Slow

Bernie and I went put early for our hobble walk, no one out but crows and robins and geese. A dead snake in the road, about two feet long. Looked like a coral, but probably just milksnake. I remember playing in the yard as a little girl and hearing my Mom find a snake in the garden which she would quickly dispatch with one chop of the hoe.

At the high school an odd group of geese circled as if trying to decide which one to follow. The goose asserting leadership landed in the soccer field throwing it's neck back and forth like it was having a seizure. Bernie off leash saw another chance to catch something he would never catch. The rest of the geese pulled up quickly and assumed chevron about a hundred feet in the air right in front of me. It was so close it was more like a movie and a reality.

The lesson I keep forgetting is often we don't readily see why things happen. Call it God works in mysterious ways, or where he closes a door he opens a window. I call it slowing my ass down. This past winter was exhaustingly depressing for me, overwhelming, so many balls in the air threatening to fall. Teach me to care and not to care. Teach me to be still. Which is curiously odd since I'd been complaining about old age; getting old and forgetful and slow. But there's lethargically slow and mindfully slow, and with my foot in a cast I've now converted from one to the other. Our walks are short but long due to out pace. Black dogs heat up fast so BMan slows down too after failing to catch a rabbit, a chipmunk and something I think really did not exist.

It's Memorial Day. Last night I watched a show on the 9 young men who died at Wanat, Afghanistan and how the father of one, Army himself, went after the truth like a pit bull with patience. The death of his son I'm sure was a hard thing for him to comprehend, but the window it opened when his door slammed shut was turning the flood lights on the irresponsibility and arrogance at the top of the chain of command. Maybe, if only for fear of that heavenly light blinding them again, will they be more cautious with these young people's lives, and making those parent's pain a bit more bearable.

Memorial Day. And all that's on is the Casey Anthony trial. Or Arnolds indiscretions. Or Foxy Knoxy's appeal. Or that sex diplomat in Italy, okay I didn't follow that one too closely. Bring home the soldiers from Iraq. Get out of Libya. Understand what's going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan rather than fighting first and figuring out later. The mountains there are simply the jungles of Vietnam.

Although they didn't die in battle, thank you Dad, and Uncles Joe, Carlos, Edward, Paul, brother in law Larry, and my own dear son Zack, for your bravery and sacrifice. As John Hiatt said, it's a slow turning from the inside out, slow turning but you come about.