I wonder, I wonder…

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein

(a local resident wondering what is this thing he has spotted in the woods/ Julie Cook /2024)

There’s a current commercial running, out there in TV land,
sponsored by the Cunard Cruise line.
The commercial begins with a man’s melodious voice…
such a beautifully accented laced voice, musing… “I wonder, I wonder…”

It’s a commercial that cuts to my quick.
I find myself either muting or changing channels when I catch wind of that wonderment.
I refuse to listen…not bothering to return to what I was watching until I know
that blasted commercial is over.

Not, mind you, because my reaction has anything to do with cruises or trips…
but rather because it has everything to do with imagining, wondering, dreaming…
along with what exactly all of that might actually look like.

Obviously to the marketing strategists behind the commercial, that wondering,
imagining, dreaming, has everything to do with you and I desiring about being on some sort of enchanted trip…ie, one of their cruise ships.
They want us to enjoy an almost mystical, magical, fabulous, ethereal sort of life.
Sipping champagne under the stars, dressed to the nines while relishing all that is
glamorous and fabulous…staring upward at the stars,
all while silently gliding over a vast sea toward never never land.

Forget any storms at sea, diverted ports of call, perilous waves,
imperfect weather, rampant cases of Norovirus running amuck, children clamoring and
darting all around…they would rather for both you and I to simply imagine something
marvelously great and grand… as we find ourselves wrapped in contentment,
serenity and peace.

However, in my case, that commercial invokes a very strong emotion.

Of which is exactly what the marketing strategists long for out of any targeted group…
the goal is that said audience experience something which evokes emotion—
a sense of the visceral.
And if that happens, then the marketing gods have done their duty.

Yet for me, that visceral emotion invoked is not the imagery of a glamorous
ocean adventure on a royal cruise line…but rather it is an almost gut wrenching
suffocating sense caused by what the voice behind the commercial is saying…
“I wonder, I wonder…”

It makes me, draws me… to the simple feat of wondering…wondering of a what could be.

The narrator in question of this particular commercial is the late Alan Watts—
who according to Wikipedia and the Spectator, was an English writer, speaker, and self-styled “philosophical entertainer” who was born 6 January 1915 and died 16 November 1973.
Watts was known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
“Watts was a sixties hippie, a Zen Buddhist pop philosopher who sought to
soothe the anxieties of the newly tuned in.”/em>

In other words, he was a leading mover and shaker in the hippie movement of the late 60’s
whose writing and voice are currently being used to promote a grand false perception
of a holiday life on a cruise ship.
A bit of a paradox really.
A hippie Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, non conformist is now a promoting money maker for a cruise line.
Philosophy promoting marketing….
Maybe we have a new subculture of something known as philosophical marketing…But I digress…
as usual.

The commercial begins with a soothing “I wonder, I wonder…
what you would do if you had the power to dream any dream…”

And what I dream and wonder about is not cruise ships or banquets or love affairs
or adventure or wishes–
not the stuff that the commercial is hoping you and I dream about
but rather I dream about two little people who are currently lost to me and who
I deeply long to find.

Thus in order to expunge some of the angst which I find myself wrapped in when I suddenly
hear Mr. Watts beginning his monologue on my television, I’ve had to do what any red blooded
21st century soul would do…
I’ve visited “mr. google”…I googled the story behind the monologue.

Here is the full text of the monologue…

Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that
you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example,
have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time.
Or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams,
you would fulfill all your wishes.
You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive.
And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each,
you would say “Well, that was pretty great.”
But now let’s have a surprise.
Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control.
Where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be.
And you would dig that and come out of that and say
“Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”
And then you would get more and more adventurous,
and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream.
And finally, you would dream … where you are now.
You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
Alan Watts

And so…it seems that the tale is rather a full circle sort of musing.
The dreams of the what if’s mixed with the realities of the what are…
Not so much dreaming about how we might desire to find ourselves
but rather dreaming of what our lives actually are…
and perhaps making that actual life better…

As a spiritual Christian who is not a Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist or hippie,
I simply think God wants us to live our lives as best we can…in the present moment.
I don’t think God wants us so much to concentrate and expel our supply of energies
on the what ifs, the could have beens, the should have beens, the only if’s…
but rather He’d prefer us to do the best with the here and now—no matter how hard sometimes that might be—while also being purposeful with those individuals currently around us…be it friend or stranger. One candle lighting the light for others.

