<![CDATA[All Of The Selves We Have Ever Been - Blog]]>Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:26:41 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[E-venting]]>Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:09:18 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/e-venting
I spent my weekend building up a supply of resolve to get my email cleaned out on Monday morning, every single bit of it:  inbox, sent, spam, trash…

I woke up determined to get it done.  I solemnly swore that I would address every email and the business therein, move each email to the trash, and then empty the trash, so help me God!

As I got to work, it seemed new emails arrived faster than I could delete the old ones, a ratio of about 3:1.  All of the emails, new and old seemed to need some kind of attention or were so indecipherable that I was afraid to delete them without some understanding of their potential importance.  I felt my commitment to the email project faltering as a feeling of e-nausea grew.  With each new email that arrived, I tried fighting back the discouragement by giving myself little pep talks of 140 characters or less.  But many of the darn emails had deadlines approaching.  Once buried, it would be hard to find those “act now” emails or to remember that they were becoming urgent.

I found countless ways to avoid the task by working on other items on my to-do list, assuring myself that I would get to the emails when I finished the other things on my list.  And it was probably best to get out of my sweaty work-out clothes and get a shower in case someone came to the door, and I should probably check the air in my car’s tires since the temperature had cooled down, and…  At least I wasn’t watching TikTok videos I told myself.  I was doing legitimate tasks that needed to be done.  After all, most of them were on my to-do list right below “clean out the emails.”

While I was evading the task, I got to reminiscing about the good old days.  You remember…when the U.S. Postal Service was the most reliable service in America?  When mail arrived at your door each day?  When no one would steal your mail because it was a serious federal offense?  When postal carriers took pride in their work which was expressed in their legendary motto:  "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds?" Now, my missing W-2 from last tax season is probably in some roadside ditch or in a disgruntled postal employee’s attic.
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Aside from the admirable work ethic of the postal workers of yesteryear, what was nice about mail service back in those days was the fact that it came just once a day.  And we looked forward to it!  You could deal with it and be done.  The volume was more manageable because it cost something for business to mail you stuff first class.  Now it is a steady stream of emails day and night free of charge.  It never ends.  There is no “catching up” on the email.  Many people I know have just given up.  They report having thousands of unopened emails messages.

But I digress and avoid.  Back to business…

By the end of the day, I made some progress, but I fell 16 emails short of my zealous goal, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with those last 16 emails.  Let’s face it, we’ve become a less agreeable society because everything comes with lengthy, incomprehensible terms of agreement that no one understands, but we have no choice but to click “agree” because we need many of the services.  It’s a bit like a date with someone you don’t know well.  You agree to the date, but not to the attempted assault at the end of the evening.

Perhaps the idea of cleaning out all of my emails was just a manic delusion or too much diet cola too early in the morning.  It appears that gloom kept this email courier from the swift completion of her appointed rounds, but I consoled myself with the reminder that even God and the U.S.  Postal Service took a day off each week.  The world was better when the rest of us did too.]]><![CDATA[In The Garden of Get Even]]>Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:51:46 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/in-the-garden-of-get-even
Once upon a time news began circulating through Plant Media that there were growing tensions in nature.  Some of the less populous plants, the ones that had always been in opposition to garden norms, saw this as an opportunity to disrupt the prevailing garden standards.

At a meeting of the Garden Party, a particularly prickly thistle, better known as The Prick, said, “I know more about gardening than anyone,” and it vowed to make nature great again.  This invasive prickly plant knew that there were many others who wanted their day in the sun, and so The Prick saw an opportunity to serve itself by harnessing the displeasure of certain varieties of plants and by demeaning the state of gardening as well as the master gardeners even though the proof of their gardening efforts remained visible from sea to shining sea.  Plant Media had grown so popular and unrestrained that The Prick saw it as fertile ground for twisting the truth.  The Prick used Plant Media to infuriate its users and to grow long vines of followers.

