Doofy Stuff

Twilight nears I listen from bed as two cars, miles apart, far away, begin their long commute. I have never seen them, nor they, the other. But I hear them as if they brushed us by. In the dark each day nearby roads' only traffic, they drive. 5 In the woods two packs of coyotes fiercely, collectively yipping, outshout the other. 5 In the dark, I lift the cook stove lid and if I am lucky there are embers I can grow to fire. Onto that, the percolator, and then I sink back into bed, hoping to wake with hot coffee at dawn. At 5, the chickens still nestle quietly in their coop. An owl hoots and as spring approaches I dream of the whippoorwill's dark songs.

We protest we are unaffected by standards of beauty. We raise our children to emphasize their inside, and leave their outside unremarked. But even we, as much as we rail and buck and resist secretly eye the dark hair on our girl child's limbs. Secretly note secretly worry secretly loathe myself for even noticing. Until one day in the sun's afternoon rays I watching that body whirling strong child climbing jumping galloping through the field she looks down at her arms her legs stretches them out to declare, "...and LOOK AT MY FUR." And in that second, I crystallized pride in sudden practical purposeful beauty of all that fur.

Hidden webs revealed, they are everywhere showing plain now, in fog's dense wet touch.

The sound of cicadas reminds me of endless Indian dancers- Beads flying, bare dusty feet pounding rhythm into earth.

Photo: Jennifer Ellison Today, I want to, for my own thoughts, write about The Walking Man. Three, four years ago, my children began their journey into school. A great opportunity, I was willing to drive across town in order for them to attend a school-within-a-school that taught not just SOLs but a European curriculum. A school, where in Richmond, Virginia, you could count over 27 nations represented in the classrooms. So I went from a stay-at-home-yet-telecommuting-and-businesses-running-professional, whose daily work commute was ten feet, whose nursery school was blocks away, to driving down an old, lengthy road, through  neighborhoods, across an interstate, past the library, around the Costco, allllllmost to the sprawling business park to reach their special school. Daily, I would take a late lunch break to fetch them. The seasons changed, and as I passed the same landmarks along my travels, I watched gardens grow, roses bloom, old men raking, and... The Walking Man....

I hate football... I can list endless data on why it's a sport that needs to end, beginning with  concussions and the permanent damage they cause , much less data on the  prevalence of youth concussions not just at games, but at practice .  Like many in our nation,  I've been contemplating football, and the outcry and issues over kneeling during football games ... "Kaepernick’s anthem protests began during the 2016 preseason, under a different president and largely unnoticed at first, in the wake of several high-profile incidents in which black Americans were killed during interactions with police officers. Initially, Kaepernick protested by sitting down.  'I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,' he told NFL Media at the time.  'To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.'  After his seated protests drew scrutiny, Kae...