Have you ever asked yourself the question, “What do we owe the past?” It may seem like an odd question coming from me of all people. The self-proclaimed trailblazer and brilliantologist…Yet, it is one that I have spent a lot of time with of late…. It is the nagging kind, refusing to leave without a solid answer.
It crept into my mind and put up camp a couple of weeks ago. I have been spending a lot of time with my third sons girlfriend Sami. In so many ways she is an old soul. She loves the wildness of the old west… the horses running free and the untamed land…The past calls to her as it does to me and in that we are kindred. I adore that about her, as I do a million other things, like her bravery and courage and tenderness and clarity… and …. well, where was I….
Oh yes, what do we owe to the past????
I think of those that fight for our freedoms, as we…. sit and watch more and more of them erased… all those innocently fighting for a cause, handing over their lives without consideration and we, most of us, wont even form an opinion let alone act on it. I think about the settlers on the frontier who stood their ground and claimed their stakes and the Indians who did the same…. and yet here we all are, in some way captive to it all…
But there are still fights to fight… wars to win… Ideals and questions to settle even if they are only in our own mind and heart.
I spent some time with friends this past week sitting on the beach, laughing, dancing barefoot, and contemplating this particular question as it came up in a million different ways, and I was once again reminded of the quote by Edmund Burke “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And more and more it seems that good men and good women are more and more ok with doing nothing…. going with the flow…. putting their heads down and well…. do nothing…
O.k. By me saying “do nothing” what is more the truth, is that they do something… nothing would be a treat… usually they talk all kinds of junk and “share” to their heart’s content…. which for those in ear shot gets old…. fast..
As I watch and learn… I can see that this kind of company breeds a vacuum – and more times than not we are bound by what we allow to be sucked into that empty space. A lot of people think that it is safe to not do anything… BUT, doing nothing is a decision with consequences, like it or not.
I have determined that there are somethings that are worth the fight. Like preserving things, traditions, time-honored and tested reasons for doing things….
I have also decided that there are times, that we take on the causes if not only because someone took the time to create something that no one else should have a right to re-create and take ownership of. In the past that would be called cattle thieving and their was a penalty for that.
I’ve decided that there are those things that deserve to be preserved. Not for us, but for women that come after us, who still hear the thundering hooves of the wild horses when they close their eyes, who can still see them running with their eyes wide open…. who dream of running with the horses…. it is for them that our generation needs to make a stand and say we are linking arms with the women and men that came before us…..So if you are with me, strap on your apron and roll up your sleeves, it’s about to get hot in the kitchen…. I’m putting up Preserves.
A Cowgirl Called 