It's a Wonderful Life.

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 "For there is nothing either good or bad (in Denmark), but thinking makes it so."

                                                                                                                    -- Hamlet

My friend Krebs flew up from New 

Orleans to take me to dinner.  He is a formidable man with a booming laugh—large-hearted and immense.  Warm and wry.  Krebs and I are in the midst of a forty-year conversation about God, Art, Politics and the meaning of Life.

I try to get down to New Orleans to see him at least once a year. Each spring he hosts a crawfish boil in his side yard.  Cajun music and corn on the cob under the oak tree.  And conversation.  Always the conversation.

 Sometimes I bring my mum—I remember this trip particularly because the bartender on our Mississippi Steamship served the most bracing Bloody Marys ever.

Half-teasing, I'd said to Krebs, "My mum is so dim.  Although she has had a very difficult and sometimes tragic life, she THINKS she's had a good life."  He looked at me, amused.  "Jackie," he said, "If your Mama THINKS she's had a good life, then your Mama HAS had a good life." Of course he's right. 

Keep Your Eyes on All That is Good & Beautiful & Possible in the World

"Keep Your Eyes on All That is Good  & Beautiful & Possible in the World."  That mantra fuels this blog, drives our World Gratitude Map, our Happy News Feed, and serves as our own personal 'reset' button when we don't know what else to do.

Well, amid news of a kindergarten shooting in Newton--or bombs in the street--such Pollyanna-ish sentiments are, in the short run, of little use at all.  The utter horror of these deaths form a dark void from which no light escapes and so no good or beauty can be seen.

And that's as it should be.  Some tragedies are so great, some evil so dark, that the only sane response is stunned silence, an acknowledgement that, for the moment, the universe is out of balance,  evil has triumphed, and the 'bad guys' have won.

Borneo Adventure

This is how I remember it.

Via Borneo Adventure I'd been trekking in the highlands of Borneo with the Penan, a hush-voiced nomadic tribe. For the last few days we'd clambered over logs and slogged thigh deep through wetlands.  The sky was so far above the tangled tree canopy it seemed we were underwater, padding across the bottom of some great, green ocean.    As there were no roads into Bario, the only access was by twin engine Otter plane.  The sort where they weigh everyone before you board.  So when the hike ended I flew back to Kuching, sweat-stained and mud-crusted, looking very much forward to clean sheets and a long sleep.

 Photo credit: Ilja Klutman

Our friend Philip's driver met me at the airport to take me to the hotel.  As we pulled up to the Hilton I began to thank him (in my mind already stretching across the breadth of that Sealy posturepedic) but he interrupted.  No, Mr. Young had told him to wait while I showered and then bring me to his house, where Philip would host a party in my honor.

Shower?  I needed to be dipped into a vat of hydrogen peroxide!  Plus, when they told me what to  pack for the trip (leech socks?) they neglected to tell me to bring a party dress.  What to do?