Hang Ten

 

There are things about every day. Things which are new, unto their own. It could be anything really. Good or bad. A new flower blooming in the garden. A flat tire. A brilliant recipe. Anything.

And then, there are some things about this day.

A Brazilian Surfer broke the record for the highest wave ever surfed, off the coast of Portugal. The old record was 78 feet. This Brazilian guy won the grand prize for an 80-footer back in November. Two things on this. How can they be sure about the “ever surfed” part? There may have been some awesome 91-foot wave off the coast of Mauuuallopepi in the year 1531. And Fred, from that island, let it hang. Moments later, he jumped into the volcano. And, the second part. Who is out there with a tape measure, and ladders, measuring up the 80-foot surf? Handy-Dandy-Super-Man? Jumbo-Giant-Woman?

Glory be. We don’t know these things.

We don’t know things, on many levels, and we see things differently too. I was watching the weather this morning. On WHIO-TV. The weather woman says, “and a low of 45 degrees tonight. It might be a good night to open up those windows while you sleep.” What? WHAT? What are you, lady? Some kind of a Polar-Bear-Freak-Of-Nature-Weather-Woman? No, no. The furnace is still on in my house when it is 40 degrees outside. Open the windows? She has Brain Freeze.

Speaking of the cold. I was getting a soda out of the refrigerator, from my little stockpile of those cans. When I grabbed that beverage, a business card appeared. Right there on the refrigerator shelf. How it got there, I can only wonder. Perhaps it was stuck in the 12-pack at the grocery, I suppose. Anyway. It was the darnedest one I’ve ever come across. On the face of the card, it asked me if I would like a fistful of cash. A big bunch of fistful. Then it tells me to flip the card over. I did. And on the backside, it warned me of my damned soul. It said that my very soul is in danger of a judgment. Well isn’t that a thing? The old bait and switch. Regardless, I tire of people and these sorts of antics. I say, keep your damning-soul-business-cards to yourself, and try doing something beautiful for someone today. Maybe.

I can only wonder about these daily occurrences. The questions. The un-answers. The profound wisdoms, and the blatant absurdities.

This afternoon, I looked out our front windows. There were two chipmunks on the ground beneath our bird feeders. Frolicking, they were. It was so much fun to watch them scurrying around in mad little circles. Then, suddenly, they stopped, appeared to chest butt one another, made a little high-five gesture, and then disappeared, magically, beneath a large rock.

The comings and the goings of things. As quickly as they appear in our lives, they seem to move along. Sometimes it is too much. And then, there is too little. There are times when the porridge is just right. The spectacular. Here, and then changing into something else. Big waves, open windows, good vs. evil. Frolicking. The unknown. The unanswered. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but retire a little from sight and afterwards return again.”

And so it goes.

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“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
…is to press play.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

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“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

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“Remembering. Forgetting. I’m not sure which is worse.”
― Kelley Armstrong, The Calling

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