While in the past nature had filled the world with beauty and nourishment available to everyone, the plans of the Garden Party were to strangle the plants for their own prickly purposes.  As the garden became chaos, some of the vegetables and flowers began to complain:  “We need rich soil, neat rows and sturdy trellises. We need water and fertilizer.”  The Prick kicked the complainers out of what it now deemed to be ITS garden: “We can live on thistles; we don’t need variety here.”  The Prick called for the roses to be dug up and ordered the rose garden to be paved.  Eventually, roses were outlawed altogether. Then, The Prick zeroed in on some of the fruits and vegetables that seemed to get on its stem:  tomatillos, jalapenos, avocados, and squash.  The Prick had those plants pulled up by the roots and sent to a swamp to die of malnourishment and lack of sunshine, and then The Prick renamed the garden, The Garden of Get Even.

This move by The Prick encouraged the other prickly plants to refuse to serve the animals and the insects.  “Who cares about the cycle of life? Make Pricks Great Again!” They placed a banner on the garden wall renaming it for The Prick as they nodded to themselves: “The Prick was right about everything.”  There would be no more weeding, watering, mulching, or fertilizing, no more protection from storms and droughts.

Pretty soon even the weeds were competing for space and water and fresh air.  Animals were starving.  The garden was almost entirely composed of thorns now.  No one wanted to go there.  The prickly types who surrounded The Prick and earned its favor got cushy digs in The Greenhouse while circumstances in the gardens worsened making it difficult to sustain life outside The Greenhouse.

The older gardeners tried to maintain some semblance of the beautiful and abundant past, but it became a losing battle.  They barely had the strength to speak to each other much less fight to undo the damage to centuries of work growing amber waves of grain and fruited plains.

The thistles continued their quest to strangle all other life in the garden.  Once the damage was almost complete, The Prick, already rotting, withered on the vine as the remaining prickly thistles turned on each other in the quest to become the biggest, most powerful prick in the garden.

Just when it seemed that there would be no happily ever after, a couple of roses popped up in unexpected places.  A few lush berries poked out from between the weeds.  Pretty soon, a multitude of roses and berries woke beneath the concrete and began to push up between the cracks in the pavement, to squeeze between the weeds and tangled vines.

In a state of panic, The Garden Party doubled its efforts to cut back the emerging roses and berries, to fill the cracks with toxic waste, to distract by declaring war on water, and pretending that roses and berries don’t exist.  Party members went on Plant Media to deny what everyone could see with their eyes, but it was too late.  Having seen the roses and the berries again, the hungry, desperate people realized how much they missed the nourishment that beauty and plant diversity provide.  A quiet revolution began with neighbors sharing a few cuttings, harvesting some seeds, growing plants in pots hidden on back porches and patios.  Eventually, they got bolder and began to garden out in the open. It took some time, but a new generation was born and grew up to be master gardeners again.  The Prick decayed and became fertilizer, and no one thought again about that prickly past.
]]><![CDATA[Finding Our Roots]]>Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:06:12 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/finding-our-roots
Too many mornings I wake up to the thought that the country could be at war or in some other state of emergency.  I feel obliged to jump from my bed and scour the news, the goings-wrong in the political universe.  Too many mornings, the news casts a shadow over my entire day.

But on this morning, the sky is clear blue, the sun is bright; a cool breeze passes through the window.  Outside I hear the songs of birds and the quiet, steady hum of traffic. The world feels new. I sit up in bed wrapped in a quilt made of cotton, the fabric of our lives. I feel its softness all around me. This scene shapes my frame of mind.  It is a better beginning to the day.

I finish my morning chores and sit down at the computer.  I open my bank account and find a deposit—an unexpected refund.  On that positive bank note, I leave the house on some errands. I stop at a local convenience store for my favorite treat of crunchy ice and diet soda.  The cashier knows me, a gift in its self, but then she says, “Put your money away.  It’s on me today.”  I leave the store and sit in my car waiting to make my move onto the busy highway.  An unending stream of traffic whooshes past, and then an SUV stops and contains the long line of traffic behind it.  The driver raises both arms from the steering wheel and gestures energetically for me to pull out onto the busy road.

