Maybe.  ….. Some people hide. Other people seek.
And I guess some individuals do a little of both.

I liked the whole game of it when I was a kid.  But it changes when we get older.

I have met those who seem to hide a lot.  The are content, I suppose.   Maybe they are complacent.  The old way was good enough.  It has been that way for years.  Why change it?   Why look to anything else?  Good enough is good enough.

The hiders hide in different ways… myself included.  Maybe they are avoiding surprises for a reason.    Some must stick with the old plan.   Still others must  protect their property.   Certain people find comfort in routines.   Then, there are those who  are  ignoring their dreams and their fantasies.  Perhaps, just perhaps…. day in and out… they just won’t feel their true feelings.
And then.

The world has seekers.  Now this is a fine walk to walk.  There are some who just seek without any thought or care.   A sort of mindless and unbalanced seeking… desperate… or maybe even neurotic, or addictive.  This kind of seeking isn’t the real deal.

The true seekers, and I respect them wholly…. they are the ones truly want to learn… to know… to find out.  And they aren’t afraid to look… no matter where that looking takes them.

They may find out what they didn’t expect, or might not want to know…. but they seek regardless.   They attempt to find the honest to goodness truth of it all… this thing we call life.

They do it because they have truly figured out that connecting the dots is a process.  From here to there and then on to the next.

While the big picture… may always elude the human race…. perhaps the seekers are closer to it somehow.  And maybe that matters.

As the old saying goes… Live and Learn… …… and Seek.

At least, I think that is how it goes.

“Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.” – Horace Mann

Because of the overwhelming interest in bumpy leaves, I feel the need to do a continuum this evening.   And therein…. I rolled up my sleeves, and found that those little bumps on leaves…. are called….  galls.

Yes….   oh the gall of it.

These little deformations are usually the result of insects or mites feeding on the leaves.   I KNEW insects had to be involved in all of this somehow.

So here is the deal.  The gall itself…  is the plant’s response to the irritation. It is sort of like the bump you get when an insect feeds on you.  The difference is…. your bug bite will go away (hopefully).  However… you can expect the leaf gall is not going to go away.

AND…. even though it really looks like there might be bugs in there…. the insect is not living in the gall… at all.   The experts say…. in fact…. that it is very likely the insects have moved on.

And there you have it.  No leaf acne, or pregnancy.  No Leper Colony.  Just bug bites.

Hmmmm.

Tomorrow night… I might write about petrichor… which is the name for that clean, green smell…. when it just starts raining.  It turns out… that when those raindrops hit the dry ground… it produces this smell…. petrichor.

Who knew.

Or I could write about that place where you can’t reach to scratch… just between your shoulder blades.  It is a real booger …. now isn’t it?  Bears rub on trees to get it  …. cows try the old ‘stretch and slurp’ method…. and humans invented that little plastic hand on the end of a long stick.  Well that place that you can’t reach… has a name too.  It is called an acnestis.

Who knew again.

Well, crap.  I was going to write about those things tomorrow night, and here I let the cat out of the bag tonight.

Tomorrow then…. the topic is “Letting the Cat out of the Bag.”  The Greatest Unknown of All.  Uh Huh.

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley

  Sometimes, I simply don’t know.

There is so much I don’t know about every thing ….  from the little to the big.   Animals… for instance.  Like why my dog barks at her shadow.  With intensity.  And then runs.  And wouldn’t you know…. that shadow follows.

Or nature kinds of things…. in general.    I see these types of leaves quite often, and I truly can’t figure out what is happening here.  Help me here.  What is wrong with these leaves?

Do they have Leaf Warts (which occur when a toad or frog has touched the leaf).  Could they be Leper Leaves…. and they are on their way to a Leaf Leper Colony somewhere?  In Jerusalem?   Or….  possibly….. a case of Tree Acne gone bad?

Are there little bugs inside of those things… and if so… holy shit.  I brought them into my house to photograph them.  That can’t be good.

Perhaps they are minuscule Alien Pods from the Dlofgka Galaxay.    Again… if so…. holy shit.  Again.  They are now in my house.

Or perhaps there is nothing wrong at all.  Maybe they are pregnant leaves.  Getting ready to have lots of  Leaf Babies.  I should take them back outside…. in that case.

There is so much I do not know about life… and living.   I guess that is one of the best things about being here.  Trying to figure it all out.

Then again.  Maybe I should do less figuring.   The more I know… it seems… the less I know.  And…. it makes me worry that I’m not doing all of this quite right.  I get all nervous then… and lose sleep at night with all the brooding…. and agonizing about this.  My head starts to hurt… and I get hives….  which look a LOT like Leaf Warts.

That settles it.   I’m taking the bumpy leaves back outside.    Before I get any more confused.    I know my dog can bark…. but now that I think of it… so can a tree.  And trees have leaves…..  and….  uhhhhnnnnn…..

“We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.” – Dan Quayle

George Bernard Shaw once said…. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

Now,  I don’t like to argue with folks much.  Not at all.  But, if Mr. Shaw were around… I would have to question him on this one.

Anyone who has known the wonder, the innocence, the trust and the joy of a child…. would argue this one too.

It is with our “wisdom of age” that so many of us…. lose the magic.

We forget how to play.  We won’t let ourselves fall face first into a pile of raked leaves.  Our jacks are in the trunks of our car… and not with our marbles on the playground.

We tweet with our fingers on our cell phones.  We used to tweet toward the tree limbs above…. at the sight of a song bird.

We quit coloring in coloring books…. or writing with chalk on the sidewalk.  We quit believing in Superheros.

No.  Youth is not wasted on the young…. I don’t think.

Some of us have wasted  it away ourselves…. no matter the age.

Sometimes… we should just take the time to splash in the puddles during a downpour.  And eat peanut butter right out of the jar.

And as far as Shaw goes.. I am not quite sure about that guy…..
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”  – Bernard Shaw

Now… Fairy Dust, Houdini, Aquaman… and Goethe….  are more up my alley.

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Last night I had one of those dreams.  One of those…. in which a whole bunch of people I knew were in that dream of mine.  We were all at a pool party.  Phillips Pool in Dayton, Ohio.  Now that dream went on and on.  Lea Ann Golden gave me a fudge brownie ice cream bar.  There were swim races.    Picnics.  Grassy hills…. people with buckets….  spy cameras. I’ll tell ya’…… Dreams.

Now… it could be that…

Someday soon…. I might….just might wish upon a star.   Not just any kind of star… but one that is totally connected to the energy and cyclic exchange of the universe.

And then….. don’t you know it.  Like some kind of magic.  I might just wake up where the clouds are far behind me.

If I am lucky…. it will be the kind of place where trouble melts like lemon drops.  Of course, it depends on what kind of Lemon Drops.  If it is just like the kind that is squeezed directly from the lemon… that might be pretty quick melting.

If it is the kind that come in that blue and white box… Lemon Heads… I think… Well… holy smokes.   Those take a long dang time to melt away.

But back to it.  Since I am no longer afraid heights… or chimney snakes … or even bricks…. it will most certainly be high above the chimney top.

If anyone cares… that’s where you’ll find me.

On the off chance that it just rained and now the sun is peaking through…  it will be somewhere over the rainbow.

Because that is where blue birds fly.  Now crows and grackles and such hang out on silos.   Which is pretty awesome too.

But…. I am hoping that the dreams that you dreamed of, and the ones that I dreamed of too….. really do come true.

Like some dreams do.

Clicking my heals now.  And my little dog too.

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” – Lao Tzu

“The universe is wider than our views of it.” – Henry David Thoreau

When I live in the country…. it seems that I write about country things.
Corn.  Farmers.  And such.
Today I walked by this field of corn… or what used to be corn.

It reminded me that this has been going on for a long time.

This tradition of planting and harvesting.  And each year, doing it over and over again.

It is somewhat remarkable that it even works.

Then I happened to think about living in the country in Preble County.  Wouldn’t it be cool if your ancestor-farmers were named McDonald or something?

You know.  Like Old McDonald.
He had a farm for sure.

