John Swinburn

Once again, I have nothing of consequence to say. It is a shortage of intellectual propellant; a bone-dry tank missing even the smell of fuel. There have been signs the tank was running dry. Incomplete thoughts turning to whisps of vapor. Getting lost in mindless observation of an absent image. Words passing through ear canals without stopping to be understood. A sense of detachment about issues that once mattered, but now seem superfluous. Clear skies appearing grey and muddy and irrelevant.

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Another visit to the oncology center is on for this morning—labs and a chat with the oncologist’s APRN. Whether I am strong-armed into more intravenous magnesium, IV fluids, and assorted other injections remains to be seen. I might pressure the nurse to give me her idea of my prognosis, given all the patients she has seen come and go over the years. But I might not; mi novia probably would consider such pressure a form of bullying; unfair and uncalled for.

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I emerged from a dream as I was waking this morning. I had just returned from what seemed to me to be a sketchy business trip to New York. My briefcase was overstuffed with papers, including a large-format, green bar computer printout that had been produced by a dot-matrix printer. Also in my briefcase was a handgun, which I had somehow been able to carry on my flight. The remainder of the dream consisted of irrational scenes and conversations and situation. Those scenes and conversations and situations did not matter then and they do not matter now. Just nonessential experiences layered between unnecessary observations.

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Sleep increasingly appeals to me. Around the clock. It replaces unsuccessful attempts at creative thought and makes unnecessary attempts to feign interest. My words here seem to represent a mind that’s negative, glum, disappointed. They do not; they simply lack the metaphoric ignition that can create a bonfire of frenzied energy. At least I’m hungry; there’s that.

No matter the trials and tribulations of living in this chaotic world, the lyrics of some songs can boost one’s mood dramatically. The chorus from a Keb’ Mo’ song, Life is Beautiful, tends to do that for me:

Life is beautiful, life is wondrous
Every star above is shining just for us
Life is beautiful, on a stormy night
Somewhere in the world the sun is shining bright

Holding onto that attitude can make a vast difference in one’s experience in dealing with challenges and obstacles. The trick, of course, is to keep one’s grip tight enough that it does not slip away.

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My father died, at home, of lung cancer. He was in extreme pain the day he died. Morphine, at the time available by prescription from his family doctor, helped. It only lessened his excruciating pain; it did not make it tolerable—though he had no choice but to tolerate it. His lung cancer was not curable nor was the pain effectively treatable by the time it was diagnosed, roughly forty years ago. When I was first diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2018, I think the hope of the medical team treating me was that my cancer could be cured. The hope for treating the recurrence five years later is to extend my life, not necessarily to cure the cancer. Extended for how long, I wonder? No one can answer the question with any degree of confidence;  it could be decades, it could be months. I’m rooting for the former, but acknowledging the possibility of the latter. I am fortunate in that my treatments, so far, have all been covered by insurance. It pains me to hear patients speaking to the oncology clinic staff about making periodic payments of $100 or $35 or whatever each time they come in. I am sure some patients’ payments are dramatically higher. Looking at my explanation of benefits summaries, the costs of my treatments are astronomical. Mi novia often is tempted to step in to cover someone’s payment, especially when a patient “looks” down on his luck. Were I on the receiving end of such charity, I would be unable to maintain my composure, on one hand, and enraged by the inequities of healthcare access, on the other.

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Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

~ Buddha ~

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Another burst of energy, combined with a hankering for a good hamburger, led us to head out to the recently-reopened Kream Kastle, a burger joint on Highway 70. When we got there, we discovered the place is closed on Tuesdays. Argh! So we headed toward Hot Springs to try Walker’s Wings and Things on Silver Street. On the way, though, I checked Google and discovered Walker’s, too, is closed on Tuesdays. We then decided to try Superior Bathhouse Brewery, but before we got there, Google informed me that Superior is closed on Tuesdays. Despite the frustration, we thought “No worries,” let’s go to the Copper Penney. Nope. Closed on Tuesdays. Just moments before succumbing to starvation, we found that Rocky’s Corner is open seven days a week. And Rocky’s cooks burgers to order: I asked for medium-rare and that’s what I got. Every time I go to Rocky’s, I become more enamored with the place. It’s a true neighborhood sports bar & grille, with the sports emphasis being on horse-racing (logical, considering that Oaklawn racetrack is right across the street). The staff members are friendly and the food is good. I could do without the horse-racing focus, but otherwise the spot exudes Third Place vibes. Yesterday, several tables of old retired men—wearing sandals and shorts and t-shirts adorned with slogans—chatted amiably, ignoring the TV racing channels. A group of four guys sitting near us traded favorable comments about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. By the time we got back home, my burst of energy had fizzled. I took a long nap, waking just in time to catch the evening news and then to continue watching Shetland. Occasionally getting out of the house for something other than medical appointments keeps me moderately sane. Watching a television program set in the Shetland Islands makes me want to relocate to Lerwick and environs.

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Taking a shower has become an ordeal. The aftermath of the tribulation is well worth it, but only in hindsight. If I could take 30 consecutive showers, storing 29 of them for the days ahead, I would do it. What is it that turned showering into an ordeal? There was a time not so long ago when I showered first thing every morning, immediately after getting out of bed…or soon thereafter. Even on weekends, when I needed not worry about offending clients and staff with the odor of slightly ripe Homo sapiens, I started the day smelling like a bar of Dove soap. Back then, showering was a treat. Now, though, the treat takes shape only after I have washed, towel-dried, and put on clean clothes. These days, the process involved in rinsing away sweat, bodily oils, and smells reminiscent of a week’s worth of used gym clothes interferes with my appreciation for the morning routine. So I skip a day. Sometimes another. I would enjoy showering more if I did not have to do the work. That is, if someone: arranged for the water temperature to be just right; used a soapy washcloth to polish away the residue of the previous 24 hours; used a soft, warm, towel to dry my body; selected my clothes for the day and set them out for me. It’s not just the showering, then, that has become an ordeal. It’s the attendant efforts required to erase evidence of day-to-day life. Ah, but the most arduous aspect of showering? Using a squeegee and a rag, post-shower, to minimize water spots on glass and tile and gleaming metal. All of the elements that contribute to making showering an ordeal, though, are far more appealing than doing without water. Complaining about the effort involved in showering is akin to reacting to winning a Porsche 911 by saying is disgust, “Oh, God, we already have a small car.” (Credit belongs to George Carlin, I believe.) Perspective changes everything.

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A burst of energy  yesterday afternoon allowed me to shower (HOURS after I awoke), wash the sheets and do another load of laundry, fill the bird-feeders, water the ferns on the deck, and otherwise demonstrate that I am more than a waste of resources and a drag on society. Once that stamina had been exhausted, though, I needed an infusion of soft serenity. So, I allowed Amazon Music to give me reason to relax. I listened to music by Susan Tedeschi, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal, Hoyt Axton, Rhiannon Giddens, John Hiatt, and others. At any given moment, musical preferences can divulge one’s state of mind. Last night’s blend of blues, folk, and country revealed an entirely different man, with an entirely different mood, from the man listening to Dire Straits, the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, the Killers, the Foo Fighters, Leonard Cohen, or a Bach piano concerto. The relationship between one’s state of mind and the music that pairs well with it always has intrigued me. I wonder whether the relationship is one of cause and effect and, if so, in which direction? In other words, is the music responsible for the mood or vice versa—or is it something else? My guess is that there is some sort of symbiotic relationship between the two, with each feeding the other.

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We blindly trust the astronomers and physicists who tell us our sun has between seven and eight billion years left in its life cycle. The explanations they give us seem reasonable. But can we really rely on their predictions as we plan for the future? What if, instead of seven to eight billion years remaining, the sun begins its death spiral five to seven years from today? When we get the news, how will we react? Will humankind change in fundamental ways—either positive or negative—or will we simply plod along like the selfish bastards we are until our planet either plunges into Absolute Zero territory or is incinerated by million-degree temperatures? Almost everything would become irrelevant in light of the news that we all are going to perish within seven years. Attending college—or any school, for that matter—would be an exercise in futility. Farmers might decide to raise only enough food for their own families to last until “the end,” leaving the rest of us to do whatever we had to do to get by. Lawn care probably would become an utterly absurd undertaking. Pregnancies might either skyrocket or plummet. Competent healthcare might become damn near impossible to find. But there would be a fraction of Earth’s population who would not accept the inevitable; they would pursue every possible option with the ferocity of a cheetah protecting her kittens from a pack of ravenous hyenas. Hastily-assembled spaceships would be launched in the direction of nearby galaxies, their passengers desperately seeking to escape oblivion. Imagine looking skyward, five years after news of the nearest star’s impending demise has reached us, and seeing the sun pulsating—dramatically brighter for a second or two, then dimming to near-darkness for just as long. Would we react with terror…resignation…anger…immense sadness?

