Today’s quite a day. I’ll get to the bit about me, but first, in the greater world scientific advances and very much good energy, many prayers are needed.
The news brings a report of bacteria that resist all antibiotics, including those last ditch ones that desperate doctors use to try to stop such monster killers as flesh eating bacteria and extreme forms of tuberculosis. ’Tis the End of the Age of Ant’biotics — sung to the tune of Dawning of the Age of Aquarius if you’re old enough to remember that one…
A writer friend’s elderly mother two days ago underwent surgery to remove a blood clot. Yesterday there was a massive stroke, the doctors say it is only a matter of time for this dearly loved woman…
Somewhere in the northern midsection of the USA on Friday a determined, hard working Native American boy is graduating from high school. Because he rose to meet his challenges bravely in order to finish (being Native in a white school can be a form of walking over fiery coals) his People gave him an honoring feather. That is, a feather of the mighty Golden Eagle, a feather that solely Native people are allowed to possess in the US. And because they are ignorant, administrators of the high school have decreed that the boy shall not wear his eagle feather of honor if he means to graduate from their school. Christian crosses, Stars of David — fine. But eagle feathers belonging to people who have been the targets of genocide by white incomers to the USA for five hundred years — sorry, kiddo. We prefer not to be reminded of your unwelcome race and religion.
The proud eagle feather was likened to the miserable Nazi swastika.
The sickness that holds humanity in chains deepens when people think like that.
As an aged white woman pleased to belong to a multi cultural nation I want to rush into the offices of that high school, grab people by the shoulders and shake them till their heads roll. As a Baha’i woman, pleased to belong to the global family of humankind, I stay put and pray for the illumination of souls that abide in such limiting darkness. And I write, because this hurts so much. When will we humans learn to celebrate our differences and find ways to get along with one another on this wee blue planet we all inhabit and urgently need to take better care of?
Nobody sees when you try to fight dark with more dark.
…I confess to a quiet wish that a screaming Golden Eagle would dive bomb the administrators during the graduation ceremony… Those giant birds are far more terrifying than the relatively gentle Bald Eagle that became the official bird of the USA long ago…
My personal good news includes that once again I traversed Belén’s bumpy roads — cracked and alligatored, potholed and uneven as though those ancient dormant volcanoes we call the West Mesa around here had awakened recently and shaken the tiny city a bit — and my power wheelchair did NOT stop dead. And that though I have recently leaned down many times to pick things up off floors and the ground there was no falling out of my wheelchair since the last couple of blogs.
So why am I sitting here writing this? Because this morning’s email brought me the excellent news that the USDA and its busted down computer system have released my house buyer’s loan (two days late) with a stamp that says Approved. That my realtor is pushing hard for a Friday (tomorrow!) closing and funding for me. That the lender has put a rush on the whole thing, and a sharp eye at the title company is watching for the title to come through.
Tomorrow could end up being a Big Day hereabouts.
So what did I do in my joy, before barely assimilating the emails? Called the van company guy who does the shipping to wheelchair customers all over the US, from Atlanta. They’ve been holding up another delivery in hopes of a speedy closing so I can pay them for the van I’m buying.
And what did he tell me? …. “I wish I’d known this yesterday. I just put the other van we have going to New Mexico on a truck that left here about two hours ago.”
Well, I wish I had known yesterday too, dude, dear. Long after the van business had closed down for the day on the east coast, we here across Earth’s curved crust in Mountain Time were still chewing our nails and I had a hissy fit. Told the realtor that if the funding wouldn’t get through by the early part of next week — holiday and all — I would call quits to the whole thing. Might as well, since my helpers would not be available to load and drive the rental truck otherwise. And no, they couldn’t leave without me, and no, I couldn’t climb into the rental truck for reasons that have to do with me needing a wheelchair van to begin with. And no, the van company would not be thrilled to have to deliver my van to me later in California rather than New Mexico, either…
If I hadn’t received word that all was good for a closing date of May 11 I wouldn’t have gone ahead, ordered the van, scheduled moving into the new rented condo (really expensive!) in Mountain View, California, and my daughter wouldn’t have booked her flight here after recruiting two good helpers to come along and drive our rental truck with my belongings back. All three of them have already rescheduled their trips, with penalty, once. No more, no más, So there.
This morning I felt rather ashamed of myself for the sharp words. Yet, I asked Elf and Opus, wasn’t it true? Much as living in a French (or Anasazi) cave with no clocks but the sun appeals to me sometimes, that isn’t the way the real estate world works. Hours make a big difference in business. And my hours to complete this earth shaking (to me) project are running right down on the wire.
When I read the lender and realtor emails a couple of hours ago I felt so elated that I wanted to grab boxes and start throwing in dishes and such.
But… That felt a little like a jinx. Hey, Me, you aren’t superstitious, eh? No…. But why not take a bit of time out and write a blog while you give the title time to show up and the process to unfold itself?
So, that’s what I’m doing.
My last post had a suddenly inspired drawing I did on an iPad after falling out of my wheelchair in the backyard. It depicts a bizarre sunset I viewed out my kitchen window over the West Mesa a couple of years ago.
This time I thought to share with you one of my earlier attempts to draw that peculiar, brilliant scene. Once again I left out the clutter of buildings and trees between my home and the mesa. I also greatly simplified the structure of the mesa and the tendrils of the crazy clouds.
Doing that same artistic erasing of background “noise”, here’s another iPad drawing I did during a snowstorm a while back. It’s the tall banana yucca in my front yard against the back drop of that same mesa. My neighbors might blink at the disappearance of their homes and trees, but hey, who’s doing the drawing here, eh?
Rising Over the Smoke 