John Swinburn

My delayed CT-scan, put off due to the fact that I did not think I could tolerate the drive to the image clinic and the simple 20-minute procedure, is scheduled again for Monday. I think I can tolerate it…one week later. We shall see. Aside from feeling able to deal with that procedure, I do not feel like I could tolerate much more. But I could improve considerably by later today or tomorrow—I felt far better twice or three times within a 24-hour window during the past week. “But.” That improvement has come crashing down, only to gradually recover. I would happily be placed in a medical coma for a week if I could have assurances this, this…whatever would be gone when I awoke. Whenever it’s over, I still have to look forward to the results of the CT scan. Age-related decay takes it unpleasant decay.

My optimism blossoms when my headache subsides or my other symptoms seem to improve. But pessimism returns when those improvements are short-lived or the symptoms seem to get progressively worse. Or both. The rare improvements seem to be old news. My patience is wearing extremely thin—but my options when “thin” becomes “invisible” are just the same. I am certain I could feel far worse and be much sicker, but knowing a splinter in my finger is more tolerable than a nail through my hand does not improve things.  The roller-coast of extreme weakness and attempts at recovery is more tiring than just staying weak and bed-ridden. Yesterday was a little better for part of the day. But the parts that were not better supplied reminders that of how damn intrusive this tangle of symptoms has become. I have the strength to bitch about my malady. At least there’s that. Barring a miracle, though, I cannot imagine feeling even close to “normal” by Christmas.  Shit!

I have not posted for the last two day for lack of energy, plus the pain in my head makes movement of any kind more than a little uncomfortable. My ongoing headache has drained me. I went to my doctor’s office day before yesterday; I learned I do not have COVID, I do not have flu; apparently I have some sort of viral mystery malady that should dissipate…over time. No idea how long. If the way I feel this morning is any indication, it could be awhile.

I post here this morning only to inform my family, and the other few readers, that I am alive and probably will not post until I am feeling much better.

I slept yesterday morning while mi novia went to church. I slept yesterday afternoon for a few hours. I sent to bed at 6 last night and slept until 8 this morning. I feel extremely sore and I have an incredibly unpleasant headache. If I could make my headache disappear, I would go back to sleep; probably sleep another six hours or more. Whatever this is, I am not pleased with it. If someone would bring me morphine, I would be extremely grateful.

Though I have been curious about the concept of a kibbutz, until this morning, I never fully understood the idea and its implementation, nor have I ever taken the time and expended the energy to try. This morning, though, I explored kibbutzim (the plural of kibbutz, I gather), by reading about about the concept on the Jewish Agency for Israel website.

In a nutshell, here is an explanation of kibbutzim, as published on the Agency website:

The main characteristics of Kibbutz life were established in adherence to collectivism in property alongside a cooperative character in the spheres of education, culture and social life. With this came the understanding that the Kibbutz member is part of a unit that is larger than just his own family.

The Kibbutz operates under the premise that all income generated by the Kibbutz and its members goes into a common pool. This income is used to run the Kibbutz, make investments, and guarantee mutual and reciprocal aid and responsibility between members. Kibbutz members receive the same budget (according to family size), regardless of their job or position.

The idea of collectivism has appealed to me for as long as I can remember. If I had not allowed fear to intervene, I might have pursued a lifestyle involving collectivism during or immediately after college. But fear that I might be unable (or, more likely, unwilling) to fully engage in an environment in which economic equality takes precedence over economic gain, among various other concerns, derailed that possibility. Despite the many stumbling blocks that would have gotten in my way—had I been truly serious about pursuing collectivism—my interest in the idea has remained strong.

This morning, when I read that most kibbutzim are secular (I assumed most would be religiously-based), it occurred to me that religion would not be an obstacle…provided, of course, all other members of the kibbutz agreed and would commit to a secular basis. Before I get too far afield, I want to clarify that I have never had an interest in going to Israel and joining a kibbutz. My wish, long ago, involved the idea of establishing a secluded collective community in this country. Over time, that idea changed; the idea morphed into the concept of establishing a secluded community in a truly democratic society. The society in which I live today pretends to be democratic; perhaps my aim would be to establish a collective in a place in which democratic socialism is openly practiced.

My interests in a collective has, over time, waxed and waned. Today, I like the idea of a secluded community with access to the amenities of a robust democratic society. Obviously, my philosophies are not hard and solid; I want readily available cake that I can enjoy eating…but I want the same for everyone. Yeah. A bit of altruistic greed, it seems. Maybe I would be perfectly satisfied if all members of society were generous, caring, compassionate, hard-working…all that, and more. My late wife liked expressing her sense of what I wanted by modifying a common saying: “If wishes were horses we’d all have wings.” You don’t have to understand it; I do, and she did. I think that major modification was first uttered by mistake, but it caught on and it spoke loudly to my fantasies.

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We were invited to have drinks and hors d’ouevres with some former neighbors last night. After a couple of hours, we returned home, where I promptly got in bed (around 8) in an effort to get rid of a headache. I woke several times during the night, but stayed in bed in the hope my headache would disappear until I arose at 4:45 this morning to a yowling cat. My headache is better, but it still lingers. I loathe headaches. They interfere with my writing, although I conquered this one for a while this morning; enough to write about my interest in collectives. Perhaps the headache will disappear in time for me to enjoy church, where this morning’s speaker (who was a former assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell and who spent several years in the CIA) talks about the clash between Israel and Hamas. This morning’s church service is an “insight,” which differs radically from a “worship” service. I have been quite happy with most insight presentations over the past year or two…or longer. I hope I can bring myself to go.

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I showered late yesterday, so I might not shower again this morning. A little deodorant, clean clothes, brushed teeth, and washed face (and various other body parts) should make me presentable and tolerable. If I decide to go. Ach. I hate headaches with a passion.

Yesterday morning, I sought out a post I wrote on an old blog that remains accessible, but to which I almost never contribute any longer. I do not know exactly why I went looking for that post, but something pushed me to find it. The post, from March 7, 2010, addressed my experience and the accompanying emotions surrounding the March 6 memorial service for my late sister, who died the month before. Reading that post was just as emotional as was writing it. Because I do not feel sufficiently energetic or intellectually capable of writing anything of merit this morning, I am reposting here what I wrote 13+ years ago. The promise I made in the closing paragraphs of that post remain unfulfilled; that is both inexcusable and painful.

Remembering
Yesterday morning, we held a memorial service for my sister, who died February 19. I say “we,” but my niece is the one who did the lion’s share of the work of organizing it. She did a magnificent job. My niece and my nephew, her brother, were two of the many people who reaped the rewards of being dearly loved by my sister. My niece lives in the same city where my sister lived, so was able to see her often and benefitted from being near her aunt. And she dearly loved her aunt, and the work she put in to arrange the memorial service showed it clearly. While she and her brother were deeply affected by my sister’s death, they were more deeply affected by her life.

My sister was a Catholic, and so is my niece. So it was fitting and right that my niece arranged a service at the Catholic church, though some of my sister’s siblings are like fish out of water in that setting. Despite my atheism, the words and actions of the priest and the religious ceremony of yesterday’s service moved me. The music…Ave Maria, Amazing Grace, and How Great Thou Art were exceptionally moving and, remembering how much my sister loved that music, made me cry. Some other things moved me even more.

My ex-sister-in-law, my niece’s mother, delivered a eulogy that was nothing short of the perfect remembrance of my sister’s life. Despite having split from my brother many years ago, she remained close to my sister and her presence was yet another testament to how my sister affected people.

She spoke of all the thousands of thing my sister did for others, from giving people shelter, to handling income tax preparation for people unable to do (or pay for) their own, to making raggedy-ann dolls for children who desperately needed a bright spot in their otherwise dull and dreary and poverty-ridden lives. She described my sister’s love of her brothers and sister, and her niece and nephews, and she spoke of the things my sister did that were natural to her but invisible to most others who never saw all the good she was doing. The eulogy described my sister as someone who just naturally helped people…it was just “what she did.” One day I will post that eulogy here.

