Connect The Dots

 Yesterday, a woman asked me, “What do you think about when you go on those long mountain hikes all by yourself?

Those who know me well would never ask, because they are familiar with the quirky ruminations that go on in my mind. Sometimes when I start talking, one of my friends will say, “Where did that come from?” I’m not always sure where it came from, but I know I will end up writing about it somewhere.

However, hers was a fair question, and deserves the best answer I can muster. So follow my thought train as I hit the trail at 6:30 a.m., and see if you can figure it all out.

The first thing I thought was, “Be mindful!” It is the mantra of my 90-year-old friend, Betty. She says it when she gets behind the wheel of her car. I thought it because the rattlesnakes are coming out of hibernation. Since nothing rattled or slithered across my feet, I sang, “The hills are alive with the sound of music,” and proceeded down the path. I stopped singing because I forgot the rest of the words and had scared a couple of rabbits.

Then I thought about the Dutch airliner that flew from New York to Amsterdam with 25% of its fuel consisting of waste cooking oil from fried Louisiana Cajun food. I made a mental note to ask an attorney if smelling fried crawfish and cracklins while munching on pretzels (while sitting in a cramped seat on an airplane) is cruel and unusual punishment. All kinds of strange things happen on airplanes. My friend, Marilyn, a flight attendant, caught a passenger trying to buckle a seatbelt around her Chihuahua.

When I reached the top of the mountain, enjoying the spectacular view, my thoughts flew from up in the air to down under---literally under the ground. I wondered about a cemetery in Spain that is threatening to evict those who are buried there, if they don’t pay for the lease on their burial sites.

Why would a dead people care if they were evicted? I’ll bet that the dearly departed wouldn’t give it a second thought if they were arrested, bone cuffed and sent to jail.

Returning to the dirt path, I pondered that, “An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, unless you’re in a hurricane.”

So what did you expect me to think about? Maybe something interesting such as, “Are those people jogging or is that girl chasing that old man down the street?”

Maybe someday I can connect all of these thoughts and write a story about them.

Anything is possible.

Esther Blumenfeld (Okay, so what’s the speed of dark?” Steven Wright)