Well I will say it was a very beautiful day indeed, and the only thing that put a pall over it was my own brain making up scenarios. The brain is a powerful weapon, and honestly, not always a friend. We would do well to tell it to hush a lot of the time. Lemme see if I can find that poem. Standby.

my brain and
heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become

eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other

now my head and heart
share custody of me

I stay with my brain
during the week

and my heart
gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another- instead, they give me

the same note to pass
to each other every week

and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:

“This is all your fault”

on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past

and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future

they blame each
other for the
state of my life

there’s been a lot
of yelling – and crying

so, lately I’ve been

spending a lot of
time with my gut

who serves as my
unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut’s plush leather chair
that’s always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up

last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head

I nodded

I said I didn’t know
if I could live with
either of them anymore

“my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,”
I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

“I just can’t live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,”
I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

“in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,”

I was confused

the look on my face gave it away

“if you are exhausted about
your heart’s obsession with
the fixed past and your mind’s focus
on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out.”

this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves

and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs

I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs

before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said

“what took you so long?”

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)

Isn’t that wonderful? It’s so true. If we could just learn to breathe through situations and put it in perspective that we can’t change people, all we are in charge of is how we react. And it’s just flat not worth getting bent out of shape over. The people who are incensing us certainly aren’t bothered by their behavior. Which brings me to my next subject…

How far should manners extend? At what point do you tell someone to act responsibly and you aren’t going to help them? Should you outright lie to protect feelings?

I pride myself on being honest, and manners tend to fall to the wayside in favor of being honest above all. This is in direct conflict with how the Bible tells us to behave. Well, that’s my understanding, anyway. It preaches love, and I do know that my acerbic tongue could use a good dose of sugar most always. Not that putting things more sweetly is always the best route. Sometimes it just builds on the problem. So say you have someone in your life that you aren’t particularly fond of, but you’re forced to get along. Whether it be a cousin, coworker, doorman at your apartment, whatever. And this person is regularly asking for favors. You never ask anything of this person, partially because you’re self reliant, but also because you’re not comfortable asking favors from people you barely know. So this person hasn’t truly appreciated the things you’ve done for them in the past, and they ask you this last favor and you flat shoot them down, and cite reasons why. And then they’re put out with you all day and say they’ll remember this instance, which doubly infuriates you.

I realize I’m not giving you enough information. But I’m irritated and don’t want to relive it and of the three people I’ve polled, I’m justified in my decision not to help (again). It’s like, should I have lied and made up some excuse why I couldn’t perform said favor? Would that soften the blow? Or would I continue to be asked to do things that I’m not entirely comfortable with? And honestly, the asking will probably continue because this person is an oblivious moron.

You never know who you’re gonna run into or what you’re gonna see when you go out. There’s always a chance it might be something truly spectacular. Tonight we saw these women.

Probably wasn’t very nice of me to sneak a picture, but they were too eclectic to pass up. And obviously it was on purpose. Her shirt was STARCHED. They were out on the town! I love to see women out in groups, sharing secrets and giggling and just having a good time without being in competition or worrying that their husbands are ready to go.

Kay and I were talking about these older ladies who lose a husband, whether it be through death or divorce, and the just stay home and dry up because they don’t know what else to do. Now, it ain’t like I’m setting the world on fire and out there tearing it up, but I do feel like I’m in the mix of things regularly. You wanna get out! It’s good for you. Kay said, “I wanna see the pink ladies!” Indeed. Me too. I wanna be eccentric and not give one red rat’s ass what anybody thinks about me, just like always. I hope I’ve always got a friend who doesn’t bat an eye. But who will also gently persuade me to leave the bunny ears at home. Unless I’m just dead set on them.

Well, anyway, alls well that ends well. And Kay and I ended with mudslides, so that’s a fine a way as any.

Cheers from Appalachia,

~Amy

P.s. I know a man who kissed a dog for the first time today. He was proud of him, and got lost in the moment. I’m as proud of that as anything else that happened today. It’s okay to be a hard ass, but there’s no sense in trying to be one around a good dog. 🥰