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She examines her life, making clinical observations about living so many years barely above the surface of a spoiled pool of congealed reality. Those empty years cannot be repaired. Memories will not permit her to forget all her unfortunate choices—an enormous collection of regrettable decisions that exacerbated one another. She could have predicted the consequences of the actions she took and the judgments she made. She could have made course corrections that would have taken down a different path. But she decided, instead, to ignore the potential outcome of every bad decision. From her warped perspective, considering the consequences of choices would have been equivalent to abandoning the freedoms she cherished. So, after all those years, she looks back at the carnage of her life and wonders how it all might have been different. Four failed marriages, five years in a women’s prison, and a guarantee of living out her life in grinding poverty lead her to make what might be her final choice. Whatever decision she makes, no one will give it more than passing notice, because she has always chosen not to matter.

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Weather forecasts for today call for temperatures to remain in the low to mid seventies for most of the day, topping out a tad above 80°F around 5 pm. Light rain is expected until around midday, when the skies will begin to clear and air will begin to get warmer. I will experience little of this first-hand. Instead, I will gaze out the window and wonder when, and whether, I will feel enthusiastic about exploring the world outside the environment of my self-imposed prison cell. Everything could change, of course. I may feel a rush of energy at any moment. It has been known to happen.

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The lyrics for the Simon and Garfunkel song, America, move me. One stanza in particular tugs at my heart-strings: “Kathy, I’m lost”, I said, though I knew she was sleeping, “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”  Another phrase from the lyrics echoes something I like to do: make up fanciful stories about strangers I come across. I remember having a very nice dinner with my late wife at a pricey restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, where I told her stories about the people sitting at the tables around us. It was a silly experience, but one we both enjoyed. And I still make up such stories, though not as frequently as I once did. It is harder these days to embrace the silliness; but I do it when I can muster the mood.

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Lethargic. Sluggish. Slow and deliberate. That’s me this morning. I hope to feel more lively sometime soon…later today or, certainly, later this week. A visit with friends who touched base with mi novia a day or two ago would be nice. A short day-trip would be great. But finally getting around to my long-delayed taxes might be even more of a stress-reliever. Time will tell the story.

When a person’s desire to be creative overwhelms his artistic talents, the end-products of his imagination tend toward the dull and disturbing. Unpleasant greys and browns and awkward beiges take hold in places where bright colors could have and should have dominated the senses. When colors and forms and techniques are applied in unwise combinations, even brilliant visions can quickly decay into rancid pools of unattainable possibilities. Creativity then becomes an irreversible mistake, at best, or an unavoidable expression of intentional bleakness. Still, even in the knowledge that my creative efforts probably are destined to fail, I sometimes give in to my impatience—I avoid learning the techniques, the blending of colors, and the boundaries of creative expression. In other words, bypassing the processes required for success, I come to the inescapable conclusion that I am incapable of achieving anything but failure. For those reasons, I prefer solitude when I attempt to be creative. The embarrassment associated with near-certain failure is easier to accept when one is alone. But the degree to which one’s creative efforts may be slightly better than awful exists on that ever-present  continuum; horrid on one end, magnificent on the other, unreachable, end.

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I am so damn tired of feeling weak and weary and uncertain. Those brief periods when I feel like I am emerging from an almost opaque fog boost my mood for a while, but that mood soon burrows into a dark cave, taking me with it. I can disguise the dark emptiness temporarily, but the mask refuses to stay put for long. And so I sleep. I am not sure whether I sleep because my body needs the rest or because my mind needs the respite from its incessant whining.

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Awake at 4, finally out of bed at 5:30, ready to sleep again at 7:45. But I will not sleep; not just yet.  The day has yet to unfold.

Hope is the province of poker players whose options are to flee from the game at top speed or bluff until pistols take their places on the table.

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Political Will: U.S. voters—whose political perspectives are shaped by either one of the two far-ends of the political spectrum—firmly believe their opponents represent a serious danger to our brand of democracy. While I understand the intensity of the concerns held by those on the far left, and certainly share a number of them, I am not able to completely grasp the frenzied fear of those on the far right. Whether I understand them or not, though, those concerns should be explored and addressed, just as should be those of concern to the political left. Throwing insults back and forth does nothing but inflame an already dangerously chaotic situation. Both ends of the spectrum of the war of words—and worse—should approach the other’s from a nonjudgmental, analytical, solution-focused perspective. Everyone who has a serious concern or fear of the other “side” should articulate the concerns and should be encouraged to adopt a compassionate, rational, process for dealing with their adversaries. Until politically moderate leaders take center stage—people who have sufficient charisma to be believable and command attention—the animosity will only get worse. Rationality is an absolutely necessary component of whatever “solutions” may exist.

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Every Waking Moment’s Topic of the Instant: My online reading of the report from  yesterday’s brain MRI indicates all’s well, physically, inside my head. There is NO EVIDENCE cancer cells have taken up residence inside the hard protective shell. To summarize the radiologist’s impression:

1. No acute intracranial process.
2. No abnormal enhancement. No large intracranial mass or metastasis. 
3. Moderate, age-appropriate, atrophy.

Inasmuch as I did not suspect my cancer had metastasized to my brain, the findings were pretty much as I expected, although the concept of moderate, age-appropriate atrophy is not one I like applied to my brain.  My primary curiosity, at the moment, is the status of the spots of cancer that earlier showed up on PET-scans and CT-scans. Ever since the discovery of cancer’s recurrence, late last year, too many aspects of our lives have revolved around aging, illness, death, mortality, and disease. Understanding and dealing with the eventual realities of mortality are wearying endeavors. Even though the effects of lung cancer and its treatment can be difficult, it has been only an irritant…an annoyance…to me. Compared to the hellish ordeal experienced by so many others, my encounter has been relatively…maybe extremely…mild. So mild that the care and concern heaped upon me can seem embarrassingly undeserved and unnecessary. But, then, when I cannot seem to get through the day without taking multiple naps and without feeling sometimes intense and mysterious pains, I feel like I am going through a targeted ordeal meant to teach me lessons I have not yet begun to understand. And, then, of course, I express frustration at myself for buying into the idea that anything is meant to be. My patience, never admirable nor especially well-developed, is under test. Every obstacle is a random expression of reality that has not yet been molded and shaped to serve as an opportunity.

Two more weeks until my next round of chemo-therapy; but I go back in next Thursday for labs and, possibly, a brief follow-up visit with the oncologist or her nurse. I cannot plan to take a day or two or three to get out of town for a break without being contacted to come get a magnesium infusion or an injection to fight infections or an IV drip to interrupt the process of dehydration. I am glad the treatments are readily available and, thanks to insurance, are not leaving us destitute for the moment. But, really…hours and hours and hours lost to fighting a battle whose success is not assured. Maybe simple surrender would be a more appropriate response. Ach! Bitch. Moan. Repeat.

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Forced Cranial Nudity: My newly-bald head does not please me as much as I might have hoped. I may have shaved too soon; while a fair amount of hair fell out during a two-day period, there was still considerable hair remaining when I opted to have it cut (have I mentioned that Jeremy, my barber, would not allow me to pay him when he took the clippers to my head?). Since then, hair keeps on growing all over my head; the follicles are few and far between, but I might have preferred thin to none. The haircut revealed certain aspects of my face and head that look quite a lot like my father, a bit of a shock and a surprise to me. In the past, I’ve occasionally noticed some particular resemblance, but a couple of recent head-shots seem to have collected them in a single photo. I’ve addressed the appeal of nudity in earlier posts. Freedom from the constraints of clothing. An opportunity to adjust one’s thinking, so that naked bodies—regardless of shape, size, color, scars, the smoothness of a marble or the softness of duck down—are normal and natural and off-limits for mockery. Mi novia went into the rabbit warren yesterday, stumbling upon nudist camps’ policies, philosophies, etc. Those of us who have little or no experience with public nudity tend to find intentional nudism somewhat shocking and inexplicable. But, like so many practices with which we have little familiarity, the more we learn the more we know and the more we know the more we understand and the more we understand the greater our opportunities for serenity and acceptance of the world as it is, rather than how we might have hoped it to be.

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Some days last forever. No matter how hard one tries to send them packing, those fiercely persistent days will not move on. They stay, sharpening their teeth and nails until achieving a razor-like edge that can slice through diamonds and butter and bone. A scalpel under the control of a painful memory can leave pools of mayhem.

My interest in television and film is declining; somewhat rapidly. Or, perhaps, it’s just the period of “chemo-fog” that surrounds me these days. I hope I start enjoying them more, because I miss that enjoyment. But I have legitimate complaints, too, even of the shows that do a better job than others at holding my interest. Formulaic mysteries, even (and maybe) especially) tend to make the action and mystery sequences indistinguishable from one another. Who am I, though, to torment someone for figuring out a way to make money from his or her craft. In the case of the books upon which the Versa series is based, she’s a woman: Ann Cleeves. Dim memories of watching the show’s credits role leads me to think the producers and directors are a reasonably close approximation of 50-50. It’s not just Vera,  either. It’s a dozen or more shows from Acorn or BritBox or whatever. Perhaps I am simply hungry for variety. Dark foreign-language (or British-English) expressions of the fundamental bleakness of human existence can be exciting, but enough is enough.

