The Pit of Despair

.... don't even think about trying to escape.


Yesterday I had a really, REALLY bad day. It was the type of day where you wake up thinking life is good, then half way through realize it's nothing but a steaming pile of unpaid bills gone to collections (with interest.) The type of day that makes you want to sing old blues songs, like:

Once I built a tower to the sun,

Brick and rivet and lime,

Once I built a tower, now it's done,

Brother, can you spare a dime?


The type of day that makes you want to go into full vent mode crying out things like 'why me' or 'it's not fair!'


And people try to come to you and say things like 'it's okay' or 'one day at a time' or some other pithy phrase that makes you feel like this:

And just when I wanted to crawl into a dark pit, cover myself with ashes and dwell in my misery forever, I looked up to see my three kids...... and they were....

d a n c i n g.

All three of them were smiling and cuttin a rug, waving arms, laughing and gyrating hips in a triangle of insanity.

"But there isn't even any music" I said.

They were not about to let that minor detail stop them, and their laughing and silliness became something of a light in my dungeon of pity. As I watched I started to feel something happen -- a twinge of hope -- and soon I felt a smile spread as I laughed with them.


Life is certainly not fair. But that doesn't necessarily keep one from dancing.

Even if there isn't even any music.

Food for Thought

Karuk Indians lived in Northern California and were known as the Upper River People.

The following is from a conversation between two Karuk elders, c: 1900. Translated by Julian Lang

'The Old People were following th Ikxareeyavs,

the Spirit People,

all the time.

All the People did the same long ago; whatever the Ikxareeyavs did, the People did.

And the things that the Spirit People ate, that was all the Old People ate.

That's what they were told, "You must eat this kind of food"

The Spirit People ate salmon and they spooned up acorn soup, eating salmon along with acorn soup. And they ate deermeat.

And the Old People claimed that the Spirit People ate two meals a day.

And so that's the way the Old People did as well.

When the white people came, the Old People said:

"They are eating food poisonous to Indians

It is poison food;

world-come-to-an-end food"

The working-aged people were the first to eat the white man's food. When they liked it, they really liked it. Then they told each other, "It's good tasting food."

They said, "He never died. I'm going to eat it, that white man's bread"

It was a long time befoe the Old Men and Old Women ate the white man's food.

We are the last ones that know

how the Spirit People used to do,

all that they used to eat.

Our mothers told us that.

And even we do not eat anymore,

what they told us before "You must eat this kind"

And what will they who are raised after us do?

..... food for thought.

Thoughts for Spring

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers from within,
of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to re-teach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower,
and re-tell it in words and in touch,
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within,
of self-blessing.

-Galway Kinnell