Reach for the Sun -- But Watch Your Back for Unforgiveable Curses

Don’t you hate it when the headmaster of your school misjudges the character of a teacher you know is up to something, and the result is the good guy gets killed and the bad guys wind up in charge again?

My weekend, particularly yesterday, was going really well up to that point in the story I finally decided to finish reading. Apologies to anyone for whom I’ve blown it, but, if you’re more behind than I am in finishing The Series That Shall Not Be Named, you deserve no more mercy than poor Albus Dumbledore.

Underestimation is the undoing of many. I keep thinking that it is impossible a character like Dumbledore’s would make such a gross miscalculation. Yet, I see people do it, every day. I do it, too. Our faith in human character can be blinding, our trust debilitating. People who take advantage of that, the way the dark character Snape does– what’s it like to be them? To suck the soul of humanity out of existence for their own gain? Or in my more standard voice, what the hell is wrong with people?

The other day I came out of my house and discovered a volunteer sunflower had bloomed in my front yard. We hadn’t known quite what it was when it started out; in fact, I nearly pulled it for a weed. But we let it go, and let it evolve. My son was the first to recognize it for what it might be. He turned out to be right. I'm glad we let it bloom, and that I didn't just uproot it because it was out of place. I hope my son's instincts continue to serve him as well as he heads down the road of life.

Mine, I’m not so sure about. I’m no dummy but I do bear the flaw of giving people (and weeds) the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes the people turn out to be flowers, sometimes, just weeds.

My mother’s home was a beautiful Victorian which she painstakingly decorated herself. When we were slogging through the task of cleaning out the house after her death, one particular now-estranged individual removed damn near everything, including the kitchen sink (although, thank Shiva, my sister got the clawfoot tub that had been in the family for generations). We joked that we’d probably see this stuff on eBay. And sure enough, wouldn't you know, about a month ago, one of my sibs actually saw a few familiar quilt patches float across the Internet auction block. Damn. Here this individual, to whom my family had only been generous, was swinging our family heirlooms on the ‘Net. It's unlikely that my grandmother, carefully embroidering each patch with a state name and the flower that went with it, imagined such a fate for her handiwork.

You can't stop loving and trusting people and opening your heart. But you can keep your eyes peeled and your ear to the ground on the off chance someone you think cares suddenly up and slings an Avada Kedavra in your direction. Have this old tune in your back pocket, too, and no one will know you're paying attention. It's called Black-Eyed Susie, as cut on Waterloo, Tennessee, the latest release from my favorite rad girl trad band Uncle Earl. Enjoy it while you practice your smile. It makes folks wonder what you've been up to even when it's nothing, nothing at all.