[Harp-L] Lucky Insight

[Bobbie Giordano <bogio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Friends of the free reed,

My hope is that these special days and nights of the Holiday times are 
spreading joy and love around you, and for you, as well.  Last night, 
around 4am, I was blessed with a reminder of how lucky I am, that so many 
of us are, in fact.

The rainy system riding up out of the Gulf didn't look all that bad, but 
somehow I managed to awaken [from my seat at my computer!] to wonder when 
this downpour was going to end.  Suddenly, a bit worried, I first went 
into my bedroom to find a roof leak overdoing itself!  This is something 
I will deal with one day when I can afford it, so there was already a 10" 
wide pot on my bed collecting the inch deep water.  I emptied that and 
replaced the collection pot, then went down to the basement to discover 
flood waters creeping ever rapidly over the door sill, and lapping at the 
sliding glass doors.  Within 3 minutes, it was 2 inches above the door 
tracks.  In 3 more minutes, water covered most of the basement floor, 
seeping under walls and base cabinets into the laundry room, flowing 
unimpeded into the storage closet, up against cardboard boxes of books, 
memorabilia and photographs, a guitar in its case, art supplies stacked 
against a wall, encroaching on floor level surge protectors and other 
electrical items... ETC.!!  I was astounded at how swiftly this dilemma 
could develop!  This was NOT a good thing!

I woke my son who was staying over for Christmas and enlisted his drowsy 
support in getting things under some semblance of control.  Doug and I 
faced this once before, so I donned old shoes and a slicker as we did 
then, and went out to wade through calf-deep rushing water to open the 
gate on the stockade type privacy fence near the flooded patio.  With a 
shovel and forked tool, I pulled rotting leaves away for the fence to 
further allow the water to escape.  Damn.  I just washed and set my hair 
today, I thought!  ;)

Back inside, as we worked for 2 plus hours, all I could think about, more 
and more, was how lucky I am.  Here, I only glimpsed what victims of the 
Eastern Tsunami must have experienced, what tragedies were inflicted by 
Katrina and Rita, or Ivan the year before, or the total devastation of 
complete cities or towns like Iran's Bam.  Together, 2 people were able 
to virtually clean the majority of the mess up in 2 hours, go back to 
sleep and deal with the 'details' tomorrow.  Many, many people will never 
have, nor never had, that option... or not even a chance.

No wonder so many survivors of disaster come to the stark realization of 
how precious the remaining relations and remnants of their lives are... 
that Life itself is!

I hope we will all try to pay closer attention in the New Year to what 
really matters in being human caretakers of our world... compassion to 
those who, through no fault of their own, have fallen upon horrifically 
hard times... man, woman, beast... AND, their environment.  If not that, 
for what on earth were we put here?

Stewards of Earth...  Bless you all and may Love and Peace bring us all 
more Joy and Beauty in 2007.

Be sure to have Music... 'Harmonica', especially, of course!  :-)

Love to all,
Bobbie