John Swinburn

I am not brilliant; my intellect is insufficient to produce remarkable solutions to the hauntingly complex problems that have plagued humankind for millennia. But I think my intelligence is adequate for learning new information at relatively high speed. I do not need remedial instruction to understand the fundamentals of police work; detective work. But, then again, I suppose I would need some form of  instruction. And an age-lift. I would need those adjustments in order to qualify to get on the “fast track” to being a detective for a city police department. When it comes down to brass tacks, though, I am not sure I would be willing to suffer through the long slog of “learning the ropes.” I would much rather be thrown in to the chaos and left to my own devices. Screening in (or out) by virtue of OJT. I suspect I would survive the tests; assign to me a murder of two to solve and give me access to all the facts surrounding the case. Let me determine what more I need to know and how to obtain that knowledge. I would prove myself. Or some poor, innocent stiff would be accused of murder, thanks to my exemplary police work, while I insist that the evidence against him is irrefutable. That scenario is just one reason I long ago renounced my endorsement of the death penalty; I am capable of catastrophic mistakes that could, in the wrong circumstances, lead to irreparable harm. Execution of innocent people…that sort of thing. Despite the difficulties at this late stage, of finding my way onto a police force, I think I would enjoy the investigative work associated with being a police detective. But my romanticized vision of the role refuses to be constrained by bureaucracy.  No mindless paperwork for me. And no mind-numbingly annoying rules; I want and expect absolute freedom to pursue justice. Breaking a few rules here and there is a necessary accompaniment to good investigative work, according to my reality. But, to be clear about it, I am the only one permitted that freedom; all my colleagues will be expected to follow the straight and narrow. I need to be able to rely on their boundless supplies of consistency; investigative work unsullied by creative thoughts and actions. Just another fantasy. One of hundreds. Thousands, perhaps. Maybe millions. But just one of a small number I can reveal publicly and retain my reputation. My reputation? What, exactly, is that? Does everyone have a reputation, or do reputations attach only to people who sometimes color outside the lines?  You never hear a person described like this: “He had a reputation for being deadly dull.” That’s not a reputation; it’s a prelude to a meaningless obituary that describes the deceased person’s utter irrelevance. “He died after long being afflicted with a wretchedly monotonous, thoroughly forgettable, personality. He was tolerated, but not liked. Nor loathed. He was simply “there” as if being “there” was adequate reason for his existence. Hmm. Hmm, indeed.

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Yesterday’s visit at my oncologist’s office supplied me with the news I’ve grown accustomed to hearing: neither the blood tests nor the CT scan revealed anything of concern. Though I expected that message, hearing its confirmation was a nice sound. I am never worried about what I might learn during those visits, but I feel a little more relaxed and have a sense of relief when the “good news” visit concludes.

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My half-cup of coffee is cold. My back aches from sitting in a wretchedly uncomfortable desk chair. My attention span shows striking signs of exceptional impatience. I have things to do, obligations to fulfill, but no interest whatsoever in taking the steps necessary to complete them. I am in one of those periods in which I relish the idea of disappearing without a trace. No one would notice my absence because all memories of me would disappear. I would then be absolutely free. Free to become a practicing pacifist or a cold-blooded vigilante. Answering to no one; not even myself. Just wild. Untamed and unexplained. Dangerous in the extreme. But somehow attractive while exuding vibes of danger and excitement. More fantasies emerging from ill-defined dissatisfaction. A dissatisfaction rooted in contempt for the world; no single thing, but a flood of single things that twist around others, forming a thick, inescapable cage comprised of thick rope. Rope made from all those twisted single things. I have nothing to complain about; nothing legitimate, anyway. But I will complain, nonetheless. I will howl my complaints in the emptiness of the darkest nights. And the air will send back echoes; no meaning, just noise.

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If I am going to face the day, I better begin trying. Now.

After watching the second of only two seasons of Dehli Crime, I am deeply disappointed that a third season is unavailable (and, perhaps, has not been nor will be produced). The show portrays the Dehli police force as comprising mostly dedicated, but badly underfunded and unappreciated, public servants. Police behaviors in the program are reminiscent of a time in the U.S. when police beatings of suspects—in the station house—were condoned and, if not accepted, at least willingly tolerated. I wonder, though, whether the foundations of that statement are based on implicit assumptions about “a more practical time.” Or words to that effect. Was there ever such a time? Or has its “recollection” been cleverly planted in the public psyche by a master manipulator with an undecipherable master plan? Hey, don’t snort your dismissal of my comment!  It may be a valid expression of a wildly sophisticated and perfectly pristine strain of paranoia.

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Off to the oncologist this morning for what I hope and expect will be a routine review of the results of my recent CT scan, which (if all goes according to deep desire) reveals “no change.” This trip to see her follows two separate trips to prepare for today’s appointment. First, I had to go in for a routine blood-letting. And a few days after the blood draw,  I had the CT scan. I plan to take it moderately easy for the rest of the day. But not really.

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My mind this morning is on the distance between Tucson and Flagstaff, a tad more than 250 miles. Between them, the sprawling metropolis of Phoenix interrupts travel to and from. I have passed through both ends of that north-south journey and a bit of its middle ground. I like some aspects of both Tucson and Flagstaff for different reasons and for different seasons. But both places are at varying degrees of risk of a sudden and severe—possibly even catastrophic—loss of sources of water. Arizona is a harsh and beautiful country. So is New Mexico, my favorite of the two territories. And both are in perpetual danger of urban, suburban, and rural dehydration. Is the appeal worth the attraction? I think the answer changes from “no” to “yes” as a person ages and reasons that “the end” probably lies beyond an invisible horizon.

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My creativity and the stamina in my fingers apparently are out for coffee and a cinnamon roll this morning. They’re certainly nowhere to be found in or around my desk. The gaping white emptiness of my computer screen yawns at me, as if bored with my fingers’ expressions of mindless energy. And then that energy disappears…as if in a “puff” they become invisible; only its shadow can reveal where it went. I surrender, for the moment. I will be content to think and will not intrude by sharing those irrational thoughts with you. My irrational thought this morning may be a residue of a 20mg gummie I consumed last night. I slept in a bit this morning and seem to be in a modest fog. Hah! I laughed last night, thanks to the fact that my shoulder pain either disappeared or was hidden.

Pride is a response to oppression—not the only response, necessarily, but one response. And it is a powerful reaction, one that can overwhelm almost all the other replies to attempts to smother one’s sense of identify. I am not the source of that philosophy. It is the philosophy that undergirds the message delivered by a short BBC video. Or, I should say, it is my interpretation of the video’s underlying message. The video, which examines Jamaicans’ extreme pride in their identities, defends Jamaicans for what the producers of the film suggest in an almost universal characteristic of native Jamaicans. That universal characteristic that, not coincidentally, also is an attribute equivalent to one of the “deadly sins.” Interesting. But not sufficiently riveting for me to spend the rest of this Sunday exploring the concepts. Like many topics I encounter while searching the internet for ways to replace disinterest with passion, this one slips between rocks at the ocean’s edge and drowns. Too bad. If it had hit a bit—a lot—closer to home, I might have grabbed it and clutched it close to me in the hope it could rescue me from irrelevance. Despite my usual reverence for BBC videos, this one did not strike a nerve the way so many do. It is not bad—the message is thought-provoking and, for someone who is not me, very likely extremely interesting. But I was not moved by it. It was interesting. But it did not bring tears to my eyes nor a broad smile to my face. Sometimes, the absence of a strong reaction to something meant to evoke a powerful response can be as telling as the presence of that kind of response. The key, then, is to determine why it failed to move me; or why I failed to be moved by it. That is a topic for investigation another time. This morning merits a look at other elements of the reality surrounding me.

