The story surprises me, because in our former neighborhood, where our back yard faced a community college parking lot, we had excellent luck putting things out in the driveway for free, including boxes of used books. Sometimes people took entire boxes rather than a book or two. Nearly everything we put out found a home, including an old sofa we’d acquired already well-used, which I was certain we’d wind up hauling to the dump. Ours wasn’t a busy street except during classes, when students parked there, so I have to assume it was sometimes students who took those items. Then again, my experience with that was ten years ago. Now everyone I see walking around has a cell phone stuck to one ear, and I’m lucky if they avoid colliding with me. Maybe they wouldn’t SEE the books, even with a big sign.

When I was a student, I would’ve browsed through any box of free books on offer, even though I had plenty of other reading that I should be doing instead, for school. My grandmother used to say that no one in our family could clean an attic, because we’d stop to read everything. (That was before bubble wrap, when we used newspaper to wrap fragile items.)

Which reminds me, I dreamed just last night about the car I drove as a student. I hadn’t thought about that car in years. It was a white 1964 Mercury Comet that had a lot of miles on it before I got it. The dream was a mini-nightmare, not because I found myself in that car, but because this creepy guy who’d just followed me out of a bank removed what I thought was a disguise — a wig, under which he had a shaved head — then tried to get me to give him a ride. I was suspicious of him, so first I told him that if I did that my dad would kill me. (I must’ve been a teenager in the dream, which explains the car.) He argued with me, but I got into my car and locked the doors. It isn’t the sort of dream that usually qualifies as a nightmare for me, but it woke me up, heart racing.

That first car had some real-life nightmarish qualities. One was its tendency to overheat if I drove it to a higher altitude. I love the mountains, so not being able to drive my first car to the mountains without it overheating frustrated me no end. As the car aged, it developed other idiosyncrasies. I think my dad and I were at one point the only two people on earth who knew how to start it, which involved pumping the gas pedal just the right number of times, then holding it down . . . oh well, I don’t remember the sequence now. It had other problems too, and I have to wonder now at my desire to drive the thing, but when you’re young I guess you just want to go. You don’t care what you put up with to do it.

That car’s most nightmarish problem was the front passenger door’s sticky latch. My parents paid for my gasoline on the condition that I drive my grandmother anywhere she wanted to go. One day the door didn’t catch, and it flew open when I made a turn. Grandma didn’t fall out, but that incident qualifies as more nightmarish than the dream that ratcheted up my heart rate last night.

What about you?

Do you rummage through boxes of free books whenever you see them?

What was your first car like?

Do different things scare you in dreams than in real life?

Beverly Jackson has been an inspiration with her poetry posts, (not to mention her abstract paintings — wow!). She recently shared her experiences at the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway – Cape May N.J. and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival on her blog. She also provided examples and book recommendations she got from poets there. Dig into her January archive to read the first of those posts, beginning here.

Right now I’m reading Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, which I mentioned in a previous post.

My renewed interest in poetry arrives just in time for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s bicentennial, which the United States Postal Service is commemorating with a special stamp — the second to bear his likeness. Longfellow is one of only two writers to be immortalized on more than one US postage stamp. Herman Melville was the other, a distinction he earned, in my estimation, with The Encantadas alone — his sketchbook about the Galapagos Islands.

The stamp displays a portrait of Longfellow, as well as a depiction of Paul Revere’s famous ride. The Smithsonian Magazine’s online biography, Famous Once Again provides lots of interesting details about Longfellow’s life. I never knew, for instance, that he was proficient in so many languages — ten altogether, at one point in his life. He’s considered the “uncrowned poet laureate” of the 19th-century US, and February 27 will be his 200th birthday.

I’m out of touch with today’s curriculums, but when I was young, just hearing or reading the first line, “Listen my children and you shall hear,” could set the cadence of Paul Revere’s Ride beating in my mind. Do kids still learn Longfellow in school? I was older when I read Evangeline, but the first verse is just as deeply embedded in my mind. I’ve since gone back for a taste, drawn in by the same first lines:

“THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers –
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?”
(read poem)

I had no idea what a Druid was when I first read that, but the poet drew me into that forest and I was hooked. I wanted to know everything about it. I wanted to know what happened to the Acadians who once lived there.

We enjoy bird friends at greater distance these days. When I came across the linked story today, I decided I had to share. It’s a love story, just in time for that love-related holiday around the corner—if you’re reading this post while it’s fresh. But why wait until a particular time of year to celebrate love?

Here for your enjoyment, straight from Australia, is a tale of love among cockatoos. Note the first time I read it I assumed the first page was all there was to it, and only saw the “next page” link on my second time through, so be aware, there’s more.

