Reflections...

maybe all days go like this for you
but today particularly fell into place
with ideas and thinking that seemed
to dove-tail more and more as the day went on

i woke up reading about a friend flying to europe
felt a bit homesick and wished i was again there too
not sure why but i miss it...

then found that joan baez was touring there in march . .
after having read about her slipping while climbing
down out of her "treehouse" last november i've
been even more intrigued by her...

so, then i opened mail and found the local school district
misery with budgetary cuts coming, about the history
of what has happened with education just in my own area.. the schools i attended and both my boys have gone to... it's just enough to make you puke, couple that with the news of the state, how California is cutting education and so many other necessary funds... i just sat here shaking my head and feeling like a failure.

I mean, seriously, I had to look at my generation and feeling it is failing the next...
it started 30-40 years ago... at least when i was graduating high school, i had sat in gas lines waiting for fuel on my odd or even numbered day... environmental issues were being discussed in classrooms.. and not only that, but the vietnam war had just ended... and all the aftermath.. i mean??

So I look at today's dwindling and declining numbers in education, and art and music ... well.. i guess i'm just feeling like we've failed, because we are ostriches with our heads in the sand, still... funding wars rather than seeing what is all around us here.. and there and everywhere...

Then i took a hike to the mountain, for reflection, for relaxation, and frankly for comfort and respite... my friends (the trees) are there...

And yes,... it gave me what i needed.  Nature is that way, it brings you back to love... there is nothing there but purity.. the cycles of life.. the knowledge that this too will pass.. the markings on the trail, the new blooms on the trees, the birds singing, the sun on my face..it was truly a comfort... i needed the love today.

Walking back to the car, I got a call from my youngest son asking why the library was closed today, a school day?? Incredulous that it could be...yes, dear, it's a furlough weekend, all libraries are closed until monday... which also spurred a bit of conversation as I outlined above about the demise of California (in my opinion).  And how it seems now so difficult to live here, to get a good education and a job. 
He piped up with "I have a job"... yes, the military is an option for our youth today, and many of his buddies are going that direction.. hmmmm.

I tried to be positive but also couldn't help saying, "yes, but we're funding wars rather than education and jobs"... hmmm

Then I listened to "Afghanistan: America's Longest War"
http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/707
and reread the wiki on the Vietnam war...

I sat there wondering why ... well.. i know why, it's money...
but still... why it is we can't solve things without wars.. i know, nevermind, there will always be some sort of war...

Then i saw Egypt's news... felt good but not elated.. i'm now too cynical about any real hope for things to really change, but i do acknowledge the middle east is indeed in extreme transition.

And so the spiral went today.. me wondering how it is to be nearly 98 as my Mormor almost is, to see the changes she's seen in the last century, to feel a deep sense of disappointment for where things are today and not just for my two boys but for my two grandbabies.. and I wonder...

Just where will we be when it feels like things are spinning faster than we can all keep up and that the more they spin, the more we don't want to look...

I write, take pictures and paint... it's what i can do... I can't make sense of it all.. I speak up at work, I fight for the rights we obtained from people that went before us..

I still feel a bit of a failure ...