Keillor: The just and the unjust

Garrison Keillor's recent column in Salon.
Some days you're the windshield wiper, some days you're the bug--as Nancy Griffith sings about.
Enjoy.

The gift of today

Thanks to my friend John for pointing me to this ee cummings poem. And for visiting today.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings; and of the gay
great happening limitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

"I'm going to a place called Macon?"

Just now I was reading TrailJournals.com and I thought of an encounter in north Georgia with a hiker from Germany. This would have been 1990 or '91, when I lived in Macon. Before I (sort of) quit hiking in the woods by myself, I used to take off for the A.T. in Georgia or North Carolina. So one day I was at a trail crossing in north Georgia and this scraggly guy came off the trail. We exchanged pleasantries and the guy said he'd been hiking south from New Jersey. I asked him where he was headed when he was finished (in a few days' time) and he said, "I'm going to a place called Macon?" with that lilt in the voice, when the person isn't sure how to say a word.
So I said: "I live in Macon!
He asked me for my number. I was kind of leery, of course, so I wrote down a number that was one digit off my real number.
Well a few months went by, and I forgot about it. One day I was driving back to my apartment, glanced in my rearview mirror and saw THE VERY SAME GUY walking down the road. I knew this because he was waving frantically. (He recognized my car.) I kept going, not about to stop. Turns out, he had moved into the SAME EXACT apartment complex where I was living; and he did wave me down outside one day. He then said, "I kept trying to call you but the number was wrong."
So see, friends, if you lie (even if it might be for a good reason, like protecting yourself from a suspected pervert), the person from another country who hikes hundreds of miles and then moves to your own city will track you down. Happens all the time.

Texas shooter was Army doc

And a psychiatrist, at that. At first blush, I was shocked at the news. Shouldn't mental health professionals have it all together, um, mentally? But then I realized how insidious and widespread mental illness can be.
Prayers go out for all the victims, their families and Fort Hood community.
Update: News reports now say the shooter was wounded, but not killed.

When doctors double as cancer patients

The Times did a series on cancer, and one of the stories featured docs (and nurses) who were treated or have been treated for cancer. Some returned to practice. It's about how their perspective changed. I like how the one guy said his questions became altered. Instead of, Are you eating? and expecting a certain response, he knew what the answers meant/felt like. He knew that "eating soup," while not a full meal for most people, was the best the patient could muster.
You sure don't wish cancer on anyone, but I can't imagine how that experience couldn't help but change the people who deal with it so personally.

Introducing Leonard Cohen

I started the morning, at work, reading the blog of a friend in Atlanta.
Through something my friend quoted, I did some research on the quotee: Leonard Cohen.
Ever heard of him? I hadn't, until today.
Of particular note was this line from Cohen's work "Anthem": "Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
To read Dean Sam Candler's entire piece, go here.
(The one dated Nov. 3)
And here's Cohen's bio.

The road less traveled

Why does a week of vacation go by faster than a week of work?
This is one of Life's Big Puzzles.
Nonetheless, I'm grateful to have gotten away for a few days, into the mountains and the woods and among good friends.
Hope all is well with you, Internet.