dear September 11,

Like many people I remember the blue sky that day.
Impossibly blue, with air perfectly resonant of autumn.
I was on the Cape, where the water always instills the blue sky with seemingly more blue sky molecules.
We went to Nauset Beach and it was beautiful.
Yet the panic and terror being experienced by so many in those moments......
Perhaps the day was so profoundly beautiful in exchange for holding all that pain.

dear water, thank-you.

That's right. I said it.
And I attempt to say it multitudinous times a day.
Thank-you water for nourishing me and my family of hubby, dogs, cats and chickens.
When brushing my teeth, aaah, thank-you.
For other bathroomly related functions as well.
Oh for the shower. I especially remember to be thankful after a shower.
And for the doing of laundry?
Ohmyyes!!!
Thank-you for irrigation of farms.
Thank-you for the luxury of washing my vegetables.
It's so unbelievably splendid that I can pull a lever at my kitchen sink and this clean and clear liquid is available to me.

I keep a card on my kitchen shelf illustrated by Faith Weldon entitled "Walking for Water." It's a scene she saw depicted while in Morocco. There are 3 women with water jugs on their heads.
Walking FOR water.
Not TO water.
FOR water.
It helps to remind me of the blessing that water is in my life. It helps remind me to not be wasteful with water, which I'm pretty dang good at. But who couldn't try to do better at something as monumentally important as conserving and being respectful of our own water use?
Just ask hubby how shreiky I get when he leaves the water running while he's trying to rearrange the dishes in the strainer.
Shreiky deeky.
Try it.
How many times a day can we come into present moment awareness enough to notice all the times we get to use water?
Many I bet.

Thank-you water.

dear mammograms,

Just so you know, I'm going full Ramona on this one.

While pondering the pain of mammograms the other day, it occurred to me that men do not have to endure anything even close to such a procedure.
But doncha know if they did it would resemble nothing like today's current mammogram machinery. If a man had to have his penis flattened with potentially 17 psi, (like me with my right breast) then I daresay we would be witnessing the dawn of luxury machinery for what I like to call a mann-o-gram.

I picture a darkened room.
Maybe a bed-like space upon which to become comfortable.
Certainly there would be no "walking into" the apparatus.
No.
I'm quite sure the machine would have the capability to be "lowered onto" the body part to be x-rayed.
Maybe something a bit tube shaped.
Or perhaps the body part could be "lowered into." Would that not be delightful?
Then perhaps a gentle squeezing would begin, much like a blood pressure cuff, but much, much more slowly.
Then, say, when one can barely endure the pressure anymore, (much like a mammogram, but without the ensuing pain) the pressure eases off.
Oh but wait sir, may I get one more picture? Just to be sure?
And I'll increase the pressure so very, very slowly so you don't become breathless.
Sir! Why are you so breathless?
Do you need a tissue?

And don't even try to talk to me about getting a finger or 2 up your fanny when you turn 50! or whatever. Big Whoop.
Most women, by the time they have turned 50 have had 30 years of speculums, pelvic exams and maybe even a sexy cervical biopsy.
Since you have never had a speculum inserted into a body part, you get to shut up you face. (to be said all Italian-like.)

I leave a mammogram appointment feeling a little assaulted, a bit bruised and with reddened breasts. You leave your mann-o-gram appointment with a satisfied swagger. Huh.

Oh well. At least I don't have testicles!