Looking Down

I have hit the stage in my life when falling down seems to be a more regular occurrence. I used to have pretty good balance, but these days it seems that objects appear (or I don't even see them) to trip me up. My guess is that this started about 10 years ago when I switched to bifocals. All of a sudden stair steps were just a little higher than I thought or just a little lower than I thought and I started missing them. To my kids I had become a klutz. This was not always so. In my youth I was fairly agile. In fact, my son inherited a little of the quickness that I was proud of in my younger days. And so I took for granted the upright position that I found myself in, with no thought to what was under my feet, no thought to the rise and fall of my path.
Now I have watch where I'm going. Concrete is harder than it used to be, grass is thinner, and lets face it, the old body doesn't recover like it used to. As a small confession, I now hold the handrail at every opportunity. I spend a lot of time...looking down.

Here is my observation. America is spending a lot more time looking down. We are incensed that there are objects tripping us up and we can't figure out how it came about. It is a long fall from the top of the mountain. Like slipping down a creek bank, grabbing at the bushes that we hope will slow our descent, our gaining downward speed is matched only by our rising panic. It is now a possibility that 10-20% of American homeowners will lose their homes in the next 18 months, there will not be enough health insurance for everyone, there already aren't enough jobs. The bifocals are just now beginning to work. The step over prosperity was just a little higher than we thought, and the step into lower standard of living is just a little lower than we thought.

And this pisses us off! We deserve our goodies, they can't take this away from us! This is the American dream, and we have been dreaming for a long time.
Well, guess what? America has changed, Ward and June have moved, it is all smoke and mirrors, the house with the picket fence needs a paint job, the neighbors are noisy. Entitlement isn't what it used to be. The essence of our significance has evaporated.

Significance is not found in what we have, but in who we are. In a later blog I may explore that idea. My grandad towards the end of his life was in the backyard out at the farm flailing pecans (knocking them out of the tress with a long cane pole) He was standing on the top of a 6' ladder, when he lost his balance and fell. He said he stayed on the ground a long time waiting for someone to come check on him, hoping to garner a little sympathy. Finally he decided no one was coming, so he got up and finished his job of flailing pecans. I have always loved that story. First because he would admit that he was openly looking for sympathy, then make a funny story out if it. Secondly, he just went back to work...without the ladder, forget the pecans at the top of the tree. He found a way to look up, not down.

Anyway, Godspeed to all you travelers. Now where did I put those glasses?
Don