Years ago I worked for a southern university’s Paris program. The director and I frequently discussed one particular student who had trouble grasping the French mentality. He lived inside a glossy, touched-up postcard of Paris, never fully understanding the essence and quirks of French life, always remaining (or trying to remain) within the picture-perfect Paris postcard.
Another couldn’t quite leave the miles of highways and fast food to-go culture of Texas behind, at every chance comparing Paris to that antipode because it was at that time the only other place she knew. “You can take the girl out of Dallas, but you can’t take Dallas out of the girl,” went her favorite refrain, and we’d laugh at its truth and her discernment. She has since traveled the world many times over and I think that first trip to Paris was her beginning.
Of course, our lives are not postcards or Instagram images; they’re not meant to be. Life is rich and beautiful, and often messy. On daily walks with the dogs, I look to nature as I step over a crisscross of fallen trees and branches in their slow evolution into nurse logs then earth. Everything perfectly ordered in its chaos and mess.
My brother is correct when he says that Facebook or the internet is neither good nor bad, it’s how you use it. I have social media accounts, which I use sporadically—they do help us stay in touch with far away friends. And to a certain extent, I’d say they help us connect, at which point I’d say, then they don’t. I suppose we like what we know. I grew up with both TV and telephone but previous generations did not and felt those two inventions, television certainly, would be the death of us. The kids today grow up with phones attached and likely would find it hard to survive without these appendages.
I’d like to propose that deep down humans naturally gravitate towards those people whose lives are unpretentious, unscripted, un-curated (my sister), which reads as honest, unaffected and is, in the extreme, our animals. Simple lives with simple pleasures so far removed from the high-tech world of invention for more, for faster, for growth, and for profit. I ask why must we always progress? At what point can we stop and say, this is enough? In this age of AI that feels more like science fiction, it is Mother Earth who finally seems to be saying, enough.
My dogs wear the same clothing—a fur coat—day in and day out. They make no trash except for a most biodegradable kind. They don’t listen to the news, and are better off for it. They use no plastics, wage no war, exploit no one, except possibly me with their pleading looks that say, “You never feed us.”
I watch the lady bugs crawling across the floor. They look like they have no set destination—mere wanderers on earth—but perhaps they do. The flowers, many of whom popped their festive heads up in February this year, are one of my greatest joys, and it’s hard not to rejoice when I see them no matter what their early appearance signifies. Sparkle and Stash lie outside in the first soft air, surrounded by a palette of color: daffodils, vinca, violets, hyacinths, pansies, the first of the tulips. The two dogs welcome the sun’s gentle warmth on their backs as I click a photo. Ah yes, it’s a perfect postcard.