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The muffled noise—heard across an indeterminate distance and through sound-deadening walls, windows, and doors—sounded a little like raspy breaths being taken by a sleeper. Or a light, open-mouthed snore. But, yesterday, when I finally went to explore the noise, I decided it was the loud, rapid-fire “whack, whack, whack!” of a woodpecker in a tree behind the house. The moment I opened the back door, the muffled sound was amplified several-fold. I could not see the bird making the racket, but I had heard that noise before and had seen the culprit making it: a pileated woodpecker ripping into a tree with its powerful beak slamming into a tree trunk with the speed and power of a hydraulic air hammer. Try as I might, though, I could not see the creature. I saw a few other, much smaller, woodpeckers, but I knew they were not making the noise, as they flitted from tree to tree. But after a while, and after I encountered various other bits of evidence as to the bird(s) responsible for making the noise, I decided it was not a pileated woodpecker after all. No, it was one of the much smaller birds. Birds that looked too delicate to make such a monstrously loud noise. Yet their size hid the ability to mimic the sound made by heavy equipment. Their deadly beaks and powerful neck muscles combine to enable them to tear into pine trees and hardwood oak with a fierceness one tends not to associate with creatures so small and seemingly fragile. I wish I had actually seen the noisemaker; that would have sealed my certainty. But I am adequately sure that the sound was produced by one of those nondescript birds, smaller than robins but possessing beaks more powerful than the jaws of alligators. I recorded the sound on my phone. One day, I will record the sound and will capture an accompanying video of the actions of the source. And that will verify my suspicion, converting conjecture into certainty.

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I will smoke another couple of chunks of pork loin today. I may smoke some cream cheese at the same time. The idea for the cream cheese came to me from a post I saw on Facebook. I may buy some sausage and chicken and, perhaps, a few other smokeable tidbits that react well to being frozen and, later, thawed to make an easy main course for lazy-day meals. Maybe I should refrain from eating meat; my tiny contribution to making the planet more compassionate. At the same time, perhaps I should refuse to drive gasoline-powered vehicles, especially gas-guzzlers. No, I think it is better to avoid thinking in absolutes. Cut back on meat-eating: already in process. Rely on increasingly energy-efficient vehicles: already underway. Condemning others while engaging in the same behaviors for which one condemns them is known in the wider world as hypocrisy.

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I got up early and put a load of laundry in the washer. It is now in the drier. Soon, I will remove the dry clothes and hang them up. A good start to what promises to be a clear, cool day. And off I go to explore the universe.

My Unsung Hero from Hidden Brain strikes me as an odd label for a radio program, but every time I hear an episode of the National Public Radio (NPR) show, my judgment of the title disappears. In its place, I have great appreciation for the people responsible for creating and continuing the series; and for the people who share their stories. The same gratitude wells up in me whenever I hear another NPR program, StoryCorps. Both programs tend to unearth a store of humanity buried beneath the grit of skepticism and suspicion—and uncertainty about the innate goodness of most people. They wash away enough of the grime of everyday  to reveal some of the compassion that seemed to blossom in me while I was a college student studying sociology.

For some reason, when I consider the seeds of my generally liberal perspectives on life in general, my thoughts often return to my time in college, especially to the exploration of sociology. Though I credit my upbringing—lessons from observing the way my parents and siblings interacted with the world around them—with forming the framework of my worldview, much of the “meat on the bones” of that structure grew from what I discovered in studying fundamental precepts of social institutions and social engagement. So, though I often dismiss the value of my “college education,” certain elements of the courses of study I pursued have had a profound effect on me. Those studies caused me to think critically about all sorts of human relations and their contexts. I developed a healthy skepticism about accepting as fact many of the “truths” the formed the bases of biases to which I was exposed. That healthy skepticism competed directly with the unhealthy skepticism I had about reasons for many group behaviors. I learned to apply critical thinking skills and to force myself to examine underlying, and erroneous, reasons for some of my more egregious biases. And to correct them for myself.

I’ve probably written all of this before. I suspect the reason I am writing it again now is simply to remind myself that there are legitimate reasons programs like My Unsung Hero from Hidden Brain and StoryCorps often tug at my heartstrings. It’s not that I am overly sensitive or insufficiently masculine; instead, it is because I learned to merge my critical thinking skills and compassion into a means of making sense of the world around me. At least that’s part of it. Or, at the very least, it’s an explanation I can accept and embrace.

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A chill in the air this morning (it’s 41°F now, at 6:15) will moderate as the day progresses, peaking at 63°F this afternoon, between 1 and 3. Meteorologists’ predictions happily forecast clear skies all weekend, with afternoon temperatures nearing 70°F tomorrow afternoon. I would welcome even warmer temperatures; I would not object to being surrounded by 80-degree air. That level of warmth might finally remove the chill I feel deep in my bones. My hands, which seem to be almost perpetually ice-cold, might finally warm to the point of real comfort. During the last several days, despite temperatures in the forties and fifties, the only way my hands could feel tolerably warm was to hold them over the open flames of the fireplace. There were times I almost wanted to douse myself in gasoline and set myself ablaze, just to feel a flash of comfort before being consumed by the excruciating pain of self-immolation. I did say “almost;” I am not completely out of my mind. Not that the act of self-immolation always is a symptom of extraordinary mental deviance. Sometimes, it is an act of exceptionally powerful religious belief. Or so I’ve been told. But never, I might add, by someone who has set themselves on fire. Hmm. I believe my thoughts have been diverted from weather to something far more complex. Although, in fact, weather represents an assortment of remarkably complex phenomena. But, then, so does fire. Combustion constitutes the visual transformation of physical matter to energy; perhaps it is more correct to say combustion represents the release of stored energy. I’m no physicist, though, so I would not take my blather as gospel.

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We finished watching season one of Delhi Crime, an Indian series. The first season is based on a real event, a brutal gang rape that took place in mid-December 2012. The program is, in my opinion, absolutely superb; excellent acting, superb direction, and great casting. My only complaint, and it is quite a significant one, involves sound quality. When the characters speak English (they constantly switch back and forth between English and Hindi), it is sometimes impossible to make out what they are saying. Only when the characters speak Hindi are subtitles displayed; yet their heavy accents, coupled with poor sound quality, leaves the viewer completely in the dark as to the actual dialogue when they speak in English. That major flaw notwithstanding, season one of the show is absolutely riveting.

After watching such an intense set of episodes in season one, we opted to take a breather; we did not begin watching season two (which focuses on an entirely different set of crimes). Instead, we began watching a 2014 comedy-drama entitled, This is Where I Leave You. Thus far, I have not been overly impressed, but at least watching the beginning of the film allowed me to decompress a bit from the heart-pounding intensity of Delhi Crime. Whether I continue watching This is Where I Leave You remains to be seen.

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My blood glucose dropped to 98 this morning, even though I did not take Metformin yesterday (nor will I today). The pause from my usual morning and evening “dosing” came in the form of instructions from yesterday’s CT scan; I was told to stop taking Metformin for 48 hours because the IV “contrast” used in connection with the scan could cause some kind of unhappy interaction with the Metformin. Speaking of the temporary hold on eating the big white pills, their absence apparently has made me hungry. I think I will address that sensation by swallowing breakfast. And off I go.

Evidence of a new season, masked by cold recollections and icy memories, struggles to assert itself. Early morning brightness might reveal clues about what is to come, but grey, wet skies hide the sun. Yellow daffodils scream their stories as they try to avoid death by drowning. A short road trip in the dim light might tell me more. But it may have nothing more to say than, “Wait.” And so I will go, but will impatiently wait.

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Thunder and lightning, remnants of fierce windstorms that overturned trucks and damaged homes five hours west, visited during the night hours. I hear mourning doves expressing grief and regret—the aftermath of a chilling, brutal night for creatures who rely on the safety of tree limbs for protection against storms. My mood this morning was scarred by the shrieking howls of weather radio warnings in the wee hours. That mood remains, a dislocation of what might otherwise have been a peaceful sleep. No matter. The drive to the imaging clinic will alter my mood. I will be unable to sleep—or breathe—on the CT scan table, but afterward I will treat myself to a handful of drugs, the reward for growing old. But coffee and a late breakfast might renew my energy. Time will tell. It always does.

As far as I know, last night’s threats of tornadoes in our immediate vicinity did not pan out. The forest surrounding the house remains standing. To my knowledge, the roof above my head in intact. While carnage and devastation may be widespread nearby, I cannot see it. So, all is right with the world. That is the way we sometimes see things. As long as we’re all right, we’re satisfied. No matter that blood may cover the highways and byways all around us; if it is not visible, it does not impinge on our ability to enjoy a carefree existence. Yet what good does it do to ferret out bad news? Especially if there is little or nothing we can do to lessen its impact? I have mixed feelings about that.
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Once again, the products of British curiosity have expanded my own interest in and knowledge about matters about which I knew very little. This time, the revelation surrounds a term for a dying language, Kouri-Vini. Kouri-Vini is a language—whose origins have beebn traced to Louisiana—the roots if which are based in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Also known as Creole, the language, whose name (Kouri-Vini) comes from the Creole pronunciation of the French verbs “courir” (to run) and “venir” (to come). According to a article on the BBC.com website (part of a BBC series called Rediscovering America), along with some supporting materials, the language is spoken by fewer than 6,000 people. But the language is experiencing something of a resurgence as young people who live in, or have connections to, the the 22-parish region of south-west Louisiana known as Acadiana are making efforts to reclaim the language. Interest in recapturing the language is growing among both professional linguists and people whose heritage includes Creole culture. When I hear Kouri-Vini spoken, I hear the unique sounds of French, combined with “something else” I cannot quite put my finger on; it is at once pleasing to the ear and exotically “foreign.” Though I have hear bits and pieces of it all my life, and though I have known about “Creole” for about as long, it was only this morning that I encountered the term, Kouri-Vini. And that experience was thanks to the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC.

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The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

~ Molly Ivins ~

In other news this morning, I read about a 40-year-old man, Mark Muffley, who checked bags at the Lehigh Valley International Airport for  an Orlando-bound flight. The bags contained explosives, hidden in the lining of a rolling suitcase. I suppose we will hear more about that situation—or not—as the investigations into the matter play out. And I skimmed an article about the case involving allegations against South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, who is on trial for the murder  of his wife and son. The facts of the case seem ripe for incorporation into a crime novel and/or crime drama and/or crime documentary. But why the case is so prominent in national news stories when there are so many other stories which could have far greater potential effects on our society is a mystery to me. And Aljazeera reports that Turkey has launched a probe into 612 people in connection with the catastrophic building collapses caused by the recent earthquakes. I looked for positive, heart-warming stories—meaningful reports that would offer evidence of humankind’s generosity and goodness. Apparently, that section of the news has been censored for some reason. Or there’s an intrinsic lesson there, buried under layer upon layer of irrelevance.

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I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

~ Jack Kerouac ~

Self-control can protect one from danger or embarrassment or various other forms of unpleasantness. I have to exercise self-control on an ongoing basis, for those very reasons. But harnessing one’s immediate desires can prevent a person from experiencing delight, as well. The decision to control impulses can prevent one’s displeasure with an annoying driver from turning into deadly road rage. But that same level of self control that prevents exposing one’s desires can eliminate possibilities. I wanted to kiss Amy when I was about eight years old, but I knew it would be considered highly inappropriate. But what if I had given in to my passion? We might have married ten years later. That union might have guided me toward pursuing advanced degrees in psychology. And my education and enthusiasm could have propelled me to conduct research that would ultimately lead me to receiving a Nobel Prize. But giving in to my urge to kiss Amy might have led to a completely different set of circumstances. I could have been accused of assault. The time I subsequently spent in a youth rehabilitation facility might have hardened me, while simultaneously exposing me to people who would later teach me the finer points of engaging in criminal endeavors. When finally apprehended, I might have been charged with and convicted of murder while perpetrating a robbery of a heavily-guarded storage facility where obscenely rich people store their diamond jewelry and highly valuable original art. A sentence of life in prison might have followed. And I could have lost Amy in the process. But I might have fallen passionately in love with Julia, a married woman, during the course of my criminal career. We might have engaged in a secret relationship for years before my final conviction. The murder might not have had anything to do with the jewelry heist—I might have murdered Julia’s husband. And I might have decided my criminal career was well worth paying that horrible price. Who knows? I don’t.

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Last night, we went to see and hear a moderated conversation between former gubernatorial candidate Chris Jones, a physicist, and his wife Jerrilyn Jones, an emergency room physician. The event, hosted by the Virginia Clinton Kelley Democratic (VCK) Women’s Club and the Gateway Community Association (GCA). was organized as a fundraiser for the GCA, a mixed neighborhood comprised of residents, businesses, places of worship, the Hot Springs Convention and Civic Center, and several historical landmarks. After hearing the conversation between them, I wish more people like me had been active campaigners for Chris Jones’ campaign. If he had been able to personally deliver his message to all the people of Arkansas, perhaps the tragedy (the horror of the election of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as governor) that befell us could have been averted.

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Since my wife died, my love of cooking has diminished almost to the point that it no longer exists. Maybe I have just become exceptionally lazy. I am sure my recently imposed dietary restrictions—dramatically reducing the amount of carbohydrates I consume and otherwise limiting my freedom to eat unlimited volumes of everything—have reinforced the change in me. But that cannot take all the blame; the change occurred long before the imposition of “rules” that prohibit my exercise of the right to eat unrestricted amounts of anything reasonably safe to put in my mouth. No, the loss of my passion for preparing and/or consuming elaborate or exciting meals took place in concert with my late wife’s hospitalization and subsequent placement in “rehabilitation” centers. In hindsight, I guess the fire of my innate affection for culinary adventure…to remain ablaze…required the spark she provided. Even when I felt I did not have the energy or drive to spend time in the kitchen, she somehow infused me with the energy and inclination to do it. Now, though, the restrictions imposed on me in the form of warnings about my health—coupled with the absence of sufficient interest and energy—have essentially erased my inclination to conduct culinary experiments. Or even to follow elaborate recipes that might yield extraordinary results. I would rather spend five or ten minutes preparing a meal that requires little effort and virtually no imagination. I’ve lost a part of me impossible to recover, thanks to food’s role in disrupting my body’s ability to remain healthy. A “friend” once condemned me for my passion for food, effectively accusing me of “living to eat” when I should have adopted her philosophy, that a person should only “eat to live.” I might as well have adopted that philosophy; it has been forced on me by circumstances.

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I occasionally have to remind myself that, despite the minor challenges that face me on a daily basis, I live an incredibly lucky—almost enchanted—life. Obstacles to happiness, for me, do not take the form of war or insufficient supplies of food and water or environmental dangers that might expose me to painful or incurable diseases. I do not worry that marauding gangs will regularly visit me to steal from me or torture me or mi novia. I am remarkably fortunate in that when and where I live protect me from constant fear for my well-being or the well-being of my loved ones. Yet even in the absence of a litany of existential threats, I still sometimes feel suffocated by hopelessness. Sometimes. No, not really. That suggests some kind of regularity. No, that sense of hopelessness is infrequent. But when it comes, it can be intense. And it requires no discernable trigger; it just happens. When it does, all the magnificent good fortune that is mine shrinks into a tiny bubble, deep in an ocean of despair, struggling to survive an impossible trip up to the surface. Today, fortunately, is not one of those occasions. But it is best to consider them, I think, from a safely distant perspective, although I am not sure exactly what “considering” them will accomplish. It just seems like the responsible, “adult” thing to do. But “adulting” is not always a good thing. I’ve long been a proponent of expressing one’s inner child—the kid whose insatiable curiosity regularly got him into delightful, exhilarating, wildly energizing trouble. And I bounce between being in favor of—and, then, denouncing and avoiding—breaking rules of good behavior and proper, dignified decorum.

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Good morning. Even though I reveal a great deal of myself during my morning writing rituals, no one really knows me. We do not know one another as well as we would like. Because every one of us has secrets. Deep secrets. Secrets we might want to reveal, but for the fear of how people…or just one person…might react. What’s your secret? I won’t tell a soul.

We know nothing. We hold beliefs. We harbor suspicions. We think we know. But we do not know. We simply convince ourselves of the certainty of certain facts. We do that because, otherwise, we would live in a state of constant confusion. We would be in danger of drowning in sea of perpetual doubt. When I use the pronoun, “we,” I refer not to all members of our species; only to those of us who are confident that our knowledge of the world in which we live is reliable. There are those among us who recognize our confidence is misplaced. They acknowledge that the rest of us have capitulated; abandoning the reality of mystery and replacing it with the fantasy of what we blindly accept as fact.

The very idea that even science is a fabrication woven from enigmatic threads whose sources can never be known with absolute certainty is anathema to us. But the fallacy of science as the answer is trumped by religion. Yet we—some of us; perhaps most of us—place our faith in various forms of that magic. Faith. At least we admit the inscrutability of faith…but do we? No, faith is simply another fabrication; knowledge masquerading as truth, but without even flimsy facts to support it.

Do I really believe this? Yes. Well, at least in part. Science and the scientific method are as close as we come to measuring facts. But the differences between science and belief are stark. Scientific understanding readily accepts being debunked by contrary evidence. Faith? Not so much.

Back to the original premise, though. In my view, we truly do not know anything. I admire those who swim in that sea of perpetual doubt. They are closer to the truth than any of the rest of us. Though they may drown, at least they succumb in the awareness of the universality of impenetrable mystery. Sometimes, I feel like I am swimming with them. But, then, I am dragged back to shore, covered with salt and sand…and persuaded to rinse off enough of the layers of doubt to be presentable in public.

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Torment. As a noun, it is associated with a number of unpleasant synonyms: torture, affliction, agony, misery, suffering, and several more. As a verb, it is associated with an even longer list of ugly actions. No matter what a thesaurus says, I always associate torment with the experience of mental anguish. As a noun, those words define it. The verb form would be “to inflict mental anguish.” Both forms of the word call to mind psychological or mental pain. And the concept of torment always makes me think of something else; something related: being tormented by one’s demons. What, I often wonder, are those demons? I should know, because they are not infrequent visitors in my brain. They show up, unannounced, and make themselves at home. They take many forms, usually as painful memories or deep regrets that refuse to relinquish their grips on me. They seem to take pleasure in tormenting me. When I think of them, I envision small, translucent figures that take almost (but not quite) human form. They hold white-hot pitchforks in their vaporous hands, and they prod at me with the sharp points of those tools of torture. But I think of them in that form only in their absence. When they are prodding at me, opening old wounds and pouring salt and alcohol and acid in them, their physical representations in the form of beastly creatures disappear. What is left are the products of their work and, later, as the damage heals, the scars. I sometimes think I must be quite insane to conjure these images, knowing full well they are only products of my imagination. My “overactive imagination,” I should have said.

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Today, I continue to fulfill my obligation and promise by facilitating the third session of “Articulating Your UU Faith.” Once that obligation is met (with additional sessions), I have another one, which is to facilitate a post-viewing discussion of Mission: Joy—Finding Happiness in Troubled Times, a film exploring the friendship between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The latter event, scheduled for March 9, promises to be quite interesting; at least the film makes that promise. The quality of the discussion afterward will depend far more on audience comments than on my skills at facilitating the conversation. Though I willingly enter into these commitments, I often wish I could put all of them on “pause” for a month or two—no church business, no doctors’ appointments, no social obligations…no intrusions on my desire for solitude. A month or so of peace and serenity to simply relax and enjoy the pleasures of very limited company. During that time, I would want frequent visits by a very few friends, punctuated by periods of absolute seclusion. Moments—lasting for days at a time—in which I could comfortably wear my very casual “leisure” attire from the instant I wake in the morning until I go to bed at night. I suppose what I am describing is a desire for the comfort of deep, guilt-free laziness. I enjoy people. I really do. But I need sufficient time to recharge in solitude. I do not know what “sufficient time” is, really. I would like to find out. And I would like to know how to predict just when I reach the point of needing it; not “desperately” needing it, just needing it enough to warrant withdrawing from “normal” life for a while in order to maintain my sanity.

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It’s nearing 8, time to explore the options for breakfast and to have another cup of coffee. And time to prepare to deliver on my promises to fulfill my obligations. And off I go.

The internet ostensibly gives committed seekers of the “truth” ways to find it. Increasingly, though, those searchers discover “truth” is a painstakingly re-created replica of the Mona Lisa. These seekers do not find truth, but a counterfeit commissioned by “incorruptible sources” who hunger for control. The “incorruptible sources” have a thirst for power and access to unlimited funds to pay highly-skilled, but greedy and easily corruptible, artists. Deep skepticism often is the unfortunate byproduct when principled inquiries lead to cleverly concealed dishonesty in what appears to be rock-solid facts. Who are these “incorruptible sources?” Usually, I think, they are high-level government officials—and their underlings and people within their scope of control—people who willingly serve as well-paid puppets for nefarious characters for whom the revelation of actual facts would run contrary to their objectives.

While our “enemies,” people like Putin and his acolytes, immediately come to mind, I suspect armies of these manipulative bastards are far more common than are mere authoritarian dictators. I am afraid they occupy seats of power at every level of government and industry—and in church pulpits—right here at home. And worldwide. We are so completely surrounded by them that I often wonder whether they, or we, constitute the majority of the world’s population. (And I wonder who “we” are…do “we” even exist, and do the numbers of “friends” [versus “enemies] adequately qualify as “we?”) I realize, of course, I may sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist. And my concerns run counter to my fragile belief in the fundamental decency of most human beings. I recognize and fret about those conflicts in my own head. I am not quite sure how to resolve them. But, for now at least, I will let those frictions fester. Deep skepticism may be the only available weapon available to us for self-defense.

Skepticism gets back to my point about seeking “truth.” Seekers must equip themselves with thick and strong shields skepticism as they go about their pursuits. They (we?) must use finely-adjusted filters to screen out fabrications or distortions of facts. And those facts that survive those filters must be subjected to even finer filters that permit only truly reliable answers to make their way through the tangle of lies and into our brains. And even though answers must then be critically analyzed, with the objective of catching and correcting misrepresentations and biases and erroneous interpretations. Seeking truth is a long, laborious, tedious, and sometimes dangerous process. Good, reliable journalists— whose numbers seem to be dwindling to the point of near invisibility—are among the few who have the stamina, skills, and integrity to withstand the stresses of the process of seeking the truth. Non-journalists who rely on the internet to uncover “truth” would be well-advised to identify and lean on good journalists; to be their supporters and allies. I wish I could find and offer a trustworthy tool to identify good journalists. I suspect the best way to do so is to look to journalists’ histories to find multiple instances of investigative work that uncovered truths that held up after repeated efforts by others to call them into question. Good luck.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

~ Galileo Galilei ~

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Marriage is an institution in which the partners are expected to trust one another. That is as it should be. But marriage is no guarantee of lifelong commitment. And marriage cannot assure that trust always will be warranted. People change. Love changes along with them. People who might once have been “ideal” mates may grow apart, despite their best efforts to remain in sync with one another. On one hand, efforts to remain committed to one another should guide partners’ behaviors. On the other, staying together sometimes can guarantee only distress and misery for one or both partners. Sometimes, the “right” person begins to seem not quite right, especially when another “right” person enters the picture. Whether the connection between marriage partners weakens on its own or is impaired with the presence of that other “right” person, the dissolution of a marriage is a painful process for both parties. I suspect it is hard to admit that the commitment to one’s marriage partner has irretrievably disappeared, but despite the difficulty, it is probably best to sever the damaged connection before its infection spreads.

