Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Bugs, Blessings and Joy

This morning I walked again, the mile and a half from the top of the hill. I was just between the last two houses before the big down-hill when a bug slammed into my head so fast and hard it actually entered my right ear. Oh, oh, oh! An accident for us both.

Its high-pitched buzz resonated in my skull. Its legs-- or feelers or something-- moved around inside my ear canal. I noticed little else.

I kept walking, noticing that bug, and imagining what next. Oh my vivid, silly, terrible imagination! Deaf, I could go deaf in one ear. This bug might chew and crawl right through the ear drum right to the sphenoid sinus. Could that happen? Could have a living bug crawl into my brain? Doctor, doctor, help me soonest, there's a bug in my ear! Then a smile and a modest, real hope for natural resolution began to bubble in me. And indeed, after perhaps a third of a mile, having explored, it felt to me, as far in as it could get, the bug backed its way out again.

An ear without a bug wiggling and buzzing in it. One does not appreciate some blessings until they suddenly disappear. The blessing restored, today, I am so thankful for no bug in my ear.

There was a breeze as I walked today, absent yesterday. In summer heat, a breeze is better. I can no longer take much heat. Does that mean I get to stay out of the kitchen? No, I think it means I get to create delicious food that asks for microwave cooking or no cooking. Delicious summer food.

My friend sent me this, affirming for me that I already experience the joy of being: the intricacy, the persistence, the brazen invasion of joy as it blooms.

(Untitled)

A blessing from my friend Dana Knighten


These few words
cast upon the wind
like leaves drifting down upon you
or petals
falling soft on bare skin

like morning sun
like the light of a predawn moon

like the hands of one
who wants
to bring you peace.

And so I wish you flowers,
field upon field of wildflowers,

to bring reminders
of intricacy
and persistence
and the brazen invasion of blooming.


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