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A rudimentary naming convention is used to establish names for named wildfires in the US. Generally, they a geographic location in nature (e.g., Park fire). According to an article in the New York Times

“…That is, fire names are typically a literal and boring reference to a geographic location.

“The names come from whatever the first fire official on the scene sees nearby, whether a street, mountain or body of water. These decisions are made rapidly, in the rush of an emergency.”

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Yesterday’s visit to the oncology center yielded a MRI brain-scan scheduled for this morning and a return visit to the oncology center—for hydration—this afternoon. These empty weeks have a way of filling up the oncology center’s time. The oncology nurse ordered it because “it’s about time for another one” and she wants to look at an MRI of my brain to determine whether any cancer cells have metastasized to the brain. I’m counting on that as quite unlikely.

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I’ve had excellent chicken–tortilla soup three meals in succession: yesterday’s lunch and this morning’s breakfast, plus the afternoon break the day before. It was a delightful delivery made by a delightful friend.

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My decision is final. I will not acquiesce to fits of incoherent babbling. While chemo drugs are ripping at my body, they also are making me a bit goofy—as if only every ^nth signal to verbalize is making the trip to the end of the appropriate synapses. But other drugs can minimize the goofiness and limit evidence of off-the-tracks mental stability.  Those drugs, whatever they are, will make me slightly more docile and considerably less disturbingly ridiculous.

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Mi novia introduced me to some R&B musicians I have begun to like quite a lot: Ruthie Foster, Rhiannon Giddens, Jesse Cook, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. I already knew and listened to Keb’ Mo’, Marcia Ball, and a bunch of others. The more I listen to them, though, the more I can hear the blues in both the lyrics and the tunes. I still love much of the music of my foundation musicians: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, The Foo Fighters, The Killers, Joan Baez, any orchestra playing Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganin, Op. Many other musicians provide the kind of mood setting I require at any given time, from cheerful to serious to morose to deliriously happy. Though country is not my favorite genre, I have grown increasingly fond of it over the years. Hoyt Axton (Boney Fingers, Della and the Dealer, Evangelina) are among my favorites, but there are others.

In conversation with a friend, I learned that we both enjoy banjo music; I am stunned by the proficiency and speed of some fiddlers. I discovered we both like the music of marching bands. When I was a kid, my oldest sister (I think) has a John Philip Sousa album; I loved listening to all those pieces of patriotic music. I believe all music has a place for all ears. Indigenous African tunes, whether original or “Americanized,” please my ears. Lyrics in languages I do not speak no understand are treats to hears. I always assume I can tell the mood of the piece by the band, alone; I’m not impressively right about that. Jazz, Reggae, Appalachian fiddle, accordion music, Mexican rancho and corrido and banda and mariachi…all of them include good music. All, I suspect. contain bad, as well. They’re all worth listening to; and should NEVER be condemned as part of an entire genre of music.

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I regularly skim quite a few Facebook pages, in a futile effort to keep up with the owners’ achievements, excitements, traumas, and tragedies. I rarely comment any more, as a “like” or “love” or “care” button is more concise than a treatise I might write in comments. I prefer comments made directly to me, but I appreciate any comments at all. And I am genuinely delighted to receive comments that might lead to an extended conversation. There’s a “like” button of this page, as well, but it is fitful in its performance. I like receiving email or texts, in which communications are between only two people. Of course, I have many other, sometimes conflicting, preferences. I conflict with my own opinions with some frequency.

Every scrap of paper will tell a story if you let it. The stapler, the partially-used box of incense cones, the untouched demi-tasse cup full of cold espresso, the roll of packing tape, and a half-empty cup of water are rich with histories rarely shared. None of it matters. But it does; only in the abstract, though. Only in the sense that all of it, collectively, provides a glimpse into a meaningless explanation that has no purpose, other than to attempt to legitimize the unjustifiable. The tales of an empty desktop are told in what’s missing, not what remains behind. Emptiness, all neat and tidy, is a conspiracy to conceal clutter and hide debris that defines the meaningless urgency of all that has gone before. Something must be important…right? Something must have meaning that transcends one’s unmatched proficiency in making  irreversible mistakes…right?

The tales of an empty desktop are told in what’s missing, not what remains.

Traces left behind suggest how wrong the decisions were; the ones that led us to erase evidence of unforgivable mistakes. Guilt is a rare but honorable admission. Yet its rarity, alone, calls into question its honor. Admitting guilt can be a roundabout way of seeking pity for one’s deviousness. The stapler, the partially-used box of incense cones, and the rest—are they staged for sympathy or honest revelations of sorrow? What about those items no longer sitting atop the desk? The book of quotations, for example, or the insistent photographs that refuse to discredit all those allegations of insincerity? Poisonous thoughts, every one of them.

The power that once resided in those fingers has disappeared. Strength is no longer available. Weakness is not a replacement but, instead, a robust deficiency whose decay defines an empty, parallel path. Answers without questions leave behind a permanent stench that cannot be overcome by memories. Confusion swallows understanding. Truth drowns in slippery fiction. Eternity is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; madness risen from the depths of hell.

A good friend speaks glowingly of the value of meditation, and I completely believe her assessment. Meditation probably would help me make progress toward achieving some of the serenity I hope to find. At least temporarily. But before I even begin, I can feel a tangle of random, unrelated thoughts ricochet through my brain. When I try to calm them, corral them, keep them from interrupting what little peace I can muster, they assert themselves even more aggressively. Soon, my attempt to empty the thoughts from my mind has, instead, invited into my head a cacophony of noise and frenzied ideas. The idea of learning how better to meditate by joining a group of more experienced meditators has little appeal. Listening to recorded guided meditation has more interest to me; now, if only I can muster the discipline to pursue that guidance…

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If I had not already gotten dressed, I would seriously consider going back to bed right now, though I doubt I would be able to sleep. After I woke sometime around 3:30, I tried to get back to sleep, but by 4 it was apparent that would not happen. So I got up and got dressed. But now that I have consumed my first cup of intense caffeine in the form of dark espresso, sleep seems even more appealing—not necessarily attainable, though. So, I will simply chill for a while.

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Now is the age of anxiety.

~ W. H. Auden ~

So far, the side-effects of last Thursday’s chemotherapy have been relatively mild. The most significant and most annoying has been, and is, the pain in my left knee—which periodically wanders up and down my leg and then changes to the other leg. That allowed sleep to come only occasionally last night. Fatigue has not yet—and I hope will not—set in. Several other modest irritations, though, combine to remind me that I can expect several days of enough discomfort to remind me that I am in the midst of a scuffle to try to beat back the recurrence of lung cancer.

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I have whittled away at the morning for more than two hours, with nothing of consequence to show for it. The official sunrise will take place about five minutes from now. Daylight spreads across the sky, filling the bits of darkness between leaves and under branches. Soon, the silence and solitude of early morning will be replaced by the obligations of engagement.

If news stories and exposés about the influence on developing and third-world countries by developed Western  countries represent reality, some of our influences—maybe many—are shameful. An online article published by the Associated Press (AP), part of a series about aging in the developing world, struck a chord with me. The article to which I refer addresses the impacts the demands of an aging population and other significant demographic changes are having on the culture of India. These two quotation from the article hit me hard:

In its traditions, in its religious tenets and in its laws, India has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his aging parents. But in a land known for revering its elderly, a secret shame has emerged: A burgeoning population of older people abandoned by their own families.

But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living.

In my view, the ‘normal’ demographic pressures represent reason enough for the issue to be addressed with some urgency, both with the support of developed countries and through internal policies of the affected parts of the world. The Western influence points inward, though, to us. It seems more and more people in undeveloped and underdeveloped countries emulate some of our most damaging and disgraceful behaviors. That is, forsaking ingrained cultural obligations of caring for aging parents to the point of abandonment. I think that cultural obligation once was ingrained in our society, but the forces of demographic change have not been successfully addressed. Our unsuccessful and deeply cruel response has been to change attitudes and beliefs so that we can comfortably assert that children have no responsibilities for caring for their parents as they grow old.

Thinking about this issue this morning has made me angry and ashamed of our own culture that continues to change around me…and export its twisted and warped philosophies worldwide. How is it that cultural mores and attitudes have changed so much that cruelty can overcome compassion, even within familial relationships? How can we watch as our philosophical exports are embraced around the world, doing so much brutal and callous damage?  I have many ideas about how our society might begin to reverse this moral decline, but every one of those ideas would require some fundamental changes in attitudes and beliefs, triggered by charismatic leadership and adopted by willing supporters. Sociology education, which just occurred to me could become a universal moral compass for cultures globally, might be a place to start. I’ll have to think about that some more; the obstacles to every solution are just as culturally ingrained as the problems.

