A Long Look at Life

I was glad to wake up this morning and escape from a bad dream. I think the dream was due to the remnants of a book I’m reading plus my own imagination that got together and threw this yucky nightmare into my subconscious, but you know what? The figment of fiction disturbing my sleep was not real, and that’s good. But, for good or ill, I started philosophizing.

For some reason, known or unknown, we go through unpleasant stretches but the good thing about them is they don’t last, like that dream. My good experiences far outnumber the bad. I look on those unpleasant things as lessons learned and try not to dwell on them.

At certain milestones, it’s nice to look back and do a little check-up on life. Being in a philosophical mood, I continued with these deep thoughts. I know. It’s an awful way to begin the day, and it was probably because I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee yet. Mostly, I thought about the people in my life. People–they are what make life important and worthwhile. It isn’t the hard times or the good; it’s the ones we love, the ones who love us that make the difference.

A long time ago, someone wrote “life is dappled shade and sunshine.” Sometimes the shade is darker than that…life can be a black, stormy night, but even then, in the midst of the darkness, there’s a glimmer of light, a hope that things will get better. Those storms are made a lot lighter if you have a hand to hold, someone who believes in you, no matter what. Someone who knows you but likes you anyway, who may not agree but doesn’t condemn.

The book I mentioned took place in England, at the turn of the last century, and people were stuck in certain lifestyles, hemmed in by tradition and false ideas of superiority and inferiority. Ladies and gentlemen were so called because of inheritance and title, not because of the person they really were beneath the facade of flounce and false aristocracy. Those ideas were a little depressing, but I hope that attitude has been largely eradicated. Some of the finest people I’ve known, true ladies and gentlemen, didn’t have a dime in their savings account but knew innately what was real and worthwhile and disdained what was not.

So, what does any of this have to do with anything on this beautiful April morning? Probably nothing. They are just the ramblings of a silver-haired Oklahoman turned Arkansan who is feeling a little dazed by the fact that on this day, more than seven decades ago, I entered the rain-drenched world and immediately decided it was an interesting place, worth exploring and thinking about. I’ve been doing that ever since.

Manos Meadows Mysteries
Cozies with an Extra Shiver

Sometimes Darcy and Flora wax philosophical too, especially Flora. Ned McNeil, when she talks to her cat Penny delves into the mysteries of life.