John Swinburn

Tomorrow is the first day of April. Perhaps that transition will give me the kick in the rear I need. I need to work on the yard, the driveway, the deck, the bathrooms, the roof, the garage, and the workspace behind the garage. I need to determine whether the skyroom can be made tolerable during summer months. I need to decide whether living in the United States under a Trump administration can be even moderately tolerable. I have things to do!

But I’ve been negligent of late. I’ve ignored things that should have commanded my attention. I’ve failed to perform functions decent human beings would never consider ignoring. Ach. I’m a bad man, at least I am on occasion. And, just now, I remembered that I did not retrieve the hummingbird feeders from the deck! The memory was triggered by what I have come to call “raccoon noises” outside the double doors of my study/guest room. I think I hear the bastards sucking the nectar out of the jars! If I had a raccoon rifle tonight, I’d use it.

But back to the transition. What does it take to light a fire under me to ensure that I do what must be done? It would help if I had the appropriate tools. And a pickup in which to haul them. Have I mentioned before my deep-seated desire for a pickup? Ah, I thought so. I need a pickup. And some gravel. And bark mulch. And some fiercely heavy rocks that would make my imaginary pickup scream in pain as its shocks were compressed by the weight of more rock than I need.

What else do I want? Well, I keep returning to Leon Redbone’s “I Want to be Seduced.” I doubt, though, that a forty-ish blonde with dark glasses and high cheekbones will respond to Leon’s exhortation. So, what else? I want to start a garden. Now THAT’s something I might get behind. Or maybe not. We shall see.

I spent an enjoyable evening at a dinner for eight. My wife and I joined six other people from the Village Unitarian Universalist Church for conversation, camaraderie, and a very nice meal to which all participants contributed. The view from our host’s home was exquisite; we like our view, but hers is extraordinary! After arriving back home, I returned to the task I left unfinished before we left: examining options for staining brick.

The brick on our fireplace, and indeed all of it on the outside of our house, is an unappealing pinkish/whitish/grayish mix that we find unattractive. Our recent decision to repaint the living room, changing the walls from taupe to light grey actually accentuated the displeasing aspect of the fireplace brick. So I’ve been exploring options. I do not wish to paint the brick. We have examined the possibility of putting stone or artificial stone of a more appealing finish on top of the brick. But we have not liked aspects of the latter. So we resorted to searching for methods to stain the brick; we’d like it to be a light, mottled grey. The ONLY decent options we found are products from a company located in England, Dyebrick. The company offers an array of options that I think would work. Why, though, are there no US companies that offer something similar? Well, if they do, they do a thoroughly crappy job of promoting their services online. So, I may well decide to order a “test pot” from the British company. The cost is not awful, by any stretch, but I’d rather get something that doesn’t have to traverse the Atlantic to get to me. I shouldn’t complain. I really shouldn’t. It’s a personality characteristic of mine that I find utterly reprehensible.  Maybe I’ll order a test kit tomorrow.

Have I mentioned the chairs? Well, we ordered five chairs (plus a broken one) from a woman who runs a small furniture reseller (she buys ‘in-demand’ hard-to-find furniture and resells it). The dining chairs we bought are identical to the ones we have now, save for the fabric. Once we get them, we will reupholster them (and the ones we have), so that we can seat eight or more people around our dining table (which comfortably seats four, but when both extensions are used, can seat up to eight). I may have written before about our efforts to buy a new dining set. This purchase extinguishes that effort. Unless, of course, we decide to buy a new table anyway. I like the table we have, when the extensions are not in use; when they are, I find it unattractive. I probably have deviant taste that doesn’t matter in the real world.

I finished a poem earlier today, one that I plan to enter into a contest associated with a writers’ event I plan to attend in early June. I have much more to write, but for the conference contests and to submit to journals. Whether I finish any of that writing remains to be seen.

In other news, I have almost decided to abandon the idea (that I’ve probably never shared here) of changing phone carriers from AT&T (which I consider the embodiment of corporate greed and for which I have nothing but seething, volcanic contempt) to Consumer Cellular. Everything about Consumer Cellular looks better than AT&T except one thing: Consumer Cellular phones cannot be configured to use outside the USA. I don’t know when my next international trip may take place, but whenever it does, I want to take a working phone with me.

