Category Archives: Life reflections

More Than Words

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I’m a bad blogger, guys. The world is full of people shooting words at each other. Sharpening them as weapons to hurl through the online nonexistent air of the Internet. Bending them to fit their needs. Shaping them into typeset gravitas delivered in newspapers and magazines to doors shut tight against other ideas.

 Writers like to think we’re part of the solution, but when we can’t find words that soothe, heal, or maybe just provide a good escape for a bit of time, perhaps we dry up.

Out here in the woods of The Blue House, the place friends loan me to get away from the Net and all the rest, the woods are vibrant with color. Oranges melting to browns, greens growing into reds so vivid you think there might be apples on a tree.

Old roads, made from older wagon tracks, lead to abandoned homesteads and barns that look as though they would fall over with one push of a wolf’s paw. Never mind all the huffing and puffing; just breathe, and walk. Look around and soak in some peace and quiet.

Soak it in so maybe it can translate into friendly, quiet, thoughtful words to send out. I hope I can share the savoring with you, because in the end isn’t that what such things are for? When we fill up we can pour out.

Either way, living in the moment, enjoying the leaves and the silence, is a thing to be savored. So that’s why the blog post is small this week, and I hope you are savoring things of your own. Perhaps you’re at a beach where earth, air, and water share conjoined contentment. Family time with changing leaves and thresholds, the first powdery snows of Northern climes, covering tracks and crevices.

Wherever you are, soak it in and have a great weekend.

Choices – – –

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Jack got his booster shot yesterday and was under the weather – – –

Wendy and I live in rural South West Virginia, in Appalachia. This part of the US has a solid Republican and Trump voting majority. That is absolutely fine with me as we live in a democracy and we can all vote for whomever we want.

However there’s another side to this. Many folk here buy into the ‘American dream’ and ‘the land of the free’. That’s also fine but it ties into a suspicion of any government interference including health regulations and advice.

As the Covid 19 Delta variant began to infect people around here earlier this year, it coincided with all the shops and stores moving from insisting on mask wearing to simply advising it. This seemed pretty silly to me, and it’s made me even more determined to wear a mask in public settings. However when I do go to these places I see hardly anyone else wearing one. My biggest concern, obviously, is that if any of them are infected they will spread it.

That said – yesterday I got my booster shot of Moderna at our local Walmart after failing to get it at CVS despite making a confirmed appointment. When I arrived at Wally World as a ‘walk in’ I had a very easy time – a very professional associate getting my details and an equally professional pharmacist administering the shot. It was all over from entry to exit in thirty minutes and I didn’t feel a thing!

I will continue to wear my mask, despite the fact that I’m triple vaccinated, because I can still easily be infected and infect others.

I can’t tell other people how to live their lives; all I can do is say how I live mine – – –

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59077036