...you matter to me....

Owen woke me this Sunday...needs his walkie....NOW please! Gentle breath upon my arm, I roll out and leash and doggie bag head out the apartment door. I'm glad I have a light sweater on, the sky is darkening and it's a warm 69 degrees. I decide to take the long walk again this morning, just as we did yesterday morning. Nobody up yet, not even the other dogs in the complex. Determined, nose to the ground, favorite trees sniffed and squirrels and jay birds scatter. Doves and pigeons wake and take flight as they hear us on the oak and acorn littered grass way as we exit the complex. The road is empty, a light breeze reminds me of the rain, a faint hint of rust lingers from perhaps hours ago when a gentle mist had fallen just enough to make grass dew drops roll. Quick steps take us about one mile, west from the apartment, north out the gate and along north east road, back in the complex entrance, east along the other buildings, south along the green belt back to our apartment. Time to make some coffee and feed Owen.
You have a choice...a small cup of coffee or a mug. I will have the mug, an ordinary shop tin of already ground coffee labeled as French Roast. Brewed myself this morning, water from our faucet, 10 measured scoops of ground coffee in a paper filtered drip $9.99 coffee machine. A little organic cane sugar, a splash of lactaid milk. I'm hungry, a ceramic bowl made by humble large hands, a familiar artist friend with a outdoor massive walk through kiln, are my loving dishes. I crumble one large shredded wheat biscuit, toss some frozen organic Canadian blue berries and lactaid milk. Sit at my oak table, 30 years plus, found in a warehouse of tables in Long Beach, all replicated from kitchen tables of past family heirlooms. Sitting in a blue chair, once owned by a doctor, his waiting room chair. I start to eat, berries pop and the milk turns from a cold milky white to blue tinted swirls and then with my spoon stirring, purple.
Milk, the recent news from the internet splashed milk contamination...radiation. Friends ask, fear is driving them, concern, protection...they want to protect themselves, family. I am drawn into searching what I can and I, by my self feel fear too now, hope is venturing to less hope...radiation can be anywhere. Items I research are but band aids to the issue. Self preservation is what people are looking for, they don't trust what the media is saying in Japan, they don't trust what the new media is saying to the world and they don't trust what may become of them...what choices do they have...and it matters to me, they matter to me and I don't know how to comfort them, comfort myself, my own fears. We have more than hope can be measured, but we need to measure things in order to balance our hope from our fears, to out weigh and drive the balance towards a resolve towards the goodness that is hope, it enables us to out weigh fear.
We have our own history, my family has been prisoners of war, fighters of wars, overcome situations of despair, grief, stricken from country to country and driven to where we are today and we have not done this alone. You matter to me, my friends matter to me, my family matters to me and we will overcome, again a situation of fear that binds us but cannot hold us apart.