ago. It would have been nice if the official arrival of spring flipped me right into a brighter mood, like it came with an automatic easy switch.

It’s just going to take a little more time.

One of my dear friends is very ill. Still. And other parts of my life that have been stable for decades are shifting, and I’m not sure how it’s all going to work out.

I had a fortunate encounter this week, though, with one of my good neighbors. I often run into her and her three dogs while walking around town. It always makes my day (and Biscuit’s day, too, since one of her dogs is one of his best friends). She had just returned from an in-service where she learned about Gestalt Therapy and shared some things that were helpful. I’m not quoting her exactly (or at all), and I might be remembering parts of our conversation wrong, but this is what I took away: Continue Reading…

Presence, Security

My Kathy Bates “Towanda” Moment

March 16, 2024

I had a Kathy Bates movie moment when I was driving to work the other morning. It wasn’t a moment (thankfully!) from her movie “Misery,” where she tortures the famous writer by breaking his ankles, but one from “Fried Green Tomatoes,” where Bates runs her car into the VW Bug of the snotty, beautiful girls who steal the parking spot that she’s been patiently waiting for.

“Face it lady, we’re younger and faster,” the girls said, as they waltzed past her into the grocery store, arms around each other, laughing, after they take her parking spot. Bates sits stunned in her car for a moment, gets a fierce look on her face, then cries out the empowering word “Towanda!” before ramming their VW with her sensible sedan, laughing all the way. When the girls run out, horrified, she said, “Face it girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.”

I had left one freeway and was merging onto another one. It’s a little tricky, that entire merging situation, and I saw that there was traffic in both lanes on the road where I was heading. So I did the sensible thing, slowed just a little, and waited for the right lane to clear before I pulled into it. It’s a situation where yielding made sense. As I waited for, I don’t know, maybe two seconds, the car behind me honked.

It honked at me. Because I was waiting? For seconds? What did that driver want me to do? Ram my car into a miniscule spot in between a line of five or six cars that were chugging speedily along when there was a clear space at the end of the line?

I guess so.

Do you know what I wanted to do? Continue Reading…