Something else that moved me was the presence at the service of my sister’s doctor, who had been her primary physician for ten years or more. He spoke to several of my siblings about her, describing her as “brilliant” and as someone unlike anyone else he had ever known. He said he could talk to her about things he had never been able to with other patients, personal things outside the doctor-patient relationship. “I don’t know if you realize how much she did for people. She got things done,” he said, “when no one else could,” going on to relate an incident in which he had told her of another financially-strapped patient who needed a motorized wheelchair but apparently did not qualify or could not get through the red-tape of getting one. “She didn’t need to do anything about it, but she did.” He said she got the wheelchair for the guy in a matter of days. “I don’t know how she did it, but she did. She was remarkable.” I had heard my sister talk about her doctor before, describing him as someone who was not in the profession for the money but, instead, for the opportunity to serve. His presence at my sister’s service was a tribute to her, and a tribute to him as well.

Other people who made their way to the memorial service spoke volumes about my sister, too, though the people did not speak. At least three people confined to wheelchairs were there, people my sister had helped in one way or another. I had met one of the people, a man who’s probably in his forties, at my sister’s apartment not too many months before. Since I had seen him, he had undergone a leg amputation. I remember him wheeling in to the room when my sister had opened the door, looking sheepish as my sister dressed him down for failing to get tax documentation to her earlier so she could help him file his return. Yesterday, when I spoke to him, he said “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.” He meant it; he was lost without the help that my sister regularly gave him just to get by in his daily life.

I don’t know just how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to keep my sister’s legacy alive by doing something to continue her work helping people, particularly people in the apartment building where she lived. The building is for people over age 62 and the mobility-impaired; all residents pay a significant percentage of their income in rent. I want to do something to carry on my sister’s work. I’m not going to replicate it…I won’t even try…but perhaps I can honor her memory by honoring what turned out to be, in a very real way, her life’s work.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say
Tomorrow do thy worst,
for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

~ John Dryden ~

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What’s done is done. The logic is irrefutable; efforts spent trying to change the past are wasted. Emotions tend to sidestep logic, though, as if desire or regret might have magical powers to transform the historically good, bad, or benign into something else. In spite of the reality that history is immutable, emotions struggle mightily to revise the past. Often, those efforts rely on arguments suggesting history is a product of perspective. The harshness of past actions that had negative consequences—judged at the time to have been cruel—cannot be transformed into compassionate simply because they might have been motivated by love or concern. That perspective cannot alter the reality of history. The same is true of past good deeds. They cannot be modified into something evil or cruel simply by changing one’s perspectives of history.

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My limited research into the history of corrective lenses suggests that their first recorded use was by the emperor Nero, who was said to have viewed gladiatorial games using an emerald. The first corrective lenses supposedly were invented by Abbas Ibn Firnas, who lived between 809 and 887 A.D. I suspect the availability of corrective lenses was quite limited until considerably later. Before they were widely available, most people who suffered from poor eyesight must have had to simply put up with it. Before I had cataract surgery, my distance vision without glasses was abysmal. Though I did not attempt to go without glasses for days at a time, I imagine day-by-day life would have been extremely challenging. But I have always had options. People who lived before eyeglasses had been invented did not have those options. Even today, I sense that many, many, many people the world over do not have access to eyeglasses. When faced with spending limited resources on food or on improved vision, food certainly must win out. Now, with lens implants in my eyes, my distance vision is vastly improved, but my near-vision without glasses is utterly insufficient to allow me to read. I could afford cataract surgery (I had to pay for it…insurance did not cover it and my surgery took place before I was eligible for Medicare). My gut tells me the vast majority of the world’s population cannot afford that expense, which most of us almost take for granted. We are incredibly fortunate. We should be deeply grateful for our good fortune. And, to the extent we can, we should share it.

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I spent an hour and a half with a therapist yesterday. The session was a “getting to know you” introduction. During the conversation, my health was among the subjects we covered. While telling her about challenges to my health over the years, I told her I had “dodged a bullet” several times, beginning with the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease when I was 18, which put me in the hospital a number of times over the years, including once while on a business trip to Toledo, Ohio, where I underwent surgery for a suspected appendicitis (I was 37 years old at the time). It was the Crohn’s. The surgeon removed a very long piece of my small intestines; though I have had a few more flare-ups (including one that began within 12 hours of arriving in Vienna, Austria and put me in the hospital for five days before flying home), it seems I have been mostly in remission ever sense. And I told her about my double-bypass heart surgery when I was fifty years old and about the removal of the lower lobe lobe of my right lung due to lung cancer and about a brief hospitalization for pancreatitis. She learned that my mother and father died when I was in my early thirties and that my oldest sister died almost years ago and that my brother who was closest in age to me died early last year and that my wife of almost 41 years died almost three years ago.  The therapist suggested that all of my health issues and the emotional traumas of deaths and illnesses in my family were “bullets.” As I consider my history of major and minor physical and emotional traumas, I marvel that I have made it as far as I have. But that may be a bit overly-dramatic. I can be something of a drama-fiend. The conversation caused me to reflect, though, on the “punches” thrown at me over the years. And I realized my experiences pale in comparison to many, many other people who also have withstood such punches. Most people tend to be resilient, I think. My experiences are far from unique; just part of the process of living and coping with the world around me.

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We have not decided what we are going to do over Christmas. We’ve decided not to make any plans until after my appointment with my oncologist late next week, following my CT scan. Just in case. Assuming all is well, we’re considering the possibility of going to Mississippi or to the south Texas coast. Or staying here and having a leg of lamb or prime rib for Christmas dinner. Having those options, and many more, is yet another reason to be grateful for our good fortune. The fact that I can go to the refrigerator to get a low-fat peach yoghurt for breakfast is yet another reason; and it is one for which I will be grateful right now. I am trying to discard the darkness.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for years. It added enormous pressure to everyday life, turning minor stresses into traumas. Anxieties blossomed into depressions. Depressions grew more painful and powerful, becoming more dangerous and in too many cases, deadly. An NPR article, reporting the results of an American Psychological Association (APA) survey, says “more people are seeking help for certain kinds of mental health issues, especially anxiety disorders, depression, and trauma and stress related disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep disturbances and addiction.” The APA survey also reveals that more than half of responding psychologists have no openings for new patients. The senior director of health care innovations at APA, Vaile Wright, says “…there are a variety of ways that individuals experienced trauma during the pandemic. It could be the loss of a loved one and the grief that comes along with that. It could be one’s own sickness and the impact of hospitalizations.” Looking back at my experiences during the worst of the pandemic, when thankfully I did not suffer directly from the virus,  I recognize that period had a lasting effect on me that cannot be erased, no matter how much support or treatment I could receive. Many, many people had experiences that were magnified several-fold. I cannot imagine trying to cope with losing multiple members of one’s family and friends to COVID while being sick with the virus personally. Considering the millions of people who were directly affected, it is no wonder many psychologists say there is a mental health crisis in this country. Worldwide, is a more realistic scope, I think.

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The sky beyond the trees is pale blue, almost white, and the forest is dead-still. The few remaining leaves are frozen in space, as if in a still-life painting. Even pine needles are absolutely motionless. It is not hard to believe that, by waving my hand to introduce even a slight movement to the air outside my window, I could cause the leaves to become agitated and alive with activity. The most modest breeze will accomplish that, though. When the air decides to move on from where it rests, motionless, it will disturb the leaves’ peace. What, I wonder, give air a reason to move on? What motivates movement? As I glance up toward a distant tree-top, I see movement; a bird, perhaps, or a squirrel. The motion is brief, though. The air is so still it cannot be jostled into sustained movement by something so small.

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Much to my chagrin, I was awakened at 6 by my alarm clock. I set it last night as a back-up, just in case I did not awake early. I have to get dressed and ready to drive into town by 8. My desired leisure time this morning is just a wish; an unfulfilled dream. The calendar for the day refuses to give me any extended periods of tranquility. I have obligations tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, as well. Ach! Why do I allow myself to get into such situations?

