24 Minutes Now, Connections Uncountable Later

 "The more important thing for me is that when I know someone don't want to understand me, I give up. I only want to connect, communicate with people who want to, not with people who don't want to."

What Do Ed Roberts and MLK Have in Common?

Probably quite a bit, but I'll let you do that research.  Both revolutionaries are celebrated this week in our country.

Celebrate Ed Roberts Day today by challenging at least one assumption.  You can start by challenging any disinclination you might have to clicking on this link and reading a short article about Ed Roberts:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ed-roberts-legacy-lives-on-in-youths-living-with-disabilities-187901931.html

Both visionaries inform my hopes and plans for my children's futures.  Let me begin to explain (by recycling a post from a year ago this week):

Ought to Be

May each of us see where potential greatness on any scale is being thwarted, may we call oppression what it is. May we speak against it. May we act to end it.

Stop Me If You've Already Heard This Picture

Rather than yanking the bottom pan out and letting those displaced clank and clatter down as is my careless custom, I remove each pot one by one.  Using both hands to lay each down, my fingers remain on the rim a second, muffling any possible din caused by contact with the counter.  This takes twice as long, but it's worth it.

I consult the full list of ingredients, planning to collect everything needed at once from a given cupboard or shelf, minimizing the number of times the cabinets and refrigerator tap shut.

Chopping is slow and measured, probably more coarse than usual, less uniform.  I turn the heat on as low as it will go without snuffing out.

Quiet.  Slow.  I listen, drawing dinner prep out.

Without any view to it, I attend to what's happening in the next room over.

Sister murmurs to sister, sing-song and soothing, ineffective protests, inspired only by habit and not meant to thwart in the least.   Pillows puff to the floor. I can envision the Younger's disdain inspiring casual, haphazard tosses. We barely register it anymore, much less expect to stop it. Between puffs, Younger emits sighs of satisfaction. With small transition I cannot decipher, abruptly I hear knees and elbows bump and graze the floor; a teasing, laughing tone in whatever Older is saying to Younger.  During short pauses, pealing squeals in a pitch reserved for only these sessions are squeezed from the smaller of the two.  The Older maintains her monologue shifting in modulation extremes herself, just for the entertainment value.

This faster paced, more raucous soundtrack continues, capriciously paced, yet with a cadence familiar and well-worn.  It slows, the sighs come from both, jarringly similar to each other, each communicating the same thing without words.  Drowse, languish, slack, ease.

Brief silence.  Sounds of agreement, consent and unity.  Older resumes the sing-song murmur while Younger responds inaudibly, contributing what she must to sustain.  Maybe an arm around Older, both hands on her cheeks, a constant locked gaze, a sign that says "more." I imagine they are flopped on the carpet right where their wrestling ended, face to face. I don't know. It's between them.  Not about me.  I am stealing right now and I know it.  They will forgive as they always do.

The wooden spatula that pushes the vegetables around the pan, disconnected from my hand that holds it, drops suddenly.  I need to go look at something.

A picture.  From a few years ago.  Halloween, I'm certain of it.  Yes, I'll find it in "October, 2010."

A photograph of what I can hear from the other room.

Not My Foe

Day 2: Holiday Running Streak

31 degrees, high winds, wind chill in the teens

Advised to run north/south as winds race from the west, I was fairly comfortable in the middle of suburban blocks, only feeling the brunt at the corners and in the middle of each street as weighty wafts swept in from the west.

Before long, the wind switched and churned frantically, surprising me with its swift slaps from unanticipated directions.

OK. I won't let it chase me.  I'll run straight north and bear it.  This is to be a short run after all.

It railed on. The menacing hum and shift had tentacles wrapped around my knees, reaching down my throat, taunting my lungs.  Tempest tendrils reached under my hat, lifted my earbuds, drowned the music. 

Once my attention was absolute and my stiff knees slackened, poised for surrender, Wind whispered in contradictory baleful howls,

"I am not your enemy."

I am not your enemy.

We finished in constant company.