Dear Hmph,
It is now, I’m sure, clear to the world at large that you will never win a seat in any governmental body should you chose to run. So sorry. Back to near the beginning and continuing in same vein: I thought it was interesting in the Smiley piece that she talked about errant men, men who will leave their wives for younger women, men who will naturally be promiscuous, etc., but she left out her sometimes adventurous, sometimes naughty, sometimes searching for happiness or a different kind of satisfaction, sisters who will leave their husbands for richer older men and sometimes silly younger men, for women, for solitude, or even the same old story all over again. One gets the impression from that piece that we are a world of even-keeled women struggling through a few marriages, learning the lessons, coming to middle-age intimacy without ever ditching the piano lesson where the Mormon men are listening to “The Birch Canoe,” and making off to the bar with the muscley spinning instructor. It’s time to fess up that lo these many years women have been taking advantage of equal-opportunity promiscuity.
As for Faith, I get much of mine from yoga, a three-mints-in-one kind of experience. It’s body work, church, and therapy in an hour and a half. (It does help, going into it, as a foundation to have a few Psalms up one’s sleeve, a little Keats, some Jane Kenyon, Marie Howe, for the verbal assistance one often needs in times of trouble.) However, after yoga one feels purified, exercised, and ready to do good in the world. All manner of things are well and if one has an inspired Yoga Diva one even feels forgiven for God knows what all. Plus, when you’re 60, if you’ve started a few years before, you’ll be able to reach the dish up in the nether reaches of the cupboard and touch the floor as well. What other group can boast such results?
As for 200 million bucks and how to spend them, those apple growers in the Hudson valley are in big trouble, here in Wisconsin our apples are really ugly this year too. But the crisis of cow pastures and orchards are another story, wherein all genders and faiths will be united in exporting the US of A’s food from well beyond our borders.
xo jh
