2012 Challenge: Game On!

January 10, 2012

Don’t buy anything MADE IN CHINA. 

This resolution topped my list for 2012, mostly out of concern for human rights in Tibet. As of the tenth of January (2012) three Tibetan monks have self-immolated (since the 1^st of the year) to protest increasing Chinese oppression. 

At the end of 2011, as I was meditating about the coming year, I thought, “I have to stop buying things from China until they Free Tibet.” Then I said it aloud to myself. Later I wrote it down at the top of my New Year’s Resolutions list. 

Later I told my husband. He remembered the brightly colored bumper sticker on my little white convertible––FREE TIBET. That sticker stayed on the car for years, fading in the sun. Meanwhile, China stayed in Tibet and continued to  systematically oppress and overtake Tibetan culture. 

What difference could we make if we stopped buying products made in China? When I talk about this idea with friends and acquaintances, responses range from “good idea” to “good luck.”  Most people jump from the human rights issue to the issue of our very own, U.S. economy, shifting the focus to how few products are made in the US. 

It’s true. Finding products “Made in the USA” is tough. Even more challenging is finding necessities NOT made in China. I recently went to buy tennis balls. Not one tennis ball is made in the US. Of the four brands carried by the retailer, three were made in China. Dunlop tennis balls are made in the Philippines. That’s okay. We aren’t an island and it seems fair that we engage in world-wide trade, as long as we are reasonable about it, consider the consumption of fossil fuels for transport and watch out for human rights issues. 

I’m finding it interesting to read the labels and challenging to avoid some purchases. But I’m committed. It couldn’t hurt us to move toward a greater consumer independence of China. If enough people supported this movement, we just might make a noise to be heard around the world. Something other than the boom-boom of guns and artillery. Something even greater than the “ca-ching, ca-ching” of the cash register. How about when it comes to our economic dealings with China––We the People––exercise the Sounds of Silence. If we stop buying these products, we just might benefit the peaceful Tibetans, the exploited Chinese people and ourselves. 

Now that sounds like a New Year’s Resolution worthy of adoption. Will you consider it? Why not spread the word on your very  own social network platform? Maybe your Facebook friends will like you for it?

Today's Meditation

For the times in our lives when we think ourselves "expert"...  This struck me.

Today's Meditation

Birthday Reflections

Another Year Down

At this rate I’ll be dead before you know it! I’m not being morose. Just stating the facts. At the pace time flies, even with great longevity, I have at best forty years left on me. Four decades. They won’t be my best years physically, either. Not to mention that memory loss thing.

A day passes in a blink. A year flies by in a mere heartbeat. A decade slips away like liquid mercury. One life is a blip on the radar. But this life is the only blip I have, so I’m watching pretty closely.

On the other hand, forty years is two-thirds of what I’ve lived so far. From that perspective, it sounds like a fair credit in the time bank. I should be able to accomplish something in that liberal amount of time. 

Looking back, it’s been action packed and full of experiences. Not as many or necessarily the experiences I would choose if I could rewind and take some of those years back again. But life has not been without merit or richness.  I’ve lived sixty ‘one year’ segments. Now that feels short again. Think how quickly you can count to sixty! Now cut that down to forty. Okay, I’m back to thinking life is too short.

Throw in the monkey wrench of unexpected disease, disability or death, and the picture looks even more bleak. I’ve been blessed with relatively few health hurdles and pitfalls on my path. And I’m grateful. 

I know from experience that the good can be the ones to die young, as well as the not-so-good. I know some wonderful old ones, too. So some of the good ones stumble on the longer trails to destiny. 

Truth: Angels come (and go) in all shapes, sizes and ages. A good reminder to entertain––welcome the stranger at your door. You never know who might be standing on the doorsill.

Starting Again

One time my mother asked, “how’s that novel coming along?” and I felt angry. 

“If I could ever find some time for myself,” I said, “it would come along just fine.”

“You can’t find any time to write? I’m waiting for those royalties to start rolling in.”

My mood shifted. My mother was the only one who believed I’d ever write anything of value. “I’m writing. It’s just not going anywhere,” I told her. “Guess you need to hang around a little longer if you want to share in the payday.”