“I want to start a revolution of kindness.”

I still think kindness is important, though that particular revolution was started at other times by much more qualified people than I. The biggest reason I quit using it as my signature line was, I began to think people looked at those words and thought “bleeding heart liberal” or “easy mark” — or they saw it as just plain cheesy. I became self-conscious about it.

Why? Why do we think of kindness as uncool, naive, or unrealistic?

I sometimes think we’ve become victims of our own twisted ideas about social victimology. We assume that someone is out to get us unless we get them first, that few people mean us well, that if a stranger acts kind he must have some ulterior motive. We’re more and more cautious, even about answering the phone or watching an ad on TV. And whom to vote for? Oh my gosh. What do they want now? What are they really saying? Who’s going to smile first, and will they really mean it?

Maybe I spend too much time online, where anonymity seems to bring out the worst in people. Or I watch too many violent movies, or read too much news. What is the reality of kindness in our world today? Is the world in fact much more peaceful, live-and-let-live, and even kind than I perceive?

Money comes first these days, if not in the minds of individuals then at least in the goals of the boss, the media, the government, and seemingly everyone we do business with. Try talking to a car salesman about kindness, and his eyes will glaze over. To him, kindness is me buying a car from him. But there I go, with my own victimology, perceiving him as unkind because he’s doing his job. I assume that’s all he’s about. Ignoring kindness becomes a self-perpetuating circle, because when I ignore it in others, I deplete its value. I find myself doing this too often online, out in the world, and even sometimes at home.

Today I came across an interview with Sharon Salzberg on Beliefnet titled, Is It Uncool To Be Kind? in which she explored that question. Salzberg believes that kindness takes a “5th-class status” these days. But she sees kindness as a force, a kind of empowering personal skill with which each of us influences the world, and she insists that practicing kindness is the key to our happiness.

So what ever happened to kindness? Can you be kind and still be cool? Cynicism, fear, illness, injury, resentment, greed, anger, poverty, lack of trust, pain, grief, and far too many other negative experiences, which we all have in one form or another, undermine our ability to see through other people to their innate humanness, and their kindness. Those are heavy things to work through. Sometimes they seem impossible to overcome. They fog our view of the world and each other. But maybe that’s just because we haven’t practiced focusing on kindness recently, haven’t replenished our own kindness centers — by opening our hearts. I still believe most people have a wealth of kindness inside them, and I think that being kind is the simplest way to draw others’ kindness out. When engaged in skillfully, the practice of kindness becomes a continuous exchange that all parties always gain from. How amazing is that? Why is kindness so powerful? Because it’s compassion — unconditional love — and that is the most powerful force in the universe when allowed to flow. Held inside it sours, stagnates, and becomes a mere shadow of itself, an anxious need, a sick, wasting hunger. It’s the one form of wealth in the universe that’s impossible to overspend and deadly to hoard.

So, who’s going to smile or say something kind first? The best thing about kindness is, that doesn’t matter. Because as soon as one person expresses it, the other is more likely to.

Maybe a little kindness revolution now and then is a good thing. I know I could use more practice.

We heard rumbles of thunder yesterday, but no rain. Thunderstorms look even more likely today, but at least it’s cooler. (The thermometer says so, though humidity makes me feel otherwise.)

Stay cool.

Yesterday we had ants, the tiny black ones, in the kitchen. Not scary, just a nuisance that happens every summer. Usually they go for the honey jar on the counter, but not this time. I think they were looking for water, or they knew this heat wave was coming and were seeking a cooler place. We don’t like to use poisons, but when bugs start to take over the house, we’re forced to take action, to draw the line somewhere.

We do try to coexist. We find moths of all descriptions on the outside wall near our porch light. Some are quite beautiful. We leave the hordes of fuzzy caterpillars alone, picturing them as future butterflies, and gently scoop them up if they venture too near the front door. Daddy-long-legs don’t cause us much concern. We get lots of spiders here, outside and sometimes inside where we don’t want them, and now and then an exotic not-so-creepy-crawly wanders through, like the walking stick we found on the screen door—twice. That was kind of cool. Bats eat insects, and sometimes if we sit on the porch at night we’ll glimpse them, fast and silent, swooping in for small flying bugs attracted by the porch light.

Night before last, after a hot day, we waited until after dark to put the trashes out and retrieve the mail. When I shone the flashlight on the mailbox I found a big garden spider building a nice web right on the door. Uncertain what to do, I thought of leaving the mail until the next day, because opening the box would require reaching within a quarter inch or so of that spider, right through its web. Ken rescued the spider and me, using a stick to transfer it to a nearby shrub. It crawled away, beautiful in the moonlight with its lacy color patterns.

We have lots of black widow spiders around here, some years more than others, at times disturbingly near the house. Just last week one built its crazy, disorganized web on the handle of an outdoor trash container. Because of them I never work in the yard without gloves, and we encourage alligator lizards in our yard. We’ve read that they eat black widows, so we now have lots of our lizard friends living in peaceful proximity. I used to think these lizards were creepy, but now I sometimes talk to them. Once when Ken and I stood together in the driveway we had an odd feeling of being watched, and we glanced around. On a concrete wall nearby a pair of alligator lizards sat side by side, watching us as if to say, “Howdy, neighbors.”

When we realized the spider cozying up in front of the wall heater was a black widow—alive, in the house—we took no prisoners.

One time, a few years ago, I was barefoot in the bathroom without my eyeglasses, and saw what looked like a scrap of yarn on the floor. I almost picked it up, but had second thoughts, since I don’t knit in the bathroom, it looked too thick to be any yarn I’d used, and was an odd teal color that I didn’t recognize. I found my glasses and took a closer look. It turned out to be a dark teal blue centipede about three inches long, sort of sickly but still alive and took a few good stomps of Ken’s work boot to kill (after I screamed for help). Later he wished he’d scooped it into a jar instead and taken it outside. It was not a house centipede, it looked more like those I’ve seen in the desert. I still don’t know what kind it was. I think it tracked in on someone’s shoe, maybe the same boot that later killed it. I’m just glad I didn’t touch it. I’ve been stung by a yellow jacket and a honey bee, and I have no desire to experience any more varieties of venom than that.

The only scorpion we ever found in the house was dead, or nearly dead, and close to the door, where I think it came in on someone’s shoe. The cat showed me that one. She worried about it lying next to her water dish. We’ve seen one other scorpion, this one alive, on the porch, and I’ve gotten in the habit of shaking out shoes and garments that I haven’t worn for a while, and checking out the situation before I sit in a chair on the porch. Just in case, you know?

I’m not sure what to think about all the bugs here. Each year we seem to have a particular species that reproduces out of control, and I wonder if the nearby citrus and avocado groves cause that, using chemicals, or if it’s a natural cycle. Last year earwigs bred like crazy. They mainly stayed outdoors, but sometimes crawled into the house where they died, then couldn’t be vacuumed up easily because their pinchers stuck in the carpet. Another year it was pill bugs, another year something else. The black widows had one alarming, big year. We’re not trying to eradicate whole species, and I like living in a place that’s a little wild—outdoors. But I don’t like the idea of sleeping or sharing food with bugs indoors. If I want to camp, I’ll go camping. So we draw the line and sometimes wage territorial wars with the local crawlies at our front door.

We live in a filthy world of our own making, mostly made filthy through our mental twists on reality. It seems strange to me sometimes that when we’re out in wild places no amount of dirt seems out of place, yet in our neighborhoods and especially in our houses it can feel as if the whole of nature is intent on affronting our sense of cleanliness and order. Though my sense of order is weaker than some, I know everyone who lives indoors develops some degree of this need for order. Even the cat, to whom the state of her litter box and blankets matters a great deal, and the dog, who will go through all kinds of personal agony to wait to go outside to perform certain functions (thank God—or should that be Dog), and who gets nervous when I rearrange furniture in the living room. They like their people to be securely in place, too. He got so he knew the sound of my suitcase zipper when I used to travel for work, and would come into the bedroom when he heard it, to give me this look that made me feel like the worst kind of traitor. They both seem to go into fits when we so much as drive to the store, if we’ve been home a lot and they’ve grown used to that. When we return they greet us as returning heroes, and later the dog ceremoniously sniffs the soles of our shoes as if to learn where we’ve been—the usual places, or somewhere strange and exotic?

Orderliness is important to all of us who live under the umbrella of civilization. Not so much in nature, where a broken branch may hang by a thread for two seasons before falling to the ground and lying there for several more, gradually contributing its substance to the soil—what the ants don’t carry away or the termites consume. Maybe that’s order, too, in its way, and our skewed notion of order twists our perception of what is out of place, what must be plucked or added to the woodpile, burned in here so it doesn’t burn or rot out there.

The work of an artist or a writer requires some residual sense of the disorder in nature. A Japanese gardener calculates his design to mimic nature, if in a scrupulous, disorder-bending fashion. A painter avoids symmetry in her compositions. Some of the most amazing paintings I’ve seen depict skies full of drama rather than peace, states of cloud that in real life would make me wish we had a storm cellar. My favorite part of any piece of music is often full of drama, that exquisite break after a heart-rending crescendo. A writer fills his story with conflict, unresolvable problems and sympathetic characters full of flaws who perform acts we would never consider in real life. Why do we love this in artwork? Deep down, do we know everything isn’t supposed to be orderly all the time?

What is all this fuss over cleanliness and order? Can we carry it too far? Is that the reason that now, when our indoor world is in many ways its most orderly, we crave violence in the movies—and it increases in the streets? Is our twisted sense of order what makes us think we should control which two consenting adults marry, and push our religious or political agendas on others? Is it what makes us build walls at borders and regulate language? Is it what makes some people hoard wealth? Is it behind addiction and pornography?

Should order stop at the walls of our own houses? Is order’s purpose simply to help us feel secure in the future of meals to come, fresh water to drink, mortgages paid up? Do we try to make it fool us into thinking we’ll never die? Does it mimic the cycles of the seasons, the regularity of rainfall and harvest? Did order arise along with agriculture? Or did we find it in the vast movement of stars as we navigated seas full of monsters? What is it about order that lends us so much peace that we grow irritable or confused without it? Why do we grow a little insane from too much of it? Does it carry a deeper meaning? Is God order, or is God chaos? Or is God both, a balance, yin and yang? Where should we draw the line? Should there be a line?

Maybe I’ll draw the line today at leaving the vacuuming for tomorrow. It’s late, getting hot out, time to close the windows. Or is that too orderly, keeping the heat out and the cool in? I need to find my balance.

***

To me being privileged means having more than one’s basic needs met, and there are degrees of privilege, and it is relative, and basically meaningless. I’m more privileged than some people I know, and less privileged than some I know. But all I can really say about that is what I see on the surface.

It’s tragic that so few people in the world have adequate food, water, sanitation, shelter, clothing, necessary transportation, education, rest, safety, security, and health care, even some people in the US. Those should be basic, subsistence level expectations, especially considering how far we’ve come technologically in this world. Unfortunately those advances seem to be reserved for the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries, for those living under certain forms of government and economics. Basic civil and human rights should also be considered subsistence level—everyone should have them. Not everyone does, even in the most economically “privileged” countries. We can’t even agree on what civil and human rights people should have.

But I also think many people in the world have a skewed notion of what it is to live under what they consider privilege (i.e. better apparent economic or social conditions than theirs). It looks easier. In many ways it is. It’s no guarantee one will be happy.

Comfort exists on many levels. People in wealthier conditions still get sick (health care doesn’t guarantee health), suffer, die, lose loved ones, fall in and out of love, get abused, depressed, lonely, fearful, deal with pain (much of it hidden and not obvious to anyone else—some physical, some psychological or emotional). They experience disability, addiction, disasters, worries, or slip through the cracks of their society. Many so-called privileged people live very unhappy lives, or don’t only because they overcome adversity no one else would guess at. Just because some people have their basic subsistence levels met in ways that too many in the world don’t, doesn’t guarantee they won’t still lead difficult or even miserable lives. Conversely, among those who don’t even have what we consider the basics, you’ll find some fairly happy people.

A lot of this may have to do with choice, though much of it doesn’t, but let’s face it, being privileged doesn’t guarantee you’ll make the right choices—or that your family members will. Some of this also has to do with individual thresholds. Some of us handle certain types of stress more easily, some have chronic health issues, and some have an inability to think we have choices, even when we do.

So the idea of “privilege” doesn’t really tell you how much one will suffer or how happy one will be.

No one can know another’s pain. We can try, we can develop our empathy and compassion to a deeper level and care about others, try to walk in another’s shoes. But we don’t live the other’s life. To judge what another considers his or her suffering, abuse, or pain, is simply judgmental and likely unjust. Privilege is relative, and can exist right alongside extreme suffering.

So in many ways privilege as we think of it is pretty much meaningless. It seems to me that instead of nurturing a notion of being privileged or not (as if one should feel guilty for being what others consider privileged), it’s more important to nurture compassion, unconditional love, mutual concern. This isn’t to say there isn’t a grossly unbalanced distribution of wealth and power in this world. Obviously there is. It’s also clear that a wealthy person in a position of power is more likely to help his wealthy peers than those he doesn’t consider his equals. But we have to be careful of what we allow to separate us, of allowing ourselves an “us and them” mindset.

The idea of measuring privilege separates us.

The idea of all people belonging to the same human family with equal rights to the basics, and with equal capacity for suffering and happiness, connects us.

***

What does privilege mean to you?

And while we’re at it, Happy Independence Day!