It’s fine to dream and to hope, in fact it is often imperative that we do so,
but at the same time, I also believe we can get too mired down in said hopes and dreams,
often losing the importance of the here and now.

We simply can get stuck in all the longing.

And when we do, we lose what we actually have right in front of us…and isn’t that
the one thing we actually have some sense of control over…
that which is right in front of us?

Having thought long and hard about it, I don’t have to mute the commercial anymore.
I just go about the task of living the life right in front of me.
The one life God gave me. I might mess it up, I might make mistakes but all He asks
is that I keep trying. Live this moment to your best ability.
I’ll keep trying God.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34

indescribable

“The perfection of learning is to know God in such a way that,
though you realize he is knowledge, yet you know him as indescribable.”
Saint Hilary of Poitiers

(Mt. Mitchell range in the sleet and clouds / Julie Cook /2024)

(a coating of ice/ Julie Cook / 2024)

(clearing skies along the Mt. Mitchell range /Julie Cook /2024)

To know that God is indescribable, one needs to just look outside…
as none of what one sees can simply be put a nice neat little box of explanation…

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through him and for him.
Colossians 1:16

wild horses

“Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.”
Virginia Woolf

(the foal Fawn / Corolla Beach/ Julie Cook / 2023)

There is a 200 mile stretch of land that is primarily comprised of a variety
of islands and spits sitting just off the coast of the southeastern US—
It’s known as the Outer Banks or… to those who know the place more intimately,
it is simply referred to OBX.

It is an Atlantic coastal barrier island-mass that stretches from the southern tip to the northern tip, that being the full length of the far eastern edge of North Carolina.

There is a tremendous amount of history associated with this particular slender landmass.
Everything from the very first and oddly lost colony of English settlers to the very first
moment man set flight becoming one with the sky.

While we mere mortals exist in a continuum of both space and time–our past often races forward,
quickly becoming our future. Sands shift, storms change shorelines as peoples come and go…
all the while history remains in the wake.

Lone fledgling colonies are lost…their memory left to morph into an endless stretch of summer beach homes, restaurants and tourist shops as men who once made historic flights are now relegated to both museum and memorial fodder.

And yet in this collision of all things past and present, there remains a single and most important bastion to a past that was and yet still remains to this day.

The wild horses of Corolla and Currituck.

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

Along the most northern stretch of the Outer Banks, up toward the Virginia state line, there remains a relatively non commercialized bit of the world where the water simply meets the sand.
There are no paved roads, only sand dunes.
There are a few stalwart home owners that can only reach their “bits of paradise”
by four wheel drive.

And that’s where “they” live.
The wild horses.

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

These horses are the original descendants of the mustangs that the Spanish brought to the new world in the 1500’s.

According the the visit.currituk.com website:

The wild horses were originally brought here in the 1500s on Spanish ships. The shallow nature of the coast off of Corolla and the unpredictable sandbars have caused the area to be known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and caused many a shipwreck. It is believed that the horses survived such occasions to swim to shore, making a new home for themselves, and they’ve been here ever since.

Whether roaming the sand-streets or enjoying the fine sea mist on the shores of Corolla, these horses are free to wander as they please. They stroll through neighborhoods and yards, pausing to nibble a bite of grass, sea oats, live oak tree leaves or persimmons.

Their legs are short, their bodies stocky and their fur fluffier than domesticated horses. Locals and visitors alike steer clear, out of respect and concern for their protection. Their diets are narrow and their health precarious; the slightest contact with humans can be lethal for the horses. This is why it is so important to never get closer than 50 feet from one of these beautiful creatures.

Although mild in personality, these horses are entirely untamed, and can be quite territorial. Stallions regularly break into battle over mares, food and resources, and visitors are well-advised to keep a healthy distance for fear of spooking one. Although smaller than most horses, they are still extremely strong, and protective of their fellows.

