Night and Day

Over the winter I drove from New York to Florida.


Driving there, the last stretch of the trip was in complete darkness.  I wound through dark roads in Alabama, passing through small towns.  I had plans to fuel up at the next town but then the towns...stopped appearing.  The night became darker, my gas light blinked on, and I tried to gauge whether to turn back toward the last town or hope that another would appear.


The last town was too far back, but I had no idea where the next town was.  I had printed directions, a child asleep in the backseat, and roads that no longer matched what was in hand. 


I passed an abandoned gas station with a splintered wooden sign.  The pumps were dusty and the building shuttered.  I pulled into the gravelly drive.  I didn't contemplate the next move long.  I thought of all the calls my one brother receives as a firefighter where he arrives to find: someone needs Tylenol, someone's smoke alarm is broken, someone is locked out of their home. 
I thought of my last conversation with my other brother, whom I was driving to see.  He'd said,  "Alabama is the hardest stretch.  It's like no-man's land, especially in the dark.  Just miles of nothing."
I had technology in the car, but it had broken in Georgia, and so my printed directions were the last hope I had. 


I dialed 911 and said, "This is not life threatening, but I am out of gas, in Alabama, and I'm lost, and I have a child with me, and I have no idea where the next town is."


I spoke with the call receiver and told the name of the darkened gas station where I sat.  She spoke with me about the road I was on, and said she would send someone to lead me to the next town because "you'll never find it otherwise."


Minutes passed and then an officer arrived.  I followed him though pitch black for several more minutes, around side roads, until we reached a two-pump gas station lit up like a stadium.  It appeared from seemingly nowhere, and I never would have found it. 


The officer stayed with me and explained that on Sunday, most of the gas stations were closed at a certain point. 


I pumped gas and he looked at my directions, and printed me up a new set from his car, reflecting where we were.


I took the directions, had a full tank of gas, and was so grateful for the help.  My child slept on and I traveled the last part of the journey.


The next morning over coffee, I recounted the drive to my brother and his wife. 
They'd had others drive to see them in Florida and it was confirmed that getting through pitch-black Alabama at night was no picnic.


Despite that, I'd developed a little soft spot for my first encounter with Alabama.  I'd called for help, and help had been abundant.  I'd been given better directions and good advice and was set forth to keep driving. 




I spent a week in Florida and then, with my technology fixed, headed back to NY.  Alabama was a picnic.  I had sunlight, and strangely, some flakes of snow, and my daughter was awake to ask a million questions.  She does this thing her dad does, which is to read every billboard out loud. 


In Alabama it sounded like this:


"Go...to....church....or....the....devil....will.....get.....you.   What does that mean?  What is that red thing on the billboard?"


I glanced at the billboard, which was huge, and there was a painted red devil on it.  It struck me as so funny that my daughter didn't recognize the devil which was so familiar to me. 


"That's a devil that someone painted."


"But why does it say the devil will get you?"


Soon another billboard,


"Marriage....equals....one man....plus.....one woman....I think I know what that means."


More discussion.


Then,


"What country is that flag for?  Or is it for a company?"


It was a giant Confederate flag.  To explain this was no picnic, but it was possible.


Her questions:  "But why is that flag flying since that war is over and it's one country?  Does that mean the people flying the flag want to have slaves?  Is that the flag that was flying when Addy Walker was my age?"


I had no idea who was flying the huge flag, or why.  I didn't understand it anymore than she did. 

Publish, Delete, Guns

Ever posted something on the internet while in the mix of one emotion, then looked at it a day later and decided, "Nah," and taken it down?


Many mistakes and missteps are taken when we are in the clutches of a powerful emotion.


Wearing a gun----to church----to school----creates the likelihood that experiencing a powerful emotion or thought can have a permanent effect.


Because to have a wave of some emotion, and be able to reach for a weapon in the midst of this, is about as easy as hitting "publish".  Except there is no delete button. 


From NYT article NRA Board Member Deletes Criticism of Victim in Church Massacre

The N.R.A. official, Charles L. Cotton, argued in an online discussion that Mr. Pinckney, a state senator, bore some responsibility for the other deaths because he had opposed a change to South Carolina’s gun laws that would have made it legal to carry a concealed weapon into a church.

Then the comments were deleted.

 Mr. Cotton did not explain why he deleted the comments 

Full piece here.

And the wisdom to know the difference

Something about the end of this prayer, the Serenity prayer, has been in my head today.


It is not much use to have courage and acceptance if they are applied in the wrong direction. 
Sort of like wasting breath, wasting water, wasting wonderful gifts. 


Good prayer, whoever prayed it first. 

Yeat's Grave*

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,   

The soul recovers radical innocence   

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,   

And that its own sweet will is heaven's will,   

She can, though every face should scowl   

And every windy quarter howl   

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

--W. B. Yeats

*props to The Cranberries

It's the Most. Wonderful. Time. Of the Year!

I'm talking about Commencement of course. 


This is the time of year that fantastic commencement speeches get posted all over the internets. 


I give thanks to live in a time where I can listen to the guest speaker at  Penn or Swarthmore in the comfort of my bathrobe.  While washing dishes. 


Favorites from years past include J.K. Rowling's address at Harvard, and Neil Gaiman's address at University of the Arts. 


Earlier this week I read the speech Vice President Biden gave at Yale just last month, where he shares how he's worked with those with whom he has opposite opinions or ideas.  The how came through an early experience in which he assumed something, and shared his assumption with a colleague. 

He then went on to say, Joe, it’s always appropriate to question another man’s judgment, but never appropriate to question his motives because you simply don’t know his motives...

From that moment on, I tried to look past the caricatures of my colleagues and try to see the whole person.  Never once have I questioned another man’s or woman’s motive.  And something started to change...

Because when you question a man’s motive, when you say they’re acting out of greed, they’re in the pocket of an interest group, et cetera, it’s awful hard to reach consensus.  It’s awful hard having to reach across the table and shake hands.  No matter how bitterly you disagree, though, it is always possible if you question judgment and not motive. 

Resist the temptation to ascribe motive, because you really don’t know — and it gets in the way of being able to reach a consensus on things that matter to you and to many other people. 

 Other gems in there, such as:

I’ve worked with eight presidents, hundreds of senators.  I’ve met every major world leader literally in the last 40 years.  And I’ve had scores of talented people work for me.  And here’s what I’ve observed:  Regardless of their academic or social backgrounds, those who had the most success and who were most respected and therefore able to get the most done were the ones who never confused academic credentials and societal sophistication with gravitas and judgment.

Don’t forget about what doesn’t come from this prestigious diploma — the heart to know what’s meaningful and what’s ephemeral; and   the head to know the difference between knowledge and judgment.

 All this in Biden's straight up style.  For full wordage, clickity click.

X Marks the Spot

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is "look underfoot."  You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.  The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.  The great opportunity is where you are.  Do not despise your own place and hour.  Every place is under the stars.  Every place is the centre of the world. 


Look underfoot.  Gold and diamonds and all precious stones come out of the ground; they do not drop upon us from the stars, and our highest thoughts are in some way a transformation or a transmutation of the food we eat.  The mean is the divine if we make it so. 


--John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendrill