Feeding Acorns to Zebras

       It's one of THOSE weeks.  The kind that has a date of dread and the anticipation of that date is usually as bad as or even worse than the actual date.  I know from the 1st day of September that it is coming and I watch the calendar more closely than usual; I suppose because I don't want it to sneak up on me as on the original day.  The date is an anniversary of one of several painful life-exploding events I have experienced and it still takes my breath away 5 years later.  I do know from those all-too familiar experiences that, as each year passes, the threshold of distress on such dates is lowered but never goes away completely.  I have also learned that despair is useless; the world keeps on spinning with or without my participation and there is more than enough despair in the world. And besides, if I just keep hoeing my woe, I'd have missed the chance to feed a zebra an acorn.  

       The days are moving swiftly as fall and summer collide.  Frosty mornings and toasty afternoons challenge thermostats and clothing decisions.

A chilly rainy morning on the way to Pre-School

       My sojourn at Favorite Youngest Daughter's house is only a couple of weeks from ending.  FYD is traveling for work, her hubby works nights, and I get to play with Favorite Youngest Granddaughter when she is not in pre-school.  When she is, I get to play at the local quilt shop where I have learned some new techniques (the term "skill" does not apply to this errant quilter), I have done a fair bit of reverse quilting (that is a nicer way of saying "ripped it out and started over"), and have whittled away a bit more of the Favorite Spawns' inheritance.  But it does keep one busy and focused and less likely to wander off into an unpleasant and isolating cloud of self-absorbing emotion.  Bright colors also chase the clouds and my local friends are no longer surprised with the combinations I choose!  But other friends express surprise with my occasional domestic meanderings.

One of a few works-in-progress

And yet another

       The surprising truth to some is that I'm a closet homebody!  It's a surprise because it seems I'm rarely home and hardly doing anything domestically inclined but that has more to do with how things are than how I would have them be.


       But to use a phrase I don't actually like, "it is what it is", and I am impelled by my genetics to do what I can with what I have and keep moving forward.  (NO, I don't make lemonade!)  There are so many important things that need to be done in this world to end starvation, enhance civil rights, stop wars, reduce energy waste, improve ecology, and on and on.  I get requests to sign petitions, save dogs, and donate to a hundred worthy causes (and a thousand un-worthy) on daily basis. There is a critical election in this country just over a month away and the economic worries are endless.  Thankfully I have friends in high places who do very important things all day and even at night.  They write great news articles and blogs and make speeches articulating what I think so much better than I can, so I'm happy to let them.  And I attend to all that I am able to do.  At the moment I'm coasting into the early autumn, a rare peaceful time in a month often fraught with angst.  I will be home soon and running hither and yon attending to all sorts and conditions of humankind, known and unknown, solvable and not.  Hopefully my attempts then will prove useful in some small way to someone.

       In the meantime I have a few more chances to spend time with my favorite zebra feeder and that, my friends, is better than any balm Gilead ever had.

My Favorite Zebra Feeder

 

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