travel notes

I am writing this from the 11th floor apartment of my daughter in Beijing China.    I have not ventured out much as  my purpose was to spend time with my granddaughter.  And that I am.  I can't comprehend 17 million people in a city.  We took a walk the other evening.  On one side of the street were hair salons, stores and on the other side, just back along the side of a building was a piece of what looked like  metal sheet roofing marking a space with a man huddled and  doing some kind of shoe repair.    There are lanes for  driving cars and there are special lanes alongside for those riding bikes.  Some of the bikes just look old and worn.  I wondered how many miles some of those simple frames have carried their riders.  And I haven't figured out the rules for parking.  Maybe there are no rules.  But, I am sure there are.  There are lots of rules in this country.

While my days here have been only a few,  I have some more venturing out to do.

special friends

I serve as an adviser to a group of self-advocates and I am not sure I always like that.  I mean, I like that I am doing it but don't always like what I have to do in that role.  They were making plans for some things they wanted to do as a group.  There were great ideas....go to a movie, learn to paint pictures, have a picnic, start their own newspaper, play bingo with prizes....great ideas.  Then comes the hard part, helping them understand what is needed to go to the movie or plan a picnic and watching some of their faces shout disappointment when the 'T' word is mentioned....transportation.  It is easy to ask for a donation or contribution but not so easy to find someone to drive them home  and the person drive themselves back.  Some of these round trips are over an hour. And what about the families....they don't have the gas money, don't have the time, don't drive at night, are too busy, don't want to go out of their way and some are so old they don't drive themselves.  And me, I just put on my road warrior hat,  load up my car and away we go.  Great ideas just have to happen.

joyfulness within

From my window, which looks out to the pond, I noticed some young boys  making an effort at fishing.  While they have done this before, throw the line in and out, make boy sounds, change positions, stuff that I don't pay attention to, I suddenly heard this high pitch scream.  Someone's little brother kept screaming 'you caught one'.  Not only was he screaming, he was doing some kind of boy dance with it.

When  do we loose our excitement over the little things and someone decides it is not  the way to act.  I think we all have that abundant joyfulness within us, we just forget it is there or maybe we are afraid to let it out.