Launch Out!

Happy New Year!


I. Launch Out

I made this for my work's FB page:
HouseMate's dog, Prince, running at the lake this morning and a quote* attributed to Frederic Ozanam, the Frenchman who founded the Society of St Vincent de Paul in 1833.

No one else was at the lake, so I let Prince off the leash.

He's an obedient, people-pleasing dog, but I wouldn't risk it (especially since he's not mine) if anyone were in sight.

It's my New Year's intention for 2020 to take Prince for a walk every day--(weather permitting)--even if it's just around the block.

He will love it  
(. . . and a happy dog makes a person happy!);

I will continue to get to know the neighborhood (and its people);

plus I'll get a smidge more exercise--especially if we can manage a good, long walk along the lake.

I've been meaning to do this and kept getting sidetracked with illness (mine, and HM's), etc.) The push to make it a priority came from Ilona of the blog Life After Money, who invites people to join her (online) in walking 1,000 miles a year (2.74 miles/day). 

For today, my intention is to finish setting up my room.

I moved across the hall last month, you know . . .  and I've never finished unpacking!

Now I'm well again, I have that feeling of appreciation for being not-sick, and that gives me a bit of extra zip and zing to get things done.

II. Write Your Own Thicket

At work, my new endeavor is to create some sort of coherent social media for the thrift store--and, maybe? for the larger society of SVDP, which runs the two stores.

The society is nothing like the Land of Mordor, but it is like a  rugged, ill-marked footpath through dense thickets, with lots of switchbacks and side roads that lead to swamps...
I'm not alone in seeing it this way--the people I've talked to agree that our communication is spotty and the leadership is foggy.

So... I don't have to shape it into an Atget photograph (below), but the idea, as I understand it (it's all very vague), is to mark the way a little better than it is now.

I've made a small start, and I think I'll enjoy it, going on. 
The society does almost no marketing or media, so this is more or less mine to do with as I like. (I assume if I go off track, someone will say something, but, actually, I'm not sure about that!)
It's rough not to have help, but it's smoother to have a free hand.

III.  "his own fate ceased to trouble him"

Last night I finally saw Frodo, Sam, and the evil Ring of Power through the dying land of Mordor to the fire of Mount Doom. 

It reminded me of photographs of Australia burning, like this one from the NYT, Nov. 12, 2019:

I'd started the Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple months ago. After the first volume I entirely skipped the Battles of Noble Men & Nasty Orcs and only followed Frodo and Sam's mission to destroy the Ring.

Even reading half the pages was a slog--ALL THAT LANDSCAPE!  I grew weary of all the description, but I've got to hand it to JRRT, he brings home how miserable and long and lorn the journey is. 

Last night I was rewarded with a snippet that I didn't remember at all, when Sam glimpses a star and sees his life in perspective, as set against infinity.

Here's the snippet. Sam and Frodo have run out of water and almost out of food, still several days away from reaching Mount Doom. I'll copy out most of the passage leading up to Sam seeing the star.

 "Upon its outer marges under the westward mountains Mordor was a dying land, but it was not yet dead. And here things still grew, harsh, twisted, bitter, struggling for life.

In the glens of the Morgai on the other side of the valley low scrubby trees lurked and clung, coarse grey grass-tussocks fought with the stones, and withered mosses crawled on them; and everywhere great writhing, tangled brambles sprawled. Some had long stabbing thorns, some hooked barbs that rent like knives. The sullen shrivelled leaves of a past year hung on them, grating and rattling in the sad airs, but their maggot-ridden buds were only just opening. Flies, dun or grey, or black, marked like orcs with a red eye-shaped blotch, buzzed and stung; and above the briar-thickets clouds of hungry midges dances and reeled.

". . . At last Frodo could go no further. They had climbed up a narrow shelving ravine, but they had a long way to go before they could even come in sight of the last craggy ridge.
'I must rest now, Sam, and sleep if I can,' said Frodo. He looked about, but here seemed nowhere even for an animal to crawl into in this dismal country. At length, tired out, they slunk under a curtain of brambles that hung down like a mat over a low rock-face.

"'Now you go to sleep first, Mr. Frodo,' [Sam] said. 'It's getting dark again, I reckon this day is nearly over.'

"Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo's hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or foot.

Far about the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. ... Now for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep."

I love that Tolkein shows how a glimpse of our insignificance in the face of the universe can be encouraging. It doesn't mean our temporary, tiny lives don't matter. We are here, now. We still have to get through somehow. Sam and Frodo still have 40 miles of hellscape to traverse--Sam will end up carrying Frodo, and Frodo will end up crawling––with no hope of a return trip.


I'd wondered if I should bother finishing LOTR. I knew what happened. But I didn't remember that little bit, and it makes me glad I did plow on through.

IV. Our House Is on Fire

Finally, I've been making a little more effort to avoid buying things (food) in plastic.  It's hard to go grocery shopping and buy nothing whatsoever in plastic. I'm not a purist (if I were, I wouldn't be using this machine I'm writing on---have you read how much energy the Internet uses? OMG.)
I'll be happy just to buy less plastic.
I make efforts, and then I backslide.

Individual environmental actions such as recycling your household wastes are so puny as to be insignificant in the face of the enormity of climate change, but like Sam and Frodo, we still have to live in the place and the times we find ourselves in.
It's comforting to know I'm not significant in universal terms--it helps me carry on here and now.

Sam and Frodo keep putting one foot in front of the other with little hope of success or even survival---and I have to decide what to do with this apple core on my desk.
...
That's an easy one, actually. 
I just ate it.

It takes a lot of ingenuity to launch new habits. I think challenges like that can be fun though, too––to shake it up, step it up. Remember to take jars and bags to stores that sell food in bulk.

Anyway, I always want to be able to know, if/when the worst happens that I did some little bit, that I didn't just throw up my hands and say, it doesn't matter.

It matters to me, and "me" includes you, and since that's all I have, I'm going to try, try again.

This image ^ is in many places; I found it on Climate Change Ireland's round-up of info about Greta Thunberg.
 _________________________

*The quote is attributed to Frederic Ozanam, though I can't find a good source. I'm sharing it anyway--it's the sort of thing F.O. would have said, though he might well have mentioned God and poverty in there somewhere too...):

“Do not be afraid of new beginnings.
Be creative. Be inventive.
You who have energy; who have enthusiasm;
who want to do something of value for the future;
Be inventive, launch out;
Do not wait!”

 [Now I've finished this post and it's almost 3 p.m. and I still want to put together my photo year-in-review, so not sure my room will get done, yet again...]