Hard times

[seymoure]

On "Prairie Home Companion" they were singing Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More." It got me to thinking about what hard times are, and how we handle them. I have in my time be homeless, very poor and rather well off. In all of those time I didn't change. I am cheap as cheap can be, but when I spend (or tip) I am generous to a fault. No one leaves our home hungry (that is as much my wife as me, for she is an angel of mercy in the truest sense). But, at the same time I know that when I had nothing, apart from tension about paying bills, I was probably not that much less happy than those times when we spend money like it was water flowing over the damn. The images of men committing suicide after the stock market crash of '29 come to mind, and my response has always been, "So, you start over, so...?" I have started over a hundred times, it is a state of being. It would be hard now, but, if we had to...we could. Why? Because life is a gift...sometimes a hard gift, sometimes one delivered C.O.D. or postage due, but a gift none the less. Even when I get depressive (and that can be an epic, let my family tell you) I know things will get better. People who say, "This too shall pass," forget that means the good times also. Everything is in transition. My people believed that there was no solid matter just forms of energy that are more densely packed over here than over there. If that is true, your form is only a temporary configuration of energy that will change form someday. Like the varying vibrations of sound that make music, enjoy what you enjoy and survive what you don't and know, this too shall pass. I am happy you passed this way going by, and if you can, come back by sometime. I'll be here if I can. If not, remember, I'm still around, I just don't look the same.