This Letter to the Editor was in response to Today’s Superpower Is Doing One Thing at a Time” (The New York Times · July 29, 2023).
Tag: men
from a generation in which one was what one did, not what one talked about.
Sonja said once that to understand men like Ove and Rune, one had to understand from the very beginning that they were men caught in the wrong time. Men who only required a few simple things from life, she said. A roof over their heads, a quiet street, the right make of car, and a woman to be faithful to. A job where you had a proper function. A house where things broke at regular intervals, so you always had something to tinker with. “All people want to live dignified lives; dignity just means something different to different people,” Sonja had said. To men like Ove and Rune dignity was simply that they’d had to manage on their own when they grew up, and therefore saw it as their right not to become reliant on others when they were adults. There was a sense of pride in having control. In being right. In knowing what road to take and how to screw in a screw, or not. Men like Ove and Rune were from a generation in which one was what one did, not what one talked about.
~ Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove: A Novel
Notes:
- Photo – Colin Grubbs with Old Men, Old Quarter
- Related Posts: Fredrik Backman
Walking Cross-Town. With Al.
Jorie Graham: “The slow overture of rain, each drop breaking without breaking into the next, describes the unrelenting, syncopated mind.” (from “Mind,” Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts.)
6:30 am.
The train pulls into Grand Central, and clears. I sit. And wait.
The conductor walks up the aisle gathering tickets.
I cue up a Paul Simon playlist and walk.
The platform is empty. Stragglers amble toward the exits.
I nod to the armed guard, and slip through the open door onto 42nd, passing a conga line of yellow cabs. Not today gentlemen, not today. We’re walking Cross-Town.
Good morning America.
Dawn in Manhattan.
Sun Power lights up the skyscrapers, they lean in from the shadows to warm.
A wisp of a breeze cools, a welcome cut of the ever-present humidity, and a respite from the simmering trash and the marinating urine.
The electronic horse walks.
There’s a skip in the step this morning, loaded with a full night’s sleep, and boosted by Sun’s Solar Power. Beast and Beast. One up Top. One on the ground. Duo is Un-freak-ing-stoppable. Continue reading “Walking Cross-Town. With Al.”
Walking. Into the Wildebeest.
What was it, 20 seconds? A week ago?
I step over the gap and exit the train car.
Whoa.
Hundreds of Suits are charging for the exits and I’m leaning into the rushing current. The great Serengeti wildebeest migration in the tunnels of Grand Central.
Hooves pounding.
I slow my pace and meekly hug the edge of the platform.
Hold on.
Hold it right there. Continue reading “Walking. Into the Wildebeest.”
Come On Ladies. Let it Go!
Notes:
- Source and read more at: wsj.com: The Healing Power of Forgiveness
- Post inspired by: “It’s hard to move on if you don’t forgive,” he said. “It’s like trying to dance with a lead weight on your shoulders. The anger can weigh you down forever.” ~ Diane Chamberlain, Pretending to Dance
- And inspired by: “I have simplified my life to just three principles, which I try to practice. I cannot say I have mastered them. I attempt. I fall, I falter and I attempt. I call my spiritual rowboat Surrender — complete surrender to the will of the Greater Power. The act of surrendering is so important that Who or What you surrender to becomes insignificant. It is the surrender itself that is important. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude — gratitude for the gift of life. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my oars into action, I forgive.” ~ Balbir Mathur