That was ten years ago and now, time is running out for my mother. As if to honor that incessantly ticking clock, I stopped writing altogether. This past year, moving her from her own home into first one assisted living arrangement, and then to another, the most I’ve managed is a daily scribbled page in a pen and ink journal. Mundane and trivial. No substance. Like my life these days, my writing feels like pencil stokes on cardboard. 

I have not a thing to complain about and this makes it even harder. Not a reason in the world for depression or upset, yet I manage to schlep around in it. Depression mostly. That glue-like muck that makes every step, every action feel monumental. I see the image of a tar-baby cartoon, each foot and hand stuck and pulling against the resistance of some black, sticky substance. I move through my days, trying to get free of the gunk, paradoxically efforting to move more lightly in this world. It is grim and senseless.

And so in honor of my mother, sweet soul, who faces the swagger of advanced age with a wry humor I do not think I could muster, I dust off the MacBook, fire it up, face a blank screen, and write a minimum three hundred words. It is a start. Don’t die yet, Mother.

January Wrap Up

One Month Down

At this rate I’ll be dead before you know it! I’m not being morose. Just stating the facts. At the pace time flies, even with great longevity, I have at best forty years left on me. Four decades. They won’t be my best years physically, either. Not to mention that memory loss thing.

A day passes in a blink. A year flies by in a mere heartbeat. A decade slips away like liquid mercury. One life is a blip on the radar. But this life is the only blip I have, so I’m watching pretty closely.

On the other hand, forty years is two-thirds of what I’ve lived so far. From that perspective, it sounds like a fair credit in the time bank. I should be able to accomplish something in that liberal amount of time.

Looking back, it’s been action packed and full of experiences. Not as many or necessarily the experiences I would choose if I could rewind and take some of those years back again. But life has not been without merit or richness. I’ve lived sixty one year segments. Now that again feels short. Think how quickly you can count to sixty! Now cut that down to forty. Okay, I’m back to thinking life is too short.

Throw in the monkey wrench of unexpected disease, disability or death, and the picture looks even more bleak. I’ve been blessed with relatively few of these pitfalls on my path. And I’m grateful.

I know from experience that the good can be the ones to die young, as well as the not-so-good. But I know some wonderful old ones, too. So some of the good ones stumble on the long trails to destiny.

Truth: Angels come (and go) in all shapes, sizes and ages. A good reminder to entertain––welcome the stranger at your door. You never know who might be standing on the doorsill.

If a tree falls...

If a mighty oak topples on Hill Street and doesn’t land on anyone, is it a miracle?

An old oak toppled on the street below us last week, taking off part of the roof of the main house and knocking a few things about on the neighboring property. The change in the landscape is odd. The loss of the tree creates a vacancy, opening our view to Main Street.

The tree, ancient and elephantine, was apparently vulnerable because of its size. Heavy rains soaked the wood, making the mighty oak so top-heavy that a vigorous wind pulled it out by the roots. Upturned and lying on its side, the root knot stood taller than the men who worked for a week cutting the herbaceous carcass up into useable chunks. Hewn oak for fireplaces and wood stoves, providing yet another benefit. That oak has already served the causes of beauty, fragrance and shade for many years.

Its falling causes me to survey our neighborhood for other Brobdingnagian features, assessing the threat to our own home. Certainly that tree might have fallen when a neighbor was out working in the yard. It might have crashed on a child at play. It might have landed squarely on the house itself, crashing through to a bedroom where an innocent lay sleeping, rather than just catching a corner of the roof and landing in the open yard between two houses. Slight property damage. No injury.

So, if a mighty oak topples on Hill Street and doesn’t land on anyone, is it a miracle?
It is as least very good fortune.

A Time for Poetry, A Time for Fiction

Time to work at writing, whether it be method, technique, reading good fiction, crafting a poem. I've indulged myself in time off and time in waiting. Time now to march on, letting time unwind. I posted a poem on the Poetry page that I drafted on January 3rd, 2011. It was inspired by one of my morning readings and my own feelings of separateness. Thanks to a fellowship of other wounded, wicked, wild, and weird souls, healed and mended or healing and mending, my separateness suffering is fleeting. A little sunshine today helps, too.

If you read my poem, please comment. Human contact is good, even with two or three degrees of separation.