cousin cara lee
likes but not always agrees
and that is okay!

I recently ran into my cousin Cara Lee.

While it is hard to catch up in 10 minutes with someone you haven’t talked to in almost 10 years, we did our best.

With all we had to talk about, my dear cousin did mention that she likes reading my haiku and my commentary.

Then she looked off to one side and made a sideways smile and said she doesn’t always agree with my commentary but there it is.

Which I thought was really funny.

I appreciate that I have a small but, mostly, loving audience.

I appreciate it, but with all there is to read out there, I am not sure I understand it.

If I ever want to stop writing for a couple of days all I have to do to imagine folks reading these posts.

If my haiku can find some common cause with the reader, I am thrilled.

If a reader takes the time to read what I write in commentary, I am more than thrilled.

If a reader take to the time to read what I write in commentary and think about it enough to agree to disagree, I am stunned.

I admit I am pretty much coming from deep out in left field with what I write and I encourage any discourse.

But if I can get readers to think or look at a question and consider another side to it or to just flat out disagree with me, I think that’s great.

I invite any and all readers to let me know your thoughts.

The reason why I ran into my cousin Cara Lee and several other cousins wasn’t good but it was wonderful to touch base with so much of my family.

And it was surprising to hear so many comments about my haiku.

Surprising and great!

Thank you all.

tropical storm
tornado watch drive over
bridge to the island

I can’t say that driving over a very high bridge to an island while there was both a tropical storm warning and a tornado watch was on my bucket list of things to do before I die but that is because I don’t have bucket list.

It is an interesting concept of compiling a list of things you want to or feel you have to accomplish or do or see before die to make sure your life is complete.

If I made a list I am not sure what might be on it.

There are a lot of things that might be ‘nice’ to do but …

I am reminded of a passage from the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt.

It is a book and later, a movie, about life in Savannah.

In the book, the author asks a friend, ‘Don’t you feel cutoff?’ and she replied:

Cut off from what?

No, on the whole I’d say we rather enjoy our separateness.

Whether that’s good or bad I haven’t any idea. Manufacturers tell us they like to test-market their products in Savannah – toothpastes and detergents and the like – because Savannah is utterly impervious to outside influence.

Not that people haven’t tried to influence us!

Good Lord, they try all the time.

People come here’ from all over the country and fall in love with Savannah.

Then they move here and pretty soon they’re telling us how much more lively and prosperous Savannah could be if we only knew what we had and how to take advantage of it.

I call these people ‘Gucci carpetbaggers.’

They can be rather insistent, you know.

Even rude.

We smile pleasantly and we nod, but we don’t budge an inch.

Cities all around us are booming urban centers: Charleston, Atlanta, Jacksonville – but not Savannah.

The Prudential Insurance people wanted to locate their regional headquarters here in the nineteen-fifties.

It would have created thousands of jobs and made Savannah an important center of a nice, profitable, non- polluting industry.

But we said no.

Too big.

They gave it to Jacksonville instead.

In the nineteen-seventies, Gian Carlo Menotti considered making Savannah the permanent home for his Spoleto U.S.A. Festival.

Again, we were not interested.

So Charleston got it.

It’s not that we’re trying to be difficult.

We just happen to like things exactly the way they are!

I didn’t plan on driving over a high bridge during a tropical storm during a tornado watch.

I didn’t ever think about what it would be like or even something worth experiencing.

I don’t know that think much about driving over the bridge.

It wasn’t on my list.

I don’t have a list.

I certainly am not commenting on anyone who has a list or more exact, a bucket list.

I am not trying to be difficult.

Maybe I just happen to like things exactly as they are.

tunnel vision lose
peripheral vision
not central vision

Wikipedia says, Tunnel vision is the loss of peripheral vision with retention of central vision, resulting in a constricted circular tunnel-like field of vision.

Like stripping out everything else in life so that one thing and one thing only becomes the focus of your life.

Sometimes your are in the tunnel.

Sometimes life is the tunnel.