My friend needs to use his blind spot

I’m grateful that my marginally disabled friend occasionally gives me needed car rides, but I feel I would appreciate him even more if it didn’t bother me so much when I watch him repeat specific parking patterns in the reserved handicapped spots.

When he first tried to obtain a permit for these, his physician wouldn’t sign for a placard and advised him that walking more would help immensely. He doctor shopped to secure one, not telling the other physicians what the first advised. Perhaps my friend exaggerated his difficulty, trying to gain quick empathy, because I see this too when he aims to park in reserved spots, with regular ones equally available mere steps away. 

It’s as if he wants to identity with being disabled. I sometimes ask him, what about if someone with a more challenging disability direly needs the spot he’s just snagged? Someone blind who’s experienced a horrific crash or a quadriplegic needing wide berth, (which those spots provide) for maneuvering wheelchairs? But my friend simply insists for him, that it’s “first come, first serve.” 

When I see his approach, it reminds me of the nine UCLA football players who counterfeited disability placards in 1999. This was a sad case of able-bodied men, who trained lifting weights and running miles, getting caught being parking cheats! My friend makes the argument that he needs the closest spot in the event of an icy pathway. Well, maybe so, but oddly those spots often are also the iciest, since they’re the closest ones to the building shade! 

I would hope for on snow days my friend would don proper shoes or use lightweight cleats. And call on me to guide him to the door. If my friend would consider more mindful consideration toward those with less ambulatory capabilities, it would be a nice turn of a walk for him to take.

Perhaps a specific woman reading this will look at it and say, “I would never want to behave like Him.” Not realizing that is actually her to whom I refer, but changed her gender for just this reason.

Seashore Sailing

Seashore soaring

For Daniella Chace

You were drifting on the Kingston ferryboat, while I was stranded on Orcas Island.

You fashioned a hot air balloon, embroidered with a giraffe.

My craft had a monkey on its back.

The winds shifted and we were destined to meet again, out in the ocean, directly over two Concordia ships passing in the night. You flew north like a crow and saw me long before I spied you.

As we approached each other in the high sky, you blew me a kiss, which I instantly caught in my mouth. Your kiss came from the sweetest part of heaven and it healed my core illnesses, as its pure intentions cleansed & quaked deep my soul.

Merge right with kindness

Our work crew witnessed some disconcerting scenes lately during the commute where traffic quickly comes together by the bridge near the hospital. After seeing one ill-mannered incident that looked like it could lead to an altercation one of my guys said, “In situations like these, I just try to focus on good intentions for the troubled people involved,” as he motioned with some blessing gestures. 

Then, another worker clicked on Wikipedia and spoke aloud: “Kindness is a behavior marked by ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions.”

Our anchor man observed with intensity: Some people are just having an awful day and everybody is allowed that. However, some poor folks are experiencing a series of really bad days; think about some of your own worst days. And getting behind the wheel of a vehicle may be the one thing that temporarily gives some people a powerful sense of control and freedom, while many other aspects of their life is in shambles.

Which drives me back to the blessing gestures: When motorists merge, it would bring better understanding if more were to reflect on what their most highly revered spiritual figure would do to create a better convergence at our future community bridge.

With this harmonic jazz in mind; as they’ve done well to lessen dangerous conditions for other large mammals, perhaps the Idaho Transportation Department could develop a contest for aspiring graphic artists to come up with an icon to be persuasively displayed with new “Merge right with kindness” road signs.

And the high-hope for this to work is that some impolite motorists will upgrade their behavior from nasty bird-flipping, over to peace signs with two nice fingers. 

Merge on the bridge to kindness

Our work crew witnessed some disconcerting scenes lately during the commute where traffic quickly comes together by the bridge near the hospital. After seeing one ill-mannered incident that looked like it could lead to an altercation one of my guys said, “In situations like these, I just try to focus on good intentions for the troubled people involved,” as he motioned with some blessing gestures.

