POV

I got lost twice this morning.  I tried to drive down Tower Grove Blvd. to avoid the Kingshighway detour and found myself on the wrong side of World’s Fair Doughnuts looking at the rubble of the shattered bridge.  The CLOSED sign in the window of the venerable storefront disappointed me but I turned and went north.  Eventually, I found Highway 40 and continued west, the narration of my day forming in my mind.

A half-hour before I got to the cut-over at Wentzville, a Starbucks sign lured me off the roadway.  I should have known that I’d get a sucker-punch.  An hour later, I found the coffee shop in St. Peter’s.  Fueled and fed, I traveled north on Mid-River’s Mall Drive and hit I-70, not yet to Wentzville and behind schedule.

I got a gas-station doughnut three hours later as the sun set over Kansas City, still beyond my horizon but getting closer by the minute.  When I pulled into my driveway and saw the dog in the backyard looking brushed and comfortable, I told myself that I should go away more often.

The holidays draw to a close soon, and with them, the third year of my struggle to live a joyful life.  Yesterday someone told me that my blog entries seem sad but contain a hint of hope.  I respect his point of view but disagree.  I don’t feel sad when I write — not often, anyway; though perhaps it’s not the frequency but the depth to which that gentle critic responded.

Now, on this twenty-ninth day of the thirty-sixth month of My [Seriously Extended] Year Without Complaining, I’m seeing the right side of victory dancing so close my lily-white spastic fingers can nearly touch it.  Today I found a MoDOT truck parked in a handicapped spot at a rest-stop.  I called it into the MoDOT headquarters.  I guess that was a complaint, but I see the protection of the rights of disabled persons as my noble duty, so I put that in the category of exemptions and sashay right on by.

You might not share my point of view.  I can accept your dissent.

The dog barks to be let back into the house.  I’m limping around, still not recovered from my walking tour of downtown Chicago.  I’ve got a whale of a lot of work to do to meet 2017 with a fierce attitude and a clean slate.  I’m rolling up my sleeves and plunging those crippled hands into the sudsy water.  Life continues.

 

time

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