Back in the Fall, I was fortunate to have a tour of the area…seeing just one of
the small herds of these horses rather up close and personal.
The total number os horses is just around 100, give or take.
During my visit, we were fortunate to have seen a recent Spring-born foal nicknamed
Fawn by the tour guides.

These horses are not looked after by keepers or vets.
They are not given supplemental feed or medicines.
They are not tended to during hurricanes or storms.
There are no barns or stalls in which they go to seek shelter.
They are entirely on their own…
Wild and unencumbered by man..

A small vacuum of time that exists where the sea meets the surf…

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

(the wild horses of Corolla, NC/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

https://www.visitcurrituck.com/places/corolla-wild-horses/

the humble onion (a reboot)

“Life is an onion–
you peel it year by year and sometimes cry.”
Carl Sandburg

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.
To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Thomas Aquinas

(Nothing Fancy episode from Foyle’s War)

I’ve taken back to rewatching a favorite series of mine, Folye’s War.

It’s a long story but when Spectrum and Disney hit a snag in their partnership of
entertaining the masses, channels such a ESPN, Disney, ABC…et el, were blocked from
Spectrum viewers.

Do you know what that meant???

It meant that there was no college football for Spectrum viewers!!!

Well not exactly a total blackout…
I could still pick up teams like the Huskies and the Bruins.

With no offense to Husky or Bruin fans, there’s just something extra special,
something akin to the mystical, about watching football in the deep South.
Teams such as the Huskies and Bruins just aren’t deep South favs.

It was actually more like, as if on some sick and maniacal cue,
right at the exact time of kickoff…the kickoff of a season that could
actually be witness to my beloved DAWGS making some sort of miraculous history
that only Wally Butts and Vince Dooley could be proud of…
there was no SEC football.

For a UGA football fanatic such as myself, well, it was as if Dante had sent me to
one of his inner rings of hell…

It was the ring where the game was stuck… standing still on a screen with no
realtime action taking place..all the while souls such as myself, who were
stuck in said ring, knew that live action was indeed taking place outside of
the ring…yet time for us was nonexistent.
A ring where college football fans, especially those lovers of ACC and SEC football,
were simply left to stare at blank screens.

The solution???? Stream the viewing.

That sounded like an easy solution, but mine was an older TV—
Couple said older TV with the lack of electronic and tech savviness, and well,
I felt sheer panic rising within.

I could have gotten one of those gadgets such as a fire stick or Roku device
but what do I know about those????

I decided my best bet was to bite the bullet and get a new TV…one with all those
app thingees already on it and then, with the help of the proverbial geek squad,
I could figure out which apps I’d want and which ones I didn’t….and actually find my
blasted football!!!!

Yet as fate would have it, right when the new tv was delivered,
Spectrum and Disney stuck a deal.

Spectrum kept reassuring us complaining customers that this was Deisney’s fault and we, the consumer would be the better for it in the end…well, I missed 3 weeks of UGA football games…how that was beneficial is beyond my soul but I digress!

In the end, I’ve gotten my beloved DAWGS back….now with much better clarity–
plus I’ve gotten Britbox and ACORN tv…meaning I can see my favorite old British TV
mysteries without having to use Dad’s old CD’s..

And thus I offer you a reboot from the past.
A post about a Foyle’s War episode…….

Having been a baby boomer, I never knew what it was like living during a time of deprivation like those who lived through the lean times of the Depression
or a world war.
I have not had to live with ration stamps, food shortages, or overt sacrifice for the greater good during a time of grave uncertainty and an all consuming war of life or death…not like my grandparents or parents who did just that.

So when I watched an episode of Foyle’s War which featured the raffling of a lone
onion, I was both startled and curious.
A raffle for a prized onion?
An onion?

Foyle’s War was a marvelous British TV Drama that came out in 2002.
The series was set in Hastings, East Sussex in England during WWII and
follows the life and trials of a local police inspector,
Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle
(Michael Kitchen) along with his small team of assistants.
Foyle works the home front, doing his best to maintain order during a time of
worldly chaos.

