Notice the blue skies

Notice the butterflies

Stop and smell the flowers

And lose it

In the sweet music

And dance with me

Cause there is beauty in the world

So much beauty in the world

Always beauty in the world

Macy Gray

Coffee in bed is the best.  I wait patiently, or not so patiently, for my husband to make the coffee before I get out of bed.  It was chilly in here mid-way through the night but we snuggled under layers of blankets and now that the sun is shining, it’s warming up.  I don’t think I could live without coffee.  I am not willing to try.  I don’t have any other vices so this one stays.  Our best “upgrade” since the fire is our jumbo size French press.  To make “enough” coffee pre-fire, we had to brew two pots simultaneously.  Now, this plump pot does the trick.  Although normally one cup does the trick for me, this morning my lovely husband gives me an extra treat of a breve latte out of his little espresso machine.  Ahhhhhh.  Coffee makes life tolerable and beautiful.

Before putting fingers to keyboard, I glanced at MSN where I often check in to make sure the world has not ended.  We are a no TV and no Newspaper family so the Internet is the only way to make sure that Armageddon has not occurred.  It seemed that it was occurring yesterday with the thick smoke from distant fires that clogged even the air in Denver as well as the swirling ash the wind kicked up at our place.  This morning David wiped the counters revealing blackened paper towels reminding us of the floating hazards in the air.  Fire and brimstone.  Hmmm.  Armageddon approacheth?

As I glance at the “headlines” on MSN, two diverse stories catch my eye.  The most recent massacre in Syria is what I followed first.  Physical descriptions of the 32 children who were killed are too much to bear.  The horror of human evil in its full exaltation.  Seeking an anecdote, I chose the obvious:  “Toddler deemed ‘Goat Whisperer’” depicting a little boy running around the petting zoo kissing and hugging all the goats and going back for good measure in case any felt slighted.  The contrast of this big beautiful bad world all right there for me to see.  That is life.  The full range of innocent beauty and corrupt killing machines.  How do we stand it?  How can we?

Life and death surrounds us.  Beauty and despair are everywhere.  Life ends, life begins, life is taken.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason.  Religion attempts to make sense of it all.  Philosophers philosophize.  Lay people wonder or even give up.  The fractured often snap and break.  It doesn’t seem to make sense – yet it is life plain and simple.  Susan got word yesterday that her sweet 6 year-old dog was riddled with cancer causing seizures, incontinence and too much pain for the poor soul to bear.  Susan and Dan made the only decision they could and said their goodbyes. I wept a few times with her yesterday.  She knows I know.  Anyone with a beloved pet knows.  The pain is immense, the loss great, the guilt overbearing.  She did all the right things; there was nothing that could be done.  The missing of Chloe’s sweet presence will be intense.  For a while.

Two days ago, I found Jaxson’s dog tag outside in the dirt.  A plastic rainbow colored dog-bone shaped tag that had been attached to his leather collar.  How this survived the flaming fury, I have no idea.  I saw it in the dirt and brought it in Flame to keep on my blossoming alter.  When Jaxson died, the pain was gargantuan, choking out any light.  I was traveling when David called with the news.  Six months earlier, Jaxson had surgery to remove a mass on his spleen.  After the surgery, his symptoms that perplexed the doctors for months were gone.  At 11 ½ he regained some puppy spirit.  Then one night, David returned home to find him collapsed on the floor.  On the way down to the emergency vet, Jaxson stopped breathing.  2 ½ years later, I still weep at the loss of that great dog.  I pause to bargain with God or whatever is up there listening, you better not take Tigger.  Sounds more like a threat than a “bargain” but I mean it.  What I would do to follow up with my threat?  I have no idea but it gives me an illusion of control.  “Don’t you dare.  You hear me, mofo?”

With the amount of ash that accumulated in the interior of Flame after our windstorm, I wonder about the ash in our lungs and in the dogs whose faces stay closer to the ground.  I pray the cillia that lines the passages is enough of a filter.  Should we flee to the city and breathe in the smog of that world?  Life is full of hazards.  The crazy wind brought down branches in our stressed trees.  I watched these towering and mostly dead pines sway like drunken sailors.  I especially dislike the swaggering that happens way to close to Flame.  We are in the kill zone of at least 6 of these towering beasts.  They call them “widow makers” as the compromised root system cannot be trusted to hold the weight of the tree any longer.  Sometimes they simply keel over squashing anything in their path.  Yes, we will do something about these hazards.  Sooner rather than later.

Let’s return to the beauty, shall we?  My sweet little trailer has emerged unharmed with us in her womb-like warmth.  The dogs are perky this morning, much happier after the wail of the wind is gone.  The sun is shining and my husband is channeling his morning energy into cleaning.  It’s a 3-day weekend and we are less than halfway through.  We will bathe in the love and energy of our friends and give it back in return.  We both have massages later in the lovely town of Evergreen with the uber-talented Kim Nilsson.  We will have breakfast at the Wild Flower Café and indulge in their hollandaise and potatoes.  The dogs will run off-leash at the park and meet new friends.  Then we will return to Flame, with our newly purchased popcorn popper and watch a movie snug in our beds.  A beautiful day.

There is always beauty even in destruction.  I can’t see the beauty in the Syrian massacre yet there will be beauty in humans coming together to support each other in their pain.  I don’t see beauty in Susan’s loss of Chloe yet the love they shared was exquisite and the tears we will share together will bond us further.   We shouldn’t be expected to see the beauty always – but to know it is there waiting for us is essential.  Without it, the world would be a big bad scary place and nothing else.  Yet, we humans are still here, still giving it another go.  We leave the womb and enter the world not knowing what will happen or where the journey will take us.  We don’t know how long we have or what it will look like.  It may be too short a ride, it may be too long.  We have no idea.

I will take another sip of coffee and begin another day… cause there is beauty in the world.