Stressful Times

Outside I’m cleansing my palate of all the isolation and bitterness I see. From watching the news and social media, that fills my mind with the poison of fear and division. But now that I’m in the backyard, where even the joshing of the EMC crews is a welcome distraction between what is real and what is fake. Why do we allow a handful of bitter souls dictate our thoughts? When it is clear the real world simply operates like a clunky, but we’ll oiled machine. 

Listening to a combination of chatter, truck back-up buzzers, and the occasional songbird bird. I am surrounded by everything but the mindless clutter of well-worn rhetoric that spews from the screen. I marvel at the balance of the antenna tower next to my home, while the same time I am amazed by the complexity and balance of the sycamore trees.  Why do we so enjoy the superficial? The talking clans of ignorance that believes they can explain away the randomness of it all. 
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I sit here in the mid-afternoon, while cars and utility trucks pass by. Seemingly unconcerned with the breeze blowing the remaining leaves that wave it me on this picture-perfect day. An elderly neighbor walks by, with two or three kids in tow as she does three times a day. With a walking stick in hand, her name brand track shoes that look out of place, with her button-up sweater and long skirt. Yet this is what’s real, this is what I cling too, in these seemingly fearful and stressful times.