Dad introduced me to the series years ago when he gave me a boxed set—
I was quickly hooked.
It is historically accurate, well done and rich in cinematography with great
story lines, accompanied by consummate actors.
I think it is the historical war aspect that had me hooked.

During this one particular episode concerning the onion, the episode Nothing Fancy,
the police office was raffling off a large onion.
DCS Foyle’s assistant Sam Wainwright, is seen to pine over the onion
hoping, or better yet almost salivating,
that she might actually be able to win such a treasure.

Now granted the onion was just a bit of side story to the main plot
of murder, mystery and mayhem but yet I kept thinking how odd it was that an
unassuming onion should be raffled off.
And odder still was the fact that everyone really wanted to win.

It was just an onion for heaven’s sake.
But what I hadn’t grasped was the fact that things such as fresh vegetables,
during a raging world war, while living on an isolated Island such as England,
were a rare treasure.

Not because an onion by itself is considered nutritious, exotic or of real value..
but when you have had to live a life of deprivation, existing on ration stamps,
struggling through food shortages…
adding to the fact that most fresh foods were sent directly to the front lines
to provide the best for those fighting the war….
the act of eating was no longer something for pleasure but was for pure survival…
having a small gift of flavor was almost too good to be true.

Variety, flavor and flare were the first casualties as such luxuries
are quickly sacrificed.

If you cook, or know anything about cooking, then you fully grasp the fact that
things such as onions are often taken for granted….
yet they are the subtle key players, hanging out in the background, who are greatly necessary in cooking as they add a depth and complexity to food.

Onions add a variety of flavors pure and simple.
They take bland to an entire new level of taste…
be it sweet and smokey, spicy and hot, caramely and soft,
or they simply add texture and crunch…
Onions are a key ingredient to any savory meal.

So naturally I considered what my life would be without something equally as
necessary yet something that seems to be usually in the background,
something seemingly humble and most often taken for granted….
as in the thought that it will always be there…
Something that, should it be lost or that I should be deprived
of such would be, in a word, catastrophic….

For me, that would be a death without hope…
which is what a life would be without the real presence of God the Father,
the hope of Salvation found in Jesus Christ the Son and the
everlasting guidance of the Holy Spirit.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness,
which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away,
nailing it to the cross.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
2 Colossians 13-15

I just wanted to give you flowers!

“The sunflower is mine, in a way.
I find comfort in contemplating the sunflowers.”
Vincent van Gogh

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

On the way home from an apple orchard (tis the picking season),
I spied the most beautiful bit of scenery.

For as far as the eye could see… stood rows upon rows of sunflowers…
thousands of flowers literally basking in the warmth of an early October
afternoon’s sun.
Sunflowers of every shape, size and glorious array of color.

Perched by the field was am unassuming roadside market advertising that folks could
walk the fields, cutting their own bouquet.

It truly a beautiful site that I wanted to share with you!

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

(sunflowers the 1st of October / Julie Cook / 2023)

How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Psalm 104:24

what are the odds???

“O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“With every mistake, we must surely be learning.”
George Harrison

(my daily visitors / Julie Cook / 2023)

I’ve decided I want to write a book.

Well…maybe that should read ‘I’ve decided I NEED to write a book’.

And if I’m being really truthful about the matter, I should say I decided long ago
I wanted to write a book…but as I’ve aged, I’ve discovered that the
topics, subjects and plots are constantly changing, evolving or simply
existing in a state of perpetual flux.
A most difficult conundrum to pin down.

And thus sitting down to write said book, let alone deciding what it is I’m to be
writing about, is never quite clear.
There’s really simply just too much to choose from!

Take the other day.

I bought a new weed eater…and as it is that I live perched on the side of
a mountain in the middle of the woods….things around me are constantly needing to be
weeded, trimmed, cut, maintained…

I have to work very hard at making it look as if a human being actually lives here
and that I am not a prepper hiding out in some remote camouflaged wilderness…
not that I’m disparaging peppers mind you…it’s just that I need to tame
the world around me…a world that has lived here long before I ever came along.
Simply put, I must work very hard to strike a balance of my coexisting with
that of my surroundings.

