SKIN IN THE GAME

I have just returned from a fairly successful yoga class at the Y. If the goal of practicing yoga is to remain present than I was about 85% successful today. That means that I was able to focus on my physical self for 50 out of 60 minutes and my addled brain did not wonder away from thoughts of breath, stretch, balance and breath. But, then those last 10 man; back to all things currently filling not just my thoughts, but my very soul.

Some of the things I am reading on the interwebs are saying yes, participate, but protect as well. Stay informed and make good decisions about what you want, can and need to do to protect all that is on the chopping block of the only sort of Nation you have ever know as home. BUT, don’t sacrifice mental health to do it. BUT, all hands on deck! Now is not the time to sit on your hands!

Yesterday I participated in a bus trip to NYC to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. *SEE: The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg for more information on my frame of reference. The trip was sponsored by a local historical society. And “history” has been on my mind more than a little bit as of late. I shall blame it in part on my daily dose from a brilliant historian, Heather Cox Richardson, who manages to word it in ways that I can understand and retain. Unlike the Social Studies tomes of old.

I was up before the sun which is highly unusual for me. But it was well worth seeing a beautiful sunrise that brought the promised crisp, sunny day of cloudless blue sky that only early Spring can produce. As the old but not uncomfortable bus roared down the thruway I was glad to have a window seat to the unfolding scene.

The trees are not yet leaved out and the grasses are just beginning to green. This lays bare all the detritus and debris living along side the thoroughfare. I love the landscape of bare boned trees and the early morning sun cast stunning shadows to entertain me. But what struck me most was the number of antique stone walls. These walls at various levels of deterioration run both parallel and perpendicular to the road we traveled on. Some of the walls run at right angle nearly up to the roads edge. Does this perhaps signal where originally a cart path ran or where the wall was destroyed to make way for the modern pavement?

Seeing the shell of what used to be or even a wide open field and imagining what it once was is one of my favorite mental games to play. Often as I approach a kayak launch site I imagine what the body of water must have looked like to the indigenous peoples, before buildings, bridges, boats and buoys. When paddling on the Mohawk or Hudson Rivers I wonder how deep the quiet must haven been and how dense the flora must have grown. So yesterday I was wondering for whom these stone walls, beautiful in themselves, served a purpose. Was it to mark property lines, secure livestock, or just to get the rocks in the field out of the way to plant? Perhaps some of all of it.

Having only visited The Met a handful of times I still had a fair idea of was instore. I was appropriately awed by a particular Picasso of his Blue Period. I had to sit down for Monet’s water lilies, of which there were a few. The list goes on. But what impacted me the most were the really ancient pieces; carvings from Asia and tombs from Egypt; from dynasty before dynasty. These physical memories from well before old stone walls in Poughkeepsie, NY.

And it led me to wondering about just how young our Nation is. We have not had to survive invasions, annellations, and erasures of our existence. Certainly we perpetuated those things on the peoples who came before us here. That is something that should never be forgotten and has never been properly addressed. But, we as These United States of America are mere infants in the timeline of humanity. And the thought has crossed my mind more than once that maybe this experiment HAS reached a natural end and we DO have to suffer through growing pains just like most EVERY other nation in the history of the world has had to do at one time or another. This is a very heavy thought. And one that I truly hate entertaining because the “that’s not-fair” little girl inside me says why can’t we be the winners and always have a democracy without all the growing pains?

This was not were I wanted this thought to travel today. But I have taken enough time from other tasks (mopping the kitchen floor comes to mind). Enough has been written and enough has been read. For today. I will address my “skin in the game” deuxieme partie another time.