Share Your Bread

Last night we walked Honey in the dark to the local pharmacy to get mini Dove dark chocolates to enjoy with a shot of piping hot black coffee. Chocolate is a cold weather comfort. I've heard that in Spain and Mexico and France chocolate is a food! We should learn from this. What are they doing at the UN? Where's the international council on chocolate? That proves it, we need more women in office.

I'm kissing the Earth, grateful that my autumnal post-summer blues have dissipated into a focused contentment. Today I appreciate everything, even dust! It makes such a difference to be engaged in what you really care about. It is horrible to hate your job. I've been there, it's a prison and a cancer that spreads into hating your life and everyone around you. Pay attention to what you love and follow it like a bloodhound even if the scent goes up a tree.

Speaking of trees, this morning the cemetery caretaker was surprised to see me so early. He was just arriving to deal with the infinite piles of fallen leaves. The headlights were still lit on his truck. He asked me if I saw anyone sleeping on a grave. I said no. He said yesterday he found a homeless man passed out on the grass behind one of the headstones. Maybe the guy was practicing for his next journey. The caretaker called the police, and the policeman apparently kicked the man's shoe three times to wake him up. Maybe he was a deep sleeper. The caretaker said these homeless guys get a check every month, why don't they just rent an apartment together? I said maybe they are caught in a swirl and can't see the horizon. Y'never know what demons, addictions or mental illnesses people are fighting. Why is there such hostility for the down and out in this country? Are we that out of touch?

My grandfather had a little fans-and-motors store on the Bowery called United Blower, and when I visited him an occasional bum would wander in to use the bathroom in the back of the store. My grandfather said, "I give them a bathroom and I take them out for a good breakfast once in a while." Today I am thinking about charity and gratitude. Do we appreciate what we have? Can we share our bread with others? It's that simple.

As I kid I decided I was adopted and my mother was just keeping it from me. When I was five I tried this theory out on her. She adamantly denied it. As I got older I searched for clues in our family photographs. I saw my legs and blue eyes were like my grandfather's. My eye sockets and toes resembled my mothers. I'll always be an orphan inside, but I am my grandparents' child because they really loved me and accepted me.

Whenever I do something wise or good for myself and it seems to come out of left field, I say it's my inner grandmother guiding me. Like when I suddenly decided to put a three-dollar ad in the local paper, "looking for accordion," and a sweet old French lady named Madeline called me and offered me hers. And then five years later, I decided I just had to find an old bari sax, and I did. And more recently when I needed to rejoin the Y.

We all have an inner mother and an inner father, but we also have the inner demon mother and the inner demon father and we must house, clothe and feed them all.