I had a really good hike with the girl child yesterday. we hiked up to the whole foods, now known as Cary Mecca, as it seems they have conspired with the authorities to close down the two other holy sites of Cary, those being Lifetime fitness ad trader joes. it was solid 2.5 miles, and we double-timed it the whole way, with breaks for her to “rolll down the hill”.
good times.
I made some amazing pork chops for dinner last night, agains, slow roasted with garlic, thyme, and sea salt, onions and potatoes roasted in the same pan. the pork fat and the potato starches just mix beautifully with the sugars of the onion to create this amazing sauce that coats everything. I have totally rediscovered my love of cooking.
My wife and i discussed at length the plight of new york. I have friends and family there, and I hope that I retain the same number when this is all over. as none of them are young, and few could be called wise, we will count on the fact that they are all somewhat durable and resilient.
If no-one has heard, I have it on Very good authority that wake county will be essentially closed down until april 30 starting at 5pm on March 26. I read the order and its not too bad. you can leave exercise, do necessary shit, shop, buy gas, help others, and things necessary to your job, health, security etc.. its honestly pretty loose. just done gather in groups who then go gather in other groups. Scary to conspiracy theorists who don’t trust the government, like myself, but liberating also to people who tend to flourish is bullshit developing nation conditions, like myself. Im so torn. one part of me is like, OMG, it really looks like some leftist coup where one party is using this as a catalyst to take over. the other part of me doesn’t really give a shit as they can’t even run their own party effectively, thought they have more effectively destroyed some of americas best cities (Chicago, San Francisco, New York).
Then there’s a part of me, that resourceful beast, that human who walked like a ghost through borders and different social strata and who lived out of a bag for years, spoke different languages in distant lands, and had much less than and did much more then than now, and was much, much happier. There was a muslim butcherI would walk to. His son was called Mohamed and he would give me the best cuts of meat, though this is not what I paid for. I would tell him about america.
The part of me that has witnesses the strength of the human spirit in the most dire of times and the most oppressive of conditions, and knows, oh, understands the strength of that same human spirit, that flame that can never be extinguished.
Have the layers and layers of political theater and kardashian glitter and new home construction and endless, needless technology, obscured that from a whole generation, and make another generation forget? that deeper strength of self, the endless call of the horizon, the deities found, as Charlemagne so eloquently put it, in the sunshine on our shoulders, the green grass under our feet, the birds our choirs everlasting ?
In this time of reflection, give that we have the time to strengthen our bodies and make sharp our minds once again, unbridled from the grindstone, the endless gristmill of society, also find strength in the human spirit of reconnecting with our neighbors, with our community, and with those around us?
not by virtue of shallow etiquette or the constant fiduciary demands of “networking” but to really know them. by their dreams, their smiles, the food on their shelves, their pictures, their favorite movies. WHO they are, all the beautiful layers inside. their joy, their grief. the cracks in the vase that make in unique.
As your worlds suddenly seems to get smaller people, look not outside, but inside yourselves and those around you will find that those horizons are really quite endless.
I knew a butcher once. His son was called Mohamed.
He was my friend.