Worries of the World

Frogpond Chronicles has been the vehicle I hoped it would be as a means to bring me back to the "now" on a daily basis.  It's a perfect medium for refocusing negative thoughts -- from inward fretting where I'm stuck worrying about the past and future, to stepping back into the present and actually experiencing it.  That said...

Lately it's been more and more of a struggle to stay positive and in the moment. Centered.  When I turn on NPR on the way home from work and hear in my little car the snap of gunshots and explosions in Syria, all that staying positive and in the moment becomes supremely Pollyanna-ish.  The news from the wide world is bleak. And, on a national level, listening to the pronouncements coming from the Republican candidates is, frankly, terrifying.   From closer to home, our school district is suffering more than ever from economic cuts.  Last week, the talk was of six to eight teachers being laid off this spring.  As of yesterday, the official number jumped up to eighteen -- maybe twenty.  It's also out there that we'll be asked to take a 6% pay cut (along with our current 7 day furlough).  For me, this is only a belt-tightening hardship, as I have a spouse who has a job where his salary is not going down from year to year.  For others, where teaching is their only source of income, a pay reduction like this means losing their house (And this is for teachers who still are fortunate enough to have jobs.  There's irony for you).  Bringing things down to even a more personal level, one of the teachers almost certain to be pink-slipped is going in to have her chest scanned next week for a possible recurrence of cancer.  It's very, very probably just a benign little tumor, but...  And right there in that long line with all the great, truly earth-shaking troubles that occupy my mind and weigh down my heart -- yesterday Bruce brought three of our drakes down to a poultry processing plant.  They left in a wire cage and came back in an ice chest.  

War.  Cancer.  Unemployment. Death. Penny-pinching. Politics. Betrayal.  And yes, Ducks. Yesterday afternoon as I drove home from school (on a Friday, with the whole weekend before me, for pity's sake),  all of this was tumbling around in my mind in no particular order.  When I get going, ducks are right up there with Republicans and cancer with Syria.  I'm an equal-opportunity worrier.  Everything, great and small, just whirls together as my heart grows sadder.

So.  When I got home, what was waiting for me?  Bruce down by the pond building a small bonfire on which to cook hotdogs for our dinner.  He'd packed down the hill everything needed for the meal:  condiments, potato salad, plates, napkins and a bottle of beer for him and wine for me and a bag of marshmallows for desert.  He'd even prepared willow sticks on which to skewer the hotdogs.  This was a completely unexpected and delightful turn of events.  I went back up to the house to change my clothes, and found a bouquet of pink roses on the cabinet in the bedroom.  I fed the cats, got my camera and brought down chairs and a flashlight (Bruce couldn't be expected to remember everything!).  And then, as the sky grew darker and the stars came out, we settled down to an evening in front of a glowing fire. 

An evening of conversation, simple food, and just gazing into the warmth of the flames.  Ecstatic dogs snapped down pieces of hotdog, Bruce pointed out constellations, and we laughed to hear the screetches of the resident barn owls.  I was brought back to the moment.  Love is amazing.