The nature of friendship and of connectedness

In a recent conversation, someone said to me, "How can you feel connected to so many people? I mean you even talk to strangers in an airport. Isn't that kind of fake?" I have been thinking about that comment. And the answer is, "I don't know"...

You see, I do feel connected in a weird kind of way with people I know only casually. Yet, I am not what you would call social. Entertaining is not something we do often or easily. Though I am more used to being alone than in a crowd, still I am always interested in what is happening in others' lives. Part of what I miss about working is the daily chat among colleagues. (It's certainly not the pendulum swing of philosophies, nor is it the dark specter of financial disaster served up as a daily cautionary tale)

And friendships do change as lives do. If you are thrown into intimacy every day for a period of decades with someone, of course you grow to feel bonded with that person. Once that immediacy is severed, it is harder to find that link. And yet it is still there, just waiting like a smoldering ember to be kindled when you stir the fire.

I guess I view almost every personas a potential friend. Doesn't everyone have the same basic feelings and yearn for the same human connections that I do....It's the throwing the "pebble in the pond" metaphor that calls me. Eventually any small action that we do may ripple out and touch others. At church recently the word "Ubuntu" is posted on the wall of the sanctuary. I understand from our pastor that it means something like "as I participate, as I share, so I validate my existence."

As our lives get busier-with grandkids and jobs and the juggling of multiple responsibilities-friendships may take different shapes but I am still waiting for that best friend, I guess, who lives down the block and pops in at random times, ignoring the mess, to plop her elbows on my kitchen table and spend an hour or two chatting.

What about you?

Well, I have taken on the task of reading John Kremer’s 1001 Ways To Market Your Books For Authors and Publishers. It is a somewhat daunting undertaking (this is one big book!) It's a tough world out there when you are an author trying to sell your book to a world that wants scandal and double-digit discounts. My goal is to find ways to help "my" authors at Aberdeen Bay beat the odds and find their niche markets, create enough buzz to get noticed, and sell some books along the way. There are so many incredibly talented people out there. Just because they aren't named James Patterson nobody wants to read their books.

I hope to help change all that, one idea at a time.

The Gift Of Song

The gift of song’s
a gift from God.
It makes us happy
for a while.
It opens up
our hardened hearts
to make us sigh
or smile.

And when our voices
rise on high
it’s easy to forget:
our feet are still to this earth bound.
We’re not in Heaven yet.

Jill Cline

Of Spoiled Brats and the Depression

The thought struck me in the middle of a lovely conversation last year with Mrs. Donna Leightner, age 92, that I am a spoiled brat. Like others of my baby boomer generation, I have had a relatively easy existence. I don’t know the meaning of being hungry or of doing without in any real way.

Donna was telling me about the effects of the Great Depression on her and her family. She graduated from high school in 1934. Through her entire high school career, she lived in town with other families because the five miles from her father’s farm to town was too great a distance to transport her back and forth to school. Of course, there were no buses to pick her up at her door. He could not afford the gasoline nor the time taken away from his farm chores to accommodate his daughter. She, and other students like her, earned their keep by helping out their host families with household tasks throughout the year. She stayed with her own family on weekends.

Donna had one pair of shoes. She had to take care of them as they were for school and church and whatever else came her way. I am ashamed to say how many pairs of shoes I have….shoes for every occasion, tennis shoes, boots, flats , heels and sandals. They line the floor of my closet. The year of Donna’s graduation, students did not have caps and gowns, nor did they purchase class rings. The superintendent did announce that girls were expected to wear a white dress and white shoes to the event. Donna recalls that her heart sank. “How were my parents going to do that for me? They just didn’t have the money” she said. Her parents provided her with the dress and shoes. “For years I wondered what they gave up. But I felt like a princess. “

Donna said she did have nice clothes, in large part because her grandmother made them. Her grandmother was a gifted seamstress who remade hand-me-downs for Donna. “That’s just the way it was”, she remembers. “Everyone was in the same boat.”

Stories of my own Grandma saving string and plastic bags and margarine containers filled my mind. It drove her crazy if we walked out of a room without turning out the lights. She (and Donna) had known real hardship and they wanted to be prepared to combat it if it came again. They wanted to ward it off if they could.

Compare this tale of thrift to our modern day explosion of spending. Many young adults feel they NEED cell phones and laptops and SUV’s and plasma TVS and mini-mansions and they need them now, never mind that their income will not support all those luxuries. They buy them anyway and hop onto a ferris wheel of activity to pay them off. Are they happier?

Donna smiles at her memories and her eyes twinkle with pleasure. She recalls her family and her church and her singing with joy. She chats about her best friend in high school and their adventures which included rolling a car during an AWOL trip from school. She tells me that the bedroom set in the small room off her living room is the only one she has ever had. Married 69 years to Del who is gone now, she says, “We conferred about each purchase and we didn’t buy things we didn’t need.”

“I have been so blessed”, Donna laughs. And I get the feeling that indeed she has as she has blessed me with a look into a past that could teach us all a thing or two about courage and restraint and sorting out life’s priorities.

TRUE HOME

This world and all its beauty
Will some day fade away.
It’s just our temporary home-
Our dwelling place today.

God made us for far better.
He made our hearts to yearn.
There’s a pull from deep within us
And like a magnet, we return
To God who is our own true North
To God who guides our way
To God who’s made a place for us
On this earth we shall not stay.

I may marvel at a sunrise
As a moment out of time.
I may glory in the Autumn woods.
They are not truly mine.

I am just a lonely wanderer.
For a little while I’ll roam.
But I know Heaven is my future.
Earth’s not my own true home.

Cone Dog's Chase

My dad was a policeman, and I remember him saying that everyone had a bit of larceny in his or her heart.

Maybe that means every creature has a trace of killer instinct. I would never have thought it of Cone Dog, though.

On our recent morning walk, I saw a new side of him. That's for sure. Normally, Cone Dog is the gentlest of beasts. He is a Great Dane who trembles at Chihuahuas.

His collar says "Bad to the Bone," but it's just not true. He was rescued from an abusive situation, and it's as though he is always a bit unsure as to whether the world means him harm.

Anyway, Cone and I were rustling through the leaves on a back trail in the woods by the big swamp. Suddenly, a huge, fat gray squirrel was in our path, not 10 feet away.

"Squirrel," I yelled. Cone charged at it. The squirrel, roused no doubt from a morning dream of endless caches of walnuts, leaped up a big, dying ash tree.
Cone Dog and I stood at the bottom, gazing up. "Get that squirrel, Cone," I cried. Do you suppose the killer instinct is in me?

Three turkeys, hidden in the cattails, took off for quieter climes with a rush of feathers and a little irritated squawking. The squirrel decided at that moment to leap into a tree with more limbs.

Looking like one of those flying squirrels you see in the cartoons, it launched its body toward the second tree and missed the branch it was aiming for. Falling somewhere around 30 feet directly at us, it seemed, the squirrel hit the ground with a thud and took off running for the hills.

Cone Dog was right on its heels. They charged down the leafy lane, across the creek and were gone. Within five seconds, though, here they came back toward where I stood (with my camera still firmly placed in my pocket).

Cone Dog was cruising. The squirrel was looking like a gray blur. One good lunge, and I swear Cone could have had that little critter in his mouth. At the last moment, the squirrel had a good idea (for a change ) and leaped up the oak tree where Rick's deer blind is. Climbing to safety, it never looked back.

Cone Dog stood at the base of the tree, looking up, panting, his feet black with swamp muck, contemplating his missed opportunity.

A couple of times on our way home, I whispered "squirrel" to test his newfound sensitivity, and he definitely looked up. I guess the old, timid Cone Dog will not be replaced anytime soon with a raging stalker of squirrels.

But he did get a little taste of the chase.

The Power of Sound

Certain sounds can touch my heart
And bring me close to tears.
Associations that they bring
Still echo through the years.

The mournful wail of a southbound train
The barn’s metal roof as it sheds the rain
A hymn’s remembered harmony
when the tenor starts to rise
The rush of wind in treetops
as a dark storm fills the skies.


A book page softly turning
A robin’s springtime call
The hum of voices praying
Caden’s footsteps in the hall

Womens’ laughter round the table
Gentle Cone Dog’s welcome bark
Crisp footfalls crunching down the lane
And whispers in the dark.

Each goose’s throaty signal
With winter in its cry
The click of a camera’s shutter
Or Troy’s contented sigh.

Warm crackling from a cozy fire
The dinner bell’s deep ring
The whoosh of skis as they cross white snow
The peepers’cries in spring.

A single trumpet at the grave
The warning whoop of a crane
The plop of wet on new green leaves
And my gardens blessed with rain.

The scratch of a pen as words touch page
My mother’s birthday call
Caden’s piping “Nanoo”
The thunk as bat meets ball.

Oh, Proust may say its taste
that sets our memories free
Freeing up the distant past
And blessing you and me.

And painters tout the power
Of sensing with our eyes
But sounds , for me, are stronger
They call my heart to rise.