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My most recent chemo treatment—about nine hours sitting in a treatment chair having liquids dripped into me through the chemo port implanted in my chest—took place this past Thursday. I hope the addition of yet another chemical delight to my body, post-treatment, will prevent some of the after-effects I experienced last time, three weeks ago. We’ll see. A little less than three full days after the previous treatment, every joint and bone and tendon in my body delivered strong pain impulses to my brain. It took several days for that to stop.

My relationship with my body has changed. I used to consider it as a servant who should obey, function, give pleasure. In sickness, you realise that you are not the boss. It is the other way around.

~ Federico Fellini ~

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I read an obituary/article this morning about NPR correspondent Ina Jaffe’s death (last Thursday) from metastatic breast cancer. I always found value in listening to her reports and reading her articles online. Her focus on care for the aging paralleled an interest of mine; her reputation for accuracy in reporting led me (accurately, I think) to believe what she wrote was true. Her early decision to keep her cancer diagnosis secret (for about two years) made me wonder why a person would withhold that powerful reality from others? When I was diagnosed with lung cancer in the third quarter of 2018, I did not keep it secret; not in the least. It was not that I wanted everyone to know; it was more a matter of avoiding the stress of keeping such a momentous matter a secret. With the recurrence, diagnosed last December, I followed the same path. I did not widely announce my diagnosis to everyone I could think of, but I did mention it here on my blog and on Facebook, I think, and I told friends. Everyone, I suspect, has their own way of coping with something as emotional as a cancer diagnosis. Ina Jaffe’s way was different from mine. But after she announced it, I think she used its effects on her to change the way she interacted with people about health-related subjects. I have not given much thought to how (or whether) my diagnosis caused any difference in how I interact with people. I wonder whether anyone else noticed any changes in my behavior/personality/demeanor?

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Confrontation can be an unpleasant undertaking, but the ultimate outcome can be the elimination of strain, discomfort, and constant stress. The trick, of course, is to be able to successfully predict whether confrontation will yield those positive results or trigger a hellish escalation of distrust, fear, rage, and an insatiable lust for revenge.

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Welcome to Saturday, one of my favorite seven days of the week.

The small portion of sky visible from where I sit is dim, but brightening with yellow-beige light.  Trickling through the still-dark leaves and needles covering most of the branches and twigs, the light makes the forest more visible by the second. Before long, the dark brown, black, and sage green branches will become more distinct. Daylight will have conquered darkness again, at least for a while. If I let it, this routine will become just another boring, repetitive circumstance over which I have no control. But if I insist on being amazed by the enormity of the magic of the transition, I will continue to be grateful simply to watch it unfold. My view on these simple but impressive mornings pales in comparison to watching a brilliant red and orange and purple sunrise over a distant mountain horizon. But it will do. And I look forward to the next opportunity to be awestruck by those incredible vistas. When? Sometime. Soon, perhaps. How can I define soon in the context of the immeasurable immensity of Time? Only Time will tell.

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

~ Bertrand Russell ~

I will get out of the house again this morning, but only for a while. My oncologist has a Friday-only office in the Village. where I’ll go to get a post-treatment injection meant to reduce/minimize the risks of infections associated with yesterday’s chemo session. I’ve tentatively set aside all of next week to do my taxes, the filing for which I got an extension. Though I do not need that much time, if I do not call it to my attention by putting it on my calendar, it will be too easy to ignore; I want to avoid the stress of last-minute pressure, so I’d like to get it done sooner rather than at the last minute. The following week, I have “vacation” on the calendar, though the plans for exactly when and where remain up in the air. On one hand, I would love to go on a long, aimless road trip. On the other, a visit to someplace nearby, with opportunities to behave like a typical tourist might be better. Mi novia seems to think my history in recent months of napping a LOT almost every day would make a long road trip an exercise in futility; she would drive and I would sleep, missing most of the travel along quiet country roads that I find so appealing. She’s probably right.

I am getting irrationally frustrated with month after month of what amounts to a minor irritation. Unlike so many people who are dealing with cancer, the disease is not terribly debilitating for me. My complaints are minor in comparison to theirs. Yet so many of them seem far more tolerant of their conditions than I am with mine. I live in privilege, with: someone who cares about and for me; a stable, if modest, income; a nice place to live; more than ample food and water; plenty of amenities; and so many more luxuries. Compared to people who could barely get by before being diagnosed with cancer and now probably are struggling to pay for basic necessities, never mind astronomical cancer treatment bills, I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Nonetheless, I do. It’s embarrassing to realize I know my complaints are so minor in comparison to theirs, yet still I listen to myself bitch about my affliction and its related inconveniences. At least I generally tell people I’m doing pretty well; and, in comparison, I certainly am. I am sufficiently concerned about not wanting to appear to be a perpetual whiner that I try to stifle the urge. That is vanity at play, I think; nothing even remotely related to coping, courage, or care about others’ state of mind. I have been told not to believe that assessment of myself—that it’s not correct—but it seems entirely believable to me, whereas an opposite attitude would strike me as artificial.

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My first cup of espresso is long gone. So is the banana I grabbed before rushing to my keyboard. I will now replenish the black liquid bitterness and try to find something quick and easy to eat to satisfy my minor hunger and my need for plenty of protein. Last night’s dinner of black bean burger patties and salad was the perfect meal; easy to make (though I did not make it) and easy to clean up afterward (though I did not do that, either). I am growing more and more fond of skipping most traditional breakfast foods in favor of something usually considered better suited for lunch or dinner. Leftover spaghetti, for example, or steamed zucchini from the night before or something starchy like an Asian rice dish or potatoes from another meal…something I can doctor-up with soy sauce or oyster sauce or Sriracha sauce or sambal oelek. But there are times when an apple fritter or a jalapeño-laden pastry fits the bill. Enough talk. Time for action.

Today was a cancer treatment day for me and, like the last one three weeks ago, it was a long one. We arrived at the cancer center at 8:05 this morning and left to drive home a few minutes before 5. The length of the treatment was longer than it should have been (as was that one three weeks ago), due to my body’s displeasure with carboplatin. Last time, the extended timeframe was due in large part to undergoing a process intended to overcome my allergy to the drug, experienced at an earlier session. That process worked…during that treatment. Naturally assuming the allergy had been overcome, then, the normal administration of carboplatin intravenously  commenced today. About halfway through the infusion, though, I developed some moderate symptoms of allergy/rejection (difficulty breathing and a sensation of feeling very warm/hot). The nurses immediately stopped the administration of the IV and informed the oncologist. Even before getting the doctor, one of the nurses brought a tank of oxygen to my therapy station and began giving administering it.  The doctor came in immediately and instructed the nurses to give me an injection (through the IV line) of Benadryl. After having me breathe oxygen and relax for several minutes, the doctor asked me several questions about my earlier experience with Benadryl. She then  told the nurses to continue administering  the carboplatin, but at half the original  rate of infusion. Her strategy worked. She instructed the nurses to make a permanent note in my files, indicating that future infusions of carboplatin should be administered over a period of one full hour, rather than  the half hour she had originally planned. The doctor arranged for me to get a regular follow-up injection tomorrow morning (something to protect me from infections), a regular part of the process. A long, long day; but at 8 to 5, almost like a short day, “in the old days” at the office. I won’t have a PET scan or a CAT scan until one or two more treatments have been done; so, not until after at least 3-6 weeks from now. So, I won’t have any concrete evidence of the effectiveness of adjusted treatment since progress was downgraded after a PET scan revealed the earlier success of the treatment had degraded. Impatience and worry are among a plethora of my most obvious character flaws.

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Those of us who live in my part of Central Arkansas can expect outdoor temperatures to increase by roughly 22°F before the sun sets, topping out at 95°F around 4:00 p.m. Much of my day, though, will be spent in a frigid building, while nurses periodically check and refresh the IV drip delivering various powerful drugs to my circulatory system. Among them, the drug that caused me—two days later and three or four days after that—to feel quite a bit of pain in what felt like every joint and muscle in my body. The same drug, I believe, is responsible for my hair falling out in clumps before I had the barber give me a scalp-close trim. When he finished the job, the barber refused payment; people who know me even casually know how difficult it was for me to keep my composure, as gratitude for his compassionate act swept over me.

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I wrote the paragraphs below early this morning, but left the blog to go to my cancer center appointment (described above).  I am too lazy to restructure this blog entry; I am sure anyone reading it can understand that the sequence is off.

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My sister was scheduled to have the second of two hip replacements this morning. I have not spoken to her since yesterday. I hope it went off without a hitch and will fully heal in short order, making walking much easier and less painful for her. She had been dealing with hip pain for far too long.

