What I look like

I was sitting in my office yesterday morning, and I noticed my old employee badge. I had it taken about 18 months ago because I had been wearing a beard for more than a year and figured my badge should look like me. I stopped in the middle of the day and got it done. I remember being in a pretty good mood

Anyway, I looked at the photo on the badge yesterday morning and what I saw was puffy, baggy eyed, and very stressed. It appeared that my face had been a little distorted and the effect was that I was quite misaligned. This photo would have been taken at my nadir (I believe that's the word for low point. If it's not, my apologies.).

I will scan that badge in as soon as I get my printer hooked up. With 8 inches of fresh powder on the ground, this chore may wait until next week. The best thing about feeling better is awareness. I love being more of a factor. I'm reading more - much more , thinking more, asking more questions and generally being more of a participant in my life.

Now that I work in a National Service capacity, all of this happy gratitude has me thinking about ways we can serve each other, and others. My kids have agreed to go volunteer on Martin Luther King day, so we'll go help out a local museum that needs cleaning up. These young AmeriCorps hooligans are always volunteering someplace and I'm definitely a slacker by comparison. More importantly, what our almost-president is asking us to do is to step up and let our bodies and our efforts reflect our values. I believe in the idea that we should all do something to improve our community because we live here. How often I actually do something that reflects this belief is a little embarrassing. I used to tell myself that because I was grossly underpaid and worked 50 hours per week working to get low income folks access to quality mental health care, my martyrdom excused me from participating.

On reflection, the martyrdom thing is over-rated. If one is martyred because one stands up for principle, then I'm all for one. However, the feeling of martyrdom, kissing cousin of self-pity, is just an excuse, license to allow one's self all sorts of negative liberties. And some damned fine martinis. With garlic olives. Jumbo. Mmmm.

But I digress.

Today good friends are coming south to join us as we play in a lot of very good snow. It's light and powdery and there is an abundance of it. We have about 7 inches of the new stuff on a base that's about 5 inches deep. It was bitterly cold. Here: a picture of a frozen sparrow!

I used to dislike sparrows. As a boy I was a bird watcher and liked the interesting birds. Sparrows are mundane and scrappy. I'm reading a book about China and in it is a story of how Mao decided that sparrows were undesirable. He required the workers and peasants to go stand near where sparrows roosted and yell and bang pots and pans all night. This exhausted the sparrows and after a week of this they died. Later during the Great Famine there was no one to eat the bugs.

Imagine being so powerful you could decree the doom of an entire species. We feed sparrows and starlings and in exchange we accept visits from mourning doves, juncos, cardinals and a spunky little downy woodpecker who always climbs up the pole as though it were a tree and helps himself to suet. The sparrows have a subtlety and an inevitability that I find reassuring. I used to think of myself as a flashier bird, but I am more sparrow like than I used to think.

My good friend Kevin, who knows me all too well, has always commented that I was born middle aged and am trying to get younger. Swinton used to comment on my "boyish enthusiasm" but I often settled, too fearful of chance to risk the big risks.

I am filled with joy this day and I don't care who knows. I invite you, whenever you read this, to do something good. Lay down a little positive karma in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Let your eyes scan the world about you and linger on the beauty you see. Kick a little snow on the dog shit and put a good picture in your head. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

--Bob Dylan