A day—like today—can begin on an off-note. I got up much later than usual, which by itself can make the day feel like a four-cylinder car running on three cylinders. A routine damaged in that way opens the flood gates to additional deviations from whatever semblance of “normal” I might follow in my customary engagement with the morning. It’s all psychological, of course. It’s my mental response to a world that feels somewhat out of adjustment. Somewhat, hell. Considerably. Massively. Again, it’s all in my mind. But it feels physical, in the sense that I feel like the atmosphere is extremely heavy. Heavy enough that I have to exert all my strength to remain upright. That physical sensation accompanies an imaginary psychological one: a limited but growing fear that the atmospheric pressure is intentionally attempting to crush me. I know, of course, that is not happening; but it is my abstract reaction to the world around me seeming especially and peculiarly out of sorts. The fact that the CT scan, which my oncologist wants done as soon as possible, is not scheduled for almost a week from now and I will not know the results until two days later, probably contributes to my feeling on edge. I cannot control the schedule, so I should not let it bother me. I tell myself not to worry…and I don’t…but simply being conscious of the fact that the scan could deliver unwelcome news may be contributing to mental state. Though reading an article about grief probably added to it. Grief and regret are tied inextricably to one another. I will discuss grief and regret and more when I visit with a therapist on Thursday morning. I wonder whether that introductory session, when I will meet the therapist for the first time, will contribute to my emotional tangle or will help alleviate it? Time, alone, will tell.

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We are having an early dinner with friends this afternoon on the eve of their departure for a European river cruise vacation. I have no doubt they will enjoy the experience immensely. It is the sort of experience people work for years and years to pursue. People tend to work not only to sustain their lifestyles over the course of their working years; they work to accumulate resources that will enable them to enjoy leisure in retirement. If I had started planning for specific retirement objectives—experiences I wanted to have—when I was new to the workforce, I might have accumulated more money than I have today. But had I set an objective based on my life as it was back then, I would have been severely disappointed at circumstances that intervened between then and now. I was—and remain—severely disappointed at those intervening circumstances, anyway. But everyone experiences events that derail their objectives and the severity of that disappointment declines over time; it never disappears, though. Terrible trauma stays with a person for the remainder of his life, though its intensity declines as time attempts to mend the memory with scars. This paragraph illustrates how utterly out of whack my brain is this morning; I drift between thinking of dinner, musing about retirement planning, and remembering traumatic events that changed the course of my life. I wonder whether, if I were to be placed in a medically-induced coma for a month, my mind would sort itself out during that mental vacation? I doubt I will give it a try.

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Today I will go to my oncologist’s office to pick up some deliciously flavored barium in preparation for my CT scan next week. While I’m out, I may stop by the bank and get sufficient cash to stock up on some mind-altering gummies. I probably should take care of other errands while I am in town. I may make a list. I’ll probably leave it on my desk when I leave.

According to a group labeled “Psycho Physicists” by Native Communications, Inc. of Manitoba, Canada, the eleven main colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, gray, black and white)—when altered by the shades of light and levels of red-green and yellow-blue visible to the human eye—combine into 10 million shades of color. But at the same time, the group claims “today’s standard computer screen shows over 16 million hues of color for a single full color image.” Maybe the seeming discrepancy is due to confusing hues and shades. Or perhaps any attempt to calculate the total number of combinations of colors is pointless, given the endlessly incremental nature of color, hue, and shade combinations. But questions about the differences between color and hue must arise (and must be answered) before arriving at any reasonable and believable answers. And an actual count of all the combinations may be impossible. The universe would be a simpler place (from the human perspective) if we viewed the world in shades of grey, rather than in color. Most marine mammals are monochromatic. Humans are trichromatic. Male tamarins and spider monkeys only have two cones (dichromatic), with females split between trichromacy and dichromacy. The only animals that have no cones at all, and therefore are incapable of color vision, are skates. The difference between having monochromatic vision and no color vision at all seems a bit confusing, although perhaps monochromatic vision might not be limited to seeing in black and white—maybe creatures with monochromatic vision can see only in shades of red or green or…the possibilities either are endless or severely limited; hard to say which.

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As the preceding paragraph illustrates, questions about “simple” matters like color and vision can have limitless numbers of answers, none of which can be relied upon as “final.” Information and facts and knowledge blur into an imprecise haze if we attempt to understand them all at once. It is for that reason—among others—that humans tend to limit their interests in ways that enable at least modest clarity. We try to make out figures in the mist by figuratively stripping away intrusive images that interfere with precision. That is true of language, art, medicine, sound…every single aspect of our existence and our perception of the existence of everything outside ourselves. Complexity, then, is embedded in the realities with which we must deal every moment of our lives. Every. Single. Moment. There can be no serenity when complexity is so utterly impossible to understand. Chaos prevents us from achieving peace. Tranquility is an imaginary state that cannot be achieved, no matter how hard we try—and no matter whether we abandon its pursuit. Yet we can be satisfied, more or less, with an approximation of tranquility. Comparative serenity allows us to experience a noisy sample of what that imaginary state of peace must be like. Dreamless sleep—total unconsciousness—may be as close to actual serenity as we will ever get.

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Two hours have flown by since I abandoned my attempt to experience an approximation of peace/serenity. I have not been especially productive in those two hours, but neither have I been unproductive. I washed some dishes, prepared food for the then-sleeping cat, made espresso, attempted to play some word games but gave up when it became apparent my brain was too jumbled to accomplish anything of consequence…and, of course, wrote this post. And more, but not much. I skimmed world news, but gave up on learning about anything that could bring about peace because there was nothing in the news that could have enabled that to happen. With all the wonders of life on this planet, humans choose, instead, to still focus so damn much attention on hatred and domination and maximizing power over other humans. I am disappointed in humanity, which includes myself. If I find the human condition so offensive, why do I not do something about it? Why do I not solve the problems of war, starvation, thirst, homelessness, violence, disease, and the like? I would, but other obligations that command my attention. We all have such excuses.

The seasons transform hardwood forests. Buds begin to erupt in early Spring; by Summer, leaves are so thick, only dappled light gets through to the forest floor. In early Fall, trees and shrubs begin to change colors and textures in preparation for the massive leaf-drop in late Fall. That event leaves the forest denuded except for scattered evergreens and a few stubborn hardwoods whose brown leaves refuse to drop until Spring. The difference between the lush, verdant environment of late Spring and the spare, naked look of late Fall is remarkable. Viewing the woods outside my windows during those two seasons, I feel like I am looking at two entirely different places in two entirely different moments in time. And I suppose I am. People have only one experience of youth and only one impending mortality; forests, on the other hand, annually cycle through birth and death. Youth and old age repeat dozens or hundreds or even thousands of times in the lifetime of a forest. I wonder whether—if people were to carefully examine how forests seem to experience an easy comfort with change and learn from forests’ experience—we might accept and even revel in our own transformations?

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I was not quite ready to get up when the yowling beast jumped on the bed very early this morning and demonstrated how loud her voice can be. So, I ignored her and went back to sleep. Two hours later I awoke in daylight. Damn! It seems almost like half the day slipped by without me. Perhaps I needed the sleep; maybe that’s what knocked out my sinus headache. Whatever did it, I am ready to smoke a 10+ pound brisket. There’s still a bit of preparation to do, but I imagine I can put the monster in the smoker by 9:30. It will take quite a long time to cook; waiting as those hours slide by will be worth it, though, when I finally put a tender, juicy morsel of mesquite-smoked brisket in my mouth. It is increasingly rare for me to eat beef, which is a good thing, but those rare moments when I eat not just beef, but smoked beef, are magical.

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In addition to smoking a brisket, I intend to make a 1-pot pumpkin and turkey chili today. My sister-in-law made the recipe recently; it was one of the most wonderful foods I have ever put in my mouth. Though I doubt this double-cooking day is a sign that my love of cooking has returned, I am glad to be cooking a couple of dishes that will make a number of meals. It will be almost like having access to freezer dinners, except these dinners (or lunches or whatever) will be truly tasty. And just as easy as Stouffer’s (or whoever makes frozen dinners these days).

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I anxiously await a call to schedule my next CAT-scan. The last time I got unwelcome news from my oncologist was five years ago. That, too, came on a Friday afternoon. But at least that time I got actual information. Last Friday I got just a heads-up that something that “might” be of concern needs to be explored. I vacillate between very mild worry and complete dismissal, as if I am not even aware of it. I prefer the latter, but this morning the former seems to be taking center stage. Bah! If I could just sit at my desk, staring out the window and watching massive leaf-falls whenever there’s a gust of wind, I would happily be entranced by it.

