I walk in the cool morning. It's maybe 50 degrees, maybe just below that, and I have gloves on my parchment-y hands. The neighborhoods are quiet; the only sound not nature-based is the kachunking of the nail guns at one house along the way. Workers are putting a new roof on the garage.
Maybe school-freed kids are joyously sleeping in, or slurping soggy cereal in front of morning cartoons, or happily at a day camp where exciting things will happen. Working folks are at their work, no doubt, whether that means gone to a workplace or in front of a home-based computer. And the retirees, those of my age and older, might be having lazy mornings, perhaps sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming mug, flipping the pages of a newspaper.
The weather app tells me, this morning, not to walk. I am, alas, in the "sensitive groups" designation, which includes "…children, the elderly, and those with breathing difficulties." (Wait, I think: AM I in the elderly group? I open a browser and type in 'elderly definition.' The Center for Disease Control and Prevention considers anyone over 60 years of age to be 'an older adult'---their euphemism, apparently, for elderly, because the site goes on to say that many states have other definitions of elderly, but most of them consider people who've passed their 65th birthday to be in that group.
Why did I read this?
Suddenly my hip aches.
Suddenly I feel tired.)
But I NEED my morning walks; I need the cool air on my cheeks (especially, I need to remember the cool comfort the outside morning world offers on days when afternoons are baked and shimmering.) I soak up the sense of quiet and order, of harmony, even, in the tidy neighborhoods I pass through.
That sense rarely lasts all day, but it seems essential to feel, at least for the thirty minutes of my walk, that this community lives and works together; we share common goals and common values. We help each other. We are neighbors in the best and truest sense.
The morning walk pulls me into a rhythm that works to embrace the day.
I balance that against an Air Quality Advisory for Fine Particulates, and I lace up my sneakers and go before I can start to dither.
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I meet only one person on my walk, just as I'm rounding the corner to home. He is a tall, skinny young man in an orange T-shirt. He has dark hair, a dark beard and opaque black sunglasses.
We say hello, and I remark that we're the only two, this morning, that I've seen braving the weather advisory.
He pauses for a minute. Then, "I hardly know how to live like that," he says. He turns and walks in his direction, and I continue on home.
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"I hardly know how to live like that." That's exactly how I feel when what I should do meets what is good to do. Often, I can't tell which is which. Often, I am paralyzed. I hardly know how to proceed.
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I walk against the warning in the weather app. But then I read the recommendations: how I can lessen my contributions to air pollution while we wait for the hazy aura caused by distant wildfires to lift.
"Don't drive unless you must," it tells me. "Walk, bike, or use public transportation."
Walk! Didn't you just tell me NOT to walk? I sputter mentally. I get the intention, but I'm not sure, under the circumstances which is the right, GOOD, thing to do.
And then I read further. The app advises delaying lawn mowing until the advisory lifts.
The grass in my front lawn is getting leggy. I SHOULD mow.
But would it be better not to?
Or do I only embrace the 'better' part when it aligns with what I want…in this case, NOT to have to push that mower today?
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Sometimes it's really hard to know which is the right thing to do and which is the good thing to do, and if those are two different things entirely.
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There was a lovely person—I'll call her Savannah—in a journalling course I taught in a town far, far from here. She had shoulder-length honey blonde hair; she was fashion model thin and wore beautifully curated, striking outfits. When I think of Savannah, I think of her nonchalantly flipping a colorful scarf back over her shoulder as she read to us from her journal.
Savannah clearly was a person who'd appreciated many, many turns around the sun, but the class was shocked when she shared her age: 86.
That was a wonderful class,--a true community, and the members supported and encouraged each other.
"You can do it!" they'd assert, when someone shared a dream or goal. "You got this!"
So when Savannah said that she really, really wanted to visit Texas, but her family was discouraging her, the class told her to go for it. Plan wisely, they said; maybe get a trusted travelling companion, but for sure: if you want to go, there's a way.
What we didn't realize is that Savannah decided to drive to Texas, a trip of at least 22 hours. And she decided to drive alone.
She left the Spring after the class wrapped up, and she was killed in an accident outside a major city.
One of the students called me, devastated. Should we have encouraged her? she asked. I felt gut-punched, too, but I assured her that the class never encouraged Savannah to take a long, lone road trip. We pictured her, instead, strolling onto a plane, seated in business class, letting some nice man stow her carry-on, and settling in for a good gossip with the friend who had accompanied her.
You meant the best for her, I said. You wanted her to realize her dream.
But that tragedy lingers with me still. Was it good to encourage Savannah? SHOULD we have discouraged her, or set clear parameters on our support of her trip?
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Savannah's story comes back to me hauntingly as we say goodbye to a dear person who, much, much younger than Savannah was, is taking her own dream-fulfilling trip. She'll travel a long, weary way in a convoy, but she'll be driving by herself.
She's determined; she has all the pieces in place. We walk to her house and give her a card and hugs and ask her to text and let us know when she's safely arrived.
But worry nags at my gut. SHOULD we encourage? Would it be better to urge her to find a co-driver, to make sure she breaks up the trip and is driving well-rested?
Her plan is in place, but could we persuade her to amend it?
Should we?
What's the good thing to do here?
We can't decide for other people, other grownup people who have every right to make their own plans.
But.
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I will be so happy when that text arrives, when she's there and safe, when her new adventure truly begins.
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Good and should, good and should.
There are days when the annoying machine buzzes, and the person whose clothes have just tumbled dry is not to be found.
I KNOW that I should let that person tend to his own laundry.
Also, though, I KNOW that I can't stand the thought of fresh, clean laundry cooling into rumpled clusters of clothes.
I should let it wait, I counsel myself.
I should fold it before it's a wrinkled mess, Self counters.
What's the good thing to do here?
I ask my battling voices to duke it out.
And you know what happens. Oh, don't be so lazy, I tell myself, and I wind up neatly folding those clothes and placing them tidily on the stairs for Owner to pick up.
Aaaarrgh. So often, even in low-risk everyday situations, the good thing and the should thing butt heads.
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Sometimes it's easy. I have lunch with dear friends, and then someone mentions dessert. I know I shouldn't, and I don't. And that's a good thing.
But there are things a lot more complicated than choosing to have a sweet, things where the two little conscience-driven advocates sit on either shoulder and give me exactly contradictory advice, urge me to take exactly opposite action. If there is time, I will wait on that decision, give it up, ask for help. If there is time, I'll talk it over with a trusted confidante.
And, if there's not time for that,---well, I will drill down, and I'll do my best, and I'll consider possible harm and possible benefit. And I will try to get it right.
But, hard as I try, I fear I won't, always; my experience shows that.
There are times when I did what I thought was the good thing, and it turns out there was something else I should have done.
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By the way: I didn't mow the lawn.
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