Then, another worker clicked on Wikipedia and spoke aloud: “Kindness is a behavior marked by ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions.”

Our anchor man observed with intensity: Some people are just having an awful day and everybody is allowed that. However, some folks are experiencing a series of really bad days; think about some of your own worst days. And getting behind the wheel of a vehicle may be the one thing that temporarily gives some people a powerful sense of control and freedom, while many other aspects of their life is in shambles.

Which drives me back to the blessing gestures: When motorists merge, it would bring better understanding if more were to reflect on what their most highly admired spiritual figure would do to create a better convergence at our future community bridge.

And with this harmonic jazz in mind, as they’ve done successfully with other large mammals; perhaps the Idaho Transportation Department could develop a contest for aspiring graphic artists to come up with an icon to be persuasively displayed with new “Merge right with kindness” road signs.

A further spiraling solstice

Tiss was supposed to get married. I need to call him to check in.

For the first time in a year and a half, I submitted some commentary to the Mt. Express. I noticed that when I e-mailed it in, the message said it was sent right at 12:44 p.m. – or high celestial noon on the solstice. This came exactly eighteen months, after in 2006; I left the paper on that majestically shadowless solstice summer noon. Synchronisticaly, I was an official columnist for the Express for precisely eighteen months, being hired forty moons ago, during the winter 2004 solstice, the announcement being made during a non-harmonic Christmas Eve afternoon, when, in what should have been one of the proudest moments of my life, the Publisher hemmed and hawed about even anteing up some nominal fee for my hard work, fully forgetting that my beloved dog Maddie had recently passed into the great beyond and that I also became homeless mere weeks before. Interestingly, the commentary, I sent in for the Dec. 26, 2007 paper, regards installing lifesaving cell phones in the SNRA and is a much-modified version of the first significant letter of public interest that I ever submitted to the paper. I thought it an important enough subject to warrant this emergence.

So, now I’ve come full circle.

~

J.W. invited me to watch her children perform at The Mountainous solstice ceremony. It commenced at sunset. There was a beautiful spiral wreath set up to walk into, which was so large that some children became momentarily bewildered while attempting to navigate their way out of it, after lighting their formal candle. Although I was standing in a corner by myself, I was greatly impressed with the kind natural way K Woodlands orchestrated things. Whenever a child had trouble lighting their candle from the centerpiece, she was right there coaching them as a shining paragon of kindness.

K sent the eldest child in to light the first candle. Each youngster seemed to have slight difficulty lighting up and there was some speculation that the wicks were too long. I wondered if perhaps one child would light a candle without a hitch and then the crowd might subconsciously mull over the characteristics of that child to see if he or she fit the archetype of a special “chosen one.” But mostly the parents laughed politely a handful of times and the atmosphere remained genuinely polite.

After K’s announcement of the eldest child going first, I began seeking out other symbolisms. I examined the line and saw that the youngest-appearing children were sitting towards the end of the small chairs. Sure enough, when it came for the youngest boys turn; he placed his lit candle at the innermost point of the grand spiral. I took this to be a symbol signifying rebirth for us all, through the relit season.

I left the ceremony towards twilight’s closing stages. Picked up M. G. from her house and headed down icily moonlit Broadford Rd. towards the Bellevue bowling alley. East Magic Reservoir was having a get together and I was going to bowl for the first time this millennia. Funny thing is I had just packed away my old bowling shoes with all my summer stuff into the crawl space.

Anyhow, M. and I joined a team with our new friends April and Jim. April had splashed on her the perfume of an old girlfriend of mine. They tagged the scoreboard with my alter-moniker “Bam Bam” so there wouldn’t be two Jim’s. We were all given velvety antlers to don, while bowling for the festive occasion. After the 4th frame, M. introduced me to the woman that runs the small “East Magic” General Store and who had paid for the gathering. As we met, she started going into a spiel about how closely I resembled another local man. I immediately thought Wow! Here we go again! And then I whipped out the small musing pad I keep handy for just such occasions.

