Will I Ever Learn - Joan Shepherd

I’m playing a game on Lumosity that I cannot conquer. This morning, I was eating a bowl of cereal at the same time, taking bites between waiting for the computer to quit showing the little colored circle going round and round. I have probably played the game fifty times or more because I like the challenge even though I have only made 100% once. Only once! 

The purpose of this game is “attention”, which is my weakest area, according to Lumosity.  Called “Train of Thought”, one is supposed to get the various colored engines leaving from a central spot, to their specific matching colored area through a maze of railroad tracks. It looks simple. It is simple when it starts, the little engines puffing along slowly and then coming faster and faster. But I have only managed to get them all in the right spots once. Only once! I tried going a step higher in the game – more difficult with more engines – and did better than the supposedly easier one. But I am determined to get the easier one mastered before moving on. 

Meanwhile, the slow computer gives me time to take a spoonful of cereal with half a cut up pear and milk. Perhaps I’m distracted because of that one-half pear. It is so full of flavor, and I think it tastes like perfume. That doesn’t sound too good but when the pear is crushed with my teeth and tongue, I get a delightful taste that seems like perfume. It is so delicious, I sort the pieces out to relish their taste. Are the senses of taste and smell close together that I have them confused? 

I play a few games getting more frustrated and decide to go do some real chores. As I straighten up, putting things in their right places, I realize it is just like the game but I don’t have tracks to direct me to the correct areas. The computer sits there, becoming  worse than a slot machine in Reno. No! I have work to do! 

 My outside chores are incomplete because it is now too hot. Even so, I use my walker to go to the mail box on the corner, pick up one piece of mail, see my cat that left me for another home but allowed me to give her a pet, picked up the mail I dropped, back to the house and down the flagstone path where the walker gets stuck in the spaces between each stone, and finally reach the door. 

Now I deserve to try the game again. Just as think I’m going to make it, I miss one of the switches from straight to curving and a red engine goes into the green space. So annoyed, I let a couple more engines wander away from their designated spot. 

What is wrong with me that I can’t do this?  After all, I have a Master’s Degree. If I spent as much time learning Spanish as I do playing this game, I’d be fluent by now. I give up. Who cares that I have this flaw? Not me. Lumosity can mark me down in “attention” if they want. I have done well on some other games. But not this one!

Well…

Maybe I’ll try just one more time. It only takes a few minutes and then I’ll get back to work.

Afterglow - John Field

Such a glorious afternoon: 

Leaves shining brighter than the artificial lights 

On Broadway's highest marquees, 

The kind of theatrical foliage that makes little boys 

Leap high to shame the earth its stationary ways. 

Overhead a single sailboat gliding slowly across the skies. 

Look up there! A flock of migrating geese 

Honking their wild way home. 

In my garden huge chrysanthemums 

And roses still in bloom but overblown, 

Their petals wearing so much outrageous makeup 

They remind me of the painted cheeks

Of antique ladies playing bridge and sipping tea.

Once I searched for slow beauty 

To save me from the quick quick years I'd wasted 

And found it decorating the walls of the Prado 

And the Louvre-before I raced off to Portofino, 

Santorini and all the other grand places 

Recommended in the travel books. 

Now I'm growing old, have been for years and cranky too 

Each time my body recites its latest list of grievances. 

"Traveler, turn back!" the sky cries out to me

Whenever Sinatra sings come fly with me. 

Cramped seats? Jet lag? Fat chance. No thanks. 

I'd rather stay at home anchored to my shadow 

Treading water in the here and now. 

Wake up in my own bed and watch 

The blue arch of morning rise above the hills 

And lavish its beauty on our valley 

In the unfailing chronology of changing seasons 

For a few more years if I'm lucky 

Until life informs me I've had my share 

And am no longer needed here. But not yet. 

Not until my mind turns into a guide

Which has at heart my getting lost 

In that vast and lonely emptiness which separates 

The real world from what is not. 

Heaving a sigh, my soul will say goodbye 

And take its one-way trip to kingdom come, 

That secret, strange and peaceful place 

They never mention in the travel books

Where nothing ever ends, begins, changes or becomes.

Five Dollars - Robyn Makaruk

The sun was setting and the streets were empty, when a slip of a girl crept out from behind a dumpster and walked to the end of the street to gaze at the figure in the store window. The mannequin wore an elegant dress but it was the hat that caught her attention, a blue straw one with a large floppy brim, forget-me-not flowers and silk ribbons around the crown - a wonder to behold. If only, if only, she could buy that hat. It would transform her sad world and make it sing again. Her promise that night was to return and ask its price. Would she have the courage?

"Hello Miss, may I help you?" the elderly lady in the store asked. The girl replied shakily, "I'm not sure, I've never been here before." “What is it you wished to look at...you were eyeing the hat in the window. Would you like to try it on?" The girl replied  “Oh yes, please, but I'd like to know the price." 

“It is Five Dollars.  We are a Thrift Store and all our proceeds go to helping the poor”, the lady replied. The girl felt her pocket that contained nothing but small change but she bravely moved to try on the beautiful hat. Oh my, she breathed as she looked in the mirror. "I'd love to take it but I don't know if I have that much money”. The lady said "let's see how much you do have, and maybe we can settle on a different price." The coins were counted out to Three dollars and 27 cents.

The lady winked to the cashier and said to the girl, "My dear, you have enough to buy this hat. Would you like me to put it into a box?" She couldn’t believe her ears, but said “Oh yes, and many thanks to you for your generosity in changing the price”.

The slip of a girl carried the box to the hovel where they lived and sat down beside the bed.  "My darling Mama, we both know you have but days to live, but I have the most beautiful hat for you to wear for all the days you have left.  After you have gone, I will wear it in remembrance of you.”

Damnable Convenience - Michael James

I am the big wind, I scatter all before,

Blow dust into the neighbor’s eye,

Skid leaves under his door.

The noise I make when I blow full force,

Will deafen some, too bad of course.

Gardeners love the work I do,

And if old folks grumble,

I’ll blow them too.

My din fills ears, fumes sear the nose,

With those who use me, anything goes.

I own the air of little towns,

Darling in fact of gardening clowns,

The “Mow and Blow” boys of backyard fame,

Who cannot give my work a name, 

All love me, wear me, come what may,

Will hope to use me every day.

If you don’t like me, go complain,

You won’t get far, I’m not to blame.

It’s you stuck far back in the past,

When silence was a thing to last.

Look not for it here or anywhere,

In backyards, out beneath the star.

Not now, for here there’s no one cares,

What row I make, what ugly stares

From old man Giles who hides his ears,

And keeps the dust from off his cars.

 

Oh how they fly, those Autumn leaves,

Urged up and onward in my breeze,

To escape the dry, hot wind below

Bright reds and yellows--all my show!

Oct 22 Reading