“EVERYTHING CHANGES. EVEN STONE” –Monet

Each year, as I inch closer to death, the more I crave life.  It’s as if I know there are only a certain number of steps left on my feet so I MUST keep moving them.  I dance down the aisles of the supermarket, sing at full volume, breathe in every flower in my path, and revel in meeting someone new.  Nothing must get past me.  Sometimes, at night I can barely sleep for fear I am missing something.

As punch drunk as I am about Life, however, I am disheartened for this 2024 world of ours.  It is rife with brutes, bullies, and bombs.  We have become a society of lies and legalese.  Lately, we’re being pandered to by a perverse, political, Presidential scuffle between people who don’t represent our best and brightest.  Supposedly, we’re a more ‘woke’ culture now, so why are we so afraid to speak our convictions?  Do we even have any?

As Putin’s death march continues, the Arab-Israeli conflict rages on, Houthi rebels bomb ships in the Red Sea, and psychos continue to shoot innocents in our communities, I wonder: where are our leaders of conscience and principle?  After the 1996 mass shooting in Tasmania, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, enacted the toughest gun laws on the planet.  In the 25 years since they have not had one, single mass shooting!  What’s our excuse?  Apparently, we’re too busy blindly following protocols.  Uvalde comes to mind.

A good friend gave me this stone.  It’s not just any rock but a Shiva Lingam stone found in only one place at only one time of year: the Narmada River in India.  It is said to come from the debris field of a meteorite which crashed into Earth some 14 million years ago.  Centuries of erosion have made it smooth and cylindrical.

 Now I can’t squeeze water from this stone any more than I can add years to my life, but I can feel the weight of it in my hand.  It comes from the earth I stand on and where I will one day return. It reminds me that I’m not just holding my life in my hands, I’m also holding yours.  Charlie Brown was SO wise.  “Life has no remote.  Get up and change it yourself!”  While I’m at it, I’ll look up at the clouds.  I must just see “a duckie and a horsie.”