trash

Random Discoveries – Day 950

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Random Discoveries? – Photo: L.Weikel

Random Discoveries

How many times have I mused about the random discoveries we make in our day to day lives that actually feel like they’re messages? How many times have I picked up trash beside the road or looked at a billboard I’ve looked at a million times before and known with absolute certainty that it was meant for me to find or see in that moment? Even seemingly random tickets in line at the DMV can feel like a Hallmark card to me. Yeah, this is a theme I come back to over and over again.

I’ve made some pretty bizarre discoveries in the decades we’ve walked and picked up trash along the way. The other day was one of the odder discoveries. But in a peculiar way (naturally), I made a connection between what I found crumpled and tossed into the thicket beside my country road and my son – whose presence I’d felt very close recently.

I’d seen his initials on license plates at least half a dozen times over the past two days. I overheard random mentions of ‘1111’ or turned my head quickly when someone called out, “Karl!” in the grocery store. (No one was with me at the time.)

These things happen occasionally and they make me smile. Sometimes I ache and wish the connection was stronger or could segue into a conversation, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ll feel the hug. I’ll send the love right back at ya, Karl.

An Odd One

But the discovery the other day was different. I noticed the papers crumpled up in the grass as I walked by. The grass is tall along the roadside at that spot and initially I only saw one wad of paper. The other was actually a few paces further along.

The first one I picked up, while balled up, was still fully intact. It was clearly a poem ripped out of a book. So was the other, but that one had been ripped with less care, the bottom corner obviously remaining with the binding.

“What’s the message, Spartacus?” I asked as he eagerly nosed the balled up waste and looked expectantly toward me for a treat. Absently, I fished for a treat in my pocket and tossed it to him, which he deftly snagged mid-air.

Tucking the leash under my arm, I used both hands to smooth the page. I felt my heart skip just a bit faster. “Huh,” I said. “Good one, Karl.”

Poetry Thicket – Photo: L. Weikel

A Poem

Here in the middle of nowhere (see the photo above), I found a poem entitled ‘the bluebird.’ Not being a poet myself, nor a student of that genre, I had a feeling I should probably know who wrote this, but of course I didn’t. My Google search once I got home immediately yielded the name of Charles Bukowski.

Its words are haunting. And I can easily imagine my son thinking some of the thoughts expressed in the piece. But beyond that, it reminds me of Karl because he played the part of Moonface Martin in the musical Anything Goes when he was in 7th grade. He had a solo: Be Like the Bluebird.

I can’t even credit the book from which the pages were torn. But the two poems (I’ll share the other one tomorrow night) feel raw and important; at least important enough for me to pay attention to them and give them another venue in which to be read and contemplated. Do they hold a message for you? For me? For any of us?

Or are they just random discoveries?

the bluebird

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.

 

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whisky on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he’s

in there.

 

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

 

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

 

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there, I haven’t quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don’t

weep, do

you?

(T-161)

Sent or Delivered – Day 905

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Sent or Delivered? – Photo: L. Weikel

Sent or Delivered

It’s always amazing to me how Spirit will sometimes turn the most mundane objects or tasks into opportunities to send (or is it deliver?) messages. I guess the answer to that question (sent or delivered) depends entirely upon the recipient. Spirit can send a million messages – or a single message a million times – but that act alone doesn’t ensure a single one will be noticed, read, heard, or received in any way.

A piece of garbage that blows out of the back of a garbage truck can remain on the side of the road for days or weeks, or even much longer than that. It might get whisked into a roadside gully where a thunderstorm washes it into a stream, ultimately delivering it into a river. It might even make it to the ocean if it doesn’t get caught on a rock or buried in silt like the skeleton of a dinosaur.

There’s a chance that piece of garbage was sent as a message for someone to find and pick up. But if the intended recipient chose not to walk before the rain or went a different direction – or just wasn’t paying attention – then that sent message might never get delivered.

Ah, which tells me that it takes the efforts of two for Spirit to actually deliver a message. Spirit’s acting alone in sending is only the first affirmative act. But we need to do our part if we’re to give Spirit the satisfaction of claiming delivery. We need to see it and recognize the effort as the message it is.