But.
That guy would have been well-served to know a Vanna White… or a Pat Sajak.  SOMEBODY….. I say…. somebody….  let that guy buy a consonant.

E-I-E-I-O.

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” – Martin Luther

Alright.  Alright.
I know I’ve talked about it before…. but gosh diggity-dang it…. I LIKE Chicken Eggs.  I eat them every morning.  All fried up in butter, with a side of ham, and grits… (or rice porridge)…  and an English Muffin.    I’m like clockwork that way.

But the fact of the matter is….. this girl goes through a lot of chicken eggs.

So right down the road, we have two farms that sell ’em fresh.  Thankfully for me.

They have a egg burglar on each farm… that goes into the henhouses… and kidnaps the eggs.  No ransom note or anything.  So I guess it isn’t kidnapping.  More like… well… plain old stealing from the chickens.

Anyway.  That wasn’t my point.

The other day I was buying eggs at the very nice farm down the road.  Two young boys came out to “greet” me.  They asked how many eggs I wanted.  I said…. “Three dozen if you got ’em.”  They nodded politely,  and started back toward the house.

The younger boy turned around briskly, and asked, “You want poulet eggs?”

The look on my face must have been painfully painful.  I had absolutely no idea what this young fella was asking of me.  “Uhhhnnnnn…..”

The older boy they smiled and added…. “Lady, do you want big eggs or little eggs?”

“Oh. Big ones.  Thanks.”

Since that time, I’ve had this on my mind.  As far as I’ve been able to gather from searching the internet…… a Poulet is a chicken used specifically for meat or eggs.  (Aren’t they all… pretty much?)

Okay.  That sure cleared things up for me.  Totally.

NOT.

So… I got large eggs that day… yet I don’t know if they were Poulet Eggs or not Poulet Eggs.  I don’t even know if I’m even spelling it correctly.

Or perhaps they have a Hen named Poulette.  A French Hen.

Or maybe… if the eggs are really, really big… they have to “help” the chicken.  So if it is….  indeed …. a huge egg… they have to “pull it” right out of the hen.  Hence.  All that squawking.

My feathers sure are ruffled on this one.

But, after all of that…..

I am simply reminded that we all have different things we are smart about in life.  You know about a gazillion things that I don’t know… dang it.  That is just the way our knowledge of the world is.  We each have our strengths.  Our fortes.

And sometimes 8 year old kids can teach us a thing or two.  Or …. ….. 88 year old kids.  Everybody…. EVERYBODY…. has something to offer us.  If only we are willing to listen.

“I’m not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.” – William Hazlitt

Back in the day, there used to be a show on TV called Kung Fu.  It starred David Carradine…. who I think died a few years back…  as a result of a sex practice called auto-erotic asphyxiation.. But that is for another discussion here sometime.  Or maybe not here…..

But.  Back to the show.  The series aired on ABC from October 1972, to April 1975 for a total of 63 episodes. Kung Fu started out as a full-length feature television pilot….. you know….. one of those ABC Movies of the Week.

Anyway… I never watched the show.  It creeped me out for some reason.    But the main character (Caine who was played by Carradine) was nicknamed “Grasshopper”.

Thy young boy, Caine…. thought The Master….. who was blind…. had a terrible affliction in his blindness.  One day…. The Master took notice of a little grasshopper at Caine’s feet.  Caine didn’t notice.
Hence…. the nickname for Caine…. Grasshopper.

Now we used this whole funny-phrase-Grasshopper-thing all throughout the 70s and 80s.  I used to LOVE to say it….

“Hey… do you know how to fix this bike chain?”
“Ahhhh….. watch and learn Grasshopper, watch and learn.”

“What is the Capitol of Kentucky?”
“Ahhhhh…. the answer is found within the hotdog,  young Grasshopper.”

Oh… and on and on. (Yes…. I was easily amused back then.)

So… fast-forward 35 years.  Tonight I took a walk in nature.  Just to appreciate the beauty of it all.  And as I walked, I didn’t feel all that great… I saw nothing that I truly wanted to shoot… and it was NOT the holy-moly meditative nature walked that I had hoped it would be.  I was a little disgruntled.

