The day started off unusual and strange. Rainy, cold and drizzly for mid June; unheard of! While on social media, I noticed three posts by a “Friend”. The first had to do with the oppression of one’s freedom of speech, the second had to do with bigotry and racism, and the third was downright misleading and untruthful.
And, silly me, I engaged in the first post. Trying to get the “Friend” to look at another side, to be open minded. However, it didn’t work. This person would always fire back with an emotionally charged, radically spirited answer. When it got to the third and final post, one in which a video was taken in a very short clip, and then repeated throughout the video to make it longer, I started to become angry. It was about the border “wall” and one small section, played three times in the run to make it look like it was longer than it was. And then the friend’s comment below the video/, insinuating that our current president built the whole thing, when I personally know and have experience that this isn’t true.
Being a supporter of truth when I know nothing else, I tried to make a comment, asking if the “friend” would consider the facts. And as such, commenting was turned off. In my mind, this “friend” was forcing their beliefs on me in a very aggressive, controlling way, without an ounce of courage to accept the fact she might be wrong. Not a democracy by my standards.
Gathering my thoughts and containing my anger, I posted a statement on social media as to who I was, what I stood for and what I would not tolerate. I also apologized for my foolishness for engaging with this person. This was posted just to my group of social media friends in the hopes that they would have a better picture of who they were dealing with. And if they chose to drop me, then so be it; the statement gave them the opportunity.
Then Mr. AuntMayme and I had to go out for several hours. While driving on the highway, just ahead of us were two catbirds, a male and a female, right in our line of fire. It was clear to me what the male was doing–trying to get the female off the road. Then came the gut wrenching sound of when an animal is hit by a car; our car.
Now, I’m not an emotional person. I don’t cry in movies, I don’t cry at weddings. But somewhere deep in my soul, a gut wrenching howl came out and I burst into tears. I couldn’t contain myself. I had the picture of those two birds in my mind; the way the female gently touched the male’s head, but stayed put. How the male kept coming back to her to get her to move. I couldn’t tell from the passenger side of the car if she had been injured, but it didn’t matter. Their birdsong, comprised of beautiful songs similar to other birds, interlaced with a “meow” every now and then, was ceased. And my anger and sadness couldn’t be contained. Then I did something I was compelled to do; I googled if catbirds mated for life and the unthinkable answer came back, YES.
When we got home, I realized I had to do something; I had to make right the morning and the trip. I was reminded of a video channel I’ve been watching as of late, Bealtaine Cottage. It’s about a woman who purchased three acres of farmland in Ireland, with a dilapidated cottage and turned it into an Eden. She has written a book about her journey from London, giving up cigarettes and drinking, to settle down in the Irish countryside and build the most beautiful garden and home anyone could lay their soul starved eyes on.
Colette, the author, states in one video about the power of women. How we need to “just do something” in the trials of our lives. And so I did. It’s been raining quite heavily here, and my vegetable beds were looking cold and desolate. I quickly contemplated what to do and traveled out to my vegetable beds, laying row covers around my warm weather plants; beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.
Then I ordered Colette’s book, A Cottage and Three Acres, for an estranged friend. This friend I’ve often admired for her courage to pack up where she was living, move to the country and start a new life. Our estrangement has more to do with our personality differences than it has to do with our love of the planet and all things on it, of which we are both in agreement.
Then I sat down and made Colette something because I “just had to sew”. When done, I wrote her a letter of how she touched my life this day; how her words instilled in me that “All is well if we let it be” and included it in the envelope with the gift. Not sure how the day would end, I let the phrase stay in my mind.
Finally, at the end of the day, I watched a video of hers, as I so often do in the evening. The last part of the video, she references Christopher Hitchens, the well-known atheist. This I found strange, as it didn’t fall in line with whom I felt Colette to be, but I listened on. She said that at the end of his life, when dying of cancer, Hitchens was asked a question and that his answer was “In the end, love is all there is”.
Then the image of the two catbirds on the highway came to mind. In their end, that was all there was. The hurt was gone.
Aunt Mayme's Attic 