For instance, take the undergrowth on the back bank…

It is difficult at best to fend it all off from encroaching onto
the path that leads around to the back of the house.

Weeds, saplings, vines, brambles, sprouts—a giant hot mess.

And as things have grown thick and dense, I fear many creatures are finding
homes very near my own.
I need to have separation!
They must have their area as I must have mine!

Did I mention that this back bank is also extremely steep?

There’s no working from the top down.
Tumbling, slipping and / or falling are very real.

And so it was that the other afternoon I donned my trusty weed eater while
doing my best to clear away some of the madness.

Remember me telling you how I had gotten this cool app for my phone called
“Picture This”??
You can snap a pic of a tree, flower, plant, seed, bark, nut etc…
and it will tell you what it is.

Well, sitting right off the edge of the bank, there’s this tree-like thing sprouting upward
out of the madness.
Day after day I have watched this “thing” grow taller and wider with each passing minute…
mocking me with its rapid growth in a place where it was certainly not wanted
as it defiantly sat just out of reach.

At first I thought it was a mimosa tree in the making.
Yet I knew it was more weedy than desirable.
Think trash tree or some invasive mess vs a sourwood or sugar maple.
It was out of place and not welcomed.

I couldn’t reach the blasted thing with the weed eater, let alone chainsaw.
I couldn’t swing down the bank far enough to whack it or hack it into oblivion.
I knew enough to know it didn’t belong and I knew it had to go!

And so as I have so aptly learned– desperate times require desperate measures…
I grabbed a pole saw that the previous home owners had left behind.

Perched just ever so gingerly on the edge of the bank, I reached out ever so carefully
with the extended pole saw. The pole was just long enough for me to cut the six protruding stalks.
And that’s when I smelled it.
With the first cut, there was a most pungent aroma lofting upward.

Gees louise…what the …..????

This thing stunk to high heaven.

I immediately thought SNAKES???

Is this smell from snakes???
I’ve read that if you smell something like a cucumber
there are copperheads nearby…
Yet undeterred, I continued overreaching and cutting…
cutting until all stalks were toast. Using the pole to push the fallen stalks further down
the bank down into the tangled abyss of vegetation.

Only slipping once, I eventually surrendered knowing that I was literally one foot
ahead of the game and should take the small victory I had been given…
death to a trash tree.

It was a few days later when I saw a similar tree perched in a weedy overgrowth patch along
the side of the road.
I stopped to snap a quick picture using my app.

It appears that the tree is called the Tree of Heaven…
“Oh Good Lord”, I thought, I chopped down Heaven?!
Only I could cut down Heaven’s tree…

Yet as I continued reading, it seems that the tree is also known as
the Tree from Hell….

Now that makes more sense…

It’s also known as the Stinky Sumac….hence the stench when being cut.

It is an invasive tree from….wait for it…China.

Oh what are the odds?
The irony of my angst.

And so opting to leave the bank to more trained professionals, I decided to
tackle something a bit more doable…something not involving
my demise nor that of either Heaven and Hell…I decided to clean the oven.

Removing the oven’s racks before turning on the cleaning, cycle as directed by the
manual, I put the racks out on the back patio in order to clean them separately
once the oven was situated.

As I headed out to work on the racks, to my shock, it seems as if some of my
neighbors found the racks before I did…

What are the odds???

And thus we have the title for the book…”What are the Odd?”

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Philippians 4:6, NIV

P is for perseverance…and love…

People let me tell you ’bout my best friend
He’s a warm hearted person [cat] who’ll love me ’til the end
People let me tell you bout my best friend
He’s a one boy cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride and joy
lyrics by Harry Nillson

(something about that pink nose…a much younger Percy/ Julie Cook)

If you’re anything like me… well…
you’ve probably had your fair share of four legged or even two winged pets
during your lifetime.

I counted it up today and Percy, the last of my cats during this 63 year run of a life,
actually totals number 7.