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Time to get the smoker going. I cannot believe it’s almost 9 a.m. Minutes and hours can slip by unnoticed. They should not be ignored; they should be grasped and appreciated and celebrated and otherwise worshipped.

Despite the fact that we just took a short-distance, brief road trip, I crave another, longer one. Looking at a map of the USA, my eyes tend to drift toward either New Mexico and surrounding states, Oklahoma and Kansas, or Mississippi and Tennessee. In other words, a large swatch of the south-central part of the country. Once I hone in on any of those large areas, my eyes drift past the edges to nearby states. There was a time I would have liked to have taken only what William Least Heat Moon called the “blue highways,” or back roads. I still prefer the back roads, but the older I get, the more impatient I am to bypass geographic areas that offer little visual excitement; because, I suppose, the time left to me seems to get shorter by the day. My impatience sometimes leads me to take heavily-traveled roads and interstate highways. Obviously, I should have begun criss-crossing the country when I was much younger (but my impatience, then, was exponentially greater than it is today—odd, the competing obstacles of youth and its opposite). One of the reasons for my current interest in the south-central USA has to do with the season. Snow and ice tend to slow one’s travel and to increase one’s anxiety about driving. If, instead of December, April has just begun, I would focus on Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio. The sights and smells and sounds of different parts of the country are unique; every state has something to recommend it.  The impatience of youth can lead to regret in old age. “I wish I had taken time to…” That is such a familiar refrain; I hear other people say those words and I hear my own silent voice agreeing with the sad acknowledgement that impatience has taken its toll on what could have been and even greater number of memorable experiences.

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Growing up on the Texas coast, fishing in Corpus Christi Bay and the Intracoastal Canal were among the pastimes I enjoyed. Salt water fishing seems quite different to me from fresh water fishing; I greatly prefer the former, probably because I had much more experience fishing in salt water. It has been so many years since I have gone fishing in either fresh or salt water that I have almost no recollection of the techniques I once practiced: tying hooks with monofilament line, baiting hooks with live shrimp, deciding when and why to use treble hooks and when to use bait-holder hooks, etc. I did not recall that bait-hold is the proper term for “regular” hooks, as I called them, so I looked up the terms. I was surprised to learn that worm, jig, circle, weedless, siwash, octopus, Aberdeen, and kahle are terms for other types of hooks; I doubt I ever used any of them. I think I would like to go “deep-water” fishing in the Gulf of Mexico—something I’ve never done—with an experienced guide who could teach me the basics, as if I had never been fishing. It has been so long, that might as well be true. I have no interest in catching fish as trophies; only fish to eat. But I am beginning to question whether fishing to eat, which I do not have to do to survive, is just my way of rationalizing the “sport” of fishing. I question so much about life on this planet; enough that I think I might like living on another one, one gentler and infused with more compassion.

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I hope to be able to use my smoker within the next few days. I took the big Prime grade brisket I bought a a few months ago out of the freezer several days ago. It should be sufficiently thawed that I can prep it for smoking (rinse, trim excess fat, apply rub and pepper and let sit (in foil) overnight, then let it warm to room temperature). I have resigned myself to the fact that the brisket will not be as good as one smoked in an offset smoker filled with mesquite logs. But my little electric smoker and mesquite chips will, I hope, be at least reminiscent of that Central Texas flavor. I do so miss Central Texas brisket from places like Blacks, Kruez Market, Cooper’s, Snow’s, and others that produce spectacular smoked brisket (and heavily-peppered, course-ground sausage).  I do not eat nearly as much beef or pork or chicken as I used to. But I need to get back into cooking so I can get a sufficient volume and sufficient diversity of nutrients in my diet. I’ve grown deeply lazy about meal preparation. We rarely have an evening meal anymore; perhaps cheese and crackers, etc., but not a “meal.” Lunch, often at restaurants, usually is our main meal of the day. That is expensive and not nearly as healthful as carefully and consciously planned home-prepared meals. Speaking of home-prepared meals, I have a sudden and intense hankering for creamed salmon over rice, flavored at the table with a few judicious shakes of white pepper. I would happily eat such stuff for breakfast; mi novia prefers “breakfast food.”

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Speaking from experience, I can say with conviction that feeling more or less like a human is preferable to feeling more or less like a zombie. My head remains stuffy, but the splitting headache has improved, changing into a lightly throbbing but entirely tolerable headache. A couple of acetaminophen should rachet that down even more; decongestant should finish off the traces of zombiehood.

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I will treat myself with kid gloves this morning; relax and stay home, rather than go to church. As far as I can tell, today’s Illumination Service will be a repeat of the service from a year ago and two years ago and maybe even further back. I feel that playing hooky today is perfectly legitimate, especially since I have watched and listened to essentially the same service more than once.  That having been said, I may go make my third espresso, then shave and take a shower.

Yesterday’s splitting headache lasted far longer than I expected, but a lengthy morning nap—and one even longer in the afternoon—kept my mind off of it for a good part of the day. I suspect the culprit is sinus congestion. Whatever the cause, it is back this morning. Of what use are sinuses? They are simply cavities in the head whose uses are incompletely understood. Sinuses are not critical to one’s survival, if these assertions from a July 16, 2006 article from the San Diego Union-Tribune are correct: “One can do just fine without sinuses. People born without sinuses, or who have them surgically replaced, don’t appear to have any significant problems.” I have jokingly commented, more than once, that I should have my sinuses removed to eliminate the trouble they cause me. I had no idea their surgical removal was possible (and still find that possibility quite surprising), given that they are just cavities…holes. I would think surgical removal of holes in the head would leave larger holes. I’m not equipped this morning to think clearly about the matter, thanks at least in part to this damn headache. But I will forge ahead.

+++

If I could, I would go back to bed and get some more sleep, but the headache and the fact that I am not tired suggest I would be unsuccessful if I tried. So, instead, I’ve been wandering the internet, looking for good news and finding none. At least none of consequence. It might help if I looked in places where good news is relatively likely to be found. Instead, I look in places where news of concern is common. I checked my oncologist’s patient portal to see the results of the lab work from Tuesday’s visit to her office. My interest in those results arose in response to a call from her office yesterday, informing me that the doctor wants me to have a “scan” as soon as possible because the lab results revealed a high level of “tumor marker” in my blood. Naturally, I explored what that might mean. Though not a reliable indicator, it could mean the return of my cancer (hence my oncologist’s interest in a scan). That would be ironic and, of course, troubling. It has been five years since my surgery to remove the lower right lobe of my lung—and only a a month and a half since I had the chemo-port removed from my chest. Mi novia properly reminded me not to worry, as there is nothing I can do about it—just wait until I get the scan and listen to the doctor’s assessment of the results of the scan. I am more curious than worried. I do hope to discover it is “nothing,” but from what I’ve read, an elevated CEA (that’s the blood test) could mean things  other than cancer are going on. We shall see. In the meantime, I will try to focus my attention on other matters, things more appealing.

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Last night’s dream(s) were vivid but simultaneously boring and challenging. Why, I wonder, do dreams often retrieve elements of actual experience, while merging that reality with circumstances that have no basis in reality? My interest in the “meaning” of dreams ebbs and flows. This morning, I doubt there was meaning in my nocturnal visit to the actual past and the potential but unlikely future. The very fact that I give any credence to the idea that dreams have “meaning” irritates me at this very moment. This morning, I am of the opinion that dreams are nothing more than the mind creating an internal audio-visual record of  thoughts that combine real memories with uncontrollable future reactions to them. Or something like that. I do not know. I just guess and call my hunch half-believable.

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Night before last, we joined six friends for another periodic World Tour of Wines dinner. We raved to friends about how the food at these dinners had improved enormously when a well-known caterer/restauranteur took over meal preparation and delivery. And then we were served luke-warm coq au vin that was riddled with small pieces of chicken bones. The appetizer, salad, and dessert were excellent…but the main course…Ugh! One flop after several exceptional successes is not enough to change my mind about the caterer. But considering the per-person cost, I was surprised at the menu selection. Stop it, John! If you think you can do better, give it a shot.