The dissolution of a marriage should not precede, nor accompany, the dissolution of civility between marriage partners. People who allow themselves to become enemies with their current or former marriage partners do far more damage, to themselves and to others, than they realize. The infection they spread to one another spreads to others around them, including their children, if they have them. The message they send to their friends, family, and children is one that attempts to justify the infliction of pain on other people. It is a selfish message that damages their own self-image and the image they present to people close to them and to others in their sphere.

I write not from personal experience with a marriage break-up (mine lasted almost 41 years, until the death of my wife), but from my experience as an observer of a number of marriages that crashed like boats striking a rocky shore in heavy weather. I wish their boats had sailed into a calm harbor, where they could have disembarked as serenely as possible and gone their separate ways.  Even after a chaotic end to a marriage, one precipitated by inexcusable by one or both parties, though, adults can and should behave with compassion and civility toward one another. If not to bandage the wounds for themselves, then for those around them who suffered through the rupture and continue to suffer its aftermath.

+++

I will wait to find the “right” eyeglasses frames. Though I thought a pair I saw at Costco was the one I wanted, I decided after further consideration that it wasn’t quite what I was after. So, I will call the optical department and tell them to return the pair to the displays so someone else might buy them. I found a pair online that looked perfect; it was only $9.95. My skepticism tells me, though, that pair is probably flimsy and ill-suited to effectively hold and protect a pair of lenses that cost dozens of times as much. So I will continue my occasional quest. Even if I never find the “right” pair, I will survive. My vanity is not so great that I will hide my hideous visage when out in public, for fear my existing eyeglasses frames will be seen and ridiculed by others. No one pays enough attention to my appearance to ridicule it. Or, if they do, they do not matter to me anyway, so their scorn is ineffective. So there you go.

+++

After writing what I wrote this morning, I long for a proper hug. One that lasts a long time and overwhelms the many remnants of caution I feel about people and their behaviors. Sadness can wash over me like a wave when I recognize, for the umpteenth time, that I cannot have everything that would make me irrevocably happy. World peace. Universal love. That perpetual hug. A solid week without a single obligation. A slice of loaded pizza and a glass of excellent cabernet sauvignon.

Why is it, I wonder, that barren-leafed, fog-enshrouded forests seem simultaneously menacing and inviting? Why does being surrounded by a forest of hazy, blurry, naked trees—their trunks erect and tall—give me a sense that the indistinct distance is hiding both comfort and danger? Perhaps it is the use of such scenes, in television and film, that reinforces that inexplicable duality. Last night’s concluding episodes of Public Enemy (Ennemi public), like most of the rest of the three-season show, used the mysteries of dim forests to powerful effect. Several other European films and television series I have watched in the past few years incorporate that sort of scenery to convey both mystery and the threat of unknown, but lethal, danger. In my opinion, Scandinavian (and various other European filmmakers) cinematographers are much more skilled than most of their American counterparts at using low light, fog, and nondescript flora to establish those sinister moods.

But back to my own mind, and its readiness to bend to the will of filmmakers. It is not just the filmmakers, though. It is the very real environment right outside my window. It is the atmosphere that envelopes the house in which I live. My brain willingly sees the fog as deliberately hiding unknown, but fascinating, threats and dangers. In fact, I seem to thrive on the dim, distant recesses of the woodlands. The inexplicably chilling haze that hides…something…or nothing. I do not know what’s “out there.” Whatever it is, though, I am drawn to it, but more than a little cautious about approaching it. I hesitate to leave the safety of my house and venture into a place over which I have no control. Inside, I can control the lights and the temperature and the volume of sounds emanating from speakers. Outside, I have no such control; my experience is at the discretion of Nature or something else I can neither name nor whose form and power I cannot fully comprehend. Yet perhaps this emotion—fear or worry or a cousin of one or both—is blatantly absurd. Silly in the extreme. Superstition transformed into unfathomable uncertainty. That does it. I will stay inside until the day brightens.

+++

My morning ritual started quite late; after 6:30. We were up last night until nearly midnight, finishing up our marathon of watching Public Enemy. So, I began writing much later than normal. Then, Chubbs the pug and her doting human companion (my late wife’s sister) dropped by for coffee and conversation until it was time for us to leave for church. Today was an “Insight” Sunday, with an interesting speaker (Brian Rodgers) of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock. He spoke on Black Business People in Arkansas from 1865 to 1920. I learned a great deal from his presentation and post-talk dialogue with those who stayed for the conversation. I am becoming increasingly intrigued to learn about the lives and contributions to society made by “everyday” people who lived in challenging times—especially people whose names may be unknown to me but whose impacts on history were/are enormously important.

+++

I am home now, and hungry. Despite having broken many dietary rules and ignored their oppressive restrictions, I ate three chocolate chip cookies and one Rice Krispie Treat at church, made by a very nice woman who apparently enjoys tempting me with irresistible edibles. Though I imagine my blood glucose measurement tomorrow morning will be monstrously high, I thoroughly enjoyed yielding to the diversion, as she laid the trap to seduce me into inappropriate but gloriously pleasurable gustatory behavior.

+++

Speaking of food, I will now enjoy a bit of roasted chicken, some compari tomatoes, and perhaps some cucumbers and/or pickles. That will have to hold me until dinner, when we will again eat smoked pork loin, cucumbers (probably), and tomatoes. I probably will have some sugar-free orange flavored Jello for dessert.

+++

Tomorrow, I’ll be off to Schwab and Costco. And I will consider cleaning my car and trying to reshuffle and organize the garage. Life is relatively easy, but not as energizing as it could be if I were to hit the road for a long and enjoyable road trip. First, though, lunch at home. Lunch is a good idea. Maybe a drive to Berlin will cure my wanderlust.

An inadvertent motion by an itchy “trigger” finger sent a raw, rough, utterly unfinished draft of the first few paragraphs of a prospective piece of short fiction onto the internet last night. Mi novia questioned why I used my WordPress account to write the draft, rather than writing it in Word. My response: Because that is the process I have grown accustomed to using. On rare occasion (like last night), my virtually automatic physical reaction when I decide to end my writing session—pushing the “publish” button—leaves me scrambling to correct a mistake. When that happens, I quickly change the status of the mistakenly published draft from “published” to “draft.” But that action does not undo what I did. When I hit “publish,” the file immediately is posted to my blog and notices of a newly-published post are emailed to my blog’s subscribers. I have no way of retracting the email messages. My only recourse is to explain, in a follow-up post, what happened. And to apologize—which is the purpose of this paragraph—for wasting subscribers’ time in notifying them of an erroneous and now-unavailable draft. I take this opportunity, as well, to apologize for my many other posts that waste readers’ time. Rarely do I write anything of actual value to anyone but me; and its value to me is questionable, sometimes in the extreme. Much of my writing can be justified as exercise for my fingers and nothing more. Well, perhaps reading it can provide opportunities for readers to exercise the muscles that move their eyes from left to right and back again. I struggle to find something of value—anything—that might merit the expenditure of readers’ time in absorbing what I share with this blog. There must be something that warrants regularly or periodically coming to this place, for the few human beings who do. Whatever it is, I appreciate the company, though I rarely get to know their reaction to what they read. Perhaps that is best. Withholding their opinions from me might, in fact, be acts of kindness from people who, if they expressed their thoughts, would crush my ego under the soles of their shoes.