Let’s not count the dogs, one bird, one mouse, one hermit crab, a myriad of fish
and countless found wild little animals that needed tending too…
simply put, it was always the cats… and in particular, it was
always Percy who seemed to matter most.

Percy came into my life 13 years ago last month.
I wrote the following post about him after about two years in living with him–
because by this time, he’d completely stolen my heart–
the link is here:

My Best Friend

And I might add that I’ve actually written many posts about Percy…
posts about his life, his rescue, his surgeries, his endurance…
but most importantly and simply put, I’ve written about his perseverance.

For you see Percy is short for Perseverance.

When I found myself staring at the tiny maggot covered, broken, bruised and
bloodied mass that was actually a kitten barely clinging to existence—
a kitten who had been thrown from a car and smacked up against a fence post…
this tiny mess of a baby…I knew any name this animal would have,
would have to measure up to this wee one’s sheer will and determination
to survive.

A strong name for a seemingly helpless mangled mess.

But what you need to understand in all of this is that I didn’t,
my family didn’t, rescue Percy—it was Percy who found us to be his rescuers.
He found us, because as odd as it might sound, Percy sensed–
yes this tiny broken creature seemed to know that we’d give him that chance
that he needed and obviously desperately wanted…a chance to thrive.

And yet however…in the end, it was and will always be Percy who rescued me.

Time and time again, Percy rescued me.

Yes, it seems that I just wrote a post about losing my older cat Peaches…as she
had to be put down after battling jaw cancer.

We already had Peaches when Percy came into our lives.
And just like that, this older cat who had never had kittens of her own,
quickly accepted and took on Percy as hers.

(Percy and Peaches at this newest of homes / Julie Cook / 2023)

Yet Percy wasn’t like other cats; not like any I had ever had before.
Even vets would comment that Percy was not catlike but rather more doglike–more
intuitive, not dismissive or elusive but rather… just more of an old soul.

Percy was the most expensive pet I’ve ever owned.
No thoroughbred, no exclusive breed…just basically a mutt so to speak.

The costs came quickly…
there were the exams and meds and fluids just to see if he’d survive
his first week with us.

A cage, food, bedding, toys….

Then there were surgeries early on to repair the damage done to his face..
damage caused by humans who must have been void of their own humanity.

Then there was the metal rod installed by an orthopedic surgeon to repair a
torn achilles tendon.
The 12 weeks worth of rehab.
More cages.
Casts.
Meds.
The ensuing bone infection that required trips to the vets daily for injections and pills
for a good 7 weeks.

And most recently there was the emergency room trip.
The oxygen box.
More meds.
The IVs
The infections.
The X-rays.
The kidney failure.
The suspected congenital heart failure.

And yet…he overcame…once agin…or so it seemed.
For there was always the perseverance.

The desire to be.

The bond between us was (and will always be) inseparable.

13 years…with all the additions and subtractions in a family.
The retirements, the lives, the deaths, the moves, the ups, the downs, the divorce…
the one constant was always…Percy.

Well…yesterday…Mother’s Day…my best friend’s heart simply gave out.
It suddenly stopped beating and he stopped being…
just as a piece of me also stopped.

Percy was seemingly my only link to a life that was bridging a life that was and
a life that is…he was the last bit of brittle glue bonding two worlds…
and now… that last link, that brittle little glue… simply stopped breathing.

Do animals, our pets, go to Heaven?

Well, that’s been an age old theological conundrum for ages…
but I have always said that God knows how much our pets mean to us—
on all sorts of levels.
How much they do for us and how much we do for them.

I think the God I know…knows.
He sees and He knows.
And he cares, even for the least of these.

Many will say that Percy was lucky to have found me…
but if the truth be told, I was and I am the one who was the luckiest of all
that Percy found me.

He taught me and continues to teach me what it means to Persevere.

Thank you my dear little friend….

The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made
Psalm 145:9

Way back when:

Not a recent good look! Despite countless water bowls around the house, Percy always preferred drinking water from a recently finished shower…or remnants in a bath and most recently… something a bit more disturbing…

However the most content was simply to rest on a perch next to a warm fire…

won’t you be my neighbor

“Love is sacrifice.
Love sacrifices itself for its neighbor.”
Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.”
George Eliot

(the next generation of neighbors / Julie Cook /2023)

In my neck of the woods, neighbors can have either two legs or four.
However, if the truth be told, the majority most likely come with four…
that is unless we count all the birds…be that songbirds, crows, turkeys, grouse,
etc…but I digress.

