‘Tis a gift to share ideas.

Turmoil isn’t fertile soil for contemplation of the abstract. Devastation doesn’t inspire philosophical wanderings. Our bodies choose survival over pondering the nonessential. I understand this as I have struggled through the last seasons to write anything at all.

When I tentatively approached the keyboard, darkness, death, and destruction flowed from my fingertips. That is what surrounds me– that is what surrounds us. Who am I to add to the world’s abundance of sorrow? These facts stopped me from sharing.

I ponder this as I walk along the green, slowly moving creek. Bits of trash here and there are brown from time in the elements. The color I see is graffiti on a distant railroad trestle. The traffic speeds by.  A large dead limb falls loudly into the narrow ribbon of water and weighs heavily on my mood.

The things I share are written the same way I photograph images. The negative is carefully excluded from the frame. Check it out. There is a deer carcass behind the purple flowers in the photo that accompanies this post. The image was taken purposely as a reminder to explore the consequences of focusing on beauty while obscuring the gruesome.

The flower’s beauty comes from the soil made rich by the fallen doe or those like her. Frogs jump, and a big turtle slides into the water as if to remind me that life is thriving and abundant if I simply look.

Nature’s duality– I talk about it all the time. Or do I? If I have been able to embrace the hard parts of life why do I blur them out in the background? Why was I unable to write when Sarah died? When my children’s father had a horrific accident? Why do I think my words should only be free if they are light and happy?

I briefly joined a Free Photo Editing page on Facebook. It was very funny initially, but in time, I saw dark social implications. People shared family pictures and asked for exes and estranged family members to be removed and double chins and love handles to be smoothed out. Eventually, it made me very uneasy. We can’t simply remove people from pictures and pretend they never existed or present edited pictures of ourselves as real. But we do.

When I started this post, ‘Tis a Gift to Share Ideas, I meant that it’s a gift for life circumstances to be peaceful enough to think about abstract ideas. On further reflection, maybe it’s a gift to share the truth with the reader. Maybe it’s an obligation to be honest. In turn, it’s a gift to have a safe community with whom to share.

Our friend Todd says giving is receiving and vice versa. When we do either, the conduit opens for exchange. I love this idea. It makes me smile. I share this while visualizing opening faucets (squeak) for authentic communication.