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My fingers rested too heavily on the keyboard as my eyes closed. I woke from an incomplete introduction to an upright nap to find a long, long series of lines of the letter “g.” That is a sure sign I need to stop attempting to think through my fingers.

From an article in this morning’s New York Times website:  “there are a more living cells on Earth — a million trillion trillion, or 10^30 in math notation, a 1 followed by 30 zeros — than there are stars in the universe or grains of sand on our planet.”

I cannot comprehend a number that large. I tried to calculate how much time, in years, would pass in that number of seconds. One trillion seconds is roughly 31,546 years. That analysis stopped me from attempting any further calculations. Some people—perhaps most people—might question why I attempted to undertake such a calculation; what possible value might there be in finding the answer? In practical terms, not enough to warrant going to the trouble. But in terms of understanding…and knowledge…and feeding my curiosity…and various other measures, attempting to establish comparisons with figures I might better comprehend, there is enormous value hiding in my query. If nothing else, trying to understand such huge numbers helps clarify for me how irrelevant I am in the larger universe. And even within a bucket large enough to hold all the grains of sand on this planet. The headache with which I started this day is being magnified exponentially as I try to make sense out of these monstrous numbers. I will never make sense of them; they will remain mysteries for at least the next one trillion seconds.

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My thoughts this morning are jumbled; too many unimportant things on my mind, competing with considerably more meaningful subjects. I have tried to sort myself out so I might write something interesting or thought-provoking, but success has not been mine. That being the case, I will stop trying. Instead, I will take something for my headache; with good fortune, the headache will disappear before too much time has passed.

Tonight, we will attend a wine dinner that has long been on my short list of social engagements. The wines tonight will be from the Bordeaux region of France. The food paired with the wines (or vice versa) will be, of course, French. “Of course” may be a bit presumptuous, in that caterers often have to adapt to the availability of ingredients in recipes of some cuisines and the taste of the audience must, unfortunately, be taken into account. I am not a food snob—I do not like everything—but if you’re going to have French or Italian or Ethiopian or Lebanese food, I think you ought to have those foods as close as possible to the way they are commonly prepared…not a bastardized version adjusted to satisfy an amalgamation of parochial tastes to appeal to any preferences (or none at all). Hmm…apparently I woke up a tad cranky this morning. The fact that I closed the cat up in the TV room so I don’t have to listen to her incessant yowling confirms that assessment of my mood. Growl!

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I thought I learned much of what there is to know about grief by experiencing it. But there is much more to it than I thought. Recently, I read something that suggested there are five or six “stages” to grief. I doubt grief can be so easily analyzed and categorized. Expressions of grief are not limited to mental or emotional displays. I am convinced that complex interactions take place between the mind and the body, so that neither component can experience grief without the other. Grief can affect either or both; when it is both, it can be debilitating. And it can lead a person down a very dark path. I’ll be learning more about grief when I visit, in about a week, with someone who has experience dealing with with the impacts of grief and ways to confront and deal with it. I have been interested in the topic of grief for a very long time. More recently, my interest has morphed from simple curiosity to a passionate desire to know what it is and how it can be derailed in some way.

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For the first time in well over a thousand years, I watched some game shows on TV last night: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I think I used to watch Jeopardy with my mother; it was both fun and educational. There were some other interesting and educational game shows in years past (and may be today, but I have no idea what they might be). Shows like Password and College Bowl. None of those shows were high-brow educational; just fun, entertaining, curiosity-fueling educational. I was able to watch last night’s game shows because we have—at least for the moment—YouTubeTV, which gives us access to huge numbers of cable and streaming channels. I have missed PBS Newshour ever since I moved into this house, where we opted not to sign up for the limited options then available to us for television service. We then opted for streaming a few reliably good sources like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video (well, that comes with Amazon Prime), Acorn, and Paramount Plus. I now have a broader range of options, though I doubt I’ll use more than a couple with any regularity; most of my watching will remain on the originally-contracted streaming channels.

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Sometimes I feel woefully ignorant of the structure and operation of the governments of even large, powerful countries—but occasionally I learn that my embarrassingly limited knowledge is encyclopedic in comparison to others who I would expect to be at least moderately aware. Schools teaching “civics” that is limited to U.S. municipal, state, and federal governments is valuable, but utterly inadequate. We, collectively, should understand the way other countries’ governments function. The political operations of countries like Iran and India and Japan can have enormous effects on the U.S., so we all should be cognizant of how they are functioning. WAIT JUST A MINUTE! How much impact do I have on any of those countries? Given that I have NO IMPACT of them, why should I keep up with them? How will that prepare me for…whatever? Those questions are irrelevant; as human beings, we have an obligation to understand the world in which we live, so that our impact on that world is as gentle and as positively productive as possible. Right! Wishful thinking does not turn ideas into reality. Ideas are strictly fantasies unless they are implemented. This back and forth is going nowhere; we’re going to have to “agree to disagree.” Nonsense! I do not have to accept your opinions (for that’s all they are) any more than you have to accept mine! Hmm. But we’re two people in the same body. Two people operating out of the same skull, with the same brain. How can that be? If we’re both in the same place at the same time, is it possible to hold conflicting opinions? Yes. It’s one of the things I do best. This paragraph began as a result of my thoughts about unexpected developments in Dutch efforts to form a coalition government. I just never got around to exploring my thoughts about that…at least those thoughts did not emerge from my fingers. Not yet, anyway.

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I know who you are…some of you. I’ll be thinking about you today. Don’t do anything to upset my positive thoughts, please. Just have an uneventful, pleasant, relaxing day. As for you I do not know, if any; ditto.

My thoughts this morning are tangled, as if some are fresh and new, yet are entwined with old, ragged ones. Together, those multigenerational thoughts form a grey web that blurs those thoughts, a translucent film that impedes ideas from coalescing into answers. The clarity of philosophy I had hoped to experience this morning eludes me. My philosophies pair perfectly with their opposites; I see and understand too many sides to every issue. Philosophies should compete with one another, not attempt to prove the rectitude of competing philosophies that are in outright conflict with themselves. But who am I to make pronouncements about the proper behavior of philosophies? Listen to what I say, but beware of believing. The world plays tricks on itself every day.

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An unguarded afternoon, which intoxicants can free of the behavioral rules normally followed during the course of that part of the day, can leave a person feeling embarrassed and regretful. The same thing can happen, of course, during other dayparts. But the comparative infrequency of such free-flowing afternoons tends to amplify brittle emotional reactions. Daypart. I started using that term to differentiate between different segments of the day; I heard the term quite some time ago, as used by television executives. The way I divide the day into components differs from the way others might. Daypart is a term that originated in broadcast programming. Some broadcasters separate their schedules into these various dayparts: Morning, Daytime, Early fringe, Prime time, Late news, Late fringe, and Late night. My days tend not to have as many parts. But sometimes, the number of dayparts in my depiction of the passage of a day can be astonishingly large. I strayed quite a distance from my opening thoughts. And that may be best. My thoughts can ricochet like bullets fired into the corner of room that has solid steel walls. Fragments of the bullet (or the thought) are left behind each time it hits a solid surface. With enough power propelling it (which, I realize, does not exist), the bullet (or thought) eventually would lose all its mass, which would have been left on the solid surface.

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Most of the items on our to-do lists (whether physical lists or just mental accounts) are not vital. In fact, only life-or-death obligations are absolutely necessary. [Even then, those items can be ignored, leading to deadly outcomes.] The rest are options, albeit sometimes obligations that—if not completed—can have extremely unpleasant consequences. When deciding what items to attack from an impossibly long to-do list, one may find it helpful to order the list by priority—or by severity of consequences. I am not suggesting I regularly practice this (I cannot claim to have ever done it, at least consciously); but it seems to me like sound reasoning.

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I am no more a poet than bacon is a vegetable, but I sometimes feel compelled to write poetry. Free-verse poetry often strips away unnecessary words, leaving only the words required to tell a story or deliver a message. Somehow, that spare style can be exquisitely beautiful, using negative space to complete the picture sketched with a smattering of words. I have written only a few poems of which I am proud. And, of course, I do not remember much about them. I do remember one of them, but only its message, not the words used to craft that message; I had to copy it to produce it here. The poem, Into Salt.

