The Next Aisle Over

6/29/2015
I stood today at the register of a grocery outlet.  I looked past the cashier who was ringing up my groceries, to the little lady who was putting in her pin number in the machine the next aisle over.  I saw as the cashier shook her head at her, saying that the pin was entered incorrectly too many times.  The store would now have to suspend the sale and  her card would not be accepted.  The older lady grabbed onto the cart with her groceries in it and looked as she didn't know what to do.  The cashier said that she would take care of it, and called over the phone to have a manager cancel the sale.  The lady looking defeated began to walk away.  Suddenly I was aware of my voice speaking to the cashier from the next aisle over.  I wanted to know the amount of her order.  As she replied, I quickly said that I would take care of it.  One of the women that helped bagged groceries ran to the woman, calling her back letting her know someone was going to pay for her order. She turned around with a mix between doubt and hope in her expression. I told her I was always forgetting my pin numbers.   She smiled as I paid for the tortilla chips my son had requested and requested cash back.  I went to the woman in the next aisle over and handed her the cash for her order, and a little extra.  I placed it in her hands and told her to please PAY IT FORWARD.  I walked out of the store like I had won a million dollars.  I do not post this to be rewarded, I post this to show how the soul is rewarded by doing small acts of kindness.  Plus, how truly easy it is.  I could have purchased something else with that money, but it may have served a greater purpose today.  It may have fed someone that was hungry.

Pay It Forward

The Donation

The Donation

http://youtu.be/9tZmDKFslGg

Deer Sacrifice

My son talked to me about the local deer in our neighborhood.  He stated that he feels that deer that jump out in front of cars are carrying out a rite of passage.  That this one deer is a sacrifice to the "Deer Gods" so that the others can roam free.  He feels why else would they suddenly run in front of a moving vehicle because all the other times they run in the opposite direction when our dog barks or if we step slightly upon a nearby branch.  How is it that they cannot see or hear the cars coming?  He also informs me that this is why once a deer is hit, upon returning the insides are ripped out.  It is like this body is being given up so that the others may get to safety, move their herd or be able to feed.  Is this the price the deer pay?  With their lives, their spirits?  It truly made me think about their keen sense of hearing and eyesight.  They are not stupid animals, but maybe just maybe in their world what we think of their world is not what it is.  Maybe there is more to their world that meets the eyes, especially for us humans that walk this earth taking from them.  Different thought for the night...

Sweet Dreams

Spew

Spew is when my mind goes into sensory overload and I need to empty the thoughts that have co-inhabited my mind.  Pondering thoughts is just that.  It may not make any sense at times, and then at other times I may find I have some good points to offer.  Either way, it's for me.  I will never force you to read it.    

At times the things we carry with us get too heavy.  Maybe our knees begin to buckle, our shoulders become heavier with those thoughts our minds weigh us down with.  At times, maybe we thrash about, like the tides in the sea.  Or maybe we toss an item or two around to symbolize the feelings we are trying to rid ourselves of.  Sort of like when the earth's crust releases energy resulting in an earthquake.  I thought about that long and hard over the last week or so.  Are we just little mini earth's walking through life connecting with organisms, atoms, life, relationships etc etc etc.  Yes, in my opinion we are. 

This first time this thought hit me is when I was lying in bed.  The three cats, the dog and the boy had inhabited the bed, leaving me with only a section of space to lay my head and rest those few short hours.  Have you ever tried to sleep in a King's size bed with 6 people?  If you have animals, I am sure you can completely relate to how quickly an animal can transform into a living breathing person who affects you daily.  Even if you attempt to resist, animals are like kids poking you with their little bitty fingers.

  So with all these animals invading my space, I begin to shake the covers.  The cats are not bothered by the movement at first, but if movements are made more rapidly they seem to awake and move and seek higher ground.  Is that what the earth does?  She gets tired of people walking on her, stepping all over her, fighting on her and she begins to shake and shimmy to wake people up.  To say, "Hey stop that, I am living here!"  Never did she expect that people wouldn't be happy with their own two legs, but they would be driving cars.  Industries would boom, bringing trucks and refineries and factories across her vast body.  The trees will be taken like locks of hair to make bigger parking lots, oil refineries, clothing stores, gas stations, unaffordable homes.  Sad to say that maybe we are earth's own cancer, and inevitably there is no cure.

