Stranger Danger

I suppose it's human nature (or, in my case, middling human nature) to want to gloss over the uncomfortable details of living this life and instead lean heavily on the "just fine and dandy, thank you" side of things.   If medals were given for such wimpy acts of voluntary blindness, I would be hard pressed to raise my neck each day, given all that damning hardware hanging from my shoulders.

Fortunately, I still manage to possess a [nearly rusted-through] safety mechanism that occasionally activates whenever I display too many signs of such delusional tomfoolery.  I am sure that this mechanism would see a little more action if I could just remembered to replace its batteries every six months, but who can be expected to remember such things . . . ? 

What, then, is it that calls to life this overlooked moral device in its otherwise sad and neglected state?

Frankly, I blame my womb, despite its own generally underutilized role in my life.  How else to explain those times when my inner mama bear is finally roused from her cave, grown angry and impatient at the inconvenient truths that have roused her?  I suspect that there is some kind of  life-preserving residue that still resides in there that has a "just add holy water" quality to it, because, when my ursine side emerges, I swear I can feel my womb throb.

That must be why I've felt like a human drum machine all week. 

Recent news of a young person who'd simply like to be noticed and counted has caused my mama bear to shake off its winter doldrums and prepare for a fight.  Well, not a fight, per se, because I tend towards Michael Jackson's "I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter" camp. But I cannot deny the vivid, visceral desire for motherly protectiveness that has flooded my bloodstream this week.


I fervently hope that I am up to this task of human bridge builder, because, really, there are few things that affect me more than those stories of people who would simply like to have a few more people in their corners. 

The good news?  I am absolutely incapable of building a bridge alone.  And I am an excellent leaner (see above reference).  That is why I have tremendous faith in all the good people around me to recognize that here is a person I'd like to know, one that I can count and count on.  I predict that many a mama bear will be roused from their sleep today, happy to love the young cub that quietly crosses their paths.