Month: October 2020

The other week I was standing in line at the Moab City Market. The woman ahead of me was buying some sort of alcoholic beverage. I didn’t recognize it and admittedly don’t remember what it was. The cashier was sharing with her how she wasn’t really impressed with it. She said, ‘Let’s call it… interesting.’ That caught my attention.

Like I’ve mused about ‘just’ and ‘sure,’ ‘interesting’ is another word that I think is, well, interesting.

I guess, like ‘sure,’ there are times when using it can be good. It all has to do with inflection. Mostly, however, I tend to feel like using it is dubious. Not to be trusted. Next time you throw out an idea and get a, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting… ‘, listen to the inflection and draw your own conclusion. And if you use it yourself, play it up a little with an adverb to make sure the other person will actually believe you, heh.

The Big 5-Oh. Fifty of these. I randomly celebrated thirty of them. I wasn’t really sure why then, I’m still not sure why now. Fifty, though, seems more legit. I guess less legit than a hundred, or ten thousand, but in some way still legit. More than thirty at least. I’m not sure why.

In these random musings, I’ve rambled about things like mitigated speech, hope (twice, in fact), doing nothing, just saying ‘hi’ (and heck, using the word ‘just’), and a bunch of other stuff. Oh, and spiders. 

For this one, I want to throw out a question for you: What’s something you keep coming back to because you haven’t figured out how to go about it yet? 

Let me know. You can send an email to hello@discoversendline, I’m the only one who’ll see it. Not that it has to be some deep, dark secret. If I can’t think of anything helpful for you, maybe I know someone who can. I can’t wait to hear from you.

After wrapping up an intense virtual week before heading out on this trip for a while, as in literally after I finished the final session, I told K I was going for a walk. A run would’ve been tough given the smoke at the time. A walk would have to do. Randomly, iTunes picked a song that seemed poignantly relevant. I have no idea if poignantly relevant is a proper phrase. Maybe the song was just poignant. Whatever. It’s a good song. As it comes to an end, Aleksa sings…

Draw yourself a line and stand behind it

Blurry-edged your mind can still refine it

We are all

Sparks of light

We are all sparks of light

A proper ending to a proper week. If you’re into random music suggestions, this one is good. Check it out.

We’re in the middle of Nevada. Well, not the middle middle. We’re in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. Specifically, though, we’re at Great Basin National Park. Neither K nor I have ever been here. It’s actually really pretty spectacular. Like those two adverbs in a row? I may be getting sloppy with my writing. Or it was intentional. I’m rambling. I should get to the point. These are supposed to be short. 

What’s my point?

Oh right, for fun today since we’re here we hauled Sefton up to the second tallest point in Nevada, Wheeler Peak. After a little scrounging, K found the summit register. In actuality, she found the mailbox where the register is kept. In it, there were a few water bottles, some pens, a sign that said, ‘Wheeler Peak, 13,063 ft.’ And the register, of course. After signing our names, we scrolled through the last few pages of entries. 

While doing so, a thought occurred to me: No one is ever mean when they write in a summit register. There’s never anything hostile, or condescending, or racist. Never any gatekeeping. In contrast, there’s always words of gratitude, thoughts of joy, expressions of hope. And well wishes, like what Nancy wrote the day before we found her entry:

9-28-2020

Nancy Davidson

just shy of 70 years old

Peace be to all

Kindness & compassion

Namaste

Right on, Nancy.