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The concepts contained in a couple of conversations with my church’s minister got me thinking: attempting to change the entire world, especially as we grow older and approach the end of our lives, often is a fruitless endeavor. Therefore, rather than expending our energies tilting at windmills, we would better serve humanity and ourselves by directing a significant part of our efforts to more achievable goals of improving the worlds of people close to us. For example, rather than directing all of our time, energy, resources, and efforts to feeding the starving peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, a considerable portion of our efforts aimed at enabling people in our immediate sphere to feed themselves might have greater impact. Let me be clear: the minister did not say precisely that; for me, though, his words delivered that message. And his words were not aimed specifically at me. His musings, in my mind, addressed a general idea: our efforts are likely to be far more impactful and considerably more successful at changing the world for individuals, one person at a time. We cannot feed all of Africa; but we can nourish the ability of one person at a time to be self-sustaining. The minister might take issue with my interpretation of his message, of course. But any disagreement notwithstanding, my interpretation makes perfectly good sense to me. And it conforms to my way of thinking. It won’t stop me from writing letters, affirming a woman’s right to control her own body, to my Congressional representatives, but it reinforces my belief in supporting local resources like Planned Parenthood clinics.

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I had a horrible dream last night. I dreamt I was among a small group of people who decided, for a reason that is unclear to me now, we should kill a woman who had been a friend. We gathered at my house—which was in a nondescript lower-middle-class neighborhood—to implement a plan to murder her. The organizer of the planned killing was a woman who had conceived a process whereby she would kill the intended victim by striking her with a carpenter’s hammer. This woman, who would orchestrate the process, had thought everything through so that none of us would leave any traces; no one could find us guilty of the deed. But, after striking the victim in the head with a hammer, things went awry. The victim did not die. In fact, she was only dazed. So, the murderer put the muzzle of a gun to the victim’s head and pulled the trigger. But the bullet did not pierce the victim’s skull; it caused bleeding, but nothing more than the victim’s loud protestations that she had done nothing to deserve our ugly deed. Somehow, the process of protecting the rest of us from evidence of our guilt fell apart. Neighbors called the police because of the ruckus. The rest of us scrambled to hide evidence of our involvement and our guilt, but the police came and started investigating. For some reason, the victim was unsuccessful in convincing the police that we were the perpetrators. One of the “cover-ups” somehow involved an open outdoor faucet that flooded the yard around the house; water flowed into the street and the ground around the house was quite soggy, which stopped the police from investigating further. When the police left, others involved in the plot (who apparently had left) came back to gather up evidence of guilt, left in the scramble to get away. Part of the evidence seemed to be the victim, who was to be pushed into the trunk of a car. The rest of the dream dissolves into a fog; I cannot remember any more. And, of course, I do not recall many elements between the attempted murder and the police investigation. And the street that was flooded by the open water faucet. And more. I do not think I want to remember. I remain stunned that I was a willing participant in the murder plot, though I was deeply embarrassed and sorrowful for my participation.

I had another dream, quite different, in which the environment was a very old, terribly crowded, office building. It had hideously dirty unisex bathrooms with no doors. The bathrooms were outfitted with multiple wall-mounted urinals; no stalls nor regular toilets. Women using the bathroom straddled the urinals, backwards. A viewing area from a hallway in the building overlooked a massive field in which people who were obviously foreign, possibly Asian, were using scythes to cut and collect crops. I think the building was the headquarters of a company involved in petroleum in some fashion. The rest of the dream is a blur. Weird is the best word to describe it.

+++

I found a pair of tortoise-shell plastic eyeglass frames at Costco last week. They are on hold for me, through tomorrow. I may call Costco today to ask that they extend the hold through the early part of next week so that I can combine a planned trip to see a Charles Schwab representative with the purchase of the frames. If Costco will not extend the hold, I probably will not get those frames. Either way, the world will continue to spin. Wars will continue to be fought. People will continue to starve, while others will grow fat and undeservedly wealthy. Life will go on, provided the planet’s nuclear powers do not unleash their capabilities in unnecessary displays of inhumane horror on the species remaining after humans have had a hand in eliminating so many of them. And, of course, homo sapiens would be among those annihilated in the fury of nuclear holocaust. But if none of that awful stuff happens, the world will go on as usual, whether or not I buy a new set of frames and lenses to fill them.

+++

Yesterday’s visit to the Hot Springs RV and camping and fishing show was a washout. There was only one Class B recreational vehicle. On reflection, after the wasted visit to the convention center, I have decided I do not need nor really want an RV. The money I would spend on an RV would cover innumerable nights in decent hotels or motels. And the drive to those places would be less stressful in a smaller, more maneuverable vehicle. The downside, of course, is that motels and hotels usually prohibit campfires just outside the doors to their rooms. And the space between guests is much smaller in such lodging facilities than in campgrounds. But that is not enough to convince me, today, to buy an RV. The decision is made. And it will remain made, I think, unless I change my mind.

+++

For now, though, my objective is to have avocado toast with a sliced tomato chaser.

Whether the memory originated from a personal experience or from a story I read or heard about, it touched a nerve that remains raw more than more than thirty years later. Details of the memory have blurred over time, but its core remains firmly intact; an infected sore that won’t heal, no matter how much time passes.

Time—a surrogate, like an antibiotic salve applied to an excruciating emotional trauma—is said to heal all wounds. But some injuries are so grim and painful that they are burned into the psyche like brands on cattle. The passage of time cannot remove the scars. The disfigurement becomes a permanent reminder of the damage that created the disfigurement. New experiences may tamper with one’s recollection of the original injury, poking at the scab left behind. The new damage might poke at the original scar, causing it to crack and bleed again. No matter the cause, though, the original searing emotional damage resurfaces from time to time, crippling one’s ability to forget and forgive.

The original memory took root when I lived in Chicago, I think. In response to her husband’s diagnosis—cancer, I think—the woman announced that she was leaving him, saying something to the effect that, “When I married you, I didn’t sign up to ruin my life by spending all my remaining time caring for a sick, dying old man. You can pay someone to empty your bed pans and wipe your butt; I’m not about to do it.” I had never witnessed such monstrous abandonment. The level of selfishness…the absence of compassion…the utter lack of even a shred of love…was stunning. That a person could be so incredibly cruel and indifferent to the effect of her renunciation of what I assumed was an earlier lifelong commitment was stunning. It was unreal to me. Could a person who presumably had expressed love and a lifelong commitment really and truly and suddenly become so callous and unloving? The man’s trust in his wife—and in humankind—must have instantly degraded into…something…an emotion so unspeakably painful as to completely break not only his heart but the hearts of anyone within earshot.  His belief in love must have dissolved in an instant. Expressions of love, from that point forward, must have seemed to be noxious vapor escaping from the mouths of heartless beasts.

Ever since then, when I have heard someone say—even as a so-called “joke” meant to elicit a laugh or a groan—something reminiscent of the idea that “If you get sick, I’m not going to wipe your butt,” I cringe. To me, that kind of “joke” probably hides—very poorly—a very real sentiment. It tends to make me deeply skeptical of the speaker’s capacity for compassion. Immediately, my guard is raised. Any trust I might have had in the person is buried beneath a thick layer of suspicion. Any protestations that it was ‘just a joke” fall on not deaf, but deeply skeptical, ears. Trustworthy people do not openly display, even in jest, their willingness to abandon the trust placed in them, for a “laugh.” Whether or not they actually follow through on their “just joking” announced abandonment, I would always assume they would, at the very least, resent fulfilling obligations that would infringe on their selfishness. Notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary, I think I would forever assume any of their behaviors that conflict with their absence of compassion to be performances designed with their own benefits in mind. Does that make me an unforgiving skeptic who refuses to permit such people to ever earn his trust? Probably. And it probably makes me someone who tries to protect himself against the damage such people could cause for him. And it makes me someone suspicious of behaviors that even hint at such mercilessness. And, yes, it might make me merciless, too, and selfishly so. So how do I defend my own mercilessness while condemning it in others? That is a hard question. One for which I cannot seem to find an answer.

