tandem flight

For the Ragtime Daily Prompt: lingular.


Singular lingular lobe of the lung
infective invective now what’s to be done?
rolling and trolling and speaking in tongues
vote heath here not wealth here until healing comes

Look at this pair of eagles flying in tandem, together. Maybe they don’t agree with each other about everything. They are both individuals. But they fly together. A symbol for our country?

many flags

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: language.

I spent three days with the Rotary President Elect Training this past weekend. I am part of District 5020, which stretches from the end of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada down the Olympic Peninsula, WA, United States. There were people from ten districts.

The Rotary’s Polio Plus program is working hard to eradicate polio. This year the match from the Gates Foundation will be 2 dollars for every dollar the Rotary brings to end polio.

The flags from all the different countries and people working together: that speaks the language of peace and hope to me.

places in the world

I am thinking of the phrase “Places in the world a woman would walk.” I know it’s by Grace Paley. A short story? A line in a story?

Do you feel safe walking in your neighborhood? Or on a beach near you or in a forest? If you are male, do you thinks it’s safe for a woman to walk alone in your neighborhood? Do you feel differently about a male? And the same questions to woman.

And is there an age limit? Is it safe for me to walk the beach alone because my hair is mostly white? What about my son and daughter, both in their 20s?

Safety is relative. One of the unsafe things about our beaches is the warnings about an earthquake and tsunami. We have sand cliffs that will most certainly collapse. I walk the beach and eye the cliffs. There is some luck involved and I accept that.

sober garden

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: garden.

We have beer gardens at many local events. Centrum music, the Wooden Boat Festival. People have to show identification to get into the beer garden and must keep the drink in there.

I want to start a Sober Garden as well as a Beer Garden. Let’s have a substance free area, roped off, for families and those who are choosing not to use substances, alcohol, opioids, tobacco, meth, whatever. At the events with families, the Beer Garden is roped off, but let’s rope both off. Let us have a Sober Garden and have food trucks and drinks and welcome families and welcome people who are not drinking alcohol or using other substances.

Let’s bring children out to the music and let families set a conscious example. There is no stigma if it is a Sober Garden for families and to support the whole community, including those recovering from addiction. Let us make it conscious and attractive.

When we rope off the Beer Garden and check identification to get in, aren’t we sending the message to the youth, especially teens, this is special, you are not allowed. Let us reverse that and have a bracelet for those going in to the Sober Garden. A sticker, a garden for families, a garden for people healing, a garden for making a different choice.

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music by Mike and Ruthy: simple and sober. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsFlHuhDP0A

My garden waiting under snow for spring.
Spring buds in the ornamental plum, with a bird.

Sometimes it takes a while to warm up to an idea. But spring will come and warmth.

closed doors

For Norm2.0’s Thursday doors. However, I missed it last week, so the linking is already closed. He looked back at the doors through the year. I did not have time last week and I would rather wait this week. Doors can open and close and we are not quite at the end of the year.

Blessings on everyone.