Running Thoughts ~ Recent Musings - People and Chickens

A friend recently asked why I had been so quiet.  The easy and truthful answer is that I have been busy.  I have been working a great deal as a medical consultant for my local health department's vaccinations sites.  And I have been most grateful for it.  Grateful for the existence of the vaccine.  Grateful for my small role in making it available to others.  Grateful to be able to do it.  I wasn't really sure I could work again.  Losing a portion of ones bowel makes basic functions unpredictable, at best.  It has been nice to feel useful.  I have met many lovely new peeps and been happily surprised to renew relationships with coworkers and friends from years past.

I have spent many happy hours in my yard; The Demesne - as we laughingly call it.  A word I had to look up from my reading a bit ago. "Land attached to the manor for the land owner's use."  The name brings a smile. And more gratitude.  A survey done a few weeks ago allowed me to complete the clearing I started when B purchased the unbuildable lot next to us a year or so ago.  He has been my happy helper.  We studied shade loving rhododendrons and discovered mahonias.  Since then he has been the hole digger for some lovely rhodies: three PJM Elite with their dark pink flowers and four Cunningham Whites whose blossoms begin as pale pink buds before opening into large white flowers, as well as two Winter Sun and three Charity Mahonias whose sharp pointed leaves make hollies seem tame!

We have enjoyed watching a set of baby blue birds hatched from one of our boxes and a nest of wrens made under the porch in an old plant pot, utilizing a bit of cord that had been left within.  All bird babies have the same demanding chirp while fluttering their wings, as their harried parents rush to and fro to feed them what they could easily pick up for themselves, it seems.

I have done a great deal of reading.  And exercising and cooking and sewing.  I have enjoyed quilting while listening to Monty Don.  A most peaceful and encouraging fellow, as he shares the beauty of Long Meadow and gardening tips.  I have mourned some personal losses.  They are still far to frequent in melanoma world.  But mostly, I've been thinking...

A short while ago, I was summarily informed that I had but one reader of this blog.  It was a comment that stung, because that's what it was meant to do.  But, on really thinking about it, while as the administrator of this space I could tell you exactly how many times this site has been viewed since its existence, how many times each post has been seen - I don't care.  In the past, B occasionally asked, "What's your count up to these days?"  Never once in the past eleven years have I known the answer.  I have had to look it up.  Further, do those clicks mean someone actually read my words?  No idea.  I have written posts to help give comfort and information to folks with melanoma.  I know those have in fact been truly read, shared and appreciated.  I feel it is the least I can do with the skill set I have, the knowledge I have gained, and the lucky break I have been given.  As for the rest of the personal crazy I occasionally pour on these pages?  Perhaps there is one reader.  Perhaps there are none.  It seems that even those who claim to have read it - read INTO it what THEY choose to see - not what is really on the page.  

All of which has lead me to ponder ~ Why do people do what they do?  Why do so many feel that without a sufficient audience something is not worth doing?  Why is their goal only to attain a requisite number of 'likes'?  Why are those 'likes' admired more than the content?  Why is it that folks are so eager to tell you how much they loathe their neighbor - when they don't even know you very well?!!!!  Why are some folks generous with their praise and compliments - while others levy only criticism and accusations?  Why do strangers offer small and large kindnesses to people they have never met? Why are some open about their mistakes, foibles and disease while others hide them behind a cheery façade - sometimes even from themselves?  Why do people give sage advice, which largely figures on all that you are doing wrong, but when similar events happen in their lives, they fail to follow their own admonitions?  Much less acknowledge the error of the "advice" they once "shared" so knowingly?  Why are real apologies so few?  I have no answers.  I do think how we see the world, and others in it, is a reflection of our past experiences combined with our current joys or disappointments.  I think solitude is beneficial for some and not for others.  As I always told my children, accusations and ugly statements tell you much more about the person who makes them, than the person against whom they are directed.  I do not understand the motivations of most.  I can only try to be honest about who I am and what it is I do.

So...  Whether I have but one reader or none, I will carry on.  In my way.  In my time.  Sadly, there is not much new on the melanoma front.  Still, I will continue to post things that might be helpful when they come along.  Beyond those, an audience is not something I ever created anything for.  Perhaps writing keeps me sane.  Perhaps it keeps my dear ones sane!  Yes, dear B, Danita, and Tammy B!  I have seen those looks!  They are totally justified!  "There she goes.  Off on one of those tangents again!!!"  Perhaps this space is my small way of recording my existence. My way of sharing - a kindly light of hope.  

Whatever this is, I will write of the way I spend my days.  How I make it through dark times.  My small joys.  The strange thoughts that strike me.  To that end, I am embarking on a new installment ~ Running Thoughts.  (Musings that often begin while exercising.)

Today during a run, and while working in my garden after, I enjoyed the faint homey clucking of a neighbor's hens.  Despite some decidedly unfortunate experiences with roosters in my childhood, I like listening to the gentle murmurings of distant chickens.  And that got me thinking.  For those of you opposed to your neighbor's chickens, kept penned up and out of view, with no roosters to announce  the dawn or any other moment they care to embellish...  What exact harm do they inflict on you?  Why do you care if your neighbor has a chicken?  Or who they choose to love?  Hmmm?  What possible adverse effect do their personal choices have on you?

Yep.  Running Thoughts.  The fact that they are random, tangential, reflections for which I lack any real answers or conclusions may be the only things they have in common.  Apart from the fact that they begin in my head and land on this page.   

Breathe deep.  Seek peace ~ les