Another early start—even earlier than yesterday. The glowing red numbers on the bedside clock read “3:43” when I got out of bed for the second time this morning. I mistook the time as “2:11” the first time, but I missed the initial “1.” A more focused look revealed the time actually was “12:11.” Too early to start a new day, so I returned to bed. But the second awakening at “3:43” was too close to “4:00” to return to bed. So I got up, weighed myself, and went about what has become my usual morning routines: measure my blood glucose, make coffee, and encourage my computer to inundate me with information.

Like most mornings, the information this morning was largely unpleasant. Shootings. Dangerous international political posturing. Venomous reactions to noxious environmental calamities. Updates about the horrors of the latest wars and precursors to war. Terrifying results of a global climate spiraling hopelessly toward our inevitable oblivion. The usual stuff. Why I subject myself to such ugliness is beyond comprehension; yet I do. And with some regularity. On those mornings when I bypass the “news,” though, I sometimes manage to avoid the choking, poisonous layer of grim, grey, toxins that sully the emotional atmosphere. I should sidestep that suffocating gas in favor of the atmosphere several thousand feet above me. Floating silently through space, taking in fresh oxygen that fills me with a serene sense of safety and protective distance. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Distancing myself from the labyrinth. The sticky web. The clot of thick, confining rope.

+++

I am more familiar with words that describe pain than with words that portray pleasure. That may be by choice, or it may be a function of the way my mind works. Regardless of which, certain aspects of the English language almost invisibly manipulate the way I—and all of us—view the world of which I am a part. Words mold the way we experience existence as much as, perhaps even more so than, the actual experience itself. “Pleasure” seems to have more negative connotations than does “pain.” “Pleasure” frequently is associated with acts or ideas considered coarse or vulgar. Even when those acts or ideas are neither coarse nor vulgar, but simply enjoyable or restorative or transformational. The pleasure one feels when leaping from an airplane, plummeting in free fall toward the earth below, is one such experience. There is nothing coarse or vulgar about that. Indeed, that experience can open one’s mind to a kind of joy rarely available to us as we trudge along the ground, our feet firmly affixed to the soil.

“Solitude” is a word that can summon a sense of unpleasant isolation, but it can just as easily set the stage for the euphoria of untethered freedom. Most often, though, “solitude” and “loneliness” occupy the same desolate places in the imagination. The beauty of pre-dawn solitude is majestic and awe-inspiring. But, realistically, it also can encompass the starkness of impenetrable isolation. Like everything in life, it can be slide from one end of a spectrum to the other; from darkness to light and back again.

Nothing is perfectly clear. Even transparent glass is an aberration of the idea of invisibility; it illustrates flaws in the concept of absolute “clarity.” Clear glass is at once invisible and apparent. So much of life’s experience is like that. It is “there,” but it cannot be successfully held in one’s hands. Air.  Water. Love. Happiness. Hatred. But transparent glass is different; I can hold it, yet I cannot really see it. Or can I? Do I see the glass, or do I see the effect of glass on light? Air is like that, too. So is crystal clear water. I do not see it, but I see how it transforms the way other materials behave: hair, cloth, skin. Love and happiness and hatred are invisible, too, but they change the appearance of the world around us. They either brighten or dim our perspectives. “Yellow” looks different when viewed through a lens of love, as opposed to a lens of hatred.

+++

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

~ Leonard Cohen ~

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I am more than 30 pounds lighter than I was at the peak of my obesity. But I am more than 30 pounds heavier than I was when, as a full-on adult, I weighed the least. That 60 pound range horrifies me. How could I allow myself to squander my health in that way? Assigning blame takes a judgmental approach to the way in which one’s emotions impact one’s actions, which in turn determine the shape and condition of one’s physical body. Accepting blame is not the same as accepting responsibility. Shame and guilt accompany blame. What accompanies responsibility? Opportunity?

+++

The time is nearing 6:30. I will shave and shower and ready myself to join a cadre of old (mostly) men for breakfast soon. I will have little to say. I will sit and listen.

Arising a few hours before sunrise can be a cleansing occurrence. I think getting up that early enables a person to discard some of the accumulated detritus from the preceding days and weeks—if, that is, the person wants an opportunity to freshen his engagement with the battles of daily life. As I contemplate the opportunity, it occurs to me that, lately, I have not arisen as early as I like. For that reason, among others, my cones of incense have remained hidden in my desk for many days. This morning, though, more than two hours after I awoke for the fourth time since going to bed last night, I lit some incense. I sense it now as it caresses me with its calming aroma. Its potentially calming aroma. Unless a person is ready to allow his frenzied mind to be sedated, the odor of incense—any unusual smell—can be more disruptive than soothing. Whether I am actually ready for my thoughts to be quieted, I want them to rest…calm…soften. I need to relax the stiffness that has gripped me during the last few days. Failing to address the brittleness, I might shatter into a million pieces, pieces so small and fragmented that putting them back together would be impossible. So I inhale the scent of patchouli smoke. I invite it to breathe elasticity into my porcelain brain. Perhaps I should have brewed hot tea this morning, rather than coffee. Maybe tea is a better sedative than coffee. I should stop distracting myself with thoughts like that. I should focus gently on the healing elements of aromatic smoke and rich, hot coffee. And, so, I do. At least I try. But regret and guilt pry at my serenity, creating cracks in my tranquility from which geysers of flammable fuel could erupt. Any little spark could ignite them. Peace should not be so fragile, nor so easily twisted into war.

It is getting late. The sky is weak with dim grey light; the dimness is receding, but it is not being replaced by brightness. Instead, the dimness is washing into emptiness, as if the sky wishes to reinforce the sullenness of the day. Stiff winds bend trees and limbs for a moment, then their movement suddenly stops, as if they have lost the ability to breathe. A modest hole appears in the dim grey cloud cover, allowing a pastel patch of orange and pink to peek through for a moment, only to be drowned a moment later by dull grey clouds. I wonder whether the day will continue this way; making efforts to emerge into light, only to be foiled by clouds that are both stronger and more certain of their strength than the distant sun.

+++

I wrote the following paragraphs before daylight. They belong at the end of this diatribe, because they have no other logical place. They are accidental links to a frenetic past. Or something like it.

Six episodes into the first season, I am thoroughly hooked on the French-language series Public Enemy (Ennemi public). The Belgian television series, available on Netflix, is three seasons long (I assume it has completed its production run, but I am not certain of it).  So far, my eyes have been glued to the screen in each one-hour episode, darting between the English subtitles and the action. Like so many foreign-language films/series I have seen in recent years, the subtitles are so well done that, in a matter of minutes from beginning to watch, I forget that I am not personally translating the dialogue. The plot begins with the release, after twenty years in prison, of a convicted child killer, who is given sanctuary in a monastery in a village in Belgium’s Ardennes forest. The villagers are livid at the presence of a child killer in their midst, so a young woman, a federal police inspector, is assigned to protect the man. Shortly after he arrives at the monastery, a little girl disappears. From there, the storyline grows increasingly tense and gripping. I read this morning that the plot was inspired by a similar set of circumstances involving a man named Marc Paul Alain Dutroux. The man’s case was so infamous that, according to a 1998 article by BBC News, “Over a third of Belgian citizens who have the same surname as the convicted paedophile Marc Dutroux have applied to have their names changed, France Info radio reported on Saturday, quoting the Belgian daily paper `La Derniere Heure’.”

Mi novia has grown nearly as addicted to foreign-language political and crime thrillers as I. Well, maybe not quite that addicted, but more than simply tolerant. As we scan available films and series, we both find ourselves drawn to foreign flicks, especially Scandinavian, and lately French-language programs. It’s not just a matter of language, either. It’s the cinematography and the greater “believability” of the stories and the actors’ portrayal of believable characters. Maybe there’s something else, too; but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

It is simply a distraction. But it works, for a while, to paint over the old, cracking, sun-dried topcoat. Maybe I should sit on the loveseat all day, watching television. That might be more soothing than smoking pork ribs. But probably not.

