Sometimes, seeing or hearing or otherwise observing someone else’s mental anguish—even if that someone is a stranger or a person with whom one’s connection is faint or weak—sparks a powerful response. Their pain becomes personal, as if their suffering has invaded one’s own experience. Neither sympathy nor empathy nor compassion is quite the right word to fully describe that sensation. Rather, the experience is more like being consumed by the invisible flames of a distant emotional firestorm.
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My curiosity concerning the source of the images of carved peach pits about which I wrote yesterday has been satisfied; the grandfather of my sister’s childhood friend was the carver. That explanation prompts more questions about when and why and how he carved the little peach pit baskets. Answers to those questions now seem within my grasp. The next time I speak with my sister, I’ll try to remember to ask for more details. Thanks, Libba.
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I imagine gazing up at a brilliantly clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. My eyes fixed on that uninterrupted emptiness, extremely dim grey cracks begin to appear; cracks like those that appear on mud flats that have dried after days under an unforgiving, bright sun. The grey cracks grow darker as I continue staring upward, finally becoming jet black. A piece of the blue sky, surrounded by black cracks, breaks away and falls to the ground below. Behind the piece of sky that fell is pure black, exactly like the cracks. The blue chunk, which floats to the ground, contrasts sharply with the dull tan earth. Another piece of blue sky drops from above; like the first one, the piece that drops leaves a black wound. More and more irregularly-shaped blue scraps plunge to the ground, leaving behind them the same empty blackness that was behind the other pieces. Before long, the ground is covered in brilliant sky-blue; solid, with no cracks between the fallen pieces. The sky is black; no stars, no moon, no sun. Just vacant black space. As I glance at the ground, I see reflections of alligators swimming through the black emptiness above me. But they may not be reptiles, after all. They may be memories, covered in an irregular pattern of small, square scales.
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Flattery is, too often, a cesspool filled with lies. But when it’s true, it should be given freely.
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I’ve taken to thinking in random, nonsensical bursts of revelation. For that reason, I would like to have a tailor come to visit me with samples. A grey tweed jacket, casual in style, perfectly fitted casual slacks, and complementary shirt (plus a nice pair of shoes, from the cobbler’s own specialty shop) would be nice. Bespoke is beautiful.
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Another visit to the oncologist in less than an hour. Will it ever end?
Intriguing, Bev! I love to see and hear stories of such generosity, wrought of compassion and experience and capacity…evidence that hard times can expose and spread and even amplify the decency of people who are, already, good folks.
My mother used to talk about a man who carved peach pits. She was just a young girl and remembered him coming and her mother always giving this man soup, bread or whatever when he stopped at their house. This was during the Depression and he was what was considered a hobo in those days — travelled around and sometimes showed up in their little town. His name was Earn Rella (probably not spelled that way, but that’s how it sounded). I think he carved tiny scenes into the inside of the pits — I’m not sure of that, but I remember my mom describing them as being sort of that way. He would give some to my mom and her mother as a sort of repayment for giving him some food when he passed through their town. My mom’s mom fed a lot of people who passed by — not that they had a ton of food as there were 10 kids in the family, but my grandfather worked on the locks of the old St. Lawrence Seaway back when it was just a canal. They had a vegetable garden beside the locks, and a Jersey cow that grazed along the canal, and they hunted and fished, so were able to share some food with people in need. In those days, my mom’s mom also used to have a First Nations people drop in for tea and lunch with her. They fished and kept livestock on some of the islands in the Thousand Islands area where my mom’s family lived. My grandmother learned about medicinal plants from them and she herself was a knowledgeable herbalist. I think she would have had to have been to raise a family in those days in a very rural area where there would not have been much of a medical system.