Into Salt.

The water was gentle that February day, the waves
subdued as if they knew we were coming and why.

Salt in the air and in our eyes.  Water splashing
against the beach and running down the rivers on our faces.

Wading, slowly, into the warm salt water,
hating every step and cursing every breath untaken.

Holding onto one another the way we
no longer could hold onto her.

Releasing the contents of a temporary plastic
urn into the permanence of an infinite sea.

Impossibly hard, brutally final, an ending come too early
in a world in which we too often say what we should too late.

The gentleness of the water was unwelcome,
waves should have pounded the sand,
wind should have shrieked in rebellion.

She had been someone who loved and
was loved, someone who cared and was cared for.

That final soul-crushing goodbye broke life into a million
shards, like brittle glass that cannot be made whole again.

You just go on, remembering what melted into salt.

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Yesterday’s bloodletting took just a few minutes. I was taken to an examination room at the far end of the medical suite, where a nurse made quick work of filling three tubes with my blood. She took my blood pressure (which was considerably lower than it is when I take it at home) and asked me questions about my medications. And then she sent me on my way. As I left, I was told I have an appointment scheduled in about four months for a follow-up with my oncologist. The longer the time between appointments, the better.

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The cat woke me (for the umpteenth time) around 6. I had expected to get up considerably earlier, but being awakened frequently during the night made me decide, unconsciously, otherwise. I am awake now, but can imagine a nap in the not-too-distant future.

Roughly thirteen years ago, essentially all news media were focused on the plight of 33 Chilean miners caught inside a collapsed gold and copper mine.  Ultimately, they were trapped for  69 days before being rescued. Media coverage for the 41 miners who have been trapped beneath a collapsed Himalayan tunnel since November 15 has been far less all-encompassing. The story of the Chilean miners did not have to compete with Ukraine and Israel and Gaza, so the relatively low level of media interest in today’s story may be understandable—to an extent. But I cannot help but wonder whether the story coming out of India deals with people the media realizes are not valued as highly by the public as are people in Chile. I do not have an answer; I only have some curiosity which cannot be satisfied. Just minutes ago, rescuers reached the Indian miners—I hope the outcome is as positive for them as it was for the Chileans.

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Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

~ Dōgen Zenji ~

That quotation has fascinated me from the very first time I read it. I think I was enamored with it because I have experienced the wonder of looking at a little drop of water and seeing reflected in it my face and the entire landscape behind me. I marvel at that incredibly common reality. There is nothing about it that should surprise me, yet when I have seen the world reflected in a raindrop of a blade of grass I marvel at the magic.

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Another medical incursion into my privacy today—fortunately, it’s only a quick blood draw. I am not quite sure the lab work was scheduled for today by my oncologist, inasmuch as I do not have any more appointments with her within the near-term, but I will dutifully obey her instructions. I do sometimes listen to the admonitions of my doctors; when the instructions suit me, I follow them to a tee (I do not know how to write that…is it a golf tee or the letter T or a cup of freshly brewed tea?).

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The cat was rescued from the boarding house yesterday. So, at midnight, 2 a.m., and about 6 this morning, she worked on her “wakey!-wakey!” routine. If I had a house with a large porte cochère in front of it—a covered area big enough to serve as a “pet relief area” in rainy or snow weather—I might invite a cute little dog to move in. Perhaps the dog would be able to convince the cat to remain quiet until after I get up at, say, 5:00 or 5:30. Dog dreams.

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Time for another tiny espresso. It’s amazing how little I drink, compared to the amount of coffee I consume (when I consumed coffee regularly). Two or three little mini-cups and I am satisfied. I will now go pursue satisfaction.

I spent the last two hours writing and rewriting the president’s message for the church newsletter. The darkness I bring to so much of what I write on this blog found its way to the first three drafts—which I started writing the day before yesterdays—of the newsletter message. I abandoned and deleted those drafts—darkness is not what the congregation wants to see in messages from the president. The fourth draft may be acceptable. I will let it settle for a while and read it again; I will ask mi novia to read it and give me her opinion. I could never have been successful as a paid assignment-based writer because my mood dictates, in large part, what spills from my fingers onto the keyboard. Oh, I can try to override my attitudes, but the degree to which I am successful in that endeavor is hit-and-miss.

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A recurring, but not frequent, theme in my writing involves my fantasy about starting over. Not from the beginning, but from the present. I have written about leaving everything behind, including (perhaps especially) my identity. All I would take is the money I could lay my hands on—I could not start over, at least not satisfactorily, in abject poverty. I would go to a place no one knows me and I would present myself as someone quite unlike the man I am. The history I would share about myself would be radically different from my real history. I would try to be an extreme extrovert, but that might be impossible for me to pull off. Failing that, I would have multiple personalities—I would be extroverted until I could no longer fake it and I probably would just be extremely shy and withdrawn. Or, maybe, I would make it easier on myself by simply shedding my historical surface self; that would not require acting. Just be me, but with a completely artificial past. Perhaps I would have been an artist or a tenured professor of psychology. Or maybe I would have been a farmer. Something very different from reality. It might be easier to conceal my past by pretending I am suffering from amnesia, having lost all memory of my past as a result of a tragic mountain-climbing accident, in which I slipped off of Mount Everest just after reaching the peak. Ach! The history would not be important; it would be the new present that would matter. How would I make friends? Would I? Would I even try? I have had issues with friends; actually, the issues involve defining who constitutes a friend and who constitutes only a pal. There is a difference, I have found. Friends reliably and consistently make time for one another.  Pals, not so much. But that’s another matter. I’m writing here about my new identity. How could I explain just showing up someplace? Amnesia might do it; I remember nothing of my past, including where I am from. I emerged into the present moment fully-formed but without any knowledge of history. Who is president? I don’t know; I’ll  have to check the newspapers. What year is it? Ditto. But I would need to know how to use modern technologies like computers, cell phones, etc., etc. That might take some thought. I am not sure just why I keep returning to this odd fantasy. It has been with me for many years; the first occurrence probably took place when I was in my early forties. Hmm. My version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but without the same impact. I should let the entire fantasy spill out of my fingers; one day, perhaps.

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An eye doctor appointment today…I hope to discover what’s causing a recurring irritation in my left eye, along with a grey film that sweeps back and forth, blurring my vision when it does. I will take a list of concerns. The doctor will wonder what kind of bizarre patient she has in her chair…some guy with a list of complaints about his eye, including dissatisfaction with his vision, his prescription lenses, and the earpieces of his glasses (they have created permanent indentations in both sides of his head, making him look like he was patched together from unrelated parts).

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Enough said. For now.

An advertisement’s tag-line caught my attention this morning: “It’s the giving season.” There was a time such an acknowledgement—that generosity and altruism has temporal limits—would have raised my ire. Time has tempered me, I suppose. Today, seeing that not-so-cleverly-expressed suggestion—that it is “time” for investments in expressions of care, appreciation, and love—just depresses me. A few years ago, a few of my acquaintances recognized the unpleasantness of the “seasonal” nature of giving by jointly agreeing to make giving to loved ones and to strangers in need a monthly affair. I liked the idea…a little…but it seemed a bit contrived. Yet the alternative, I think, to scheduling such stuff is to change one’s nature so that reminders to be generous and altruistic are unnecessary. I prefer the latter. Unfortunately, I only preach it; I have thus far been unable to make myself become the person who practices it.

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I slept much longer than usual last night. I went to bed very early and, in spite of waking several times (beginning at 3), I went back to sleep. I got up after 6. And I’ve been dawdling ever since. I think I was in bed for 10 or 11 hours. Sometimes, I feel the need to sleep much longer than usual; perhaps it’s necessary for me to occasionally recharge.  I’m still dawdling. We plan to go to church. First my S-I-L will visit for awhile. And I still must shower and shave and get dressed in clothes suitable for public viewing—paint-stained sweats and flip-flops would be frowned upon by even the church’s progressive congregation.

+++

The only leaves I see on the trees outside my window are bright orange. A few evergreens brighten the scene, as well. The ground is littered with brown leaves. Some people might the view outside my window as drab; I think it is beautiful.