I drive through an older neighborhood.  No McMansions here, but I admire the aging small houses with the tidy yards and the neat front porches.  These are dwellings that say “the person who lives here cares.”  These are not homeowners with yard people and pool people.  They are the working people and the older retired people who wake up on Saturday mornings committed to the mowing and the trimming.  They are old-time people who still sweep their porches with brooms and modern folks who clean their driveways with leaf blowers.  They are people who visit the garden store in the spring and fall. They add annuals to the beds of perennials for a splash of color and invitation to the bees and the butterflies.

These are the people who don’t make the news, but they shovel their walks and help their neighbors come winter.  They put a Christmas card in the mailbox for the mail carrier and know the name of the UPS delivery driver. They buy the candy bars from the band students, the popcorn from the Boy Scouts and the cookies from the Girl Scouts.  They ring your bell to let you know it was the deer eating the hibiscus in front of your garage and not two-legged vandals.  Even on a drive-by, I feel at home here in this alternate universe.

Back in my apartment, as I unload a small bag of groceries, the breeze rattles the mini-blinds and begs me to come to the walking path.  The coolness hugs me again when I open the door, and I begin my walking mantra for today:  God’s mercies are new every morning.  For the first time I notice the subtle but pervasive yellow in the leaves of the trees. I step beneath one of the tall beauties lining the path, and I look up.  Almost imperceptible, but there-- the leaves have begun to wither.  Fall is on the way.  I ponder the mystery and the miracle of how beauty and tragedy are there in the same leaf, the shade and the fragrance, as well as the barrenness and the decay.  Loss and renewal occur over and over again so long as the roots are good.

These lush trees have made it through a brutally hot, wet summer, and so have we.  I think it is fair to say that I feel a bit yellow and withered at times, too.  I take inventory of the things that went right and the things that didn’t go wrong.  I give thanks for the day, for the walking path, for the convenience store clerk who knows my name, for the SUV driver that noticed my plight, and for all the people in tidy houses who wake each morning dreading the news but still shovel the sidewalks, greet the postman, and look out for their neighbors. 

I remind myself that it is important to know what is going on in the world, to be informed, but that I need to take note, too, that kindness and decency are alive and are a powerful form of both nourishment and resistance so long as we tend to our roots.

]]><![CDATA[On Aging Rockers and Walkers]]>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:28:38 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/on-aging-rockers-and-walkers​Oh, well, a touch of grey kind of suits you anyway
​And that was all I had to say, and it’s all right
                                                                   - Robert Hunter and Jerome Garcia
​As I hit my stride on the bike path, an electronic billboard glows at me.  The background is a shield-your-eyes psychedelic yellow, maybe a color someone sees while tripping on LSD.  The ad is simple and contains the words:  The Grateful Dead T-shirt and Tickets along with a picture of what looks like a Hawaiian dad shirt.   “Good Lord!” I think.  “Aren’t The Grateful Dead actually dead?”

There is something about a performance by aging rock stars that unsettles me.  While I am drawn to the music of my youth, seeing these aging rockers who look like elderly grandparents, the very people we were trying to distinguish ourselves from with our music…well, it just doesn’t compute…Truth is, these, shall we say, matured rock stars don’t look so good and that makes me self-conscious about my own appearance.  At my age, the last descriptor I want attached to “old” is “pathetic.”  

I was never a Deadhead, but I was young once.  I have a gawky senior class photo to prove it. While I didn’t live my life on the road surviving on hard liquor, harder drugs and one-night stands, I can still see something of myself in that mirror, except now, I stay up nights because my circadian rhythms are a bit rocky and out of rhythm.  I might drink if I had the grip strength to get the cork out of the bottle.  And, yes, my drug use is greater than it’s ever been, but that’s my doctor’s fault.  As for one night stands?  I thought that was the name of the Tai chi move I’ve been doing— I sleep standing up because I am trying to preserve my balance so I can shower without assistance.