So imagine my surprise while I was mindlessly walking toward the kitchen sink
when suddenly something odd caught my attention.

It was as if some sort of super power laser vision took over—-
my eyes immediately locked on the eyes of another….

There were wee brown eyes curiously peering in at my green eyes.

All the while, eyes locked… this curious wee one was making a bee line
toward my kitchen window.

Seeing how small my inquisitive new friend was,
I knew mother couldn’t be too far away.

And just as I suspected, it just so happened that mother was close…
close near the front door. Yikes!

Throwing caution to the wind, I grabbed my phone, heading out that same door..
all the while my young friend had quickly retreated
meeting back up with mom on the opposite side of my car.

It seems my wee friend has a few siblings who aren’t as bold nor as
adventuresome.
Yet that matters not because a new group of neighbors have made their presence known…
and I am the better for it.

“When I say it’s you I like,
I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more
than anything you can ever see or hear or touch.
That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without
which humankind cannot survive.
Love that conquers hate,
peace that rises triumphant over war,
and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
Fred Rogers

Picture this…

“Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.”
Helen Hayes

“If God’s not in the picture, then all I’ve got is a frame.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough

(a pristine Spring day/ Julie Cook/ 2023)

A year has passed by since my life flipped on its head and I moved from Georgia–
moving to the mountains of North Carolina.

When I moved, I moved with a torn ACL that had not been fully rehabbed.
I had a brace on my knee and my world in a thousand boxes.

I’ve lived with a torn ACL before but that knee served its full time in rehab.
Surgery has never been recommended…either tear.
But rehab was a must.

I don’t play tennis nor do any pivoting type of activities–
I’m pretty much usually moving simply forward, backward, up and down…
should there be any need to twist or pivot…then it’s all she wrote.
Lateral movements are not possible and God forbid I hit a slick spot and
need to maintain balance.

I had thought that I could do the necessary exercises on my own,
but time, settling and logistics muddied the waters.
My current home’s incline is a far cry from the relatively flat
to rolling curvatures of Georgia.

Therefore it’s slow and steady goes the race.

So I’ve managed to put the brace on a shelf and have found my way to a nice walking
path down the mountain.
The walking path is carved into a large pasture. Two loops making a mile.
The path meanders by a trout stream then back out into a sunny wild grass field.
It’s been created and maintained by a local fire department as it butts up to the
back of the station.

One might not think walking a flat gravely path out in the middle of a pasture
could offer any sense of wild natural beauty…but you might be surprised.

A while back I found a great little app for my phone…PictureThis
It allows one to take a picture of a plant, tree, shrub, nut etc and it will identify
the mystery.
It offers descriptions, plant information, care information,
latin names, species, genus, etc.
What’s poisonous, what’s edible, perennial, annual, deciduous or not…

I often find myself stopping along my laps, taking quick snaps of what most folks
would consider pesky weeds only to discover tiny treasures under foot.

So imagine my surprise when I spied what I thought was
just another wooden telephone pole… only to discover it was a bit more.

Back in Georgia, telephone poles are typically tall brown, creosote embalmed pines.
The poles in my North Carolina area are more grayish in nature with a distinctive
mottled wood pattern.

Curious, I pulled out my phone and opened the ‘picturethis’ app—I snapped a picture
and quickly learned that this pole is actually a Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine.
Who knew?!

The app could actually identify a common processed telephone pole

So if you want to enhance your wanderings…I highly recommend getting the
PictureThis app for your phone.

