C'est La Vie
|
What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be. Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy. And I use these words pretty loosely. There's so much more to life than words..
Contact Me
Other Weblogs I enjoy
Recommended Readings
Recommended Listening
Things I love
Things I wish I owned and could listen to or read
|
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
I'm housesitting in this huge house right on a canal off the St. John's River in greater Jacksonville. (Although Jacksonville is one city, technically, it is made up of a bazillion little sections that are referred to among those inside Jacksonville the way that Jacksonville and Gainesville and Starke are referred to among those in Tallahasee. I'm in Orange Park, which is one of the South-western-most portions of the city, while there is Middleburg nearby (I think there may be one section of Jax AND an actual town of the same name a few miles below, but I haven't fully figured that out yet) and Southside across the river by the beaches, Westside up North and Northside east of that.. There is no eastside, but east of the base is Mandarin (I guess the Base and a very small section around it are either just in Jacksonville or maybe they fall in Westside to those from Orange Park and Orange Park to those from anywhere else?) and east of that is Southside, and east of that is Jax Beach, Neptune Beach, Amelia Island, and one other beach.. perhaps San Fernandino? That's somewhere nearby. And then there's Mayport. I haven't figured out whether Mayport (and its own little Navy base) is part of Jacksonville or another township altogether.)
But back to the issue at hand: When I let the dog out this morning, I sat out on the patio to keep an eye on her. It was maybe 63 degrees out and the sun was nice and warm and the sky was beautifully almost-clear, and there was just a little bit of wind over the water.. And then, nearly covering the upper half of the back yard next door, were the Ugly Ducks. Every time I'm away from FL long enough, I forget about the Ugly Ducks. And I guess I just hadn't seen any since I got here in late October. But there they were, as Ugly as ever, and I'm sure they're still just as protected. I did a search on Google images to see if I could find something to show you how ugly these ducks really are, and found one picture with a great blog-style "feature" about the Floridian experience as relates to ducks. http://www.happyscrappy.com/feature16.html This link will take you to a "Feature #155", even though the link says 16, and it will start out with an idea the writer had, and then a story about ducks in MA. I thought that was especially appropriate since I was born in Boston, and fondly remember the ducks and pond-covered experiences such as he initially mentions. And then we moved to FL, where for the next ten years I saw nothing but the Ugly Ducks, except in pictures and movies. Or brief glimpses when we'd travel elsewhere. These Ugly Ducks do not grow up to be swans. They are actually not so ugly when they're babies (there were some babies swimming with their mom this morning in the canal, and so I know this from reconfirmed fact), but they grow into these hideous, nasty beasts. When I was at bootcamp (and I forget if I wrote about this or not), we had an unfortunate incident in which our division was marching back to the barracks from something, with just our male first class RDC with us, and we saw this family of ducks waddling along. They were so cute, and then people started pointing out (even though you're not supposed to speak in formation) that they were even walking across the street using the crosswalk. At bootcamp, signs of life (other than harried recruits and yelling/intimidating RDCs, civilians who make you jealous that they're not suffering and officers who make you feel awkard because you just can't get that whole salute thing down since you're not supposed to look at them there and yet ARE supposed to call them by title) .. signs of life are very rare. Nature is not seen often. Even in the trees there, there aren't so many birds chirping, and you're not really able to stop and look at them, anyway. You spend almost all your time inside, and when you're outside, you're marching (and must be looking straight ahead) or you're running. So we were feeling good about whatever it was we had just done, and we were really enjoying seeing these cute little ducks. And then a car turned onto this road. You could feel the tension increasing in the ranks. She slowed down, though, and the baby ducks (who were probably in their pre-teen stages of life) made it to the side of the road we were on. The mother was still in the middle, making sure all her babies were safe, and the car sped up. She stopped after running over the mamma duck with her front wheel, and then ran over her again with her back. And she sped away. We recognized her as one of the galley workers who was always in the back, though we weren't sure quite which one. But watching this mother duck be killed, and having to march by her babies who were crying out and looking around for her... Our RDC and some of the guys from the division managed to almost make the whole situation seem funny later on. When I think of them and what they said, I can still laugh. But retelling the actual scene here wasn't funny at all. Very sad, indeed. Yet, I was struck this morning with the thought that if someone did hit one of these Ugly Ducks with their car, it wouldn't be nearly so sad, honestly. And I'm a lover of animals and of life, but these are just Bugly. (Bugly, by the way, means Buttocks-Ugly.) And so you don't want to look at them anyway, and they're so aggressive and yet so protected (as endangered species, it is illegal to kill or harm them), that they often fill drive-thrus with their menacing presence and foolish souls throw fries at them out the window which just keeps them around. And then you have to drive very slowly so as not to hit them, but if they feel like sitting around (and they really will plop themselves right down where your tires would otherwise be about to go), you just have to wait. Seriously. Because if you get out of your car to scare them away, they will honk and hiss at you and tell you that you are a silly human who is bound by law not to hurt them, and you happen to be in a very public place and you never know Who might be watching. And thus, they may sit around all they would like, and the cars honking behind you are not nearly as threatening (despite that another peculiarity of FL is the likelihood the person honking at you is also carrying a gun and might even use it) as the honking, hissing Ugly Ducks. So if one were to ever get run over in my presence, it would be like seeing a squashed cockroach -- nothing I wanna see and it would probably make my stomach turn, but the thing was Ugly to begin with and this just makes it Uglier and stationary. Ah, the Ugly Ducks.. How nice it was to have forgotten about them.
