BRING IT ON MOTHER NATURE!

Summer roses in our garden

Preparing my yard for autumn and a long cold winter, a detestable end of the summer ritual, proceeded forth today without notice. The world kept rotating. I always considerate it a “life sucks” adventure. Behind me rests summer memories of travel, warm pleasant times, grilled food outdoors and pleasant gatherings with family members. Ahead winter positions itself like a monstrous Sasquatch threatening with cold, icy days, dreary gray, bleak skies, and bone-chilling temperatures. For me, winter is a “life sucks and then you die” trauma. Once, before making Idaho my home, I longed for the crispness of autumn, colored brilliantly with trees toasting the advent of rainy winter days, and the smell of burning wood from homey fireplaces, smoke wafting through the rain-fresh air. That was then in California, and now is now in Rexburg, Idaho. The “now” finds me scurrying to clip and cut back the overgrowth of summer, stashing away yard ornaments, delicate hybrid roses, and pots that quite possibly could succumb to the brutality of Sasquatch. I worry about my ornamental Koi hibernating beneath miniature granite-boulder caves in the pond soon to be camouflaged by ice and snow.

Koi enjoying summer

Yet, those mentioned memories of traveling to London melt the frozen mind-snows as I review my photos, and fill my mind with adventure among the Brits. I love the British Isles. Scotland, my ancestral heritage, especially surfaces as a favorite destination. However, spending a few days in London this summer, taking side trips to Brighton, a seaside resort on the south coast, and York, a medieval city with a magnificent cathedral at its core, contributed to a forgetfulness of that which was left behind in the U.S.

London's Big Ben

Royal Pavilion at Brighton, George IV's "playhouse"

London Tower - "off with their heads"

A grotesque at Westminster Cathedral

Escape, defined as breaking free from confinement and control, perfectly describes travel. An opportunity to empty, and refill with new energy is necessary for survival of the human. One’s mind and spirit becomes confined and smothered, yearning, even demanding to be set free to sponge up others’ creative juices in magnificent architecture, and the historic leftovers exhibited in museums. Art stimulates and encourages the spirit to soar, and to breathe new life into the mind and soul. Eyes are opened to new possibilities. Rejuvenation!

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Megan & Ryan

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

So, allow autumn her privilege of whispering what is yet to come. Mother Nature may be cruel and harsh this winter, but as autumn’s warning of the impending arrival of winter is confident, and beyond any doubt winter will kill what autumn has not, so is my confidence that life, for me, might suck were it not for those flashbacks of summer travel, family gatherings, and food grilling on the barbeque. Bring it on, Mother Nature.

Eating a Philly Steak Sandwich

S'mores around the fire in McCall

Amy celebrating her birthday in McCall with a giant cinnamon roll

Sympathy or a nap...

Mucha stained-glass window, St. Vitus Cathedral, Czech Republic

It was 7:00 PM. I finally had my “teacher homework” gathered in my bag, laptop safely stowed, and other paraphernalia stuffed in the pockets of my old black, aging briefcase. I turned off my office lights, slung the bag over my shoulder and carefully descended the stairs out into the crisp evening walking slowly to my car. A young girl stepped in front of my intended path talking intently on her phone. “ Yes,” she said, “ I had a class this morning, and a 3½-hour nap.” I nearly sunk to my knees and cried. I could barely get to my car following a day of classes, helping students solve design problems, dealing with various computer issues, and a myriad of other daily activities. My lawn has not been mowed in two weeks. Frost has killed all my potted flowers, and they hang in a comatose tangle of limpness. No time to clean up fall’s destructive attack. So, how is it that a student attending a university can have a 3½-hour nap? Obviously, “life does suck,” at least for me. I cannot even remember when the last time was that I had a nap at all! (I am not counting church meetings, or presentations in class in that tabulation.)

But, allow me to progress to the point of this blog. The title was conceptualized as a result of my personality. I have been accused of being negative throughout my life. I personally refer to it as being realistic. In addition, I interlaced my perceived negativity with good doses of sarcasm. Voilà…the birthing of a skeptical, negative, sarcastic person! And, I was such a sweet little boy. Anyway, when the title erupted from my sarcastic mouth, my daughter, Megan, laughed and indicated that she and my other daughter, Heather, had discussed, behind my back, mind you, my lack of sympathy. They agreed that the title was perfect for one such as I. Even my son, Logan, when asked on the phone the other night, if I was a “non-sympathetic,” he, too, cast his lot into the affirmative barrel of believers. It seems that when life has smacked them along side of the head, and they wanted to download on me, I just uttered those infamous words, “life sucks and then you die”. Actually, it is not that there is a lack of sympathy on my part; it is just that at my mature age, I have dealt with some of life’s little surprises, challenges, trials (like not having a nap)…whatever you want to call them. They are just part of this life, and its numerous disappoints. Like the squirrel that runs back and forth across the road, there may come the time when a car hits the varmint dead center. (Excuse the pun.) Welcome to life, or death.