(creeping buttercup / Julie Cook/ 2023)

(Mountain Laurel / Julie Cook / 2023)

(Mountain Laurel / Julie Cook / 2023)

I assure you that it is not by faith that you will come to know him,
but by love; not by mere conviction, but by action.
John the Evangelist is my authority for this statement.
He tells us that anyone who claims to know God without keeping
his commandments is a liar.
St. Gregory the Great

one of my new heros…out of the mouth of babes…

…and said to Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?”
And Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read,
‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise’?”
Matthew 21:16 NKJV

(Liam Morrison, 12, reads a statement during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13. (YouTube / Middleborough Educational Television)

I admit that I’ve been rather sporadic here in blogland for quite some time…
ever since my personal world took a major turn.

My time is now different.

It’s a busy time…but in a much different way than it once was.
Busy good.
Busy sad.
Busy full.
Busy new.
Busy different…but all busy just the same—
…and like I’ve always said, busy hands keep the devil away…
or I think that’s something more like ‘idle hands being the devil’s workshop’…
or something along those lines…just meaning,
keeping busy, you don’t get in trouble…

I should also add, that over the past year,
I’ve been quite remiss with my traditional overload of all things news and politics.

During my time of ‘exile’ and divorce, I basically quit watching the news…
or much TV for that matter.
At the time, life was pretty glum as it was, why would I want to pepper that with
the sordid details of the real and unreal happenings within our now very
upside down world??

And so now that I’ve been on a more even keel for nearly year,
I still don’t watch the news, but I do keep up via various news apps.

I say all of this because I caught a story the other day that sparked my interest.

I’m not sharing this story so much because I feel the need to repeat my
feelings regarding the current two gender drumbeat…
because in my mind that’s a no brainer…I took biology…
I may not remember everything that was taught back in the 8th grade but I do remember
that there are two genders, end of sentence.

I don’t share this story because I’m still rather clueless in not understanding
the growing letters found on some rainbow flag and the need to keep adding letters
and symbols…
I tend to be a one flag nation kind of gal—red, white and blue you know.

I share this story because there’s a seventh grade young man from Massachusetts
who seems to know a lot more than most of most of us adults…

By Ashley Carnahan / Fox News:
A 12-year-old student was allegedly sent home from school after he refused to change
his T-shirt that said, “There are only two genders.”

Liam Morrison, a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in
Middleborough, Massachusetts, said he was taken out of gym class on March 21
and met with school staff who told him people were complaining about
the statement on his shirt and that it made them feel “unsafe.”
His comments were picked up by popular Twitter account LibsofTikTok.

“Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe.
They told me that I wasn’t in trouble,
but it sure felt like I was. I was told that I would need to
remove my shirt before I could return to class.
When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father,”
he explained during a Middleborough School Committee meeting on April 13.

“Thankfully, my dad, supportive of my decisions, came to pick me up.
What did my shirt say? Five simple words: There are only two genders.
Nothing harmful. Nothing threatening.
Just a statement I believe to be a fact,” he said.

Morrison added that he was told his shirt was “targeting a protected class”
and was a “disruption to learning.”
“Who is this protected class?
Are their feelings more important than my rights?” he asked.
“I don’t complain when I see Pride flags and diversity posters hung
throughout the school.
Do you know why?
Because others have a right to their beliefs, just as I do,” he said.

“I was told that the shirt was a disruption to learning.
No one got up and stormed out of class.
No one burst into tears.
I’m sure I would have noticed if they had.
I experience disruptions to my learning every day.
Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done.
Why do the rules apply to one yet not another?”

The student said “not one person” directly told him they were bothered
by the words on his shirt and that other students had told him
they supported his actions.

Morrison told the committee he felt like the school was telling him
it wasn’t OK for him to have an opposing point of view and that he didn’t
go to school that day to “hurt feelings or cause trouble.”

“I have learned a lot from this experience.
I learned that a lot of other students share my view.
I learned that adults don’t always do the right thing or make
the right decisions.
I know that I have a right to wear a shirt with those five words.
Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions and
I have a right to express those opinions.
Even at school.
This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution,” he stated.
(my emphasis)

“My hope in being here tonight is to bring the School
Committee’s attention to this issue.
I hope that you will speak up for the rest of us,
so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class.
Next time, it may not only be me.
There might be more soon that decide to speak out.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Middleborough Public Schools for comment but has yet to receive a response.