Makes you Think

My latest attempt in getting back into shape is a gym Membership.  With the membership came three "free" personal training sessions.  They asked me if I wanted a male or female trainer and I said I did not care, so she offered me a man whose name (for reasons that will become clear) I will not divulge.  For purposes of this blog, let's just call him Buff Boy.

So Buff Boy and I had our free sessions.  The first one I was weighed (yikes!) and measured (how did my ass get that big?) and BMI'd (22).  Then he put me through the paces, and quickly learned that I am pretty strong in spite of my advanced age and the layer of adipose tissue that has crept onto my body.  So, the sessions got harder and harder and then I found myself signing up for a set of 6 (no longer free).  By now I have spent about 6 hours with Buff Boy.

Buff Boy is quiet and reserved but funny and sweet and kind.  Then yesterday, I decided to google Buff Boy. And I discovered that, besides being a sweet and thoughtful young man, and an excellent trainer, he also is a convicted felon.  When he was 16 years old (1994) he committed a very serious and violent crime.  He was sent to jail at age 18 and remained there until late last year.  He is now out subject to 15 years of parole.  I don't know about you, but I find that to be very heavy.

And it makes me think.  Is a violent felon always a violent felon? Or, does the debt paid to society by giving up basically half one's life mean that we should forgive and forget?  I must admit that I have tended to be firmly in the former camp... but this now, I don't know.

I have often thought about what it must be like to be a criminal lawyer.. to represent society's reprobates and violent offenders.  I have read and heard that some lawyers who do that work (like, for example Judith Smith, who is representing Jared Loughner) see the humanity in their clients.  They see them as something other than the crimes they have committed.  The realize something that I often have espoused but never been confronted with in this particular way..... most people, even people who do evil things, are not completely evil people.   In fact, there are probably only a handful of truly evil people who pass through the world - Hitler, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Stalin.... and OBL, KSM, and the rest of those assholes who think it is laudable to blow up little babies and other innocent people..... and maybe certain serial killers.  The other people whom I have always thought of as evil, like child pornographers, rapists, animal and child abusers - have evil in them, but are probably not entirely evil. 

So, today, while I dug up weeds in my garden and threw the ball for the dogs, I found myself thinking about Buff Boy and crime and about my first day in Professor Robbins' Criminal Law class when he asked for our thoughts on the purpose of criminal punishment - is it deterrence?  if so, is it specific deterrence? Or is it general deterrence?  Is it strictly for retribution?  Does that serve the purposes of society?  if we put a person in prison as an "eye for an eye" reason and the person then comes out into society again, what does that mean for the prisoner? For society?

And I thought about Buff Boy with his kind brown eyes and I wondered how he could have done such a thing as that for which he was convicted, and I wondered how must it have been to spend his entire young adulthood in jail?  The newspaper said he was remorseful.  I suppose he had lots of time to think during all those years.  How does one ever stop thinking about something like that?  How does one enter the world again with any kind of light?

It also makes me think about the Internet and the propriety of lurking around in other peoples' lives.  I believe that is what Facebook does really but in that case, the people whom you have anointed as your friends have a license to lurk.  And I suppose an open and free media gives all of us a license to lurk into those things that are in the public domain.... like crime and punishment.  i almost wish that I had not lurked into this because, crazy as it seems, I still really like Buff Boy.  Even after I read about his heinous crime, I feel kind of sisterly and protective toward him.  And given all I thought that I knew about myself, that is kind of crazy.

I believe that we are constantly having to re-evaluate our beliefs.  But, this situation makes me question myself, question my rigidity, and my, I will admit it, extremely harsh stance against people who have committed violent crimes.  I am hoping that this will make me a kinder and more compassionate person, to think before I condemn or judge, to realize that, even people who do really bad things, are not necessarily bad people.  They may have a mother who loves them.  God loves them. Maybe I should try to, ah ur hmm .... if not, love them, try to summon up some compassion.