As my eyes recover from looking at the psychedelic-yellow billboard, I focus on the good news: I am still rockin’ the bike path daily.  I can still read billboards and street signs.  I recognized the name of an ancient rock ‘n roll band, and after a check of the internet, I learned that I was correct:  Jerry Garcia and other band members are actually dead.  The drummer is still with us, keeping the beat alive. I rejoice that I still have some memory left in the bank.  Not bad for an aging walker like me. 

This boosts my confidence.  Makes me a bit cocky even.  I get back to the internet and look at old photos of the band when the members were young and just starting out.  I am surprised to see they looked pretty raggedy even back then!  The 1960s were not a good look on anyone.  Perhaps the 2020s are just another bad decade for looking good.
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Aged beauty may be an acquired taste, perhaps sweeter with time.  The judging panel is out at the moment.  They do their best work after some wine.  I exit stage left while I am still smarter than I look.
]]><![CDATA[Porch Envy]]>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:14:27 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/porch-envy
I am living in Paradise today.  As I write this, every window in my third-floor apartment is open.  Wide open.  The air is deliciously fresh and cool. I am wearing a heavy sweatshirt that required an archeological dig to unearth, and I will put on a coat if I must, but I will not close the windows.  I will not!  The summer has been so long and hot.  And humid.  And rainy.  Oh, the rains!  Like hurricanes.  In central Ohio?!

The downside to this beautiful day is that it has given me a serious case of porch envy, a weather-related psychological condition not to be confused with penis envy which is…well, I can’t say for sure because I am afraid to Google it for fear of what will appear in my YouTube feed, or who might come knocking on my door.  But envy, the g-rated kind, is defined as a sense of discontent or jealousy with regard to another’s advantages.  Yes, even kids experience envy, and that’s exactly what I am feeling.  I can’t seem to stop myself from looking at other people’s porches and feeling a sense of outrage that no one is sitting on them.  And empty porch swings!  My inner child is clamoring up those steps.  I was born a swinger.  I had years to practice on my grandmother’s front porch swing.  How can I turn away?

If you are going to take your porch for granted, then let the porchless masses have a seat.  Isn’t that inscribed somewhere on the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your porchless masses yearning to breathe free? And furthermore, don’t taunt the porch-deprived with a porch AND comfortable porch furniture.  I think that’s what the law calls “an attractive nuisance.”  When it comes to porches, the law is not just for children; it covers weather-weary grown-ups too.

On a day like this, it is an even greater crime to be a porch owner and yet sit indoors scrolling while artificially cooled air blows through the vents.  We should be strolling, people, not scrolling, and swinging instead of swiping!  I am unplugging my devices, vacating my desk chair, putting on my walking shoes, and heading outdoors to enforce my God-given, Constitution-protected right to pursue happiness.  If you’re looking for me, check your porch.

]]><![CDATA[Pages of Hope]]>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 15:04:08 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/pages-of-hopeWe go to literature to be changed.  -- Maggie Smith
                        
I was taken captive by a book last week.  I tried to resist.  Every couple of hours I turned off the light and closed my eyes, but sleep would not come.  The book kept whispering to me. When I squeezed my eyelids tighter, the whispers grew louder.  I thought a few more pages would satisfy the whisperer and tire me out, but no!  At 5 AM, I closed the cover on the last page and then lay in the light of early dawn savoring what I had consumed. I was tired the rest of the day, but I had no regrets.  The story still stirs in me today.
 
Language is a miracle.  And so is the power to read and to write.  It is a gift I would like to give to everyone.  It is the rich inheritance I leave to my daughter who is a reader too.  When you are a reader your life and your thinking are shaped by a chorus of voices, of possibilities that give flexibility to thoughts and points of view.  Words change us.  Yes, they have the power to harm, but more often, they teach us and guide us and heal us, and sometimes they save us too.

Words on a page are a commitment. Handwritten, or printed and published, there is no turning back.  A writer exposes and is exposed making writing an act of bravery.  Committed words on a page encourage us to speak and to speak up.  And it takes perseverance to write a book and to read one.  Mariann Edgar Budde wrote that perseverance is the hidden virtue of every courageous life.  Rarely do we see what it costs others to do what seems effortless to us. Books heal shame and give hope when we read of the perseverance of others. We find pathways and solutions and people like us.  We know that if another endured that, than we can endure this.

Through words we live more fully in the here and now even as we relive the past and enter the future. Books open another person’s heart and mind, and we peek inside.  In doing so, we see our own lives more clearly; we understand the impact of history, circumstances, and choices on people, on ourselves.  It makes us wiser and more forgiving.
 
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote:  I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests; the library was open, unending, free.  I was not much for school either, but give me the library any day.  And it is at the library that words are gathered, categorized and catalogued.  Words are there to serve us.  Someone left their words behind so that we might go forward smarter, more thoughtful and better prepared, changed by examination and re-examination.  We find words to grow into and words that expand our own web of knowledge.  There is meaning and purpose on the shelves. Our own lives are faced as we explore the lives of others and the knowledge they accumulated.

Books are good friends to me.  Each fits into my own story and speaks to me at a particular moment in my life, a particular stage of my own development.  Some friends were with me at the beginning, some as the plot thickened, and I know that some will accompany me for the entire ride.

Each of our lives is a storybook in progress.  Everything that we see, hear and experience is stored in memory, the bookshelf of the mind.  Hope and worry are make-believe stories we tell ourselves.  Grief and pride are what we feel when a chapter ends.  When we lose memory, individually or collectively, that is how we are erased.

Books and good writing comfort me in these difficult times. I marvel and give thanks that there continue to be so many gifted writers, so many wonderful books.  As Thomas Jefferson said, “I cannot live in a world without books,” and I thank the forefathers for our library system.  And I want to thank Dr. Seuss for teaching me to read with words and rhymes that tickled my mind and my imagination. And a thank you to Nancy Drew for making me a page turner and introducing me to chapter books and the pride of reading a “big” book, and for showing me that girls born in the 1950s could be smart and do interesting things, live adventurous lives.     

Reading a book is a private experience with public consequences.  It requires effort and introspection unlike the loudspeaker of social media contrived to fill us with outrage in order to sell advertising.  I have read that the ultimate freedom is to imagine and think for ourselves.  That is the foundation of democracy.  When we read, we are reminded of how much we have in common.  The Republic of Imagination is a country we can all believe in.

On the worst days the state of the country and the world seem hopeless, and then I read a wonderful book or hear the lyrics to a beautiful song, and I think: that came from inside someone’s mind, someone’s heart, and it gives me hope that hatred and careless people will not get the last word.  So, please, let's tell a new story.
 
]]><![CDATA[The Pursuit of Happiness]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:40:04 GMThttps://www.alloftheselves.com/blog/the-pursuit-of-happiness
Thomas Jefferson said, “I can’t live in a world without books.”  Pursuing the life of the mind is what brought him happiness.   According to the historian, David McCullough, Jefferson “… read seven languages.  He was a lawyer, surveyor, ardent meteorologist, botanist, agronomist, archaeologist, paleontologist, Indian ethnologist, classicist, brilliant architect.  Music, he said, was the passion of his soul, mathematics, the passion of his mind.”  He was all of this in a time when education was a luxury and a privilege.

As Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, including the words, “the pursuit of happiness,” Jefferson had in mind these intellectual pursuits as well as the pursuit of virtue free from government influences.  Jefferson had in mind citizens of moral character who would use liberty responsibly with concern for the common good.  Jefferson chose the word “pursuit” to emphasize a journey, not a destination.

For me, I have never been very successful in pursuing wealth, status or fame.  But I know that happiness always finds me when I am deep in the pages of a book, or actively engaged in discussion and debate, or busy helping my neighbors.  Happiness finds me in the thinking, the learning, the doing, and the connecting, not in the getting. 

Our forefathers were willing to sacrifice their honor and their lives for the vision Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence.  And they had faith in a future they imagined but could not see.  They had faith in us!  Let’s keep a good thing going.  May happiness find you today as we celebrate and recommit to that great vision.

Happy Birthday, America!
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