Act On It?

It’s romantic to think that all messages we receive we act upon, but let’s face it: we don’t. I think we’re probably lucky to bat .200 or so in just recognizing a message has been sent and we snagged it as it passed by.

But following it? Actually listening to the message? Yikes. That entails a lot of steps. Receiving the message, recognizing it as such (and not dismissing it as a random piece of garbage), realizing it could actually be a message intended for us on some miraculous level, and then choosing to respect the message. And by that I mean respecting it enough to take the time to contemplate just what the message might mean and how it could apply specifically to our life.

Is this meant for me?

How does it apply?

Does it answer a question I’ve been mulling over?

Does it make sense?

A Picture or a Word

All of which makes me wonder just what I was being told and shown this evening. I believe the application calls for some contemplation. But no matter what, “Message sent – and  delivered.”

Bifurcated Sunset – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-206)

An Early Evening For Me & a Puzzle For You – Day 301

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Marlboro Mystery – Photo: L. Weikel

An Odd Mystery

This will be brief.

I don’t know what’s blooming out there, but I’m assuming this headache and weird, slightly nauseous feeling that’s dogged me all day has something to do with allergies.

Whatever it is, I’m thinking sleep may be the best antidote.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you to ponder the mystery of the odd discovery Karl and I made while taking a walk late this afternoon.

What the Heck?

Even though I wasn’t feeling the greatest version of myself when I arrived home from my quick getaway to Long Beach Island, we decided to engage in the walkabout (4 miles). Shortly into our sojourn, not even half a mile at most, the mystery started taking shape.

“Oooh! Good boy,” we chirped to Spartacus practically in unison. We like to give him positive feedback when he helps locate trash along the roadside as we walk, and he was very clearly sniffing out an empty pack of Marlboros.

“Hmm, somebody must’ve been jettisoning their stash before they got home,” Karl laughed as Spartacus eagerly trotted a few yards further to nose at another empty Marlboro box buried in the weeds ahead of us.

Weirdly, this went on for about another quarter mile or so down our road, well past where we would normally turn to do our shorter, 2.2 mile version, of our walk. Every several feet, we would find an empty pack or two. All Marlboros.  All on the same side of the road.

This pattern went on until we had a bag full of eight empty packs of Marlboros.

Not our usual ‘haul.’

Weirder Still

But weirder still was how we then walked an additional 2.5 miles or so, taking three sharp turns to be on a third, completely different road, only to discover yet another empty pack of Marlboros nestled in the grass beside the road. Even as the crow flies, this loner was a good mile from the other eight.

What are the odds of finding nine empty packs of Marlboro cigarettes strewn along two different country roads on a fine September day?

I’ll leave you to ponder whether there was a message in such a bizarre discovery. (Besides the obvious one, which is that people can be littering jerks).

Sunset on a Field of Yellow Flowers – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-810)

What Are People Thinking? – Day 149

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Guardrail Garbage – Photo: L. Weikel

What Are People Thinking?

I know. What a question. It’s provocative in so many ways, right?

I’ll give you some context: I set off in a different direction today than I usually ever walk. I wanted to see how far it is and how long it would take me to circumnavigate the Tohickon from a different perspective.

Unfortunately for me, this entailed walking along Dark Hollow Road, where the speed limit is 35 yet this obviously pertains to no one. I’m the first to admit that keeping one’s speed at or below 35 on this major, albeit ‘country,’ thoroughfare is extremely difficult. But one would think it would be much, much easier to be aware of that speed when there’s a person walking along the side of the road.

Think of the Hassle!

If nothing else, wouldn’t hitting a person with your vehicle be a hassle? Not to mention bloody, undoubtedly painful for everybody via injuries, potentially deadly, inflicting a major hit to one’s wallet, and just plain inconvenient – for it would undoubtedly make you late for whatever destination you are busting your hump to get to that you can’t let up on the accelerator much less put on your brakes when you see a person on the side of the road.

Every single time I heard a car coming – from either direction – I would deliberately step off the road and get as far away from the road surface as possible. But just like most roads, in some places that was easier to do than others.

Ignorance? Or Unconsciousness?

