The Delicate Nature of Being

Soft, delicate green leaves of nature at the beautiful Hill Country Water Gardens in Cedar Park, Texas

This week, thoughts turn to the delicate nature of being. In case you have not been following the news, there was quite an incident, actually, a series of incidents, in Austin. To put it bluntly, there was a mad bomber on the loose. From what we can gather, a man had left a series of package bombs at various homes around the Austin area. At first, the first bomb that went of, killed somebody but the police were not sure if it was a personal attack or what had happened. Then, as more bombs went off, it became clear that we had a bomber on our hands and he (or she) was randomly targeting individuals. Events culminated with a series of bombs going off including one at a Fed-Ex facility south of Austin, down near San Antonio, and then the man getting caught up in Round Rock, Texas and blowing himself up inside of his pick-up truck.

Needless to say, as the events unfolded over the course of the past few days, a lot of folks in Austin have been on edge. There has been a lot of checking the news, checking the phones for news, calling home to make sure everybody was OK. Heck, they even shut some of the schools down for a few hours after one of the bombs went off. To speak to how crazy it was, our morning traffic report started including items such as, “since the police have closed off part of the road over by [insert latest bomb blast location here] expect traffic delays in that area.” Water cooler conversations at work included references to bombers and the latest news and, as the situation escalated, it got even worse. For a while, Whole Foods was shutdown because they had found a suspicious package. It turned out to be somebody forgetting a pack or some such thing but, with everybody on edge, it was difficult to ignore. Everybody’s thoughts turned to the bombing and everybody has been in a weird sort of hyper vigilant type of mode where even the slightest mention of something related to the bomber puts us on edge. Nobody wanted to go and pickup the mail, that’s for sure. I’m guessing here, and it is but a guess, Amazon lost some business from the Austin area this week, as nobody wanted to deal with packages at the doorstep if they could avoid it. Speaking for myself, I had just signed up for Amazon prime and was about to order some Jocko Tea (since I love the stuff) when the mad bomber struck and so I was left wondering if I would have to resort to Lipton in a bag. Yes, it was that kind of stressful (I kid but only really half so.) Today, bomber be damned, I put in my latest Amazon Prime order.

Just a final note about all of this. Family and friends from what I can gather are all just fine. I did realize that, after they caught him, the bomber is in fact a friend of a friend of a friend. He shows up in my Facebook friends of friends list anyway, so there’s that. I can’t say I know him personally but we are all but a few degrees of separation apart anyhow. What is that about Kevin Bacon or, for the photographers out there, Minor White? Yeah, six degrees and the back of a napkin ought to do it.

Meanwhile, as all of this has been unfolding, spring is quietly moving her way closer and closer. I had opportunity to park myself outside a bit today and, I hate to admit it, the weather is all but perfect. Not only have I spotted my first bluebonnets, but the display off of Mopac is turning brilliant. I’d say it’s almost peak-like in its splendor. Yeah, we’re almost officially in bluebonnet season, y’all. Thank goodness the crazy mad bomber has been caught so we can go outside and play.

The delicate nature of being. Being spring, being blue, being sunny, being delicate, being alive; I’m loving it all tonight and I hope you are too. 

Until next time…

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