Kisses

How could I have lived this long without being exposed to the incredible allure of the poetry and prose of Gretel Ehrlich? Reading her words is like absorbing a powerful, painful, yet addictive shock–one that cries out for more of the intensity and stunning beauty of her facility with language. Her writing is vivid and forceful, yet the emotions it elicits are fragile; it is as her words erupt from tornadoes that surrender, untouched, the delicate buds of the trees their winds leave behind when they depart.

We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough…. We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build *against* space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there.

   ~ Gretel Ehrlich ~

I was introduced, last night, to Gretel Ehrlich’s splendid artistry with the English language in episode 4 of season 5 of Yellowstone. The series’ incredibly harsh character, Beth Dutton, recited a few lines from Ehrlich’s The Solace of Open Spaces. Beth’s unfettered anger and fierce loyalty to her father drench every episode; the words she uttered from Ehrlich’s book, though, turned her almost one-dimensional character into a complex human being.

Subsequent to hearing Ehrlich’s words on-screen last night, I explored more of her writing. When I woke this morning, I spent an hour or so reading quotes extracted from various of her several books; those quotations further amplified my desire to read her work. People whose comments on Goodreads quoted her convinced me that she and I have similar sensibilities, though she is a better writer than I, by far.  This morning, I ordered a used paperback copy of The Solace of Open Spaces this morning. However, I successfully convinced myself to hold off on ordering several other of her books: Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is; Islands, the Universe, Home;  This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland; Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami; and A Match to the Heart: One Woman’s Story of Being Struck By Lightning. I could stay occupied for weeks, just reading Ehrlich’s words. As if I have nothing else to do. Sigh.

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We went to the nearest liquor store yesterday morning, shortly after it opened, to buy a bottle of good tequila.  I had managed, the day before, to learn from the flooring installer that his preferred spirit is tequila. We have been extremely impressed with the work he and his son have been doing, so we wanted to show our appreciation—beyond simply telling him and telling the owner of the flooring store for which our installer is doing the work. When we dropped off our gift, he expressed his thanks in words and with a hug for each of us. I suspect the guy is regularly showered with gifts of appreciation when he takes over from other installers who, though nice folks, cannot compare with his professionalism and commitment to doing a thorough job and keeping his workspace clean and well-organized.

I dropped by the house late yesterday afternoon, just after 5, and they were wrapping up. They had finished putting in the quarter-round and were vacuuming and dusting as they moved their tools out of the house and into their truck. Though I did not inspect the place, I am confident the job is finished and the house is reasonably clean; that being said, we definitely will need to spend considerable time and energy to remove dust from walls, ceiling fans, light fixtures, cracks, crevices, and every other exposed space. With apologies to Robert Frost, we have “miles to go before we sleep.” But the end is in sight.

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I have a new pair of shoes. They are nothing special, just a pair of New Balance athletic shoes. Nothing special except for the price: they are the most expensive pair of shoes I’ve ever owned. I feel like I should insure them separately from the rest of my belongings. How the hell did the price of  “tennis shoes” ever reach beyond $200? Granted, that includes tax, but, still… For that price, I feel that the shoes should not only be incredibly comfortable, they should make me look and feel considerably taller. They also should, once and for all, cure me of whatever ails my sinuses and/or lungs. And my arthritis should be a thing of the past, thanks to this pair of magical shoes. Holy cripes. I prefer open-toed, soft-soled flip-flops. Even those, though, cost through the roof. I should have delayed my retirement by ten years and saved every penny of my income during that time, just to be sure I will have enough money in retirement to buy clothes. I may be forced by economic necessity into a nude lifestyle by the time I reach 73 and a half.