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I am unhappy with myself this evening. Though my anger is a bit irrational, it is real and impossible to erase. Because history cannot be altered; not eliminated, not corrected, not disguised as something it is not. I am angry that I did not successfully pursue or even try to take advantage of so many potential opportunities when I was young enough to follow them. Some of them would have been easy to achieve, if only I had tried. Some would have been much more difficult. But those are suppositions; unproveable theories that cannot be tested. I wish I had doggedly pursued more advanced education. I wish I had devoted more serious attention to learning far more about areas of interest than I did; in many cases, I sailed through easy but boring subjects, learning just enough to get acceptable grades. I didn’t dedicate enough energy and attention even to subjects that fascinated me because I feared I might not be as bright as I thought I might be…and maybe I would not be able to learn as much as I wanted, simply because I was not smart enough. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of examples; not all related to school. Some had to do with social skills, some with physical efforts to build strength and stamina, some with coping with difficult emotional matters, some with self-discipline. The list is much, much longer. People are fond of saying “you’re never too old to [pick your activity or achievement]. Oh, yes, you can be too old to do many things. Physically, mentally, and practically in many other ways, you can be too old. Looking back, so many of the missed opportunities to be a more interesting, more intelligent, more likeable, and generally better person have become old, impossible, withered dreams. You’re never too old… Oh, yes. The best approach is to try to wash away those regrets and focus on past accomplishments and present enjoyable, productive activities. At least that’s my position this evening—as precarious as that feels at this moment.

Never again, after today, will we be given the opportunity to experience, live and in-person, July 31, 2024. Photographs, videos, audio recordings, and written records are among the many ways we can try to capture and re-live this moment in time; but to actually undergo the experience of today—as it takes place—is a one-time-only possibility. After today, that opportunity will be gone forever. That is true, as well, for every second, minute, and hour. Every moment is unique and fleeting, yet we tend to treat those sui generis occasions as if they are common commodities. Of course, it’s not just the moment that is unique—it is the context of the moment, the milieu. Is it today that is unique or is it what happens today that is unique?  Today is just a label, but the label applies to both the moment and to its context. But, then again, maybe not. Simple questions rarely have simple answers.

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Creativity, when mixed with anxiety, often morphs into emptiness. All of the intricate patterns and complex designs vacate the vessels intended to hold them, leaving only traces of powder that is one thousand times finer than the finest chalk dust. Those traces later coalesce around shattered pieces of distorted memories; like sugar, dissolved in water, that forms crystals that cling to lengths of string. But, unlike sugar, reconstituted creativity is not sweet and crystalline. It is sour. It curdles, congealing like milk left in an open jar under a lemon tree.

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Everyone will die, eventually. What difference does it make if it happens all at once or slowly, over a long period of time? Well, instant extinction would save a lot of unnecessary tears, so that’s an argument for the fast track.

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Apparently, I have been in better places, emotionally, than I am in at the moment. It could be the fact that the top of my head feels like sandpaper. I should have shaved my scalp, rather than had my hair trimmed extremely close with electric clippers—I imagined my head shiny and as smooth as a bowling ball. Curdled milk, I tell you.

Waiting to plan for the future until that future is assured is an exercise in futility. The future, whatever I might imagine it to be, has never unfolded exactly as I envisioned. I doubt I am alone in that perpetual experience. Yet, even realizing how utterly pointless it is to wait for an unlikely and uncertain future, it’s a common and very risky tactic used to avoid risk. Action and inaction both involve risk. People tend to justify inaction, though, by pretending that doing nothing avoids risk. But opting to stay put on the sidewalk, rather than moving four feet in any direction, while a piano plummets from an upper floor toward the sidewalk where you are standing does nothing to mitigate risk.

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I did not sleep long enough nor well enough last night (and this morning). Long before 4 a.m., I woke and, a short while later, determined that I would not be able to get to sleep anytime soon. So I got up, made an espresso, and tried to find a reason, online, to be cheerful, grateful, tolerant, or otherwise appreciative of the world in which I live. That effort proved fruitless. My mood this morning, so far, is not suited to such pointlessness. If I can convince my body and my brain to jointly agree to let me sleep again soon, I will return to bed. Failing that, I suppose I will wallow in emotional darkness until I emerge from the cave or come to realize it’s not a cave…it’s an abandoned mine shaft with no access to the surface.  I try dark humor, hoping it will buoy me…lift me up and out of the coal dust and methane gas. That’s not working, yet, but I will keep trying.

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Finally, after a very long period of procrastination, I will visit an attorney next week to revise various documents: power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and will. I may decide to abandon the will completely, opting instead to form a revocable trust. Circumstances have changed in the nine years since my current will and related estate planning documents were written. In fact, my life has undergone radical alterations since then. With the exception of a medical power of attorney, the documents involved in estate planning do virtually nothing for the person who creates the plans; they are meant to simplify and ease the transition for those left behind. Making decisions involved in planning for one’s uncertain future can be jarring, but advisable.

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Serial Killer or Curmudgeon?

Comparing head shots of myself—some showing a head of hair and some after my chemo-triggered baldness—I am shocked to realize how much older I look without hair. With no hair on top of my head, no moustache, and no beard, I think I look about 20 years older than I am. Before my hair abandoned me, I think I looked about 10 years younger than I was. So, today I look 30 years older than I looked day before yesterday. It’s not the baldness I mind—not at all. It’s the associated overnight aging I find surprising and unflattering. Many people look great with shiny domes; I do not believe I am one of them. Some friends—no doubt realizing how unflattering my new look is—have tried to soften the blow by saying it suits me. While I appreciate their intentions, the fact that they tell me such a bald-faced lie jolts me and makes me wonder what else they might have told me that was untrue. Perhaps they lied about liking the special gourmet dish I prepared for them…maybe they really weren’t sick when they called to say they felt ill and weren’t coming to my lavish and horrendously expensive party…maybe one of them (or a gang of them) is responsible for taking $50,000 in cash from my nightstand…perhaps they really were guilty of spray-painting vulgar graffiti on my new Lamborghini. Ah, well, let bygones be bygones. It’s my understanding that insurance will cover my losses (even supplying additional guests to fill-out the party crowd). And my hair may begin to grow back in six months or so—though when it returns it may be bright neon blue, thick as molasses, and curly as a pig’s tail.

On December 19, 2010 I bought a used 21-speed bicycle for $160, a new bike helmet, and an air pump. My vague recollection of those acquisitions pairs with only a few memories of riding that bike. How many times in my life, I wonder, have I invested money and quick-to-disappear-commitments in something that illustrated my lack of discipline? I have a few pieces of more recent evidence—right here in my study—of my foolish and quickly-disproven belief that THIS TIME I will stick to it. I know I can. But, despite my ability, I don’t, thanks to the fact that my will fades so quickly. I’ve had some successes, of course, but they have been outnumbered by unmet objectives and commitments.

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I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~

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Alternative facts cannot justify claims about alternative realities. Yet truth and facts are contextual; perspective can transform one absolute certainty into its antithesis. Intentional adjustments to manipulate others’ frames of reference, though, behave like sinister prisms—making malevolent acts appear charitable and worthy of admiration.  Eventually, trickery teaches lessons to the victims of fraud—specifically, who can be trusted and who cannot. That clarity, though, becomes muddy when the confusion of unyielding distrust gets in the way of reality. If two people—one with a history of honesty and the other with a history of lies—make the same claim, the dishonest one is apt to be judged a liar. But one’s judgment about the honest one may be clouded, tainted by the other’s past. Context.

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If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

~ Leonard Cohen ~

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The indoor temperature can be 76°F; still, I feel cold, especially when I compare that temperature to the 88°F outside. I feel moderately comfortable, usually, when I wear long-sleeves and long pants. But when I walk outside to face the blazing climate, I feel positively wonderful…for a time. Soon, though, the long-sleeves, long pants, and stifling humidity become too much; I want nothing more than to run naked through a mist of cool water. But I don’t. Because I am a civilized man being who recognizes nudity for what it is: a vulgar, unwholesome, and unforgiveable abandonment of human modesty, one of the only attributes we can claim entirely as our own. No, of course I do not believe nudity is bad in some way. I do believe, though, that many of the world’s societies have adopted an irrational loathing of nudity. And I believe many people in those same societies find nude bodies (those that do not fit the mold of what is, at any given time, the ideal) disgusting. I have heard people complaining about others on a beach. They say something to the effect that “I don’t want to see the naked body of an old fat man!” When I hear such bigotry, even from friends or acquaintances, the level of respect I feel for the speaker declines precipitously. My experience with uncomfortable temperatures somehow led me to begin writing a treatise on compassion and human decency. Perhaps it’s symptomatic of adult ADHD; might I be afflicted by the condition?

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Dreams serve as punishment. Not for actions, but for thoughts.

Until yesterday, I questioned whether my most recent chemo treatment would cause me to lose all my hair or simply result in minor thinning. While, today, I am not absolutely certain, I would place a bet on losing it all. Hair left my scalp in clumps, giving new meaning to my receding hairline. Relatively long hair as well as closely cropped strands abandoned my head. Considering the volume of hair loss in just one day, I suspect my head will be bald, or close to it, later today—if not of its own accord, then probably by me, wielding electric clippers. Whether the outcome takes place before church this morning or sometime later in the day remains to be seen. I am not thrilled to be losing my hair, but neither am I devastated by it; it’s just an expected side-effect of one of the chemotherapy drugs. A benefit from the situation: I will get to see what I look like without hair.

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Fire in Paradise, a documentary film about the 2018 Camp Fire in California that left 85 dead and $16.65 billion in damage, left me stunned and deeply moved. I watched it last night—along with another far less interesting and informative documentary—while mi novia joined a bevy of friends for laughter, noshing, and conversation. (I can attest that their food was good, inasmuch as mi novia was sent home afterward with a container of savory goodies for me.) Back to the film: I learned more about the experience of residents and firefighters from the documentary than I ever did from newscasts; it’s available on Netflix and worth watching.

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The world seems to me entirely two-dimensional this morning. No significant substance, just thin-film images—façades in front of emptiness. Mirrors reflect that emptiness. They show the reality we desperately try to avoid. Two mirrors, each reflecting images of the other, reveal endless emptiness in a way that gives the absence of reality an odd appeal. We trick ourselves into believing three-dimensional experiences are real; our eyes are complicit in the deceit.

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It is after 8; well past time to prepare for whatever the day will bring.

A grove of citrus trees, surrounded by an avocado orchard. All around the perimeter, a vineyard of mixed grapes awaits the caring hands of caretakers, who will prune the vines, cultivate and fertilize the soil, and pick the ripe grapes. The cool air, shielded from the sun’s rays by morning fog, expertly defines comfort and lavishes tenderness and passionate appreciation on all the fruit. A thousand years ago, the Arctic air would have been too cold for the plants to survive. Now, though, these few thousand acres are the only habitable places on Earth. The rest of the planet is scorched. Lead pipes buried under ten feet of hard-packed rock have long since melted. The corpses of penguins, the last of the few remaining natural inhabitants of this little piece of land, litter the salty coastline ten miles away.

Lilly Thrungle, in her tiny hut, sits at the solar-powered DVD player/transmitter. She broadcasts old episodes of Julia Child’s The French Chef, hoping someone outside Lilly’s tiny enclave might stumble upon the show about preparing Boeuf Bourguignon. But, Lilly wonders, who has beef? Still, she keeps broadcasting old episodes, clinging to withered shreds of hope.

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I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering.

~ Rafael Nadal ~

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One of my long-time dreams/fantasies emerged again this morning, triggered by an article about the vision and efforts of a woman in New York city to convert an ugly nine-acres under the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan into a park. I love the idea of using the land in Lower Manhattan to improve the quality of life in that part of New York City. Even more, I love my dream of resurrecting a dying small town, turning it into an oasis of comfort and promise and hope.

My fantasy began to take shape while I was a student at the University of Texas. When I drove home to Corpus Christi from Austin, which was a trip I made fairly frequently, I passed through a number of small towns that looked to me like they suffered from neglect. Boarded up doors and windows, cracked and peeling paint, sidewalks overtaken by dust and weeds, and various other signs of resignation and surrender. “If only,” I thought, “I could muster the resources, I would like to salvage what’s left of this town.” I fantasized about stopping the decline of those little towns, perhaps spurring the investments necessary to return them to their former glory…or to improve on their best days from years gone by. I was an impoverished college student at the time, though, and I did not have any confidence in raising money to embark on my dream. So, I just kept on dreaming. Every time I passed through a withering little town or village, I wished I had the resources to turn my fantasy into a reality.

For years after I left Texas and then returned, I allowed the dream to materialize again whenever I passed through a decaying little town. In some cases, the town’s commercial areas just needed a coat of paint and some TLC. One such town was Whitesboro, Texas, about 80 or 90 miles north of Dallas. The spark that re-kindled my dream during a drive through Whitesboro was a “for sale” sign in front of an old, abandoned Christian Church. I thought the church building was beautiful. Though badly in need of repair, it had enormous potential, I thought. My belief in its potential, though, was not enough to generate sufficient interest to pursue it seriously. I asked a friend, who was in no more of a financial position than I to invest in rehabilitating an old church; he was mildly supportive of the idea, but wondered about the use to which the restored building might be put. My vision was flush with color, but blurry; I was sure that, if we restored it, a perfect use would be found. It has been at least eleven years since I fell in love with the idea of resurrecting that old church in Whitesboro. I’m sure I wrote about my dream at the time. A few months later, driving through another small town (Whitewright, Texas), I let that town’s potential capture me. The same thing has happened many times since in many other places. But, if my resources were insufficient at the time to take action to reach my dreams, today the resources essentially are non-existent. Such is life.

Thinking about my old fantasies reminds me that I had other, related, dreams. For a few years, I considered the possibility of returning to school to pursue an education in “urban” planning. However, my interest would more closely aligned with “semi-rural” planning. But I remember feeling torn abut that concept; I equated life in rural communities with social conservatism and undeveloped intellectual curiosity, which would have made me uncomfortable. Still today, I do not know with any degree of certainty what I might do if I had my life to live over again. Nothing seems to hold enough interest for me to keep me focused for more than a little while. Perhaps I should have steamrolled my way through another idea I once had: in week-long increments, pursue 52 weeks of wildly divergent career paths and then document my judgments about each of them. Maybe I would have scored my interest in them, enabling me to pick the one path about which I was truly passionate. Maybe not. No, not likely. I know myself too well.

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The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson ~

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A chipper-shredder the size of Jupiter is grinding its way through the universe, leaving a trail of metallic dust and perpetual grief in its wake. When the gigantic machine nears Earth, it will pulverize the planet’s fragile atmosphere with its enormous platinum teeth. Later, it will use a volcanic vent like a straw to suck the magma from Earth’s core. Molten rock will splash onto Earth’s moon, causing massive oceans of silver lava to scrub and polish the lunar surface, revealing a shiny reflective orb consumed by an image of raw hatred and blind rage. Those who remain will watch in terrified awe as the calamity turns into an unfamiliar landscape marred with craters—cauldrons filled with bubbling sulfuric acid. Just a snapshot of the transfiguration wrought by time.

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Morbid thoughts do not belong in the kitchen, nor at the shore. Seaside tales of horror tend to ruin picnics, especially when the rising tide has permanently blocked the only escape to dry land.

The crepe myrtles near the street did not get trimmed as I intended in February, thanks to my mind being on other things. Despite that oversight, the largest of the street-side trees/bushes display beautiful, bright red—almost cherry-red—flowers. Had the plants been trimmed, the volume and density of flowers would have been much greater, no doubt; but they are just fine, anyway. The damage to the forest around us, from the March tornado, will be with us for a long, long time. Eventually, though, the hundreds of fallen trees and broken branches will decay and join thousands upon thousands of pounds of leaf litter, becoming nutrient-rich soil to feed the forest flora. We have to give nature time to heal self-inflicted wounds.

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The tools of serenity can include a magnifying glass, microscope, digital camera, net, pooter, chloroform jar, and a mounting board with pins. Those would be tools of the serene lepidopterologist; a person whose intense studies of butterflies brings about an overwhelming sense of tranquility. A serene herpetologist, a person who studies turtles with the same ultimate outcome, might need similar tools as well as some specialty tools. A serene dendrologist, one in whom serenity accompanies the pursuit of knowledge about wood science, might require a microtome to cut very thin slices of wood for microscopic examination.  But the single tool of serenity that is absolutely required in all of these endeavors and every other—no option—is intense, unwavering focus. That singular focus must be powerful enough to prevent the bombardment of unwanted and irrelevant information from sabotaging the peace those practices bring. Information about wildfires, terrorism, political assassinations, airplane crashes, child abuse, dependency on dangerous drugs, domestic violence, relationship failures, train crashes, fatal diseases, and a million other emotional or intellectual intrusions cannot be permitted to infect one’s thoughts or otherwise divert one’s exclusive focus. Even thoughts actively meant to eliminate those intrusions cannot be allowed, nor can serenity be the objective—serenity is the byproduct, not the target. Yet serenity may indeed be the purpose of meditation, for example. Focus. Intense focus. Pure concentration on…something…is the key. But, perhaps, not always. Maybe the routes to serenity are multi-fold. Serenity may be an amorphous idea that takes its shape from its context. In that case, everything I have claimed could be wrong…or incompletely right. My original point was that laser-like focus on a matter or subject of intense personal interest and pleasure may lead to serenity. Studying butterflies or turtles or woody plants, for example. Serenity, though, is unique to the individual. Those few who have achieved serenity, however brief, probably would confirm that fact.

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Relax. That’s worth a try.

Just as walking through the lobby of a swank hotel with a dagger clinched between one’s  jaws is not necessarily threatening to the hotel’s patrons, revealing one’s harmless curiosity about another person’s private thoughts or behaviors can appear anything but innocuous. Innocent interest may be mistaken for unhealthy, unhinged, menacing psychopathy. Flamboyant behavior might incorrectly be read as a signal that the person exhibiting it is about to launch into a murderous frenzy. Most of us realize flamboyant behavior can be upsetting to observers; but we might not be capable of properly distinguishing the occasionally vague line between curiosity and prurience. That being the case, people tend to rein in their curiosity, for fear of being mislabeled and/or misunderstood. That is a shame, because knowing innocent but intimate details of how and what a person thinks can create a powerfully comfortable familiarity. Suspicion about whether questions suggest sinister motives hinders honesty. We do not allow ourselves to ask questions that are too personal and we avoid answering such questions posed to us. We hide ourselves and hide from others. Revealing too much of ourselves, we think, is dangerous; knowing too much about others is equally perilous. Perhaps the only safe way to satisfy one’s curiosity about others is to place them under hypnosis before questioning them about their most intimate thoughts and emotions. But that does not sound especially safe, does it?

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I had planned to join men from church for coffee and breakfast this morning, but I am not quite in the mood for conversation. I have missed many, many Thursday morning gatherings, thanks in large part to doctor visits, chemo treatments, and/or reactions to treatments. Today is one of the few Thursdays I could go, but my mood today calls for solitude this morning. We plan to go to a wine dinner this evening and I hope and expect to go to church on Sunday to listen to our church pianist discuss his personal history. Beyond that, I think the next week will be quiet. My next chemo treatment is scheduled for next Thursday; if my experience is like the last one, I’ll be extremely tired, achy, and dealing with annoying but tolerable pain for several days thereafter. Chemo makes me feel worn out for days and days, though for some reason I feel quite good for a few intermittent days between fatigue and gloom. Still, I have it pretty easy compared to many people who must suffer through far more excruciating experiences than I. I try to keep reminding myself of that fact so I can avoid indulging in undeserved self-pity.

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A shroud of fog envelopes the forest around our house this morning. I am glad the sun is hidden by the fog and clouds. Gloomy days like this one, so far, can feel far more comforting than mornings emblazoned with bright sunshine. Those kinds of days, which attempt to demand cheerfulness and sparkling energy, sometimes are hard to take. Dull grey days that echo my mood are friendlier and more understanding and accommodating.

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Depression is rage spread thin.

~ George Santayana ~

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We’ve lately been watching a series (Wire in the Blood) on Acorn TV that stars Hermione Norris. A British police action/drama series, we came across it while I was looking for Scandinavian crime dramas (I’ve been missing them…). I would not call it a favorite, but it has kept my attention. Seeing the star’s first name, Hermione, triggered a vague memory from my late teenage years or early adult years (a wide span, but that’s as close as I can get to precision), in which one of my brothers brought a chicken named Hermione to the house. My memory tells me Hermione was temporarily held in a metal garbage can one day and my brother, the chicken master, taunted another brother by telling him Hermione was an aggressive, dangerous chicken. My memories rarely are entirely reliable, though.

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Three hours into it, I will now wade through the rest of the day.

StoryCorps, one of the many programs I listen to on NPR, almost invariably moves me emotionally. Simple stories that emphasize the importance and value of human connections tend to make me focus on important matters that are easy to overlook in the chaos of daily life. I listened this morning to a couple of StoryCorps programs. One involved a former inmate, now a death doula, who spoke of his purpose for taking on the role. Another one involved sisters Mai Lo Lee and Beth Lo, who grew up in a large Hmong family on a ginseng farm in Wisconsin after their family escaped the horrors of the war in Viet Nam. Short snippets in which scenes from the past are revealed to have thought-provoking meaning can keep my mind occupied for days on end, trying to understand how brief stories can impact me so thoroughly.

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Roughly seven months have passed since I learned that my lung cancer had returned after five years of “clear” CT scans and blood tests. I think it was less than a month earlier that I had my chemo port removed from the left side of my chest. A few weeks later, I had a new report installed in the right side of my chest to replace the one that had recently been extracted. I hoped at the time my recovery would be like the first time; fast and seemingly permanent. But the first time my circumstances were suitable for surgery and radiation, along with chemotherapy. The second time, neither surgery nor radiation would be useful. And chemotherapy—originally planned to last about as long as the first time—in this most recent situation would take more time and would not yield the immediate hoped=for good news. Seven months in, I do not have a long-term prognosis…nor a formal short-term prognosis (though short term, at least, is probably pretty good). So many people have it so much worse than I; I have no business feeling pessimistic or depressed when far too many people cannot get any treatment because financial or other constraints make it impossible. I should attempt to emulate people who confront such situations with energy, enthusiasm, and positivity. Not only would I feel better, I would feel more confident in myself and in the long-term outcome of the effort to vanquish the disease. Perhaps it’s the lengthy wait between full-throated treatments (three weeks) that gets me down. Time is subject to manipulation, if approached from the right perspective; I will approach it from that perspective. I have choices. I will make the right ones.

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My introduction to the unreliability and impermanence of friendship took place from my last two years of high school through the college years. That was the introduction; the lesson was etched eternally into my psyche in the years that followed. Slowly—or maybe abruptly—five guys who constituted my circle of friends disappeared from that sphere. Two of them had been close friends since elementary school. There was no sudden rupture in the friendships. One or more of us—or all of us—simply changed. I remember being surprised and disappointed, as the five of us began to go our own ways, that the bond of friendship was not close to as strong as I had believed it to be. But at the time, I doubt I was consciously aware of the depths of my disappointment with my misunderstanding of the very concept of friendship. That came a little later, when I found myself hesitant to open up to potential new friendships. What I had assumed would be lifelong connections could simply disappear. Investing emotionally in friendships would not lead to strong bonds; it would have been more like throwing money into a slot machine that never paid out. Except money has no emotional value, whereas friendships might. When, several years later, I contacted my old friends, the reception was cool…standoffish….suspicious. The relationships had not survived time and distance. I suppose I might not have been the only one surprised at the lack of interest and familiarity. After all, my old friends were not the only ones who simply allowed our long-term friendships to turn to stale vapor. By the time one reaches middle age and beyond, most friendships that might last have already been established. The likelihood that emotional investments beyond those years will be stable or grow diminishes; so exposing oneself to the increasing likelihood of disappointment becomes a risk that may not be worth taking.

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Dreams punctuate long periods of unconsciousness, but they leave only shreds of meaningless stories in their wake. Everything has meaning, though, right? So the stories are mysterious, not meaningless. If one could unravel their mysteries, a person might understand their meanings. Some dreams seem to consist of two-dimensional stories told through the placement of multiple layers of thin, translucent films placed on top of one another. A layer five levels deep may seem familiar, but is insufficient by itself to clearly express meaning. Frustration builds as layer two disappears and layer three melts into the strata beneath it.

Wisdom shatters in the cold reality of political turmoil. Politics goes beyond simply excusing dishonesty and dishonor. That parasitic profession encourages, embraces, and rewards depravity. Fueled by fear and by the lust for money and power (that is, greed), the mechanics of political control employs a scorched earth policy designed to murder decency by withholding oxygen and hope. Political opponents are more than philosophical foes. With razor-sharp rumors and lies, they slash at their adversaries’ arteries, attempting—at a minimum—to severely injure their  antagonists; hoping to inflict excruciatingly painful and deadly wounds. To the victor belong the spoils. More than just patronage, the spoils today refers to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Wisdom is an obsolete concept, an obstacle to be overcome with a repetitive chant: The ends justify the means…the ends justify the means…the ends justify the means… Is it innocent naiveté or ignorant gullibility to believe in the value and dignity of wisdom—that archaic concept that once was an honorable objective?

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Facing your own mortality forces you to re-evaluate your priorities.

~ Paul Allen ~

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Trump and his minions got it right when they decided tapping into the pent-up rage and frustration of blue-collar voters would unleash a cult-like worship that could be manipulated to his benefit. The selection of Vance as his running mate provides evidence that the “working class” remains a key—perhaps the key—constituency in Trump’s way of thinking. And he’s no doubt right. The selection of a running mate for Kamala Harris can do for the Democrats what Trump and Vance have done/are doing for Republicans. Someone who would be seen by those same frustrated blue-collar voters as an ally and “one of us,” could make the difference in the November election. Who might that be, though? I wish I knew. Absent the need for mass popularity, my personal potential candidate might be Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, or Gretchen Whitmer.  If I had greater faith in the American electorate, I would focus on either a two-female ticket or a female and gay male ticket. We desperately need change, strong leadership, and a powerful message that offers evidence that no one at any level of the socio-economic scale is either taken for granted or whose needs and desires are safe to ignore.

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I should have updated my will and my healthcare power of attorney long before now. With each visit to the oncologist—especially each one in which there’s no news about desirable progress (or its lack)—the importance of doing something about those documents becomes more pressing. Before this week is out, I will make an appointment to see an attorney about these matters. Maybe going on the record with this self-imposed deadline will give me the push I need to do something about it, instead of just talking about it.

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During the course of my life, some people who have long been important to me and to whom I think I once was important seem to have faded away. That reality, of course, is not unique to me. It happens to almost everyone at one time or another as the circumstances of multiple intertwined lives change. Thinking about what might have caused those relationships to have cooled or disappeared, it seems evident that decisions—either conscious and deliberate or circumstantial by default—must have been made that led to the situation. Regardless of how and why the relationships vanished, their absence leaves an emptiness that is not easy, or possible, to fill. Hmm. Just thoughts bouncing around in an otherwise empty head.

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I am thinking about YOU as I prepare to publish this post. All you need as evidence of that fact is to look at the words I just wrote.

This is one of those stubborn early mornings—the sort of introduction to daylight hours that promises a full day of argumentative thoughts. Every opinion…every idea, every emotion… will slam into fierce opposition. And those opposing positions will encounter equally steadfast enemies of stability. Except to those few people who might pay especially close attention—and notice the blank look of bewilderment on my face—the internal strife beating me senseless will be almost imperceptible. Promising hope versus resigned despair. Joy versus sorrow. Acceptance versus rejection. Belief versus skepticism. Fat and happy versus starved for affection. I seem to cultivate ennui and enthusiasm. Tattered philosophies in support of both suicide and perpetual life reside in the same place in my brain—at the same time. The opacity of confusion makes crystal clear the impurities obscuring my vision. And I am so bloody tired I could scream. But there is nothing unusual about this morning. It’s just the transformation of abnormal to normal; weird to routine. Perhaps this state of mind is a side-effect of cancer. Or maybe cancer is a side-effect of this state of mind. In my mind’s eye, I see a high-gloss, dark grey dinner plate covered with specks of dust. The duality of a dull shine speaks to me, but in a language I can no longer understand.

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Not even a drop of creativity spills from the tips of my fingers. It’s as if the spigot valve has been closed tightly, then welded permanently shut. Adding insult to injury, the spigot and all its parts and pieces were made of lead cast into a simple mold. Memory will do that, if you let it.

Every aspect of living is immeasurably complex. Somewhere online I came across an assertion that there are approximately 18 decillion colors (that figure is represented by an 18 followed by 33 zeros) available for our eyes to distinguish between. Glancing at the menu showing on the left side of my computer, I see dozens of small graphic icons, each representing an item from the menu. And I consider that every letter of every word in that menu and every graphic image comprises dozens, if not hundreds (or more) pixels. When my eyes sweep down to my desktop, they are greeted by an impossibly large number of intricate patterns of the teak wood grain. The clutter on top of the desk hides at least two-thirds of the slab of teak and the extraordinary intricacy of that hidden wood. Patterns caused by slight variations in the teak surface make visible a texture that is, at once, smooth as glass and rough as a mountain range. The distance between the nearly-invisible peaks and valleys of the desktop suggest to me that mountaintops and the plains below them illustrate a similar geography—but the relationships between zenith and nadir are radically different. Pieces of paper, each decorated with letters and numbers produced by ink, litter my desk. Every miniscule droplet of ink that left those images on the paper, is composed of countless molecules. Threads of wood fiber, probably much thinner than  a human hair, are bound together to form those sheets of paper. Speaking of hair, when I glance at the front of my shirt, I see several strands of grey; they may represent the first few hairs to abandon my head in response to my recent chemotherapy session. How many more strands of hair remain attached to my scalp, I wonder? Could the answer to that question have any practical value? How, by the way, is practical value measured? Certainly, there must be a way to equate and/or differentiate two items by measuring their practical value…right?  Infinitesimally small is not always a characteristic of complexity. An unfertilized chicken egg is a single cell, billions of times larger than the tiniest single-cell creature. The smallest single-cell organism is, depending on which source one chooses to believe, the Mycoplasma gallicepticum or the Mycoplasma genitalium or one of various other itsy-bitsy creatures. Complexity runs rampant throughout the smallest “things” to the largest. If I were to take time to view, for just ten seconds each, and catalog a description of every square millimeter of space in my study, I suspect I would be tied up until well after the thousandth anniversary of my presumed death. I say “presumed death” because we cannot know precisely what death is. That reality is a little hard to fathom.

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Aphrodite, considered the most beautiful of the gods, was married to Hephaestus, the god of metalwork and fire. She was unfaithful to her husband, though; his brother was her lover. I have been interested in Greek mythology for a long while, but I’ve always shied away from delving into it because I am afraid I could never fully understand all the familial relationships. Perhaps a graphic Ancestry.com family tree might help me capture and appreciate those relationships.

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I want to sit on the deck, drinking an espresso. And so I shall. I probably won’t go to sleep out there, but it’s a possibility. I still am tired, despite a night of more or less solid sleep. In an ideal world, I could call a bakery and have delivered to my home a couple of klobasneks (with jalapeños). I’ve always called them kolaches, but only recently re-learned that kolaches are sweet pastries; my favorites are savory klobasneks. I would like a big apple fritter delivered to me, as well. I write about apple fritters too often; perhaps I should instead write about and worship peach fritters.  And off I go; no pastries, but tasty dark espresso in an attempt to ward off napping so early on a Sunday.

Two hours have passed since I woke. I am newly tired and bursting with hunger. Whether sleep or food proves more appealing remains to be seen. My most recent chemo treatment lived/lives up to the unpleasant reputations long-enjoyed by chemotherapy. Oncologists, I have decided, are paid to poison patients—compensated to take their patients to the brink of surrendering to lethal doses of drugs whose side-effects warnings always include, among other frightening impacts, death…or wishing for it. The world outside my window looks clear and pleasant; too bad I do not feel in the least inclined to venture out into it. At this very moment, I would prefer pain-free unconsciousness.

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Connections to the outside world tend to wither with the passage of time and the insulation of distance. Without regular freshening, supple relationships with other people degrade into thin and brittle links, subject to shattering under minimal pressures—as light as the sound and weight of whispers. One’s comfort with casual communications atrophies and is replaced by a preference for listening to one’s own thoughts. And one starts to prefer imagining the thoughts of others; without the increasing awkwardness of hearing them and sensing the expectations for a response. Time and distance cultivate social isolation. Thoughts that would seldom manifest in the mind of a socially-engaged person can take control of the mind of an apprentice recluse. Madness risen from the depths of a dungeon of one’s own creation asserts itself and insists on testing its own potential as a lethal threat to serenity.  Who is to say this is unnatural? Perhaps most of humanity simply has trained itself to hide its most dangerous attributes…with the rest waiting to demonstrate their demonic nature at the most terrifying moments. Hiding inside a steel and stone vault may be the only reliable protection. Fear and rage combined, though, may be worse than ineffective resistance.

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I was just six weeks old when I crawled up onto the kitchen counter and into the sudsy hot water of the sink. No one was home with me at the time; everyone had gone frogging down by the ponds. When Aunt Samantha returned to the house with a gunny-sack full of frogs, she heard me gurgling and cooing in the kitchen. When she saw me, she bellowed, “What the hell are you doing in the kitchen sink, Brakeman Q. Jones, III?!”

In response, I said, “Do you really expect a six-week-old baby to answer your idiotic question, Auntie? What does it look like I’m doing? I’m scrubbing the mud off my behind. Someone really ought to clean my crib every month or two. By the way, isn’t someone supposed to looking after me? To make sure I don’t DROWN?!”

Samantha had never liked me, not even when she was shown sonogram images when I had spent only four months in the womb. Samantha slugged her sister (my mother), Inebria, in the stomach to express her distaste for bringing me into the world. Lorca, my grandmother on my father’s side, witnessed Samantha’s attempt to kill me and she reacted by beating Samantha senseless. Samantha has never liked Granny Lorca, either, since then.

I’m getting sidetracked. I wanted to explain how it was that, at six weeks of age, I was able to make my way to the kitchen sink and engage my aunt in conversation. I wish I knew. Unlike the rest of my semi-siblings (they all had different parents), I was precocious. I had learned to speak three languages (English, Mandarin, and Pashto) by the time I reached my two month anniversary. By four months, I had mastered quantum mechanics and trigonometry. I graduated, with honors, from Harvard University’s School of Yugoslavian Welding and Celestial Art before my first birthday. I fathered the first of sixteen children before I was two, completing the process by age four. I’ll have to tell you sometime about the period I spent with the concubines. If I hadn’t been there myself, I doubt I would have believed the story. But I was there and I have high-resolution video of me performing the surgery to replace my own clavicle to prove it. Yes, I’ve lived in challenging times, moments in history in which I had to eat my own obstacles just to survive. I can tell you are more than a little skeptical of my tale. I won’t waste any more of my time, then, on flooding you with truth. It takes too much energy to warrant throwing it all away on deniers.

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The news is caustic. Don’t get any on your clothes.