In Case you Forgot

 

Michigan beat the Buckeyes 

24 to 12

Choose Wisely

 

The produce manager goes to great lengths to display his products in the best possible light.  He needs each one to look fresh, ripe and desirable.  Nobody wants to buy rotten fruit.

Animal shelters hope all the animals get adopted, so they keep them well fed, groomed and their cages clean and smelling nice.

When selecting an assisted living facility, you’ll want to count to see how many of the residents are smiling.  If it isn’t over half, move on to the next one.  Are the board games actually being used or have they been staged?  How many of the workers are actually busy, and how many are out back smoking?  Seek out what looks to be the rotten fruit and ask them how they like the place.  Does the facility smell like a fancy hotel or more like a hospital?  Are there wear patterns in the carpet around the fire extinguishers?  If there is a chalkboard listing the lunch or dinner specials, check to see how many have been erased and written over.  In the time you’ve been there, have you heard anybody scream?

 

        ZC

Why would anything be different?

 

        I just know it isn’t going to be simple, there’s going to be something, there always is.  Whenever people pass away they say, “Go towards the light.”  I have the odd feeling that when I pass on, for whatever reason, I’m going to see two lights.  “So ok, which one?  "FINE!  Somebody want to give me a hint?" My entire life I have chosen the wrong direction, so why would I expect anything to be different just because I’m dead?”

 

            ZC

The View from Here

 

It wasn’t all that difficult getting to the top of the hill, and once there I could not only see the valley below, but I could actually smell many of the scents that were passing by on the breeze. 

Not everyone had gone to bed for the night.  There were quite a few houses in the valley, each with several lights on.  Some chimneys had curls of smoke drifting up and across, and smoke was one of the smells I identified. 

Every now and then a firefly would light up and then another.  I wondered if they were talking to each other or just showing off.  I had no idea what the insect world was thinking, and sharing the planet with so many, you’d think I’d take more of an interest.  There must be many more insects than there are people.

It’s a good thing they don’t build houses and have smoking chimneys. We wouldn’t be able to walk around without stepping on them and have them crunch under our shoes.  They already have their hands full, avoiding being eaten by birds, lizards and spiders.

As the house lights below disappeared, I could see more and more stars.  The night sky really is amazing. It wasn’t all that comfortable standing there looking up, and as I had nothing to sit on, I made myself comfortable on the ground, leaning against a rock. 

I was enjoying the possibility of seeing something, anything streak across the night sky, but then a thought came to me.  Again, it was about the insects.  Now, here I sat in their world, right at ground level.  Possibly surrounded by millions of them.  I couldn’t even imagine all the different kinds.  Each one stranger looking than the last, and of course some that bite.

It was difficult to focus on the heavens while thinking I was probably someone’s dinner.  Tiny creatures feasting on me as I sat there, possibly crushing some of their houses or family members.  I was an unwelcome monster, blocking out their sky with my bigness.

I felt I should leave, but making my way down the hill at night would not be easy.  I have no flashlight or walking stick, nothing but me against the downward pull of gravity.  I guess I wasn’t thinking ahead.  I was too busy enjoying the night sky. 

It could be that on some other planet, we might be the insects, but I’ll think about that after I get back down off of this hill.

 

 

ZC

I can see where you're sitting

 

But I doubt I could pick you
out of a crowd.

...and without warning

 

At the present time there was nothing outside but the feeling that something was about to happen.  That is never listed when talking about the five senses.  Touch, sight, smell, hearing and tasting.  That eerie feeling is real, and I have witnessed it few times before.

 

***

        I know exactly the feeling you're talking about.

It's not quite touch, sight, smell, hearing, or taste. It arrives before any of them have delivered a clear message. You step outside and there's nothing obvious to point to. The sky looks ordinary. The trees seem still. Yet every part of you insists that something has changed.

People often call it a "feeling," but I suspect it's really a form of perception. Our brains are constantly collecting tiny bits of information that never reach conscious thought. Changes in air pressure before a storm. An unusual silence in the birds. A subtle shift in light. Familiar sounds that are suddenly absent. Your conscious mind may not notice any single clue, but somewhere below the surface they add up to a warning that simply arrives as: Something is about to happen.

Animals seem particularly good at this. Anyone who has lived around livestock, dogs, or wildlife has seen them become uncomfortable before a storm or disturbance. Humans may be less attuned than they once were, but I don't think we lost the ability entirely.

What's fascinating is that the feeling isn't always attached to weather. Sometimes it's connected to events. You've experienced it a few times before, which is probably why you trust it. Our memories have a way of tagging those moments when the sensation was followed by something memorable, reinforcing the connection.

Your observation reminds me that perhaps the traditional five senses were always an oversimplification. We talk about balance, temperature, pain, the sense of where our limbs are without looking at them. Maybe there ought to be a place for this one too:

Expectation.

The sense that notices the world has shifted one fraction of an inch before the rest of us catch up.

Or, as you put it more simply and perhaps more accurately:

"At the present time there was nothing outside but the feeling that something was about to happen."

That's a wonderful line, because it treats the feeling itself as part of the landscape. Not a thought in the observer's mind, but something actually waiting out there in the air. Like standing on a porch and seeing nothing at all except the arrival of a future that hasn't quite arrived yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ouch!

 

If ever back in time I went

I know just what I’d buy

I’d get a Magic Eight-ball

shake it up and try,

 

I’d ask it if I would be rich

have a house and fancy car

I’d question it if I was smart

It’d tell me, “Not so far.”

 

 

 ZC