Sunday night already. Seems to me I was just watching 'Monk'. I love the show. Have watched since the very first show nine seasons ago. Tony Shalhoub is one of my favorites. He inhabits the men he plays. His humanity is wonderful. Remember him in 'Wings'? He was the Italian cab driver. There was a kind of hilarious, off beat brilliance to the cabby..

When he won his first Emmy for best comedy for 'Monk', he said something to the effect that it wasn't a comedy. It wasn't supposed to be funny. He said it with a very straight face. It isn't all funny:Monk is a wounded soul, desperate to find the one who killed his wife and his life in one fell swoop. But Monk keeps trudging. All his nervous compulsions hold him, just barely, on this side of sanity.

I laugh until I weep. And then I weep for his vulnerability, his huge loss, and at the recognition of how much he adored his wife. Sometimes his loneliness eats right through my skin. And then he's busy at work again, seeing things as only he can. It's his attention to the tiniest of details that allows him to solve the mysteries. The same attention to details, the constant straightening of corners, the evening up of spaces between things, the noticing of things just slightly awry that defines his obsessive compulsions, is what allows him to see what others do not. His 'craziness' is what makes him valuable as a detective and lovable/maddening as a person. I weep until I laugh.

It occurs to me that each show is a lot like a good meeting. It occurs to me that among the gifts of meetings is that I have learned to listen to stuff that is not about me, specifically. I hear about things that apparently have little to do with my life, and realize they have everything to do with how I view the world. It's the pang of recognition: we are more alike then different. My ways of staying on this side of sanity are different from Monk's, but he would probably view my ways with the same combination of laughter, tears, and attention as I view his.

Getting the hang of things

It's a good thing I am retired from whatever I did for pay. I have been sitting here at the computer since 3:00, changing the name of my blog spot to what I thought I had called it at the beginning. And then I learned how to change the picture that will always come up --- for a while. (How is that for an alcoholic description of things? always ... for a while.)

I love the picture that is up there now. That shot was taken going west from Idaho in Washington State during a horrific fire season last summer. I love telephone poles, fence posts, the dotted line in the center of a two-lane road, going on and on and on. I think those things tell me that I have plenty enough time to explore the rest of my life. Trudge, roll on, drive thru the night following the 'road of happy destiny'.

Something about yearning-- some old interior ache that sings a song of the open road, and yet I fret about my potted plants (more than most would suppose), my bird feeders and bird baths when I am on the road. I hire someone I trust with my heart to protect them from the consequences of my wanderlust.

The dogs and cat go with us when we pull our 5th wheel through this country of ours, as well as Canada. Everybody rides in the extended cab of our 1999 Ford 250 diesel. Open the window and we blanket the land we love with pet dander. I bring rocks back from our escapades, and dried weeds and grasses and seed pods. Since the advent of digital cameras I have brought back a couple of 1G chips, full of shots --" America at 70 mph", I call them. Lots, shot through the passenger side window, have reflections of the cab interior hanging mysteriously in the background.

We go miles and miles without talking, but it is infinitely more peaceful now that we don't listen to talk radio -- only books on tape, speaker tapes, and an occasional ball game. I asked Warren if we were bored with each other or just comfortable in each other's presence. He said it was the latter, and that was good enough for me. And on and on we roll, shooting wonders from the passenger's side, petting the cat, and thinking about love and dinner.

I just finished a post on caringbridge to the son of a dear friend. Testicular cancer, good prognosis, dreadful ordeal for the family. His daughters are 10 and 4: he wants to dance at their weddings, but first at their proms, and with his wife, whom he loves dearly, whenever the mood strikes.

Caringbridge is a wonder: it allows him to journal whenever he wants, and the people who go to the site can see how things are going for him. He only has to say things once, and all those people who love him can read his posts and then leave messages for him. It's terrific.

Several former students (he is a highschool chemistry+ teacher) write from college where they are majoring in all kinds of things, including science, to tell him of their gratitude for his introducing them to science. They speak of "the JOY of science." Imagine, just imagine the quality of teaching that represents.

Hooray for John. His family, sister, cousins, mom are womaning his rounds of hi-test chemo and recovery from it, while his wife works full time and keeps things as normal as possible for their children. Good stuff. Family at its best, and it's real, within my own circle of friends. Talk
about miracles.

September 11, 2009 .... It turns out I have very few pictures of me: I am the one taking pictures. There's a part of me that believes that if I take a picture of what enchants or intrigues me, that thing or view or face will hold that place in my mind for as long as I need it. I have hundreds of pics in IPhoto, hundreds of my grandchildren (particularly the littler girls, since they spend a lot of time here, and I can follow them around with a camera long enough that they forget I am photographing them). It makes for some lovely shots that catch them in many different kinds of light, moods. I have recorded their changing facial and body contours. They started out as such round, mama's milk tykes, and are becoming lovelier and more mysterious as they grow up. "Age" doesn't work as a verb for a four year old special needs lambie, or her eight and a half year old, diamond bright, fourth grade sister. I love capturing the fleetingness of their facial expressions. They are my canaries in the coal mine of my life.

I am more illiterate at all things blog than i feared

We were just sitting there in the living room, eating home-made scones (everyone else had scone, I had scones), admiring her newly framed paintings by an artist friend, and she said "why don't I just turn on the computer and help you set a blog?" and I demurred and went home.

And here I am seven hours later, having flunked the words for creating an account more often than I care to admit, writing my very first blog and thinking "why didn't I start the book she gave me and go to bed?"

And so I will.