Avacado to Purple

This idea of writing away from home has some merit. I'm at our new McDonald's. The only problem is I'm getting hungry. I like this one better than the one I was at on State Street, as they play music, like I would listen to on the Summit.
Whoever would think a writer would hang out at McDonald's those many years ago when I hung out at this fast food restaurant in high school? We ate at McDonald's often because it was fast, cheap and everyone was there. Our friends worked there. Cars cruised at the now abandoned one just a few hundred feet from the new one on State Street. We necked in the parked cars, until the policeman shoved us along. The security could tolerate loitering only so long. Now they encourage the coffee crowd to linger.
My high school Micky D's decor in avocado green and mustard yellow provided the background for our talks and grabbing food. The diet for supper, Quarter Pounder, open the Styrofoam package to dump the french fries in the top with ketchup squeezed on top of them from many packets. I loved the breakfasts, as well, with hash browns and egg mcmuffins. When they introduced the sundaes, I ordered the hot Carmel over the fake white soft serve. Shamrock shakes in the spring filled requests then.
That young girl, who sat in those booths or made out in the parked cars, what ideas did she have for her life? Nursing was the safe bet. Didn't seem like it would last a lifetime, nothing did at that time. Writing, a dream so far up, seemed unattainable. But I planned books even back then. The one for my friend, Marilyn and I- maybe I still will-Stop the Comedy, Girls, or Can't Stop the Comedy Girls. We stopped often at McDonald's till in our senior year we became more health conscious.
That makes me think of Mr. Yarian. He followed a vegan diet, before it became a badge of something. Yet, in his gentleness, as I explored this diet, he told me how he chose not to be judgmental, he would eat a piece of chocolate cake when visiting someone, that didn't subscribe to his beliefs. I read a letter he wrote later to the Herald, kindly voicing his opinion, promoting his Buddhism.  I know I didn't agree with everything he wrote, but because of relationship, I accepted him. He was a kind and gentle soul that I have written about before. I don't know what happened on his deathbed, but I know I prayed for him when I heard he had cancer.
How our world has changed since the avocado and mustard. I stare at the luminescent purple and green booths, fake oak chairs, as I can sit at small device with no eraser ribbon, writing. I think of the polarization of those who say they are for openness, but put down other opinions. I know David Yarian would not have done that.
I am a nurse who has to listen to many opinions without showing disagreement. I have sat in living rooms of elderly, who moan about being alive. I tried to give hope, but glanced the eye seeing me as a young whipper-snapper who has no idea what death is about. I know my philosophy of life is the same as another woman told me, she, at age ninety four, is going to live until she dies. She had difficulty breathing, legs swollen with congestive heart failure, falling a little too often, kidneys failing. She does know the shadow of death, but chooses to live each day.
I choose, too, to live until I die. I have hard times. I have an aging body, as we all do. I'm far from ninety four, but you don't get to that age by belly aching. Again, I go back to Philippians to rejoice always, again I say rejoice. Lord, help us to live this way.
I guess this was better than a writer's confession I had first intended to post about. I hate any more to hand write letters or even send cards by mail. I need to do that today, so pray that I will put aside the other distractions and write those important letters.