Bird Droppings January 14, 2011
Jumping in rain puddles

It has been a week of many happenings within our society and within the local community. It has been a holiday season filled with local sorrow, national sorrow and joy and hope for a new tomorrow. Here at our house we have cherished every second with a new grand baby and my daily photo opportunities have not ceased. Having an additional week of holiday due to snow only gave me more time for Charlie’s firsts. It was Charlie’s first snow storm and first night wearing a vintage (vintage Pooh character not a real old sleeper) Winnie the Pooh sleeper I found at a consignment shop. She was bundled up in her white furry snow suit and looked like a polar bear cub as my son and his wife walked out for my wife to take a few pictures.
As I scanned the Atlanta paper and local paper articles on the Arizona shooting still brought tears to my eyes as three men who were wounded from three varying political backgrounds were interviewed. In a letter to the editor a riled citizen wanted to why we were focusing on the Arizona shooting and the snow storm when there was so much more going on in the news. One political cartoon caught my attention as we try and look at rationale and reasons for what happened in Tucson. It was a drawing of a handgun very simple and on the safety switch was the word parenting. Being in teaching I have found the past few years we have been pressured to be so much more than teachers only. Many parents expect teachers to be the parent for their kids. We do not get any credit for the good but if a child does wrong it is the schools fault never the parent.

“Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form….. In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes, I bargained for salvation an’ they gave me a lethal dose. I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn. Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm.” Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm, Blood on the Tracks, 1975

One of those random songs flitting through your head and you can not get the tune and lyrics out of your mind. One of my favorite Bob Dylan albums of all time, Blood on the Tracks, has many songs that I like but I continually will periodically get this one in my head and ponder a bit the words. As I sit here writing today and thinking about a song and all that has transpired the past few days it keeps coming back to a matter of perception. Perception too is based on how we have become who we are, and why we are who we are, and where we are now. My perception of these words from Bob Dylan will be totally different than many others because when I first heard them my situation was different than those others. The impact of Saturdays shooting on Randy Gardener who was shot in the Tucson shooting and by chance had been at Kent State in 1970 when the National Guard opened fire on students and a friend was killed there is totally different than say someone who was not born at that time or even a person who felt the Guard were justified in the shooting.
I walked out earlier to get a sunrise picture and today with few clouds not much more than a pink glow across the horizon. So I looked for other opportunities in the surrounding area. I found several nice shots of various plants contrasted with the snow and ice glaze, trees still holding snow in pine needles and branches. As I walked I came to my quiet place set off from the house where I will go and sit meditate and or ponder if there is a difference. There was a circle of deer tracks around my spot. It has been nearly five years since I set some river pebbles in a circle here with each point of the compass marked off. Some will call it a medicine circle often seen in Indian rituals and writings. What I found interesting is the deer walked around my circle of stones. Perhaps this simple thing is meaningless to most but to some it will be of importance. It has been years since I first began reading Carl G. Jung’s writings and was then reintroduced indirectly through a book of fiction. But Jung’s word synchronicity daily is made evident to me. Reading the interviews in today’s AJC (our main Atlanta paper) of three men who were at the shooting and wounded each differing in their political views from very liberal to very conservative, each had a previous encounter linked in some way to the event Saturday.

“So now I’m goin’ back again, I got to get to her somehow. All the people we used to know they’re an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenter’s wives. Don’t know how it all got started, I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives. But me, I’m still on the road headin’ for another joint we always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view, tangled up in blue.” Bob Dylan, Tangled up in blue, Blood on the Tracks, 1975

I am reminded each time I visit my class reunion website or get emails of another sixty plus birthday that we are not teenagers anymore. Each of us has gone different directions and had different events both tragic and joyous in our lives. I have dear friends who have both husband and wife now are cancer survivors. My father survived long after he was supposed to according to the surgeon and we shared many tales in those days together before his passing. I was talking with a young Muslim fellow today at my convenience store where I stop in the morning for a bottle of water, energy drink and paper. I was reading in the paper again how some people were complaining about the atmosphere of the memorial service in Tucson. I started thinking back to my father’s funeral in July of 2007. We had a slushy machine out because of the extreme heat. I was wearing one of my father’s old Philippines shirts he picked up on journey years before and his rattlesnake bolo tie. It is a Navaho turquoise and silver piece with symbolic rattle snakes circling the main circle and silver snake rattles for the end pieces of the bolo. We had a celebration of his life not a mournful dirge. A stuffed African lion was leaping literally from the bamboo near the grave site. My brother could not pass it up at an auction at Burt Reynolds old homestead in Loganville. My dad loved that lion being a big African wild life fan. I was moved by the service but that was my perception because of who I am and I respect those who saw differently.
As President Obama ended his portion of the service he used several lines that were next to the picture of Christina Taylor Green who was born on September 11, 2001. I share a fondness for that day as it was the day I went back to teaching. Christina had three wishes or hopes by her photo.

“I hope to help all those in need.” I hope when you sing the National Anthem you put your hand over your heart.” “I hope you jump in rain puddles” Christina Taylor Green

I read these lines several times this morning along with Bob Dylan wandering through my head and a tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of my own grand daughter and will there be a lesson in life to learn from this day. I have as a teacher always felt students are children first and how we see them should be that. They are not little adults but they still are individuals who have not experienced what we have and see the world in a differing light than we do as adults. You won’t find many adults jumping in mud puddles they don’t want to get their designer shoes dirty. So perhaps one of the first things I will do as soon as our puddles thaw is jump in one in honor of Christina Taylor Green. Another day of cold and as I have ended my droppings for so many years please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird