2018.04.09 - Day 26

Being a pile of memories.

It takes so little of a word, phrase, smell, sound, taste to be sent off into memories.
Sometimes to completely relive them, sometimes to change them, sometimes to laugh/cry/judge/tell.

Went to the Arlo Guthrie re:Generations concert, to refresh lots of memories. Knew that going in and got rewarded.
Arlo, accompanied by two of his 4 performing children, brought back Woodie, Pete Seeger, Dylan, Ledbelly and Phil Oches songs. Sarah Lee sang several of her new songs that sound like the old songs you just had not heard yet. Arlo still has that voice like no other. He quips between songs, tells stories and sings some songs that he thought were dead, but have come back to be needed again. (e.g. This Land is Your Land, "Deportee")
Arlo is 70, his kids in their 40's. The Alice's Restaurant record is 50 years old. Saw him 49 years ago (at Woodstock).
The aged crowd, this restored theater (been in so many times), the salty popcorn. That voice, those songs, the other (maybe 10) times seeing him. All those memories.

One can be in the present. Can plan and move toward the future. Can wear lots of hats at different times and locations.
That person's memories are always standing right there in you.

Very busy day today, and more to do this evening. I got my 15 min. of reading in, but I was tired and kept falling asleep. Tomorrow should be a little more relaxed.

Can you imagine trying to celebrate all those official days of whatnot? :::head spins:::

I'm slowly getting back into the fairly positive rhythms I've been in the last few months.Went back to the gym to keep up with steps, but the treadmills were broken (or just off?). Got on the bike. Not as easy to just go with, but stayed with. Cooked. Attended Eden's wonderful session this morning. Learned that daughter's tests will be paid for by insurance >whew<. A very good day.

What did not happen? 3 breaths. So I decided that coming here would help me shift gears, at least for the evening. Reaching for Insight Timer... edited 23:03, 9 Apr 2018

Agree that the session this morning was a good one.

So interesting to be in a crowd of old geezers while sharing memories of when we all were youngsters including the performer who helped so many young men see some humor in the draft physical. I seem to find myself more and more in groups of oldsters who are volunteering their time and energy to serve the community.

Anyone think we should go longer than 30 days?

Walked my 10,000 steps towards the sun today. Bright sun, blue skies, cold weather. My watch says 12,157 steps in fact, 5.14 miles. Took a city bus along the river to go back home.

This little scene: a young pale, 20 something French speaking guy was chatting with three of his co-workers. Two were women wearing the Islamic scarf, the middle-age man with a beaming smile was also Arabic. The young French-Canadian was telling them he just resigned from his job and he was going to miss them. Mohammed said he had his phone number and would invite him over to drink mint tea. He got off the bus at the next stop, the young man thanking him in Arabic with a happy "Choukran!"

When he found himself with the two women, the young man told the older woman that he enjoyed very much working with her and, that maybe, when he would visit Mohammed, they would call her to come over.

The young woman standing contributed:" Leila can't do that. Her husband won't allow her". She was smiling, eyes sparkling. The older woman was nodding in agreement. The three of them laughed at the clash of their cultures. Then it was the stop of the young man: he said goodbye to the women in a beautiful gesture, touching his heart twice and saying "Salam aleikoum" to each of them.

The younger one sat herself next to the older women and they start chatting in Arabic vividly, happily. The young woman shot a few glances at me: she noticed I had witnessed their conversation in French. We exchanged some sort of discreet smile before my turn came to get off the bus.

I can't believe French-Canadians are portrayed as racists in the media. The young man was so friendly with his co-workers that the joy of the three immigrants was overflowing.

2 more tonight... (skips some days)

1. Personally, can not speak for any others. Can not see finish the Day zero task in 4 more days. so will keep going.

2. Under another task... am watching Oscar winners missed over the years.
"Lincoln"
One huge Gem:
"Invoking language from the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."), Lincoln thinks out loud,

LINCOLN: Euclid's first common notion is this: "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other."
LINCOLN: That's a rule of mathematical reasoning. It's true because it works; has done and always will do. In his book, Euclid says this is "self-evident."

(a beat)

D'you see? There it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self- evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That's the origin, isn't it? That balance, that's fairness, that's justice."

commentary = Soapbox ::
the 13th amendment abolished slavery.
the 15th amendment gave voting rights to Black MEN
the 18th amendment gave the vote to women.
Jim Crow laws and Poll taxes kept the legal right to vote away.

What if you lived in a country that stated that ALL are created equal? edited 06:44, 10 Apr 2018

A little outside the 'purpose' of these threads... but doesn't it always happen that one wishes to respond. :) A good article last weekend, Molly Ringwald writing in The New Yorker about MeToo and the creator of the films that made her famous... how sensitively he could see some things that no one was seeing, yet also what glaring blind spots, apparent now when looking back on his films. I somehow feel if we could hold our country/world 'that way', not ignoring, addressing and moving forward, and also reserving our strongest actions and language for overt knowing abuses, it could be a very rich and rewarding time. We're equipped with information now... a breadth of comparative knowledge we've never had before, but whoa, the emotional maturity and mental spaciousness to deal/rise! and 'handle' it collaboratively! The ability to mourn together. If we develop that! I wonder if I will live to see it. I suppose I've already seen a lot, so it is possible...nothing nothing nothing, then leap! Read a thread about 'gypsies' on Twitter, but it was the commentary that most rewarding, people learning for the first time that a word romanticized in their youth, for clothing and songs and a wandering lifestyle, has dark origins... people quickly saying "Oh, I didn't know... okay, time for new words."

As for continuing here. I'm in if others are. I could extend next to 50 days? Give a chance for 'new' to jump in also, and for those who wish to shift or jump out, to do so too at 30?