It was infuriating, then, to witness how the majority of people either ignorantly or obliviously acted as if my presence close to the roadway bore absolutely no relevance to the operation of their vehicle. Most cars that approached me (for I was walking on the correct side of the road, which is facing toward on-coming traffic) neither perceptibly slowed down in the least, nor did they move over toward the middle of the road to even cross the center line. It was as if they were constitutionally prohibited from leaving their lane to be either courteous or safe – regardless of the fact that no cars were coming in the other direction.

We are talking a country road. And I am referring to places where there was significant sight distance. I wasn’t asking people to take any risks on for themselves; I was simply hoping they might use a tiny bit of common sense and at least decelerate and move over.

Apparently that was too much to ask.

To make matters worse, I did not get further than a quarter of a mile and I had the plastic grocery bag I’d brought with me filled to the brim (and heavy!) with mostly broken beer bottles, as I’d had to choose. It was as if I were walking along a buffet table of ignorance.

Besides the hundreds of cigarette butts, there were glass bottles, both broken and intact, plastic bottles of all shapes, sizes, and colors, potato chip bags, power bar wrappers, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donut detritus, plastic bags, electrical outlet plugs, a heavy box filled with razor blades…

Yes. You read that right. <<shudder>>

Choose Your Battles?

Not only did I have to make an initial choice of what to focus my retrieval process on, but I also had to be extremely discerning on when and where to pick up. The whoosh of so many of the vehicles passing so closely to me full speed ahead was, quite frankly, in even measure terrifying and enraging.

I heard myself apologizing to Mother Earth over and over and over as I walked. It boggles my mind that people can be so unconscious (or so colossally ignorant).

But the coup de grace came when I was walking down Stump Road as it approaches Ralph Stover State Park. I was surrounded by trees upon trees, with admonitions of no hunting or fishing allowed on state lands posted intermittently. Birds sang and called to each other high in the trees, while the first spits of rain and rumblings of thunder encouraged me to move it and seek shelter. I’d already relieved myself of the weight of a full bag of trash when I spotted a county park garbage can about a mile earlier, and was already close to having another filled when I came upon a stretch of newly installed guardrail alongside the road.

Is This Apathy?

I was astounded to discover massive nuts and bolts obviously left over from the old and presumably damaged guardrail scattered underneath each joint  where sections of guardrail were bolted together. Not only were there dozens of these substantial and hefty nuts and bolts laying beside the road, there were spikes, too. It was apparent that the people who replaced the guardrail did not think to pick up and dispose of the old nuts, bolts, and spikes used to hold guardrails together and in place. They just left them there.

Honestly: who does this?!? In what world would anyone – particularly those tasked with maintaining the safety of the roadway – think it’s ok to just drive away without picking up and disposing of these items?  Can you imagine the damage that would be done to most cars if one of these items bounced up and hit a headlight or a windshield? I cringe when I consider the harm that could come to a motorcyclist or bicyclist.

I was incensed as I picked these items up. I didn’t even have enough room in my (second) bag to pick all of them up – so I will have to go back tomorrow. The handles to my plastic bag were stretching and cutting off the circulation in my fingers. With the bottles and cans I’d already picked up (again), it had to have weighed fifteen or twenty pounds, at least.

A Quick Pic

It was thundering and I caught sight of some lightning as I was picking these items up, so I made haste. As a result, I only managed to take a quick shot of a few of them laying on the ground (a photo I thought about sending to the road maintenance department but almost certainly won’t). I’d already picked up a bunch from this spot, but at least you can see what I was talking about. Sadly, it was actually far worse than this looks.

All of which causes me to circle back to my original question: what are people thinking?

How can we live in a world with prancing pigs and peepers, and gorgeous moments when the sun breaks through clouds following a storm (like the shot below, which I captured about an hour after my encounter with the nuts, bolts, and spikes), and remain so grossly uncaring about our environment – and each other?

I don’t understand.

Yet maybe there is nothing to understand. Maybe it’s just a matter of doing and being what we know is right and true for ourselves. If our actions inspire others, great. If not…

(T-962)

After the Storm – Photo: L.Weikel 9 April 2019