Gene's Blog

Keep the motor idling

I’ve got another from Steve Goodier and it is just marvelous. Had it stuck in draft and forgotten about until tonight. Take a look at a neat story. I’ll be back after. :^)

KEEPING THE MOTOR IDLING

I relate well to the comment made by Barbara Johnson: “Patience
is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping
your gears.” I know that if I can keep the motor idling, it will
be ready to go when I need it.

A kindergarten teacher practiced keeping her motor idling. A
story has it that she was helping one of her students put his
snow boots on. He asked for help and she could see why. With her
pulling and him pushing, they finally succeeded and she had by
now worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy
said, “They’re on the wrong feet.”

She looked and, sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier
pulling the boots off, and then she had to wrestle the stubborn
boots on again.

Just as she finished lacing them he announced, “These aren’t my
boots.” She bit her tongue to keep from screaming, “Why didn’t
you say so?”

Once again she struggled to pull off the ill-fitting boots. He
then calmly added, “They’re my brother’s boots. My mom made me
wear them.” She began to realize how close she was to stripping
her gears as she struggled with the boots yet again.

When they were finally laced, she said, “Now, where are your
mittens?”

“I stuffed them in the toes of my boots,” he said.

She may have been the same teacher who once commented about a
particularly difficult child in her class, “Not only is he my
worst behaved child this year, but he also has a perfect
attendance record.

A Dutch proverb observes, “A handful of patience is worth more
than a bushel of brains.” I may never have to worry about having
a bushel of brains, but I can sometimes muster a handful of
patience. And that should be enough.

— Steve Goodier

I think I could safely say that about me, lol. Not only am I my worst behaved child, but I also have a perfect attendance record. In the stillness, I have had flooding through me memories, of times and places long ago. I’ve been trying to make sense of some things, life, the why of the lights and the look into home I’ve been given. And I’ve had the oddest amalgamation of two songs running through my head for weeks. Parts of Answer, from the wonderful Sarah and a bit of Mad As Hell from the Dixie Chicks. I’ve talked about my admiration for Sarah many times here, as an artist and as a person. I feel the same sort of affection for the Dixie Chicks, who were not only unafraid to exercise their constitutional right to free speech but to unabashedly pay the price exacted for doing so. Part of Mad As Hell, not the part I’m interested in, says:

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

What is there to add to that? Those aren’t just words in a song, they are examples of how Americans reacted to the words of a young woman who dared criticize George W. Bush and his insane foreign policy, his futile hunt for weapons of mass destruction while reducing Iraq to rubble and creating a new generation of jihadists who will hate the great satan all of their days – unless somehow they see the light. And realize it isn’t a bomb. That’s my dream. :^) Always look on the sunny side of life, from an old movie. Not always easy but it isn’t impossible either. I think I’ve cried more tears in the 11 years since Brandon died than I did in the 47 that preceded it. Not always tears of sadness, in the early years, yes, but things have seemed to affect me so strongly emotionally since then, that the tears just come, unbidden, unhidden. I’ve learned to take kleenex to movies or have them handy while I watch tv or read because I just can’t tell when something is going to reach in and touch my heart so deeply that I am going to cry from joy or sadness, or both. I don’t mind at all. I caught the last half hour of Winn Dixie the other night and cried like a baby. That little girl, I have no idea her name, was SO perfect in that movie, for that role, Jeff Daniels was at his wonderful best and it all came together in a crescendo of love that sent me to bed damp but smiling at what we can be when we but try, just the littlest bit.

So this amalgamation I mentioned just above is pieces of two songs. They, too, come unbidden, jen just starts playing one or the other, sometimes mixing them in my head, so that I’m not sure which is from what but I always know what she means. Not the whole songs, just a couple verses. These four verses:

First, From Mad As Hell:

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

Then, from Answer:

I will be there for you while you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty
I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance if you can’t look down

If it takes my whole life
I won’t break, I won’t bend
It’ll all be worth it
Worth it in the end

Over and over. All jumbled up and sometimes perfectly clear. The thing that has come to me in the stillness of the past month is my own truth. I am through with doubt, there is nothing left to figure out, and if it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend, it’ll all be worth it, worth it in the end. I believe that. I know it. It IS my truth, I have figured it out, or she has with me, for me. We’ll talk about that too one day, but that day is a bit off, much between now and then. For the moment, much, love, :^) gene

I don’t know that anyone notices but I pick different colors for the salutation, often, because I love the names so, this one is cornflower blue. I’ve never seen one, but I believe in them. As I believe in these words.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene