John Swinburn

The title refers to the thick fog inside my brain and to the soup outside my windows that makes it impossible to see more than a few feet beyond the windows.

As I contemplated what I wanted to write this morning, a morning on which I arose over an hour later than normal, I found I could not fix on a single subject.  I thought about religion and philosophy and pottery and the need to close the vents to the crawl space under my house.  I thought about justice and discomfort and people sleeping under bridges while others live in splendor a few feet away.  I considered the clarity delivered by the camera that no human eye can see unassisted.  I wondered about how long we could last if food supplies to grocery stores were disrupted.  I ruminated about how the children who receive the toys created by the local woodworkers’ club will react when they receive their gifts on Christmas morning.

My brain and the world outside my window remain thick pea soup, so I’ll stop trying for the moment and will, instead, drink another cup of coffee so strong and so rich and so delightfully good that I will feel guilty for enjoying something so undeservedly wonderful.

Leaves. They’re everywhere. Floating in the air, blowing along the roadway, scattering from trees like disoriented flocks of large, angry birds. They fill our driveway and our two lots, so many that a thousand large leaf bags would contain only a fraction of what’s there.  

I’ve used my leaf-blower twice to make way for foot traffic on the front porch, blowing leaves into the woods beside and behind my house.  It seems an unending battle, but one I welcome; I like the leaves.  They will, eventually, become part of the soil, feeding beasts that need such stuff; nutrients born of decomposition and decay.

I wish I had developed a natural affinity for spectator sports, the national pastimes that tie my countrymen in knots, weave them into a fabric of brotherhood and sisterhood and intimacy that requires no real commitment, just naked, banal lust.

The older I get, the more clearly I understand that, by eschewing spectator sports, I missed out on establishing weak but comfortable bonds of affiliation with people whose acquaintance I never made. Or, at least, whose acquaintance I never cultivated. I missed the tailgate parties and spending loud time and energy in sports bars. The road trips en route to stadia stardom never materialized for me.

Had there been a similar culture of loud, unapologetic debauchery associated with games involving language instead of physical prowess, I think I would have joined the fray, provided all the players accepted the meaninglessness of competition. Maybe that’s what those who have that natural affinity for spectator sports understand that I did not; in spite of their rabid support for one team or another, it’s all show–the competition is all an act. The real pursuit is for unbridled camaraderie, not for championships.

Alas, it’s too late now for me to try to join the fray. I do not and will not have an interest in spectator sports. But I still miss the ancillary elements of rowdy acquaintanceship, the thing I now understand was the point of it all along.