Wish me luck.

of birds and dogs

The bluebird nest turned out to be a chickadee nest.  But then the bluebirds built a nest on top of that one and, while I was in SC last week, laid 4 beautiful blue eggs in there.  Since I returned on Wednesday, no sign of the mama and daddy bluebird.  Was it something I said?

While watching bluebirds, I discovered a wren nest in a large white bucket up under the porch.  I watched the little wren sit on her eggs and then last evening, I noticed the eggs were hatched - it was a bit dark, but I did think that there were several little fuzzy chicks in there.  But today, when I was doing the after-storm assessment, the nest and bucket were on the ground and the baby birds were not to be seen. I have a feeling that Millie had a few bird morsels today while she was out in the storm getting extremely wet and muddy.  I am sad about that, but what can I do.

I keep watching the box and hoping to see a bluebird but so far nothing. I went out yesterday and took the nest out of the box with the five beautiful Carolina blue eggs. I was thinking I might blow the stuff out of the eggs and bake the nest to get the bugs out and then keep all in the house as a spring display.  But when I put my hand on the eggs, they were warm and so I thought that I would leave them there a bit longer.  This weekend I will re-evaluate.


Meanwhile, I have placed other houses, trying to create a bluebird trail of sorts here in my little 3 acres of ground.  The mealworms seem to disappear but so far no beautiful blue and gold birds.

Wish me luck.

Bluebirds

Last year, quite unexpectedly, a bluebird couple set up housekeeping in the dilapidated old birdhouse left here by the former owners.  We had lived here 10 years and  at that time, and I have never seen a bluebird near that house, nor would I expect ,because it is not a very auspicious bluebird home -  not near any trees or bushes, not near an open field, entrance hole too big, dirty.  But the bluebirds came and had two broods (clutches?) in that awful little house.  It was so exciting.  My husband and I watched them every day from our own perch on our upper back porch.

So, this year, I thought to make a bluebird sanctuary of sorts.  It started by cleaning out the old house.  When my bluebird-loving friend Susan  visited a couple of weeks ago, she spotted two bluebirds checking out the slum house again.  Then she showed me where might be a good placement for new house.

Obediently, I placed the house as she directed, and within 2 days, the bluebirds had moved uptown and had created a beautiful thick nest made of green moss and dog hair. 

Since then, I have peeked in a couple of times - no eggs yet- and have set out a feeder and a little bird bath.  Then I dragged over my wooden love seat and leveled it with some flat rocks.  My new morning routine is to walk out whistling a tune, put the mealworms or other delectables in the feeder and sit and wait for the happy couple to appear.

The first day they sat and ate the mealworms with no notice of me.  Since then, they have been a bit more shy.  But I've kept going every day, whistling and bearing mealworms with hopes that they eventually will begin to see me as a friend. 

And this morning, my neighbor and I sat there in the cold spring air with our warm drinks and hats and watched as the bluebird couple came and ate all the mealworms I had left for them on top of their house and in the blue feeder.  As we sat, they left and we started watching other birds.  A little chickadee landed on the house for a bite of mealworm.  Out of nowhere, both the blues came sweeping in like avenging angels, sending the little chickadee quickly away.

The bluebird watching offers me a daily opportunity to get out of myself, to watch them and let my thoughts and energies be absorbed by their delicate beauty..... to be mindful of the trees and the greening pastures and the birds just starting to bring in the spring with their songs.  . 


I am following them into the springtime, heart wide open.

Namaste.









 
 S

Flying a Dog

This is the story of a little dog named Todd.  I first heard of Todd several weeks ago when Marleen Oetzel at  Lost and Found Dogs told me his story..... West Virginia, caught in a steel trap and then left outside for a week until he was taken to Wetzel County Animal Shelter.  From there, Rozy Cozart, the director took him to her vet, Dr. Shockey.  Dr. Shockey kept Todd for several weeks, several surgeries, lots of suffering.  The staff loved Todd - he is such a brave little dog with a huge heart.  No matter what they did to him, he still loved.