I came home.  At some dinner.  Cleaned the kitchen… and took the trash to the garage.  Grumble.  Grumble.

But in the midst of it…..low and behold.  My nature walk abounded… right there underneath the garage door opener.

On a nail, high above… a beautiful and amazing Grasshopper.

Sometimes we go to great lengths… to find what is right there…. right there at our feet.

“Ahhhhhh….. Watch and learn young Polly.  Watch and learn.”

“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” – C.S. Lewis

When I was a kid… one of my favorite little wordy-poems to recite… was this one.  First you would clasp your hands together, and through the poem, make different gestures to reflect the action of the words.
This was it.
Here is the big church.
Here is the big steeple.
Open the big doors….
and there’s the big people.

Now… you could replace the word BIG with anything.  Any color… here’s the green church…. here’s the green steeple… blah blah.  Or it could be replaced with any personification…. fat, skinny, tall, ugly…. etc.  Or even any feeling… hungry, sad, happy…. and on.

Oh… I would entertain myself for hours on end.

But today as I was out walking, I noticed this steeple, and it made me wonder how the whole deal got started.  I mean…. it is one of the most recognizable elements of most churches.   And…. the steeple serves several practical… and symbolic purposes that can be traced back to the earliest Christian churches.

So… Those old Church steeples came around in the middle ages.  They evolved from earlier models of  Byzantine and Greek cupolas that similarly stood above and beyond the main buildings.  In their early days…. many of those first wacky steeples were completely separate structures from the main church.

Then… the architects started plunking them right on top….. about the time when Cathedrals came around.

The steeple’s main purpose during the middle ages was to make the church visible from any part of a town.   Those Medieval folks needed BIG reminders…. so the steeples helped them remember about the importance of Church in their lives.

Then the bells came along.  The ring-a-dings were used for a variety of functions….. both secular and religious. Like ceremonies starting and…. when to fast and when to pray.

They were also good communicators…. uhhhhh… sort of….  the early ADT Systems…. warning the good people of potential dangers…. such as an approaching army or a fire.

But the grand old steeple is seen more as a symbol than anything else.  It is meant to act like a hand, reaching into the sky to touch the heavens themselves.  To remind the humans about transcendence from earth to that which is beyond.

And…. sometimes….  prayers shoot right up into the air through them.  OR… something like that.

Finally…. if someone is hunting you down…. in pursuit… and you have nowhere to go….. you can find what is called “Sanctuary” by running in to a church.  This of course… is called….. The Steeple Chase.

So.  There you have it my friends.  The Steeple in a nutshell.  Or me… the nut…. trying to explain the Steeple.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” – Dr. Seuss

Swimming.  What a pleasure it is.  What a gift.
Motion, in immersion…. is by far, one of my favorite things to do.  If I thought past lives were possible…. which they very well may be…. I think that at some point I was a fish.  I was probably also a dog… but not in the same century.

Back to the fish.

I love to be in water.  It is probably the reason I enjoy swimming as much as I do.  I swim every night in our pool.

You see…. I absolutely long for this time of year…. when our planet turns our hemisphere toward the sun… and it becomes warm outside…..in  our Ohio.

But tonight as I swam, I figured that I wouldn’t have many more of these evenings this season.  Cooler weather is approaching.

And holy smokes… I hate to be wet AND nakers in a cool breeze.

But.  Back to the fish.  I love the way the world feels, under water.   Underneath.  The only sound of the earth at that moment… is the calm of the water.  There are no smells.  The only touch is that of the dihydrogen monoxide against my skin.  I feel free and whole in the weightlessness that water gives.

It is like floating through blue space.  The calm surrounds me.

I imagine what it might be like to swim to great depths…..like a dolphin or a whale.   But my humanness reminds me that I too, need air.  And so I surface.

And at that line…. where the water meets the air above… I am reminded of all the world holds.  The sights, and sounds, and smells…. that we don’t notice most of the time.  The good and the bad of it…..  and re-enter the world above.

The place where we live and breathe.

And so it is…. I breathe.

“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” – John F. Kennedy