one day at a time

that was yesterday, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time.

-- Charlie Brown

come home

swoopy, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Dark clouds are comin' like an army
Soon the sky will open up and disarm me
You will go just like you've gone before
One sad soldier off to war, enemies that only you can see.

Dishes stacked, the table cleared
It's always like the scene of the last supper here
You speak so cryptically that's not news to me
The flood is here it will carry you
And I've got work to do.

Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

There is fire there is lust
Some will trade it all for someone they could trust
There's a bag of silver for a box of nails
It's so simple the betrayal
Though it's known to change the world and what's to come.

There's the given and the expected
I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected
Is this for better is this for worse
You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.

I hear the owl in the night
I realize that some things never are made right
By some will we string together here
Days to months and months to years
What if everything we have adds up to nothing.

Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

-- Indigo Girls

put your feet up

toll takers, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Rest when you're weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work.

-- Ralph Marston

secure yourself

stock and barrel, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

-- Carl Gustav Jung

you just never know

j. and ray, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would make us believe. Perhaps it would be more entertaining to add a few surprising customs of my own invention, but nothing seems to me so agreeable as truth.

-- Mary Worley

say it like you mean it

anthropological research, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

-- Blaise Pascal

coming together

silhouettes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

What's natural and right is to go with the energy of how it all has to work together. What's natural and right is interconnectedness, not individualism. What is natural and right is respect for the system, not killing the system. What's natural and right is love.

-- Susan Powter

flying

safely keep me, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go

-- John Prine

all of us

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

All of us, all over the globe, have the capacity for exuberance. Whether we explore that, well, that's another question entirely. But this guy knows what's what and has gotten his groove on all sorts of countries in all kinds of places. He professes not to be a good dancer (one dance and not very good at it, says he) but I gotta estimate it must be good enough that others pick up the spirit of the thing and join in.

Maybe we could all benefit from happy dancing more often. Let's start small. Headphones or home stereo, dancing not-in-public. Then we'll work our way up: dance in front of loved ones. Ignore their snickering, they're just jealous because they desperately want to be as hip and jiggy as you are when you do your happy dance. Invite them to join you. Then we all could start happy dancing out in our neighborhoods, our town halls, our grocery stores, in our schools, in houses of worship (yes, even you Lutherans. It's okay; God's down with it), in nursing homes and daycare centers.

Consider making a deal with me?
With my right hand on my keyboard and my left hand on the mouse, I hereby promise to happy dance 1x daily (not-in-public) for the coming week starting tomorrow. Will you try it with me - do a happy dance 1x daily? -- public or not, your choice. I'm looking forward to reporting back and, hopefully, hearing about your experiences.

C'mon, you know you want to.
Everybody does it.
It'll make you smile.

...c'mon ... it'll be easy.


Did you find the video sniffle inducing?
(yeah, me too.)
Okay then.

LET'S DANCE!

what's the rush

chores can wait, let's talk, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Slow down you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time.

-- Billy Joel

fealty

1969, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.

-- Mark Twain

manners

dinner invitation, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.

-- Og Mandino

Pink Cadillac

pink plates, originally uploaded by McBeth.

While driving home this afternoon from a photo gig on the way to my new other job, Bruce Springsteen's song Pink Cadillac came on the radio channel I was listening to.

Now please don't mark me as unpatriotic or unAmerican or un-whatever, but Springsteen doesn't really do it for me. I've tried. I really have tried. But his groaning and moaning and poor elocution sound the same in most of his songs and at the very least, sounds the same in the Springsteen tunes I am familiar with.

Springsteen comes on ... Honey I just wonder what you do there in back of your pink Cadillac ... The hair at the nape of my neck bristled. Grr. Choices choices choices: sing along, be friendly with that which I don't feel fondly. Or. turn off the radio, which may require energy. Nope, I can't muster enough to do it. Or.

Or.
Or start chuckling in appreciation for perfect timing. Because right then a Very Successful Mary Kay lady commandeered her very big very shiny expensive car around the corner of the intersection I was waiting at.

The universe has a perversely satisfying sense of humor.

heading out

we're in no hurry, originally uploaded by McBeth.

It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always says in Turkey, when they cuts the wrong man's head off.

-- Charles Dickens

Welcome, Isla

kd and isla, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I love a hand that meets my own with a grasp that causes some sensation.

-- Samuel Osgood

expectations

calla, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

-- Margaret Mitchell

slow down

hen, originally uploaded by McBeth.

He who pours water hastily into a bottle spills more than goes in.

-- Spanish proverb

how you look

sticking the mount, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

-- Frederick Langbridge

smile though

the munchies, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.

-- Emma Goldman

childhood reflections

funny faces for auntie mcb, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Childhood is not only the childhood we really had but also the impressions we formed of it in our adolescence and maturity. That is why childhood seems so long. Probably every period of life is multiplied by our reflections upon the next.

-- Cesare Pavese