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Time for me to hurry. Though I am not in the mood to hurry, I must scurry, nonetheless.

Plans change. Flexibility enables such changes. Thus, flexibility is good. For example, our plans last night included dinner at Doe’s, but on arrival, we discovered it was closed for the day. So we made an adjustment. Instead of steak, we had Vietnamese. Considering how hungry I was (not very), a vermicelli bowl was preferable to a mass of beef. And, earlier in the day, we viewed the Annie Leibovitz exhibit at Crystal Bridges, as planned, but did not go on to see the rest of the museum; we were tired and desired a nap…and some afternoon wine. Flexibility. This morning, after breakfast with mi novia’s family, we will drive back home, saving considerable money by checking out of the motel a day early. Flexibility. We can come back any time, at our pleasure. And we shall. We are flexible.

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I understand how small groups of like-minded people can decide to form communes of one kind or another. By pooling their financial resources, they can create refuges that offer them protections against a society gone mad. The protections afforded them cannot be guaranteed, but banding together improves their chances of avoiding the insanity of dangerous social deviance on steroids. Unfortunately, pursuing such protections requires risk-taking and bravery, two elements in short supply. We (the collective “we”) are too comfortable to take risks, even when avoiding those risks is more dangerous and the avoidance is more likely to result in chaos. We think “it can’t happen here…not to us,” but it can. And it might.

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Time to move along, here.

Another atypical Thanksgiving. Like so many millions of others, we spent the day on the road, but our destination for the day was not “home” or “family.” Nor were we aiming for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Our objective was to reach an upscale motel. Our food intake for the day began with a breakfast/lunch of fast-food fish sandwich and fries, followed an hour or so later by a “pig in a blanket” (in lieu of a hoped-for apple fritter, which was sold out) from a small-town chain bakery. Later, at the motel, we shared a bag of pretzels, some cheetohs, ice cream sandwiches, and diet Cokes. And some red wine, later, while we watched an assortment of swill on cable TV. Today, we will go to a Crystal Bridges Museum to view an exhibit of photographs by Annie Leibovitz. Tomorrow will be the “family” day, when we will have breakfast with mi novia’s daughter and son-in-law and her grandson, who are to be in town for an Arkansas Razor backs football game.

There was a time when I eschewed tradition. Lately, I sometimes wish I could experience certain holidays (like Thanksgiving) as they are presented by savvy marketers. And as I experienced them, in part, in my youth. I guess I am occasionally overcome by waves of sentimentality for life as I wish it had been and could be. Gatherings of family have become rare, almost to the point of existing only in the imagination. As we age and as members of our family die, such gatherings are no longer possible. So we improvise and adapt. And “family” takes on new meanings, adjusting to new circumstances and new realities.

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Plans are subject to circumstances beyond our control. The Russian invasion of Ukraine…the Hamas attack on Israel…the Israelis’ ongoing retaliation…companies reneging on their promises…hurricanes…earthquakes…sudden illnesses… dislocations of financial markets…equipment malfunctions…the list is endless. So, what is the point of planning? Because circumstances that can derail our plans are not as likely as our plans playing out as intended. But we should, to the extent reasonable and possible, steel ourselves against those disruptive circumstances. Life’s journey does not always unfold as we intend.  Readying ourselves for unwelcome surprises can lessen their effects.

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I watched the last few moments last night of a broadcast last of a video, ostensibly made by a Palestinian woman who died shortly after it was made. My understanding is that she spoke of the untenable circumstances experienced by Palestinian civilians due to the unrelenting Israeli response to the Hamas attack. What struck me was that she appeared to me that she was wearing makeup. I am a skeptic. Though I have no doubt that innocent Palestinian civilians are being subjected to horrors beyond my comprehension, I wonder why this woman would have spent time and energy on makeup in such circumstances.

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Where does one’s control over one’s own life begin and end? The question cannot be answered completely nor satisfactorily. So why ask the unanswerable question?

Today is Thanksgiving. Ten years ago, I wrote a very lengthy screed about the history of the holiday. I will not attempt to rewrite it, nor will I supplement it with new information or new perspectives. It is what it is. Later today, mi novia and I will make our way to a place where we will celebrate Thanksgiving in our own unique way. I suspect our Thanksgiving meal may involve Chinese food. Black Friday, for us, will not focus on the greed of acquiring sale-priced items; instead, we will be museum visitors. Small Business Saturday will not involve greater greed on a smaller scale; instead, we will breakfast with members of mi novia’s family. I will make it my mission today to think about people and experiences—past, present, and future—for whom/which I have been, am, and will be grateful. Gratitude and appreciation are the objectives of the day. To the extent possible, I will try to maintain those objectives every day going forward. That is an admirable aim; I hope I have the discipline to accomplish the goal on a continuing basis. May that be true of us all.

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Many years ago, my late wife and I took advantage of one of my business trips to England by taking a ferry, after my obligations in England had been concluded, from the coast of England to the Netherlands. My memory of the experience is dim, but I believe we took a ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland. From Hook of Holland, we went to Amsterdam, though I do recall how we made that part of the trip. After a few days in Amsterdam, we took a train to Paris. At the time, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was known for being an open, welcoming, tolerant country. Ever since that trip, when I witnessed an incredible openness, I have admired the Netherlands. The country is one of several European nations that have seemed to me to understand and appreciate the beauty of tolerance and diversity.

However, the just-concluded Dutch election revealed a massive change in Dutch voters’ attitudes, with an anti-Islam populist party winning a huge victory, capturing 37 of 150 seats in the lower house of parliament. The leader of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), Geert Wilders, has called for the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands; he has said he wants no mosques or Islamic schools in the country. He also wants a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, a total halt to accepting asylum-seekers, and migrant pushbacks at Dutch borders.

Obviously, the enormous change did not occur in a void. A massive influx of immigrants over the course of the past several years has impacted the way immigrants are perceived. Many of the more recent immigrants have come from cultures radically different from that of the Netherlands. Though the Netherlands’ attitudes and the country’s welcoming policies toward immigration have been among the attributes that allowed immigrants to enter the country, many immigrants apparently find the country’s culture of tolerance intolerable. The clash of cultures and Dutch concerns about real or perceived threats from immigrants seem to have contributed to the backlash. Welcoming people with open arms seems to have had unintended consequences. Tolerance and diversity, once almost universally embraced in Dutch culture, appear to be decaying in the face of intolerance and a tendency for “birds of a feather flocking together.” Two cultures with different characteristics and attributes and values can enrich one another—but they just as easily can clash and attack one another. What can be done to encourage the former and discourage the latter? I wish I knew.

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Time for more espresso. I am grateful that I can enjoy that luxury. That little luxury is one of a million things for which I am more than a little thankful. I am incredibly fortunate and I know it. It’s sad to realize there are so many millions of people who are not as lucky. That is true every day, not just on this day when many of the fortunate few sprinkle some of their good fortune on the less fortunate. If only those sprinkles were enhanced and made more frequent. Giving someone a turkey dinner may satisfy our wish to feel benevolent, but I think poor people need money much more than they need turkey. Stop it, John! Go get your damn espresso and quit being so damn judgmental.

The glass of incandescent light bulbs is onion-skin thin. So, too, is the glass of fluorescent tubes. But that glass is remarkably strong, yet astonishingly fragile. When either of them break, the explosive shatter suggests the sudden destruction of a mysterious power that holds them together. Otherwise, why would they fracture so violently and so completely? Their glass illustrates a physical contradiction: incredible strength and almost unmatched frailty. Physics might explain the incongruity; but magic, too, might offer an explanation. If magic is the province of magicians, then physics must be the province of physicians. This is going nowhere; nor am I…at least not at the moment.

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This morning, I read a story about a man, who had just entered into the USA illegally in the Arizona desert. There, he encountered a young boy who had escaped from a vehicle that was involved in a terrible accident that left his mother badly injured. The vehicle was resting precariously on a mountainside. Rather than continuing his quest for work in the USA, the man stayed with the boy and intentionally calling attention the two of them. The man did that despite the fact that he knew he would be detained and deported if they were rescued. They were rescued. He was detained and deported. The man was honored for his life-saving efforts; his heroism. The man stayed in Mexico after the ordeal. The boy moved to Pennsylvania to live with an aunt (his mother died in the accident…his father had died earlier). The expected reunion between hero and the boy did not happen. Still, the story was heart-warming. And it left a question I cannot answer: would I have done what the man did, knowing the consequences? I hope so, but I cannot be sure because I have not had that experience. And I have my doubts. Doubting oneself is troubling.

