What's Important

In my last post I mentioned that Susan found a journal of poems while preparing for hurricane Rita. It was on the bottom shelf in the Green room, a room prone to flooding if flooding was to be done.

I had forgotten it was there and was not too concerned about preserving it. I've never been tied to the past. Things happen . . . and then more things happen. Whole swathes of my youth I only remember through the stories my family tells. I don't remember them at all. I'm not bothered by it though. I find it interesting every once in a while when I see a photograph and some long unused synapse fires and I remember a piece of my history.

As we were preparing for the storm though Susan and I had to make judgments on what we wanted to spend time protecting and what we didn't.

I have boxes and boxes of Star Wars stuff. I spent most of my money before Susan and the girls on SW. I spent WAY too much money. I left it all in the garage as we prepared. I didn't move it up to a higher shelf. I didn't put it in plastic bags. I left it.

I did the same with all my juggling supplies. And I did the same with my library.

We took special care of three items (or types of items).

1. Susan's footlocker of memorabilia
2. My footlocker of same
3. Photographs of he family

We made sure that the house was safe. We made sure the girls would be safe. We stored up water and went shopping for non-perishable food. We bought gas and moved the van away from all the trees. We tested radios and flashlights. We took pictures of everything in the house and put them on a server in San Antonio. We put important paper in a water-proof, fire-proof box.

And then we were done.

Everything of value was taken care of. And everything of value turned out to be the things that made us family. The memories of who we are and where we have been, the place we call home, the means to get to family if needed were the things of value.

An old but very familiar friend

Susan found a journal last week while preparing for hurricane Rita that had poems in it that I had written more than a decade ago. Most of them were shit, still are in fact. Age has not seasoned them at all. But I remember them fondly. They are snapshots of who I was then and glimpses of who I was to become.

So here is "Cry Out the Joys of Life." It's one of the more positive things I wrote from that era. Almost everything else had a darker undertone or was teen love/angst drivel. I think this was written around Earth Day 1989.

Cry out the joys of life!
To Live
To Love
To merely see the beauty
To taste the air around you
This is Life!
Walk into the world
Look into it
See that twig?
Tomorrow it will be bursting with buds
CRY OUT THE JOYS OF LIVING!

Happiness is seeing the world
Seeing it as a living thing
To be cared for
To care for us

We are spawned from the Earth
Revel in the joy of seeing our mother live
CRY OUT THE JOYS OF LIFE!!