Today ...
I saw a trailer hauling a trailer. It looked odd, at first. Then it got even odder. The top trailer was bouncing up and down on the rubber of its tires, as it travelled along the motorway. and suddenly it was like seeing bizarre 'trailer porn'. Like two trailers were going at with explicit abandon like horny teens. I began to giggle, with school girl embarrassed delight, at the sight. I knew I could never fully explain what I was seeing in my mind's eye.
Today ...
as I sat in the car while Joe did laundry, I saw a wooden fence covered in ivy. Ivy grew lush and abundant at each end of the fence. Each plant then reached out, one towards the other. It was easily possible to see the painstaking progress each made in reaching for the other. One could 'feel' the time it had taken, the season after season struggle, for them to get this far, this near. Nearly touching now. It was strangely moving.
Today ...
I saw an old dog being walked by a sullen boy. I could almost see remnants of the storm clouds from the fight 'take the dog out for a walk, I don't want to, you'll do what you are blood well told, I hate you, I don't care if you freaking detest me walk the dog' gathered over his head. The dog walked slowly, glancing every now and then at the boy. The boy's shoulders spoke of servitude, the dogs eyes of service.
Today ...
I watched a grand pa mind his grand daughter in the mall. He was seated on a bench, she in her wheelchair beside him. He was rail thin with steel hair and piercing blue eyes that sparkled as if they'd been freshly washed in rain water. His grand daughter sat in a tiny wheelchair. It was a child's chair decorated like the Disney bike we bought for Ruby, with streamers on the handles and shiny pink metal. His eyes saw her in her chair. But he also simply saw her, all of her. And his eyes were loving and hopeful and proud.
Today ...
I worked on the computer in the lobby of my hotel while a group of old friends met. Five people spoke what seemed like a thousand languages as they switched back and forth easily, translating sometimes, speaking others. One of the women had had a stroke and when she got up to get something from her bag, a few feet away, the man next to her offered to get it for her. She politely turned down his offer saying that it was good for her to get up and move a bit. Then they all talked about getting older and dealing with bodies that had changed. One man said, 'I still walk for an hour each day, but I only go half as far ...' the oldest of the group said, without missing a beat, 'but you see twice as much.'
Today ...
I proved that to be true.
I love your observations
ReplyDelete*laughs* I imagine we young are so caught up with what has to happen with our lives that we're not able to really stand back and appreciate what is happening. We're always doing...
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteEveryday after reading your blog, I see twice as much. Thank you for opening my eyes to new sights again and again.
ReplyDeleteYou paint such interesting and provocative pictures. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Dave,
ReplyDeleteI saw you speak today in Middlesbrough, I have waited a long time to see you speak in person and so I was as excited as if I was going to a see a famous band in concert,
You did not dissapoint, I love the way you see past all the perceived correctness and just talk sense.
I could have listened to you talk for many hours longer.
Thank you again for a great day today
You are such an inspiration.
it hit me ,as soon as I finished, that I let out a giggle, then realized I'm sitting here by myself, my goodness I loved this. For a few moments, I found myself lost and enjoying the view, just like you did......thanks.
ReplyDeleteTaking time to just be.....
ReplyDeleteI have not yet gotten to the point of slowing down (but seeing twice as much). Today was a jam-packed 9.5 hour day at the office without a lunch break ... not exactly a slow day! And this is too typical for me -- Yet it doesn't feel so long since I arrived at the office this morning! (Not sure if that's because I have been so insanely busy, or because I love my job and enjoy what I do, or a bit of both!)
ReplyDeleteBut although I'm not there yet, I'll be interested in seeing what the (slow) ride is like when I do! In the posts like this one when you allude to growing older, it is like a sneak peak to what life could be like for me another X years down the road.
Dave, you never fail to make me stop and think. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDear Dave:
ReplyDeleteThanks for those lovely thought provoking images. I did giggle at the first one - so that's where little trailers come from :-)
Colleen
That part about noticing twice as much is very true. I just flat out almost never do walks anymore, even in my powerchair. Most of the time I'm in bed. And people think of this like it must be awful, but what I notice is that since I'm in the same place all the time, I perceive way more about it than any of the people who just pass through. It's one of the reasons I've always said it'd be nearly impossible (outside of depression, where it's sort of in the definition) to find a condition that cuts a person off from the richness of life, because life is over-saturated with richness to the point where none of us can even see more than the tiniest fraction of it no matter how active we are, and none of us can see appreciably less than that overall no matter how inactive we are.
ReplyDelete(Said a lot better in the post itself which is right here.)
That's why I hate when people say I have no quality of life, when they've never lived my life and they don't understand that it gets better and better as it goes on, even though I'm stuck in bed at the age of 30 instead of 90 and some of my impairments are progressive. They don't understand how much they miss moving around all the time, and yet I'd never tell them that their lives aren't rich with beauty and meaning. There's all different kinds, and each kind of life has its own type, that other types are going to miss. The people I feel bad for are the ones who don't know that. But I am also angry at them because they're the ones who want people like me to verify their better-off-dead prejudices by going and dying on them, they're the ones who try to pass euthanasia laws thinking of exactly people like me, they're the ones likely to push me into a nursing home as the budget cuts on home care get worse (and thereby shorten my lifespan anyway).