I can’t predict when a decades-old memory will break loose and drift into my current consciousness. Some are reminders of sweet moments, long forgotten. Others are terrifying. Still others are trivial — for example, the one-liner that popped into my head this morning:
“There’s no difference between big hair and don’t care.”
I remember actually saying that, more than once, to make a particular point. I’ll explain.
In the mid-1980s, I was married to a liberal vegetarian. (Let that sink in.) She played to type and checked all the expected boxes. She also went out of her way to distance herself from popular style — which was, as you may know, characterized by glittery getups, heavy makeup and impossibly teased-out hairdos.
But oh, the pains she took to differentiate herself. Secondhand clothes. Little makeup, if any. Tousled hair, which she’d purposely rumple right before she left the house.
The goal, she’d say, was to be “natural,” to make a statement. But there was nothing natural about it — it was all for show, no less an act than the image she resisted. Thus, “There’s no difference between big hair and don’t care.” A false face is still a false face, and she was a human cartoon.
So I remembered that today. And it got me thinking about things like natural, simple and Country, and about how turning them them into affectations makes us posers of the worst kind.
Cheap. Old-fashioned. Difficult. Manual. Recycled. Disheveled. Plain. Folksy. Avoiding the trappings of modern life. Real? Or put-ons?
Let’s face it, clinging to a flip-phone (or having no cell phone at all) isn’t simple any more than eating granola is natural or having a woodstove is Country. We either live it or it’s just a show.
We’ll talk about “off-grid” some other time.
“Tonight is a night of great gravity. If our country properly celebrated the moments of greatest risk, courage, and fortitude, the evening of April 18 every year would be observed much like that of Passover.”
Project Appleseed (2018)
Our girl Scout will be 14 years old come November. She’s not the bouncy ball of fur she once was, due to two blown-out knees and the general creakiness that aging brings, but she remains surprisingly nimble. And clearly she’s happy.
A puppy still lives behind those bright eyes.
This morning, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. I backed the Ranger out of the shed, put a blanket on the passenger seat and loaded Scout up for a ride. Steering with my left hand and holding her collar with my right (she wouldn’t be able to break her own fall if she slipped off the seat), I guided the buggy down the road and up the cut toward Dancing Tree.
She smiled the whole time.
Once we’d parked, I lifted her out and onto the ground, set up a chair for myself and watched her explore a place she’d never been before and couldn’t reach on her own. Eventually she settled at my feet and heaved a big sigh.
Every so often she rocked onto her back and rolled in the leaves and the dirt. I rubbed her belly. I’d brought water but forgot a bowl, so I poured a little at a time into my cupped hand and she lapped it up. When the bottle got low, I cut it down and she drank from that.
“We made it, girl,” I whispered to her, as I often do. “We both made it to The Mountain.”
Scout has been by my side since the day Deb and I brought her home with us, then only eight weeks old. And of all the moments we’ve shared over the years, none was more special than the time we spent together today.
She was at peace up there among the trees. So was I.
My heart is full. Some of you will understand why.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB