There have been a number of books written that tell us how we can compartmentalize our lives into various sections. All of them are true for the writer of that book. We only write about what we know, however, we all live in our own worlds which we have created in our minds. Reality for us is only found within our personal world.

I have trouble at times accepting the realities in my world that I have to modify as the environmental and cultural worlds evolve around me with the inevitable passage of time.

I no longer live on a farm where I could step out of my front door with my 22-caliber rifle and shoot a rabbit for dinner. I now live in a city where if I was seen with my rifle out on the street I would be shot or arrested. What has changed?  First of all, the rabbits that live around my apartment complex are now considered wildlife pets, not food. Second, the hundreds of people that live in close proximity to me would be afraid I was going to shoot them.

Over the 85+ years in my personal world the physical environment has changed so that I am now packed into a cement container along with several hundred others in their containers called condos where our enormous population of humans live like bees in a hive.  We all come and go from the hives, and call them complexes.

The cultural environment has changed just like the physical. The people that lived around me when I was growing up made eye contact with me when they passed on the street and said hello. Now they look at the ground and try not to make eye contact because it might be taken as a challenge.

I understand the changes in the physical environment and the adaptations we all have to make in our personal lives to be happy and accommodate the huge world population growth. What is hard for me to understand, and adapt to, is the hate and fear that we have created and accept as the new normal for ourselves.

Where did it come from? How did we let it creep into our society? More important, into our personal worlds. We are not born with it. We have learned it from the people around us. It makes me want to go back to my old world where gasoline was only 17 cents a gallon and most people were looking ahead at the horizon and smiling, instead of down at their phones, doing their best to ignore what is going on around them, seemingly denying any responsibility for it.

I think the rabbits are much happier now, because I put food out for them instead of using them as my food.

In the town of Oceanside, I have watched a group of about 12 young/new mothers, with their new precious gifts tucked snugly in their strollers. They meet early in the morning just below my fifth-floor veranda when I am having my morning coffee. I come to Oceanside often and have watched them meet and take off down the back street at a good clip. Every time I see them, I think what a wonder routine that is. It isn’t very often I encounter anything that has no downside to it.

Everything about the group is positive. The new mothers need the exercise to get their normal non-pregnant body back in shape. The baby gets used to a moving environment around them. They will adapt to life more easily and not be frightened by it. The community has healthier mothers and children as residents.

The social comradery is also of great importance for the mothers. A new mother stuck at home, especially now with our lock down, has good reason to get depressed. It is a time that she needs her friends around her for support.

I smile as I watch them trotting down the street. I’m not too sure why, but I get a very warm feeling around my heart as I watch them. The babies are very fortunate to have mothers that are so committed to good health. Not only for themselves, but so they will live long and healthy lives to take care of them.

I said there was no downside. It depends on who you are, I guess. I feel a little sorry for the husbands that get up in the morning and have to make their own coffee, because momma is walking the baby. It’s OK though. Men are tough, they can handle it.