When the big day came for Todd to be discharged, Marleen called and asked if I could fly him from West Virginia to her in Delaware so that he could go to his forever home.  So, on  March 8, 2011, I flew to Parkersburg airport, right on the Ohio River that separates West Virginia and Ohio - a gorgeous day to be in the air - clouds above me, snow-scattered ground below me that got whiter as I flew northwest. 

It took Todd a while to leave the Vet Hospital - none of the staff wanted him to go.....
lots of sweet goodbyes...







but finally they did let him go with Rozy.  I am certain they still miss him and will never forget him.

Todd is the kind of dog that you meet all the time and once in a lifetime.  He is a lucky dog because the idiot who caught him in the trap and then let him stay on his front porch for a week in a West Virginia January one of the coldest in recent memory must have had some kind of thought in his idiot brain.  Maybe he wanted to be a hero to his three children,  who knows?  In any event, he put Todd (with a gangrenous back leg and a front leg crushed to the bone) in a wire crate in the back of a pickup truck and took him to Rozy at the Animal Shelter.  Rozy took him into her arms and never looked back...... except that she plans to press criminal charges.  She has told me that the county prosecutor always fails to prosecute her charges but she keeps trying because it is her moral duty.  

Todd is going to be fine.
 

     
But the idiot who was so cruel to him is always going to be an idiot.  And, barring some miracle, his children are going to grow up thinking that idiocy and cruelty are the normal way of things... and so it goes and so it goes. 

But people like Rozy and Marleen and Dr. Shockey and his wonderful staff, and my friend Susanne Kogut our local SPCA and Rhonda Beach down in North Carolina, all those other angels who dedicate their lives to countering animal cruelty and abuse never give up.  I admire that so much, and am humbled by their service to animals and to humanity.  As you might have gathered from my polemics above, I am not as evolved as they are in my journey to true humanity. I keep trying, though.

Wish me luck.
 
.

my last month will be a busy one!

take Millie flying again, play in the snow, give carrots to a horse, hear the rain on the roof, feel the sun on my face, walk with the dogs, fly the rescue dogs, notice the onset of Spring, laugh, cry, kiss, hold on, let go, clean my closets and drawers, hear Josh play his trumpet, talk, be silent, open the windows......

more of March

spend time with my brother, sit by the fireplace, lay in the grass, sit by the river, sharpen pencils, hold hands....

REVERB 11 - Last Month to LIve

I am going to copy my friend's blog prompt for today on how I would live March if I knew it was my last month to live......... She did a clever thing by using a collage effect which creates no particular order - my order below is not of importance but of my mind going in its usual random pathways...................

take a nap with my dogs, kiss my husband, tell my friends I love them, spend time with my friends, walk in the woods, run with abandon down a country path,  bake a cake, plant flowers, prune my shrubs, dig in the dirt, hug my dogs, hug my friends, hug Ben, fly the Columbia, sing old songs, drink lots of good coffee, enjoy a glass of wine with friends, visit my nephew at Ft Benning, play with puppies, sit with old dogs, watch the birds, listen to the birds, sit by a stream, climb Humpback Rocks, swim in the river, inhale the scent of daffodils - fill vases with them all over the house, take care of my orchids, make my favorite soup, go to Nellysford, laugh out loud, yoga, yoga, yoga, sit on the sofa with millie at my side, sit on the floor with Emma and rub her soft face, lie down with Lucy on her big dog bed, touch Walter's ears, climb a tree, rappel down a cliff, watch the birds, feed the birds, listen to birdsong, sit on my back porch and read, have a dry Martini, watch the ACC tournament with my husband, have a spaghetti dinner by candlelight, sleep on clean sheets every night, give of myself, be kind to strangers, be kind to everyone, smile, have a chocolate milkshake,