SIMPLE SONGS

"Sing a Happy Song", pastel,
by Karen Margulis

As I was hanging out clothes on the laundry line yesterday morning, somewhere a bird was singing the same simple song again and again, and for some reason, it started me thinking about how strong and ever-present simplicity is. It seems clear to me that most of us, myself included, make life far more full of twists and turns than it actually is, and thus we miss the natural ease and straightforwardness of things. This bird, with its simple song, seemed to be living its life with effortlessness and unfussiness, simply reciting the same lovely melody over and over. It’s as if it knew instinctively that satisfaction is something simple rather than elaborate, plain rather than fancy. It reminded me of a lesson I learned long ago, sort of another simple song similar to the bird’s – that kindness is always stronger than unhappiness. This is an absolutely straightforward fact, the opposite of the cluttered and confusing rules we sometimes try to follow. The plain fact is, that no matter how full of despair a situation seems to be, if I simply stay kind to others, and to myself, the indomitable allure of life will soon make itself felt once more. Like the bird singing its same song yesterday, I should say this over and over – “kindness conquers unhappiness, kindness conquers unhappiness”. The bird knows satisfaction can come in simple ways, and so should I.  

SONGS WHILE I'M SLEEPING

"Starry Night", pastel,
by Karen Margulis

     I awoke several times last night and listened for a few minutes to the singing of the insects outside, and it has me thinking, this morning, about some of the other things that happen while I’m sleeping. For the few hours that I’m asleep, the universe, as always, is a busy and stirring place. Besides the music of countless crickets and katydids, there must be limitless kinds of activities among nighttime animals as they live their important lives – the rushing and shoving and soaring that’s essential for the creatures that carry on with their lives while I’m lying among soft sheets. There’s the nighttime work of people who prepare essential things for the rest of us while we sleep – the third-shift factory workers who make the beds that we sleep on, the grocery employees who get food up on the shelves so we can select what we need in the morning, the employees of power companies who keep our night-lights lit. While I’m sleeping, airplanes are streaking across countries and seas on essential missions, hospitals are helping people prepare for better lives, and police officers in cities and towns are taking their peacekeeping work seriously. While I’m fortunate to be finding a few hours of rest beside my wife, rivers are flowing as fast as they always do, and the steadfast stars are doing their shining, as always, above us.         

WATCHING MY STEP

"Spring Nest", pastel,
by Karen Margulis

     “Watch your step” would be a useful slogan for me these days. I especially like the word “watch”, because it suggests the kind of completely committed awareness I want to foster in myself – an awareness that sometimes, sadly, seems absent in me for hours and days at a time. I want to be constantly on the alert, attentive as much as possible to the nuances of this peculiar and beguiling life I’m living. I want to watch what’s happening as carefully as a sharp-eyed sailor watches from the deck. This is a demanding mission for me, since an almost youthful heedlessness still, at 71, seems more prevalent in me than awareness. I still sometimes see in myself the rash impetuosity of my teenage years. I seem to come panting into a new day, dash through it, and then rush into sleep at the end, hoping that a few hours rest will help me race even faster tomorrow. It’s a swift and hassled world we live in, hardly the kind of environment to encourage “watching your step”, but I want to give it a good try. Instead of simply glancing at the gifts spring is giving us along the roads these days, I want to occasionally stop and study them; instead of a quick look, I want a long look; instead of just shooting past the songs of birds on my bicycle, I want to pause and truly listen, to sometimes let the bike come to a silent stop among their brave new songs. 
 

FREELY GIVEN, FREELY GIVING

I don’t do much community service work, but I do often have a feeling of “giving back”. I’m not sure where it comes from or why it keeps flowing forward to me, but I have been on the receiving end, over 71 years, of a freewheeling river of ever-new thoughts. It seems to me that I don’t actually make these thoughts, but rather they unfold of their own accord and continuously cascade toward me. Just sitting here now, holding my hands to the keyboard, countless thoughts from somewhere are showing me what words to type. Since all these mental gifts have been so freely given to me, I take pleasure, day by day, in freely re-giving them to my friends and acquaintances. Because they belong to the limitless universe of thoughts, the thoughts are not actually mine to keep and care for, and so sending them straight on to others seems like the suitable next step. I sometimes picture myself as a strange kind of Santa Claus carrying a big bag of thoughts which came my way by inexplicable good luck, and which I distribute to others with the cheerfulness of an old man making merry.