Comments:
Post a Comment
|
Hippie: (after hearing Max wants to avoid the draft)You still have options man. "So how do i do normal "It's been known for a train to jump its track. It's ok, so you'll know, most times they come back. It's ok to lose your life, when you finally see your birth. It's ok to say, "I love you," and figure sometimes it's gonna hurt. "As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but then by the end you're sick of 'em!" "Hey, this is weird! I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you?" "I love it!" "You're kidding! What a crazy random happenstance!" "Only one more trip," said a gallant seaman, "It was Flannery O'Connor who said that 'grace must wound before it heals.' Her words help me to separate what is most true about life from the things we want to be true. We want life to be painless. True grace is a hard sell because in order for the human heart to understand forgiveness and love, it must first experience darkness and isolation. A life lived under the rule of grace is a life of need which allows us to receive an appreciate the gift of the giver of grace. This is why we will always have the poor with us; this is why God will not allow us to ignore injustice; this is why we are called to a life we cannot handle alone, which can and will break us in the effort to live it -- because grace must wound before it heals." Regarding 2007: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, I thought Christmas Day would never come. But it's here at last, so Mom and Dad, the waiting's finally done. And you gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up, it's Christmas morning. O little town of Bethlehem, Walk humbly, son Strings of lights above the bed "In a little while I'll feel better "Please tell me once again that You love me. That You love me. Please tell me once again that I matter to You and You really care. Please tell me once again that You're with me, forever. It's not that I could ever doubt you, I just love the way it sounds. I just love the way it sounds." "Every once in a while, a bannerzen posts." "7:30. What kind of people have to be at work at 7:30?" have you seen my love Traveling is significant because it takes so much effort. Either you're going to some place you love, or you're leaving some place you love. Usually it's both. I think I have Bond's ability to get into trouble but not his ability to get out of it. Someday I'll be in some foreign country with 5 thugs with automatic rifles pointed at me, and I'll just.... fart "You had no alternative .. We must work in the world. The world is thus." --- "No .. Thus have we made the world." The summer ends and we wonder where we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And you both look so young And last night was hard, you said You packed up every room And then you cried and went to bed But today you closed the door and said "We have to get a move on. It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead, We push ourselves ahead." Looking out the bedroom at this snowy TV.. ever since commencement, no one's asking 'bout me. But I bet before the night falls, I could catch the late bus.. take small provisions and this Beethoven bust. I could find work in the outskirts of the city, eat some fish on the way.. befriend an old dog for a roadside pal, find a nice couch to stay -- a pull-out sofa, if you please!" Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying "The trouble with folks like Brownie is they hold their life in like a bakebean fart at a Baptist cookout and only let it slip out sideways a little at a time when they think there's nobody noticing. Now that's the last thing on earth the Almighty intended. He intended all the life a man's got inside him, he should live it out just as free and strong and natural as a bird." "Life is a phantasmagoria .. It is a pell-mell of confused and tumultuous scenes. We try in vain to find a purpose - to bring an order, a unity to life. I suppose that is the appeal of art. Art is the blending of the real and the unreal, the conquering of nature. It is real enough for it to reflect life, but has the unity that life lacks." "in time memories fade. I've always had this feeling about Patty that she's complex and intriguing...I like Patty alot. She's got a good heart and tells terrible squirrel jokes. "Try to remember that world-weariness isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the book of Mark, I think its Mark, Jesus looks at a blind man and sighs. Jesus sighed before even telling the man he would be healed. He sighed, and I'm not sure that there's a much more human expression of frustration than this. Faced with the horrid picture of a cursed earth and looking into the white eyes of a man blind from the day he was born, He sighed. The Creator of the universe in human form was sad "of the evils of this world," the world He created. Your Creator sighed for you in the same way before He healed you and made you His." After the last secret's told After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone After the last child starves And the last girl walks the boulevard After the last year that's just too hard There is love -- Andrew Peterson, After the Last Tear Falls "when you most need people, you don't need perfection - just to know someone gives a damn" "A CALL TO ACTION: "My brother's always [telling me], 'You should be more mysterious--boys like that.' But I'm not good at that. It would just make me more uncomfortable." "Loners want to kill you, but not for any particular reason, and they'd probably like you if they weren't being guided by the violent voices in their head." "No one wants to oil a snake these days!"
-- Her mom: "We're all safe." -- Jamie Bevill and her mother during Christmas-Decorating dinner, December 20, 2002 i'd throw out all my shoes i'd set up cans for friends to dump their shoes senseless shoes a pioneer of callouses lordy-be and bless my soul i'd be a barefoot spaceman the first you'd ever know" "The best way to have God's will for your life is to have no will of your own!" "Generations circle and each one atones. The sins of the father are seperate from my own. In Pilgrim's Progress, it's forgiveness that makes whole, and as time levels and consoles, I place the daisies in your bowl." "For a moment he just stared at her. Then, with an urf-urf-urf of laughter, he turned back to the controls." "It's on the internet.. so, then, it must be true." "Be at least as interested in what people can become as you are in what they have been." Blessed be the rock stars!" Get up for the shower.. wash and scrub and scour every part as if a cleaner man could better bear the shame.. "She was eating gnarly amounts of calcium." Homeless man to girl trying to give him money: "No, thanks, ma'am. I never work on Sundays." "Wow! I never thought I'd need a radar-guided spatula!" "Isn't it great that I articulate? Isn't it grand that you can understand? ... I can talk, I can talk, I can talk!" I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know... I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: "You've turned up in the right place at the right time. You're doing fine. Don't ever think that you've been forgotten. When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "No answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand." CCM: You've spoken a lot more about crying than I ever thought you would. "Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn't grow old because he has lived a certain number of years. A man grows old when he deserts his ideal. The years may wrinkle his skin, but deserting his ideal wrinkles his soul. Preoccuptaions, fears, doubts, and despair are the enemies which slowly bow us toward earth and turn us into dust before death. You will remain young as long as you are open to what is beautiful, good, and great; receptive to the messages of other men and women, of nature and of God. If one day you should become bitter, pessimistic, and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on your old man's soul." ""Don't go matchmaking for me, Ilse," said Emily wit a faint smile... "I feel in my bones that I shall achieve old-maidenhood, which is an entirely different thing from having old-maidenhood thrust upon you." "I wish Aunt Elizabeth would let me go to Shrewsbury, but I fear she never will. She feels she can't trust me out of her sight because my mother eloped. But she need not be afraid I will ever elope. I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art" "Tomorrow seems like a long ways away. But it will come, just like any other day... Deep inside, where the wounded creatures hide, I am afraid. Maybe I got lost somewhere along the way somehow. Please rescue me... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the dark shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me... Though I fear, though I am afraid, You are with me. Though I'm angry, tired, broken down and confused, You are with me. Though I sin like I've never sinned before, lose myself right out an open door, You are with me." "The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?"" -- C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader "When People object... that if Jesus was God as well as Man, then He had an unfair advantage which deprives Him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying, "Oh but you had an unfair advantage." It is because of His advantage that He can help." "But, you know, as a Christian, one of the big questions you always ask yourself is, "So we believe in Jesus, we believe in the teachings of the church, but what does that look like when it's lived out?" Because surely, one of the things that Jesus said that I think we often overlook is, "The person who hears my words and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock." He didn't say "the person who hears my words and thinks about 'em" or "whoever hears my words and agrees with it." But he said, "Whoever hears it and does it." "find that which gives you breath and grants you more to give "I have packed all my belongings. I don't belong here anymore. This pair of sandles, one pack to carry, this old guitar and this tattered old Bible. And I know I won't be afraid. 'cause I know, I know Home is where You are." "Open up your weepy eyes, everyone is dancing. Angels peer through sweet disguise, through a fire of cleansing. "Long hair, no hair; Everybody, everywhere:
Breathe Deep, breathe deep the Breath of God!" "You may be bruised and torn and broken, but
you're Mine!" "I don't deserve to speak, and they don't deserve
to hear it. It's makin' me believe that it's not
about me." "Kickin' against these goads sure did cut up my
feet. Didn't your hands get bloody as you washed
them clean?" "They say God blessed us with plenty. I say
you?re blessed with poverty. ?Cause you never
stop to wonder whether earth is just a little
better than the Land of the Free" "Computers will know everything in the 21st
century. They'll be like me in the 20th
century." |