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Sixty years ago today, in the midst of an already steep decline, human decency suddenly was ripped from our subconsciousness and bludgeoned until it was unrecognizable, its bloody and lifeless image etched permanently in our collective psyches. The dam broke with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, setting in motion the flood that emptied the remaining reservoir of innocence. Despite half-hearted attempts over the years, the dam has never been repaired. Stories we tell ourselves about the fundamental goodness of humankind are repeatedly revealed to be either well-intentioned fabrications or outright lies. Yet, our gullibility in full view, we cling to religion and dozens (or more) of other emotional analgesics, telling ourselves “hope springs eternal.” That attitude masks the pain of true knowledge; unvarnished understanding. Though the pain may be softened, the perpetual throbbing ache left by the weapons of reality is evidence of a wound that will not heal.

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I can take criticisms but not compliments.

~ James Taylor ~

I understand that emotional reaction to compliments; I have a hard time sometimes…I usually assume they are the result of a person wanting to be nice, not truthful. But when I give a compliment, I mean it, yet I wonder whether the recipient of my compliment things I am “just being nice.” Hard to know. I suspect it’s a little of both, when you look at all the compliments I have given, but I hate the idea of someone not believing the compliment was deserved.

He who wherever he goes is attached
to no person and to no place by ties of flesh;
who accepts good and evil alike,
neither welcoming the one
nor shirking from the other—
take it that such a one has attained
Perfection.

~ Bhagavad Gita ~

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The impossibility of understanding life accompanies us all our days. When, finally, we admit our inability to comprehend the incomprehensible, we stop attempting to explain the inexplicable. But the eternal mystery and the perpetual curiosity last as long as life confounds our capacity to know. Are those everlasting questions finally stilled? What happens to consciousness when it ceases to exist as awareness? Does it simply disappear, or does it change into another form—one that also defies the physical laws by which we define our existence?  Perhaps consciousness is the manifestation of a kind of energy we do not recognize, but that we take for granted. Unlike the physical world, it seems that consciousness cannot be precisely measured and cataloged. Some say sleep is the closest we can come to death without actually dying. Others argue that only total under total anesthesia are we utterly without consciousness and, therefore, in a death-like state. I doubt both—because both experiences take place in conjunction with a functioning physical body, one in which a connection, regardless of how tenuous, exists between two “living” states of being. Consciousness, therefore is still “there.” In death, consciousness has transformed into something no one fully understands.

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Now, on a completely different note, the matter at hand is this: I have had a hankering for nachos for the last day or two. Not the kind of nachos you might find at a stadium or movie theater—chips drenched in soupy yellow-orange cheese-like goo. The nachos I’m after consist of corn chips individually spread with refried beans and topped with shredded sharp cheddar cheese and slices of pickled jalapeños. But the ones I plan to make will be made even more delightful with the addition of magnificent chorizo imported from Arizona. If I were more energetic, I might make them for breakfast, but I must direct my morning energy, instead, to blowing leaves off the driveway before they become soaked, slippery, and ultimately slimy and steadfastly stuck to the concrete. So, the nachos will have to wait until lunchtime or dinnertime. I hope I can wait that long.

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This morning, I awoke early—roughly 4:30—to the sounds of a yowling cat. I got up, fed the beast, and attempted to blog. Twice I was interrupted by the cat, who insisted on sitting on my chest as I leaned back in my desk chair and massaged her face and neck and front legs. When I stopped and put her down, she seemed miffed for a few minutes and then confirmed her miffitude by yowling even more. She was extremely unhappy when, after I was notified by text and email that my grocery order was ready, I left to pick up the order. Poor creature; she believes my failure to respond instantly to her every wish is equivalent to the cruelty of physical abuse.

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Time to finish my third espresso, then blow leaves. Perhaps food will follow. And, maybe I will return to my philosophical inquisitiveness. I want to know what constitutes life. It is not simply the absence of death. It is something far more complex, but not necessarily any more meaningful. If there is any true meaning in either.

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I learned this morning that prothrombin is a plasma protein involved in blood coagulation that, on activation by factors in the plasma, is converted to thrombin. I had no reason to learn that fascinating fact, but I did it, anyway. I doubt I will retain that knowledge.

From a Long-Ago Archived Blog, Musings from Myopia, My Original Blog: Posted on August 10, 2008. 

I’ve grown so accustomed to using this blog to release pent-up (and not-so-pent-up) emotions. It’s hard not to let it be an easy outlet for my anger, fear, joy, loneliness, happiness, sullenness, emptiness, or angst. But there are some things one just shouldn’t share with a blog or, rather, with the rest of the world. Some pieces of our personal lives should remain private, hidden, and shielded from public view. But that’s increasingly hard to execute.

This is not news to most readers, I know. It’s probably not news to me. But today I am thinking about the value of anonymity or, at least, the desirability of anonymity. Try as we might, we cannot maintain anonymity the way we once could. Online searches of  Google or Intellius or dozens of other sites can give us details about people that we probably shouldn’t know and certainly shouldn’t want to know.

The identity of people posting messages on blogs or in chat rooms or simply responding to email messages is not private. With certain modest skills and basic tools at hand, one’s most private electronic communications to one’s innermost circle can be fodder for YouTube or FaceBook or god knows what else.

By the time it occurs to you that your identity, your entire life, is available for public view, it’s probably too late. Your secrets are out.

A would-be employer is reading your personal medical history with interest and horror and is busy deleting the job offer she had just written. Details of your visit to an abortion clinic as a teenager are being reviewed by investigative reporters, their neighbors, and your minister’s mistress. Your long-ago-expunged arrest record for DUI in the idiocy of your youth finds its way onto your employer’s desk at M.A.D.D. headquarters. Your sordid affair with a married biological weapons specialist in Second Life is thrown in your face by your spouse and your fellow members of the board of Amnesty International.

The hardest part of facing the fact that there is no anonymity anymore is that people you trust may be feeding details of your life to recipients who are hungry for the slightest shred of damning dirt. Either that, or you’re growing paranoid. But you better not let that cat out of the bag; it could be just the tidbit they’ve been looking for.

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Occasionally I dredge up the remnants of my original blog, which I called Musings from Myopia. Some of its contents strike me as funny. Other posts trigger memories of a time I cannot bring back; those can, and often do, bring me to tears. I am sometimes surprised by how often I mentioned my wife. That lifetime ago was so comfortable and, in many ways, perfect; I did not realize just how perfect it was until much, much later. Too late. That old blog, Musings from Myopia, had a consistent readership of one: my late sister. The lack of readers did not bother me in the slightest. I wrote it for myself, just as I write this one for me. Despite my frequent use of the old blog as a way to vent anger and frustrations, I recorded quite a lot of day-to-day minutia about my life. These days, I get both enjoyment and torment from reading those old posts. I sometimes think about gathering all of my blog posts…from all of my blogs…and then selecting many of them to edit for inclusion in a compilation. Some people might enjoy reading them. Most probably would not enjoy them in the least. Just another fantasy. Wading through several thousand pages of stream-of-consciousness-writing would be quite an undertaking. I am not sure how I would decide which of my posts to include and how much of each one I might extract for inclusion. It would be work. More work than I might want to perform. And it probably would require far more focused attention than I would be able to devote to the task. Still, I dream about doing it. But I probably won’t. I might find it terribly disheartening to discover, after publishing the monstrous volume(s), that sales of the book languished in the low two figures.

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I have no pressing obligations today. I will spend the day at home, perhaps doing some long-delayed housework, maybe forcing myself to do some long-delayed church-work, possibly just reminiscing about long-ago-missed opportunities. I cannot seem to force myself to adjust my frame of mind this morning. Just being alive takes too much energy. But the thought of quitting is overwhelming. So I will plod along.