  Though, there are some that say we can make a difference.  I guess we could if we all woke up, stopped looking down at our phones and seeing what was really around us.  Technology, in all it's glory and how it has changed mankind, may just be the demise of us all.  I see so many people, myself included, looking down, into the vast screen of a telephone.  A telephone?  Or that of a computer monitor, or a television set.  We become wrapped up in unattainable wealth and glory and of course that beautiful happiness that we all dream about.  We read more words and write more words today, then speaking them aloud.

The worse thing is, is that by focusing attention on that which is not attainable we really lose site as to the vibrant life that resides in us each day.  With the way technology effects us each and every day, I see so many people looking at the words of a friend or a loved one, instead saying them out loud.  There are no phone discussions anymore, not like there were.  There is no looking people in the eye.  There is only misinterpretations and assumptions of this is the way I hear it, or this is my perception of it.  People don't sit and talk anymore, and when they do there is always some sort of negative connotation resulting from the conversation.  Even the simple act of driving to work each day, has gotten to be a caustious act due to people not being mindful and focusing on the task at hand. 

Whether you be driving, walking. living make sure you do it with care.
 

Ba Hum Bug?

Just cannot seem to get myself into the "holiday" or "Christmas" spirit.  Is this wrong?  I don't feel like getting the decorations out, don't feel like trimming a tree, and by no means do I want to go shopping.  For one, I want to give my family and friends something more than that which is bought and wrapped.  Hugs, smiles and memories.  Is this wrong?  I hear lists and lists of items people want, yet I have no "holiday spirit" as of yet.  I always have the sweet nature spirit and giving persona, but I don't see why there has to be a holiday to do so.  Now, I could see the whole Christ angle on things, but with all the commercialism the holiday is not even circulating around religion any more.  It is just this mass marketing.  bleh

Forget about it...all of it

Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.  


Those songs that I used to hear that made me so happy to be in love with him, are the ones that I don't care to hear anymore...

Sociology

When walking away from Sociology class I can't help reviewing everything I have learned and not feeling a little resentment for my fellow American.  Who were we to decide who was fit to be lynched, who we were to decide the fate of over 60,000 people to be involuntarily sterilized in the early 1900's.  Who were we to bring hate to other races, genders, social classes etc?  What gave us the right to judge one another, and really where did it all begin?  Is it anyone that speaks another dialect, where's different clothes, is brought up in a low income social class?  Yes, sociology places all these questions in my head that I had not had before.  I listen to the things we have done, the acts that were carried out as groups not just one.  I listen to our many faults from our past, and how wrong we were to so many people of different races, ethnic backgrounds and just to people that didn't just meet the standards of those in power.  People turned away and shunned.  We did this, not another country, but we did this.  I would never do this to someone, but I place myself in that we.  Why?  Because I am a citizen of the United States.  I am a member of this society as a whole, though learning these things makes me not want to be part of what we have done.  We have destroyed lives, taken lives, we have condemned lives and made people suffer.  Though "we" say we are number 1, we are above all others, we are the ones in power.  Are we? Really?  I look at how we condemn others, how we have slaughtered our ideals all over the media, in papers on the internet.  We have marketed ourselves as the land of the free, but what I am learning shows me a different side of America.  It shows me that yes we have grown since the early days, but we still have not gone so far as to even remotely call ourselves-"the best".  I am ashamed to learn of how we treated individuals in the lynchings.  How many people watched people suffer at the hands of others, and no one did anything to put a stop to it.  I am saddened to see those that lost their lives in the Tuskegee Experiment, and to learn of the 60,000 people that were involuntarily sterilized because they didn't meet the standards of those around them.  I see that hate crimes still exist today, and if anything they are on the rise.  I see people still kill one another just because they are another race, gender, sexual preference.  I see rash violence and people hurting one another more openly these days.  If we are supposed to learn from our mistakes, and we are to be growing and learning, why, why does there have to be so much hate?  Isn't there enough people alive, walking the earth today brave enough to take a stand and have others follow.  Cannot we stand together for the purpose of the good.  We can stand together in war, we can stand together in hate, and we can stand together to serve a purpose to raise money, to avenge our enemies.  Why is it that we cannot stand together in peace?  Why?