The dictionary defines sympathy as being “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone’s misfortune,” or “ a formal expression of such feelings”. When I read this definition, I was surprised that my family perceived me as the grumpy old man that could quite possibly drive over the above said squirrel and feel no sympathy for the loss of it’s life. Funny, this is the same person that, after killing his first deer, looked into its eyes and vowed never to take the life of an animal without need or cause again. This is the same person that cries taking out the garbage – usually because tender feelings have been touched by the needs of someone else, or the sorrows of my children, or the brutality of life itself. I know…you think I need medication. Got that covered. Apparently, my persona is quite different than who I thought I was all of this time. That just might be one of life’s little surprises I mentioned above. Yes, now and then “life sucks”

Me at about two years old. This kid is filled with sympathy.

The issue with sympathy is this. If we sit around whining about what has happened to us, how life is unfair, expecting people to pour out sympathy and solve our discomforts, whether a result of being a victim, or of our own poor decision making, we never climb out of our pity-pile. Therefore, we are a victim paralyzed by our need for sympathy and coddling. We do not accomplish, achieve, love, or attain our greatest potential. There is a sense of entitlement to having someone lollygag over us. Waste of time. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone loves to have someone appreciate and care about them. Even Mr. Grumpy Old Man appreciates a comforting smile or attention. Call it sympathy. Call it what you may. Just allow me a 3 ½ hour nap once in awhile!

Cambodia,12th Century Angkor Wat water lilies

THOUGHTS ON LIFE

The McRae Homeland

A comment on the title of this first blog...

The noted naturalist, John Muir, a Scotsman whose philosophies influenced the formation of the modern environmental movement, once stated,

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion. Chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

It is probably fact that Muir was not a respecter of organized religion, or of a God, per se. However, there was within his study an appreciation of nature, an understanding of the interconnection of that nature and a soul. Well, his definition of a soul. Frankly, I am not interested in what his philosophy was on those matters – God, soul and such. I will be honest. I just liked his quote. There is within it a connection between life and how it reacts with the natural man – “the building, and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing” aspect. Is that not what life is like? Definitely, it is NOT that dreamy, fantasy-like, magical, romantic place where lovers reside in seclusion making us all ill with their twitterpated wooing and drooling on each other. It is not the cutting and pasting of scrapbook cuteness. In contrast, it sucks most of the time. Only youth are still star-struck with the magic of mortal life. The rest of mankind is being pulled about, whirling and flowing in the hurricane winds of sickness, depression, poverty, stress, death, starvation, divorce, pornography, and aging - among a few of the challenges of our existence on this planet. And do not think for a moment that aging is a joyride on the merry-go-round of life. Far from it.

I could enumerate dozens of acquaint- ances who struggle with the above everyday. I have a friend that lies awake at night worrying about her son that appears to indicate a learning disorder. His teachers tell the parents he will never graduate from seventh grade. There is the student whose husband battles cancer. They are just on the precipice of life. There is my daughter, her children and thousands like them. They have been abandoned by self-indulgent husbands and fathers that are chained to, and smothered by one of the world's most insidious sins, that of pornography. I do not think anyone wants to wear the shoes of any of these individuals, but so many have no choice in the matter. Life is agency, and agency is choice, and millions around the world make choices that destroy the lives of others. Many just suffer as victims of life. The process, as Muir described, of "creating and destroying" is carried forth.

Tell me that life does not suck, and that after a lifetime of wrestling with these stimulating tests of abilities, we do not end up six feet under. So be it. However, the trick is not allowing the “struggles” to diminish our abilities. We will all die, and, by the way, it will still cost you an unbelievable amount of money to do that! My daughter who has been left with three children has risen like the Phoenix to higher levels of ability. Pioneer spirit and blood truly runs through her veins. She soars higher, and more often than not, tires from the soaring. There will be an answer to my friend and her son’s dilemma. Cancer will be smothered one way or another. None of the examples mentioned above have “died.” They have chosen to fight the good fight, and as a consequence, will “chase everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.”

True, life sucks, but we do not have to die as a result of living it.

Sand Cherry in the spring.