On Happiness

"I'd rather have one phenomenal year
than 90 mediocre ones. When you are really
living, it really doesn't matter how long
you're here."
Kris Carr

That statement from an article in Psychology
Today. Kris is living with cancer. Kris changed
many things in her life after her diagnosis.
She changed jobs, towns, her diet, her outlook
on life.

I think the message is one we all need to heed.
That being said, I think it is hard for those of us
trapped in a mentality. It's hard to change
how you've been and lived your whole life.
I applaud her and hope some day I will get that
message and that it won't take cancer or a terminal
illness for me to do that.

*****************************************

I took Molly out to the bathroom a few minutes ago.
The sky is clear, the air frigid. I thought to myself
how beautiful to see the Big Dipper and all the other
stars lighting the night. And then I thought if I was
one of those people in this town still living in the dark,
I'm not so sure I would appreciate the beauty. I had
the luxury of coming back into the warm house.
I had the luxury of being warm when I walked outside
to take Molly to do her stuff. If I was still in darkness
and cold, I don't know that the night would have been
so lovely.

There seems to be no middle ground.

We have what we have and know what we know
and when what we know is no longer a language
we can speak or a face we can recognize or a taste
familiar, we are thrust into a zone which tends to
dominate all of the levels of being we consider
uncomfortable.

********************************************

Tomorrow we canvas the shelters. We ask questions.
We help in the small way we can. I can think about
that now that I am warm and full and have a familiar
place to sleep in.

I don't know how useful I would have been last week.

I am grateful for those who have been doing what they
have been doing for a week now.

I don't think there is one person in this community who
has not been affected by this.

Daylight comes. Cars drive by. Those in cold places with
no water know that others are taking their showers
and eating a hot breakfast and going on with life. But
they aren't fixated on that. Fixation is on surviving
another day.

This isn't Montanta or Wyoming or Siberia. This is a small
town in Western Kentucky. A place you would not know
much about unless you knew someone who lived here.
It is a place not so isolated as it is nondescript.

But we are here, and all around there is need.

*****************************************

The First Night

We sat around Mr. Heater,
me worrying about propane
fumes, trying to find the carbon

monoxide alarm I had removed
from the hallway weeks ago, a fresh
coat of paint going up, all pictures

and necessities stuck in closets
or packed away. The cold had not
yet settled into my brain. Naiveté

sang its allegros, lifted its childlike
soprano into the unheated room.
A moment's joy rested on my

shoulders and sat there as uneasy
as a first time root canal candidate
as I lifted it from beneath the bed,

dog and cat hair claiming it. The wall
neither rejoiced nor rejected
the newest encroachment; the occupants

of the bed and floor quite unaffected
by its presence. But I, the doer of deeds
and the worst of worriers, could only

lie there in the darkness and pray
to the off-white circular god, unseen
and unheard, hanging there like a martyr

in the midst of my most defining moment