Posts Tagged ‘world events’
Survivor’s Guilt
Every time incredibly tragic situations are reported in the news for days on end I begin to question my luck. How is it that I was born into the comfort I enjoyed throughout my lifetime? Lately, it has been the crumbled concrete buildings in Turkey and Syria that are causing me to wonder about how my life experience compares to a baby found alive in the rubble, still attached to its dead mother by the umbilical cord.
How many challenges lie ahead for that child and the rest of the survivors in the damaged areas?
Secure in our warm house with a solid roof and sturdy walls, I tucked myself beneath comforting blankets in a wonderful bed and slept safely last night. How do I deserve such luxury?
Even while a large number of people were attacking my nation’s capital in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2021, I was safe at home experiencing no physical threat. I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment, but otherwise, the impact on me at home was imperceptible.
People around the world live in situations of war, droughts, famine, overcrowding, poverty, or crime that impact their daily existence. Why have I been able to live free of these challenges? Obviously, there is no guarantee that I won’t suffer this kind of fate in the future, but at my age, I will still feel lucky that I had so many good years if things all of a sudden turn bad now.
There but for the grace of God, go I.
I gained a new insight yesterday about how the hay boxes get pulled away from the back wall of the overhang. Don’t know why I never considered this before. I had set out the feed pans for the horses and while they were eating, I was scoopin’ poop and filling up my wheelbarrow. I didn’t see what provoked it but I looked up just as Light was lunging toward Swings.
In her moment of panicked reaction, Swings’ emergency evacuation from the vicinity cause her to knock the hay box almost 90°. The repositioned box had nothing to do with frivolity or overzealous efforts to consume hay. It was simply collateral damage from a dramatic escape.
I verbally shared my unhappiness about the incident with Light but she showed little interest in my opinion about the issue, whatever it was.
Ending on a positive note, I’m pleased to report that Cyndie has recovered enough to drive a car on her own again. It’s been 3-and-a-half months since she drove a vehicle. That’s a very large step in regaining her independence.
I can say that my survival of being her full-time chauffeur during that period has been entirely guilt-free.
However, there have been moments of wondering how I’ve been so lucky as to not be the one who broke an ankle last November.
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Admittedly Isolated
I’m home alone with the animals again this weekend and contemplating the incredible peacefulness and beauty that I enjoy the luxury of experiencing here every day. This morning the horses radiated peacefulness under a foggy wet blanket of sound-dampening air. It was Delilah who disrupted things every so often with her random barks of alarm over imagined threats that really don’t deserve to be barked at from my perspective.
As I methodically made my way around the paddocks to scoop up recent manure piles, my mind meandered through so many trials and tribulations that we aren’t facing.
Our country has not been invaded and bombed by a bordering nation that was pretending to be doing our people a favor. Our region has yet to be torched by wildfires or swamped by unprecedented flash flooding. Extremist politicians haven’t maliciously trafficked hapless immigrants to our doorstep. We are not experiencing a shortage of food or potable water. We are not struggling with the debilitations of long-COVID infection.
The much more benign burdens directly impacting me this day include two issues that aren’t happening as swiftly as I wish. I’m wondering if the technician who will splice our fiber optic cable at the base of the utility pole across the street from our driveway works on Saturdays. Nobody showed up by the end of the day yesterday even though the cable to our house was buried last Tuesday.
I’m also anxious to receive a promised bid from our favorite excavating business regarding the landscaping of the slopes on either side of our new driveway. We’ve decided the job is too big to accomplish on our own and will require a truckload of dirt they can provide. It’s been a week since he was here to discuss the issues.
It’s pretty easy for me to preach about having a positive attitude about how great it is to be alive when I reside in a sanctuary of natural beauty and affluent comforts. I am sensitive about boasting too assertively from our admittedly isolated circumstances in the world, but my perspective is coming from having successfully treated a depression that shadowed much of my earlier life.
Our daughter is enduring the stress of knowing a vulnerable adult who walked out of her music school before his father did and has now been missing for days. Our hearts ache for those who are suffering.
I walk through our woods to a soundtrack of calling birds and water droplets coming down from wet tree leaves, the autumn aromas of fallen leaves just beginning to become noticeable. The horses huff a big sigh as I show up to clean the area beneath the overhang and serve up their pans of feed.
What can I do but send the love I experience out into the universe to flow toward all who face difficulties that I struggle to fathom, recognizing the privilege of my isolation.
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Pondering Still
In a simple reflection of the stressful current events that hardly need listing, my days are splattered with competing demands commanding my attention. I’m growing weary of the constant exercise of redirecting my energy from the angst-inducing to the peaceful loving focus I prefer.
I should be rewarded by the project of clearing brush we worked on yesterday in the uncharacteristic high humidity, but the slow progress was overshadowed by the pall of troublesome political, societal, and environmental issues simmering in a brew of the coronavirus pandemic stew.
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The front (or eastern) half of the northern border of our property has a natural fence of uncontrolled growth that I have long sought to turn into a wall by trimming it like a hedge. A year or so after we moved here, I made a first swipe along the span, cutting back the existing growth. In the ensuing years, I have gained enough confidence to cut the “hedge” much closer to the very old and mostly buried barbed wire fence that long ago defined the property line.
Yesterday’s effort was nice to accomplish, but it was a sweaty struggle against the frustrating strength of entangled vines that fought back unendingly against our every attempt to clear branches. The grey clouds hung low and the high dew point temperature gave the September air an odd thickness that was the opposite of inspiring freshness.
For all the progress we made, stepping back to look at the distance that still remained to be cleared revealed how little had actually been gained. It felt all too similar to the issues of social justice that are far from being accomplished.
The world at large does influence each of our own individual environments. If anyone is suffering, we all suffer.
A new Minnesota poll just released highlighted a variety of details related to the pending U.S. Presidential election. One that resonated in particular for me was how the level of education reflected the differing amount of support for the two main candidates. I think that speaks volumes.
Don’t ever vote stupid. Get educated on our democracy. Become smart enough to recognize integrity.
Imagine if we could vote in a government that would work to protect citizens from stupid ideas. Oh to have a Federal Government that would swiftly and intelligently address the pandemic. Oh to have leaders who would uphold the intent of our protections against harming the environment. Oh to have leaders who could enforce financial ethics guidelines.
Oh to have the entire length of our “hedge” shaped by the time next spring’s growth begins to expand it once again.
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Relative Something 