It occurs to me…

This photo was taken and originally sent in 2009. I can mentally put myself back on the path, but can’t for the life of me recall exactly where the photo was taken.

Stepping onto the already occupied elevator today the thought occurs to me:

Whatever happened to elevator music?

As we shared that cube we used to share a common experience, if not a common floor.  (Well, yes, for varying distances we had our feet on the same elevator floor, but you know what I mean.)

But back to my point,

Whatever happened to elevator music?

Watered down, instrumental, elevatorized songs we never (we hoped) would have to hear from beginning to end, music composed, it seems, to help us forget about time on our vertical journeys. The trick seemed to be to have us focus on the vapid music, and its lack of heart and soul.

No R-E-S-P-E-C-T from Aretha here.  No Y-M-C-A. Nothing to make you want to sing, dance, or even tap your feet.  We’ll have none of that in our shared rectangle. Only vaguely familiar tunes easily forgotten once you began your horizontal travels.

Sadly, we are now left to staring at each other’s shoes, wondering when it became okay to wear brown shoes with a dark suit, when socks (if worn at all) no longer needed to “match” or even “go.” 

Here’s my floor.  But really, whatever happened to elevator music?

From Roger Miller’s Leavin’s Not the Only Way To Go, this excerpt that seems to apply well beyond the lost love story of the song:

“People reach new understandings all the time

Take a second look

Maybe change your mind”

It occurs to me that putting those three lines between thought and action could keep me out of a lot of trouble.

Originally sent in 2012, photo taken of a willing subject who spent a lot of time at the base of the fountain in the back yard at our previous home. The fountain moved with us, the frog didn’t.

From Hope, by Lisel Mueller:

Hope…

“It is the singular gift

we cannot destroy in ourselves,

the argument that refutes death,

the genius that invents the future,

all we know of God.”

Photo taken recently in Galveston. Text from Howard Thurman:

I ran across this today via Howard Thurman – lyrics from a hymn (Dear Lord and Father of Mankind) I was unfamiliar with which is in turn based on a poem (The Brewing of Soma) by John Greenleaf Whittier I was unfamiliar with:

Drop thy still dews of quietness

Till all our strivings cease

Take from our souls the strain and stress

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace

I am reminded here that peace has an internal component.  For all the efforts to create peace by controlling external factors (sound, location, scent, etc.) it also requires something (or perhaps nothing) of the seeker.  In this I am reminded of the anonymous quote that has long been on my desk:

“Peace – it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work.  It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

Peace!

Retrieved from 2009; I have no current memory of where the photo was taken. I also realize now that I have an extra syllable in the second line. Oops!

Awareness…

…that life is not transactional, at least not precisely so.

It is not a $1 for a vending machine Coke precise.

Sometimes you get two Cokes for your $1, sometimes none.

At times it spits out a Coke as you walk by, pockets in hand, not even thirsty.

Sometimes you get a Sprite, though you are certain you hit the Coke button.

Life is not transactional, not cleanly so.

Still, the glow from the lights, the humming of the machinery, reassures us to some measure.

So we stand there, pocketful of quarters,

Thinking we can share the extra Coke,

That we weren’t that thirsty anyway,

That Sprite is okay, maybe better.

We stand there, pocketful of quarters.

Who knows what may come out next?

Since I am spending a couple of weeks in Iowa, this 2010 Haiku seemed appropriate — though it was shot in Missouri.