She started in on how this man who looked like me was a really good guy. About my age and with the same build and saunter. “His name is Mr. D. and he works out at the Courthouse. Takes care of everything, regarding the meticulous maintenance of things and stuff.” She thought his wife’s name was "V" and that she ran a tutoring or mentoring service for children. I thought that I had heard about this before. Then she said that Mr. D. was the former head of Hailey’s Street Department. That is until he got burned out on all the politics involved with the job!

As I was fastidiously scribbling all of this down, the question began niggling in the back of my head, “Why were these plain facts of my Doppelganger’s existence being handed to me in such a crystal clear manner?” I had recently been writing about how elusive their nature normally is. And I started wondering about the unusual surname, "D." Were the Idaho D's any relation to Phillip D?

I figured that I would get home to investigate this doppleganger info in a timely fashion, with the abundant time I have in the quiet reflective lifestyle I’ve chosen. Especially since all the pertinent info was practically dished to me on a fresh silver platter.

~ ~

But then investigation was put on delay, as M. and I decided to go see “Idaho Burning Woman.” I just had e-mailed Rob M. that evening about how I doubted my ability to “tri-locate” towards three separate solstice celebrations and how such activity would likely wear me down. Nonetheless we headed out Croy. The main effigy scorching ritual was complete, but the night was still relatively young. The half-mile icy walk was a perfect warm-up to make visitors want to greet the pallet-fire. I believed that I already knew by sight, about half of the burning woman aficionados in attendance. There was Minna, who had invited me the night before, when we ran into each other at Albertson’s and I mentioned the horse concerns.

I talked with and met some new people. It was an extraordinary group out there on the edge of the Idaho Wilderness. One beautiful woman, Shauna, seemed to gain an uncanny ability to intuitively peer into my soul during this extended ceremony, saw some good things, and offered the kindest of words. She said that she was practically freaking herself out when she suddenly gained this piercing ability to dissect the spiraling intentions I’ve been whirling with.

Then. Two Skies and I conversed for a while. As we went off into talking about trance states and indecipherable petroglyph’s around the blazing fire, I clearly realized that the Christmas gift I should give him is a copy of Graham Hancock’s anthropology tome, Supernatural. It covers in wide magnitude, trance states, ancient cave questions and owl medicine.

Two Skies girlfriend Lauren and I also caught up on items of interest –mainly dreams. I mentioned a reoccurring one I have about being a meter reader again and walking past a tremendous house full of secrets on the edge of Arlington Forest. The ancient house appears extremely cloistered. It has three hundred year old emerald glass skylights and a bunch of other mysterious things, but there is no excuse for me to walk up through the vast surrounding oak trees, because they are still being served by a well and have no water meter.

Then I ask Lauren about how she flies in her dreams and she goes on to described how it’s all done with her mind –the whooshing take-off.

Finally, I caught up with K Woodlands at the Idaho Burning Woman. I give her my interpretation of the evening events at her school and thanked her for being her true self. When I relayed my interpretation of the windless candle trouble, I also said that this is one of those things to ruminate over for a few months, before deciding what it means to you.

K embraced this wisdom with a slight startle and I start reflecting about how maybe now I have officially entered the era of becoming a true elder. After all, I've been reading in the barren wilderness of books for over forty years. When Melissa asked me I felt when my best friend in Hailey and my Grandmother’s both left the face of this earth, thirty moons ago, I immediately replied, “It brings us one step closer to becoming elders.”

At midnight, as we walked down the majestic loop to our vehicles, I pointed up to the sky to a cloud shaped like a funny bird. I told our immediate group that this looked like a strange owl gazing down upon us and they all seemed to enjoy this. Nobody denied that there was an owl swirling in the clouds above us at Idaho Burning Woman’s midnight.