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Coffee—caffeine, more appropriately—has never had the same effect on me that it is said to have on other people. It does not keep me awake. It does not get me wired. It is not the morning drug that activates my nervous system. That having been said, I enjoy coffee. I like the strong taste left behind by exposing ground dark-roast beans to very hot water under a bit of pressure. I’ve recently begun to question whether I allow enough time and ritual to enjoy coffee to the fullest. My answer: no, I do not. I simply let my machine pump hot water through a clump of ground roasted coffee beans and then I go about my business. There once was a time when I spent more time with my coffee. I spent time grinding the beans myself. I measured out with some degree of precision the amount of ground coffee and water I wanted to use, then let the water slowly seep through the ground beans. Today, it’s a matter of slam, bam, done. I may return to the “old ways.” I have long since given away my French press, I think. I should find another one. I should make a meditative ritual out of preparing and partaking of my morning coffee. I already use my mornings to prepare me for the day.

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Speaking of the rituals that I use to begin my day, a friend suggested that, with my morning rituals of solitude and introspection, I am already on my way to addressing my fluctuating moods. She recommended to me a video based on a book, Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself, by Joe Dispenza. She said Dispenza’s “clear explanation of how you change ingrained patterns of thought, behavior,  and feelings” prompted her to direct her attention to his suggestions. Though I haven’t yet explored in depth the video or the book, I plan to look into it. Something we all know, I think, but we tend to ignore in the heat of the moment when need it most, is that the most important first step to accomplishing change is to want it and to recognize that we must begin to take action in pursuit of achieving it. Taking control of one’s moods seems simple; just a matter of discipline and choice. But it is not that simple. It is a matter of changing one’s thought patterns and changing the way we interact with the world around us and how we interact with ourselves. At least that’s how I see it this morning. This morning, I have a fairly intense sense that there are several things about me I want to change. In some cases, I want to return to an earlier version of me. In others, I want to rebuild, from the ground up, the framework around which over time I have padded thoughts and behaviors. It feels a little odd, as my advancing age, to want to start over in a sense. But feeling odd is nothing new to me.

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I would like to have control over the manner and time of my own death. That desire is confounded by the realities of aging, illness, and other contexts over which we have little or no control. But, at its core, the desire seems perfectly reasonable to me. To the extent possible, we should be able to decide how and when we go. After that, it’s not up to us; whoever takes responsibility for my corpse is responsible for its disposal. But until then, I want to exercise control. The State should have no right to intrude on something so exceptionally personal as one’s death. The idea that the State should prohibit suicide, for example, is absurd. And the idea that one can face jail time or worse for facilitating the death of someone who has reached the decision to die is abysmal. My two cents. I wish I could carry with me, in a tiny decorative cannister I would wear around my neck, a pill or two that would allow me to quickly and painlessly end my journey. Given that every human being ever born has ultimately died—or will before a century passes—one would think we would be sufficiently comfortable with death to allow people to choose the mode and moment of their demise. Alas, we are afraid of the inevitable. We prolong it, sometimes beyond the time it should have come. I suspect, if humanity survives its own genocidal tendencies, one day people will be able to choose when and how they die. I know, I’ve said it all before. One tends to repeat oneself in one’s later years, the years leading up to decline, decay, and death.  😉

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I volunteered to take a meal on Monday to a friend who’s house-bound. Though I originally thought of pork congee or bang-bang shrimp, I may change my mind and do something a little different. It has to be fairly quick and easy, as I have a oodles of appointments on Monday. I think I’ll stick with shrimp, though I may vary from the bang-bang preparation. I may veer into shrimp cocktail territory, but with a full-meal twist involving roasted asparagus, along with a spiralized zucchini & tomato “salad” with a pesto dressing. I enjoy cooking. Let me rephrase that: I enjoy meal preparation. It’s not just cooking. It’s design and delivery. It’s flavor and fire and flare. It’s treating food as more than simply fuel for day-to-day activities. Okay, I know how to do this. I’ve done it before It’s just a matter of a few basic ingredients combined in a last-minute swirl of creativity and practicality. Preparing meals is like anticipating passionate kisses.

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It has reached 7:30, time for me to stop writing and start doing.