Author Archives: John Swinburn

I try to combat the natural…well, I suppose it’s natural… tendency to allow my cancer diagnosis to wreck my emotional state. When I was first diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2018, I entered the fray with the assumption I … Continue reading →

I get it. I understand the motivation. In fact, the quest for ideal isolation may be the only thing I truly comprehend. Everything else is distraction…maddening interference that gets in the way of achieving serenity. Not just achieving serenity, but … Continue reading →

I remember the overwhelming sense of awe I felt when, as a teenager, my brain permitted me to fully understand that my body was mine; and mine alone. As I remember the circumstances, nothing in particular triggered the sense of … Continue reading →

James Ussher, an Irish priest and religious scholar, asserted the creation of the universe took place on October 22, 4004 BCE, just 4057 years and a day before my birthday. Georgi Gospodinov, a Bulgarian writer, wrote in his novel, Time … Continue reading →

The sub-head displayed for an image on the New York Times website shatters the hope for optimism: In a pessimistic era, a temporary, tenuous pause to fighting has become the most anyone is trying to achieve. A brief interruption. A … Continue reading →

I took the opportunity during yesterday’s chemo treatment to inquire, again, about my prognosis. The oncologist’s response was, again, just as expected: we want to keep you alive for as long as you are content with the quality of your … Continue reading →

My weight began to creep back up during the past weekend, barely topping 150 pounds for two consecutive days. Mi novia…and others…urge me to eat more. Protein-laden foods, especially, but anything that will pump calories into me. I understand their … Continue reading →

This morning’s My Unsung Hero on the NPR website triggered in me a flood of memories and emotions. The piece told the story of a neighbor helping a woman facing growing obligations while dealing with her husband’s brain injury. One … Continue reading →

Last night, we began watching a 2007 film that I think I watched when it first came out; No Country for Old Men. It’s the sort of gritty film the Coen brothers are known for and the kind of film … Continue reading →

Answers to every question ever posed can be found in a microscopically thin atmospheric layer surrounding our home planet. All the information ever collected is stored there, as well. Each conversation, every fit of anger, every step taken by every … Continue reading →

Seconds after the morning sky begins to absorb the sun’s light, dozens of birds, each visible for just a fraction of a second, flitter from branch to branch. Only by staring intently at the tree for several minutes at a … Continue reading →

The world is spinning around me, the top and bottom halves and right and left spheres moving in opposite directions. Connections between its quadrants—top and left…bottom and right…left and bottom…right and top—are chaotically tangled in perfect harmony.  Sound can be … Continue reading →

Peace begins with oneself. I read several paragraphs from several sources about that motto—and the symbol said to represent it—this morning. A quick review of various sources led me to conclude that no one among us is likely to be … Continue reading →

The New York Times published online on July 28 a piece about the few remaining Japanese survivors of World War II. Tetsuo Sato is quoted in the article, giving this advice to young Japanese: “They wasted our lives like pieces … Continue reading →

Death is a lonely experience—one that raises countless questions that cannot be answered. One cannot ask questions of people who can respond on the basis of personal experience. I find it hard to understand the concept that death is simply … Continue reading →

Every year, within a day or two of my father’s birthday, my thoughts wander into a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. The poem—If— is said to have been among my father’s favorite poems.  I did not know my father very … Continue reading →

Much of my pliable energy—the strengths on which I have relied for most of the last 70+ years—have become hard and brittle over time. Now, all the forms’ energies—including physical, mental, and emotional—starve for oxygen beneath years of thick accumulated … Continue reading →

Yet again, I’ve been up since 3, but unable to write anything of consequence. Everything I’ve written thus far has collapsed into scraps of damaged letters and malformed syllables. Fragments of incomplete ideas lay scattered across the monitor in front … Continue reading →

The question, ultimately, is this: do chains represent gentle, flexible tethers or unyielding hardened steel traps? Even more important questions: who set them? And for what purpose? The answers are not as important as the people who provide them. Some … Continue reading →

The wee hours of the morning are conducive to introspection. The mysteries of silence and darkness in the early hours coincide with dimensions of self that hide behind curtains of anonymity. Thoughts that one can share only with oneself—no matter … Continue reading →

I changed the configuration of my study yesterday. The transformation, relatively minor, reminded me there is only so much I can do with my “retreat” space. Oh, I could do more if I had an unlimited budget and access to … Continue reading →

I opened my eyes, expecting darkness. Instead, soft light—dim enough that it cast no shadows but bright enough to expel every shred of darkness—filled the room. Somehow, daybreak had come and gone without announcing its arrival or departure. Yet here … Continue reading →

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine. ~ H. L. Mencken ~ I am not quite sure what to expect this morning, when one or more representatives of Arkansas Hospice will come … Continue reading →

I willingly bought into the sales pitch for the new Amazon Prime television series. The promotional teasers did not do a good job of selling the show to me; I did that myself. I believed what the marketers told me … Continue reading →

Food is not the answer. Pharmaceutical products do not provide the answer. Exercise offers answers, but not to the questions posed. Meditation offers advice, but in a language only ascetics can understand. There is danger in asking the wrong questions; … Continue reading →