Let me end this post-midnight diatribe by saying this: grudges and judgments come back to haunt people by robbing their holders of that one, final opportunity to express love and compassion and to apologize for all the wrongs the holders committed. When I read schlock that says “never go to bed angry with your spouse,” I agree. And it extends to friends and family and random strangers who’ve been the subject of one’s wrath.

That leads to this: “And if I die before I wake, I pray all who beheld me know I forsake, all the pain I may have caused, and I hope all the world’s hatred is terminally paused.” It sucks as poetry, but it works as aspiration.

I’ve not been in the mood to write lately. It’s not that I have writer’s block; it’s just that I’ve had nothing I wanted to write, either fiction or nonfiction. That happens from time to time. So I allow myself to withdraw from writing and from this blog for a while. I sense, this time, it may be longer than usual. So, I thought I’d just put it out there in case my sense turns out to be correct. And, of course, I may opt to write without sharing anything on the blog; I do that a lot, anyway. I think I’ll sit back and contemplate life and its peculiarities for a bit. Things like “does daydreaming about the decapitation of a sitting president suggest evidence that one has a dark side?”

I sit in a dark room, waiting for my wife to awaken so I might emerge from the darkness into the day. Until she is up, I must slink around in the darkness of the B&B room, keeping quiet and maintaining the darkness. I arose more than two hours ago, took a shower, read from the inter webs, and considered the distance, in meters, between now and then. Just 15 minutes until I can wake her, according to her instructions last night. Ah, I long for the freedom of morning and coffee and a big, unhealthy breakfast! But for now, the room is dark and I have only my iPad as company. Oh, and the inter webs. I read, half an hour ago, the recollections of a medical student’s experience dissecting the body of a woman who starved to death. If that image doesn’t make one thankful for the little things, I don’t know what will. Such are the thoughts that inhabit my mind in this dark room.

I spent a little time this morning reading that “the good old days” were fresh and clean and innocent. The old days were unlike the era in which we live, an era in which war on prayer and decency and decorum threatens the religious foundations upon which humanity was built. I found in myself a growing contempt for the thought process that allowed the writer of the piece to reach those conclusions.

Though I occasionally find myself longing for less complicated times, I realize progress takes its toll on discernment. Today differs from yesterday in ways both positive and negative; focusing on either end of the spectrum tends to shape one’s perspective as either a pollyanna or a pessimist. I wonder whether the passing of time naturally breeds bitterness, engendering unfavorable comparisons between today and times gone by?

All right, I’ll slip out of that little condemnatory mood and try something else on for size. If humans could reverse the aging process in some fashion that would allow very old people to spend the rest of their lives getting younger and younger, knowing their lives will end only upon entering the womb, but maintaining the knowledge and wisdom they accrued from birth through old age, attitudes would change radically. At least I think so. I’m willing to give it a try.

The reason behind my refusal or inability to complete projects remains a mystery. It is not laziness. I am not lazy; I will work long and hard to accomplish tasks that must be done. No, it’s not sloth; I suspect it’s either fear or inadequacy. Or maybe a bit of both. I have a lot of good ideas for stories, but the ideas rarely coalesce to the point of completion. They bubble about in my head and instruct my fingers to write enough to satisfy my creative urges, but they don’t lead to conclusions. I envision pieces of stories, but the full stories remain mysteries to me; I don’t know where they go…where they should go…whether they have a destination worthy of seeking.

I’m referring not only to my writing but to my life, the full span between my original consciousness until the present. I tend to make choices only when forced. And, then, I question their rectitude. My choices as to where to place the blame are exceptional; I can find blame even in the sunrise. But the real blame resides closer to home; inside my head, in my heart. Within the cowardice that resides uncomfortably behind my mask. I just don’t know precisely where it lives behind that outward projection of confidence and competence.

The eternal question of “what if” haunts every decision, every fork in the road, every opportunity seized and every one left to wither in inaction. If life were a boat, it would be one in which neither sail nor rudder were put to use, leaving it tossed about in the sea, giving the waves permission to take it where they would. What is the aphorism, “If you don’t know your destination, you’ll never get there?” I think that’s it.

When people question their career or life choices, they often say “I could have been a [doctor, lawyer, physicist, fill in the blank].” But what they mean is they didn’t choose what to do with their lives. They allowed themselves to be swept along by the tide of the moment. They might as well say “I could have mattered. But I didn’t.” And they’d be at least partially right.