Am I a dud?

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Am I a dud?

The Spanish moss is exceptionally fine on this steamy morning walk about my quiet neighborhood. With a mile to go before returning to the second cup of coffee waiting for me, an old woman driving a golf cart approaches. Just before turning down a side street, she whips a U-turn to come alongside me and says, "Hey, did I ever show you the tree that grows shells?" I stopped momentarily to say, "What? Who are you?" She ignores my questions, points repeatedly and demandingly to the passenger seat and says, "C'mon, get in. I'll show you. Get in! C'mon!" I slowly shake my head sorting out whether I should see this phenomenon or keep walking when I notice the gallon gas can on the passenger seat floor and imagine the regret I'll likely experience when it spills over my feet from her erratic driving. 

Again, shaking my head no, and returning to my walk, she hollers, "Never mind! You're a dud!" She accelerates down the side street of her original intention, and I hope that whomever she bullies next won't be called names for lack of cooperation. As she drives away, I note the rather unhappy brown teddy bear strapped in the back seat looking at me, and suddenly I'm pleased with my decision. 

Am I a dud? Apparently, some think so. We are often quick to judge, myself included, especially when we perceive someone is uncooperative. I may or may not have ungraciously retorted as she disappeared into the morning mist.  

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Textures of a Sunday morning

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Soft. The minute I stepped outside to consider a walk through town soft, is the word I felt on my skin. 

Moments after settling on a bench trailside to the Pinellas corridor, an older fella zipped by on his Segway, cheerfully playing "You are My Sunshine." On a harmonica. In an upbeat tempo to match his zippiness. 

"One tattoo is one too many," a woman lectures her walking partner on the perils of body markings. And I sit and wonder at the graciousness and acceptance some humans find difficult to grasp. 

Overhead a bird happily, and rapidly, sang through its entire repertoire of songs, signals, and clicks, even more urgently than the invocation of the First Methodist church bells encouraging all to take up their favorite pew immediately. 

Brilliant green flocks of parrots, non-native to the area, freed generations ago from the cages where we fed them bits of bologna, paying us back with their raucous, aggressive and intense screeching, refusing to be mute any longer. 

Dogs walking their people, sometimes dragging, sometimes obediently in step with their master's every move, and ever alert to opportunity. 

Young couples wander between coffee shops relieving their throbbing temples from last night's indulgences and prepping for Sunday afternoon football.

E-oo, e-oo . . . e-oo, e-oo squeak the bicycle chains straining to the rhythm of their riders communing with nature this soft Sunday morning.

The nature of living things is a power source. Here is when I find a balance between seeking and finding.

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