Remember that old diddy, ‘who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf?’ - I’m not sure where it came from, likely it’s the story of the three little pigs, but the sound of it, though with the words changed, runs through my head these days.  The current version, as I hear it,  goes more like - ‘who’s so tired of the gloom and doom, the gloom and doom, the gloom and doom?’

I am.  Seriously.  Isn’t everyone? Everyday it’s something else.  And I think the talking, and the reading, and the listening and the watching is not giving us the picture we may need to be seeing anyway.  While surely things are grim, I’m talking about the spin.  I’m not an analyst.  I don’t do hedgefunds, or work on Wall Street, or sell any kind of insurance, and I certainly am not in the lending business either.  I’m only an average citizen, making my way in the world, day in, day out, like most other folks. 

One day the newspaper tells us the recession is half over.  The next day holiday spending is up.  The next day November retail gloom being reported.  Huh?  If the ‘experts’ don’t know, then how are we supposed to?  It’s not so cut and dry is what I’m told, depending on who I’m asking, which I’m asking less and less these days, cuz the answers only seem to get murkier.

I see clues in my everyday though.  My twelve year old daughter, who loves to cook, tells me that maybe she’ll be an organic chef when she grows up.  She explains how nice it would be to just go outside, bring things in from the garden, and cook and bake and feed, pretty simply.  No more big talk of life in the city some day.  This was a young one who six months ago thought Times Square was the only place to be, to live, to ‘truly thrive!’  Her recent former vision of pizzazz and energy surely aligned with the excess of excess which is Times Square.

But small and healthy is good, and even she’s beginning to recognize it.  She’s starting to reframe a bit, and think a little more in human terms and scale, to my great pride and joy.  Humble was good enough for most of us growing up wasn’t it?  How much time did our parents speak about big houses and big cars, and big trips, big parties, big everything?  Not much is what I remember.  We had plenty of fun anyway.  The simple meals we grew up with, the reliable puzzles and games, the getting together with cousins were plenty, even more than enough. 

But back to the doom and gloom for a minute.  Things are hard remember?  Make sure we don’t forget that, even for a minute, much less an evening, or weekend.  Most of us have more than our parents did.  More than we grew up with.  Let’s remember to remember that less is worth remembering okay?  The garden out back, the games in the closet, the gatherings on the porch. The backyard campouts too.  They’ve been good enough for generations, who are we to be any exception?

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