It’s nearly 7. More than three hours since I got out of bed for the third or fourth time last night and into the wee hours. I may need to sleep later in the day. But not now. I should have something for breakfast. Nothing “normal,” like cereal or fried eggs, though. Tomatoes and avocadoes, perhaps, with dabs of habanero salsa to liven the flavors. Like little knives jabbing at my tongue and taste buds, trying to instigate an fight. Or an insurrection.

I am beyond restless, hungry for a different environment. Anxious and thirsty for some kind of change. Edgy and agitated.  Anxious to abandon my predictable daily routines for a while. Maybe longer. I do not know the source of my sense of unsettled nervousness. I know, though, that it seems to be getting stronger and more urgent. Yet self-imposed obligations temper the urgency. Or, rather, they try to temper it. Instead, they tend to make me angry with myself for accepting commitments that constrain my freedom—freedom to respond favorably to sudden nomadic urges. If I could ignore my feeling that I have an unshakable obligation to fulfill commitments, once I make them, I might suddenly find myself accompanying the wind. Changing directions in an instant. Moving at dizzying speed and then suddenly coming to a stop, becoming absolutely still; as invisible as the wind itself. But I have willingly crafted thick links of chain—joined them together and affixed them to a band of hardened steel wrapped around my ankle. I did not grasp that my blacksmithing was connecting us to immovable anchors. But now I do. Breaking the bonds is possible, but regret and guilt would bubble forth from those links of chain as if they were tubes through which flows a perpetual stream of remorse. What, exactly, is freedom? It must be a state in which one’s efforts to build his own self-restricting prison are stymied. Life goes on, though. Restrictions, like webs surrounding one’s limbs, permit one to breathe but severely limit one’s movement.

+++

So. Situations change. Circumstances adapt and adjust to influences. The planned meeting yesterday with Lorri and John did not take place for good but regrettable reasons. The decision to forego the meeting arose, largely, from the fact that advancing age takes its toll on one’s energy and eyesight. I can while away the hours with shopping/sightseeing and I can drive at night; neither, though, are as enjoyable as they once were. And both tend to sap my dwindling supply of youthful energy.  The seven to nine hour delay between my doctor’s appointment and our planned meet-up seemed to me to be too much. So, I deferred our meeting until another time. Perhaps another road trip will take us to New England, where we can mold our respective schedules around a more relaxed and relaxing timeframe. So it goes.

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The original reason for the drive to Little Rock yesterday was to visit with the rheumatologist. She informed me that the MRI of my neck revealed no abnormalities. But the results for the right shoulder was another story. Significant age-related osteoarthritic degradation of the acromioclavicular joint is the culprit that has caused so much pain. And, unfortunately, it probably will only get worse over time. The only options to reduce or minimize the pain are drugs—meloxicam and/or acetaminophen—or surgery. The latter would be an option only if the former do not reduce pain to tolerable levels. The former, over time and depending on frequency and dosage, can cause a variety of side-effects ranging from mild to severe. While the diagnosis was not precisely what I had hoped for (an easy, permanent cure), it was far better than it could have been. My blood work revealed no evidence that I have or am in danger of having rheumatoid arthritis. No lupus. No mumps. No measles. No chronic, explosive diarrhea. No signs that I could suddenly become a vampire with an insatiable appetite for human blood. None of those deeply unpleasant things. Just a common condition in which bodily decay is accompanied by excruciating, but somewhat treatable, manageable pain. Hallelujah!

+++

To celebrate the absence of a more disturbing diagnosis, I bought another jacket and another semi-custom shirt. The first semi-custom shirt was not quite right, so it will be altered to be a better fit. And the semi-custom shirt I bought yesterday will be more precisely tailored to fit better. The sleeves of the jacket will be shortened; otherwise, it fits nicely. Though yesterday I spent far more than I ever thought I would on clothes, I am not hyperventilating. Once I force myself to buy one or two pair of slacks to go with the jackets, I will be in a position to dress in a way that will adequately conceal my natural bodily homeliness. Though the expense is obscenely exorbitant, it is cheaper than whole-body reconstructive plastic surgery.

+++

On the drive home, a stop at Costco further reduced the size of my bank account. While I was tempted to buy several whole Wagyu beef ribeye roasts, I controlled myself, opting instead to limit myself to pork ribs, which I will cook in my recently-acquired electric smoker. The smoker replaces an identical one I used until its demise. I plan to use the smoker with some regularity, preparing foods that can be frozen and subsequently thawed to provide quick and easy meals.

+++

My creativity is taking a breather. My mind seems to prefer a stultified atmosphere in which creative thought replaces oxygen.

A flurry of friends occupy my thoughts this morning. Yesterday, Jim and Vicki, good friends of mine since around 1997, made a little detour on their way from Alexandria, Virginia to Dallas to have lunch with us. This afternoon, if circumstances fall into place as I expect, we will meet John and Lorri for dinner or drinks as they make their way from Oklahoma City to Little Rock on a segment of their long, meandering trip back home to the east coast, a trip that has taken them from Boston to Sedona and places in between. And I am concerned about my good friends Lana and Melvin, who recently moved from Fort Smith to Memphis. Their historical responsiveness to communications has diminished of late, giving me cause for concern. And Patty and Terry are on my mind, as they camp in Big Bend and beyond, making their way west to Arizona during a month-long journey to unwind and visit family and friends. While friends are on my mind, I wonder how my Dallas friends, Steve and Ed, are getting along? This mental focus on friendships broadens—or is it that it narrows?—as I sit here. Ducky and Becky and Kim come to mind. People whose company I have grown to appreciate and regularly seek out. And there is a cluster of others to whom I’ve grown attached through church; they, too, enter my thoughts. Though I cannot claim to be extremely close to all of them, all of them matter to me. All of them add depth to my life’s experience. I call some of them soul-mates. I do not know whether that sense of intense, close connection is reciprocated, but I do not know whether that matters. Every person must determine for himself (or herself) who serves as part of a framework on which ones ego is supported.  And, of course, there is Colleen. A magnificently close friend and confidante and life-force and powerful source and recipient of love.

As my mind circles around the idea of friendships, its scope broadens to relationships in general. Connections to people whose presence is intertwined with my life in one way or another. Though I sometimes think of myself as something of a loner, in reality I value having connections with others. More than valuing them, I need them. Without human connections, I suspect my mind would shrivel like an apple left in the intense heat of unceasing sunlight. It would dry up and eventually turn to dust. Human interactions are the lubricants that keep our minds flexible and malleable and open to new ideas. If we close our minds to new ideas, we decay. I have seen it. I have experienced it from time to time. Certainty does that. It seals pathways to expansive thinking. Only when our minds are open to challenges to what and how we think are we able to grow and evolve and become more capable of surviving the onslaught of…something I cannot define. But it’s something that can ruin us if we let it. We must be willing to change. Become someone new.  Over and over and over again. I suppose that is how and why we make new friends. But the core of who we are is how and why we maintain and strengthen those powerful connections that take the form of long-time friendships.

Okay. I have expressed this odd philosophizing quite enough. I have to ready myself for a visit with a doctor in Little Rock. I hope she informs me that my two MRIs reveal something easily correctable; something that will enable her to magically make my shoulder and neck and joint pain disappear. I have learned to keep breathing. Not holding my breath. Not for a second.

I learned about the Sarco yesterday, however I only skimmed part of an article that described the device and its creator. The idea made enough of an impact on me, though, that I decided to explore it in a little more depth this morning. The Sarco is a “suicide capsule” that can be produced by a 3-D printer and can be used to end one’s own life without assistance by a doctor or other helper. Described as “a capsule that could produce a rapid decrease in oxygen level, while maintaining a low CO2 level, (the conditions for a peaceful, even euphoric death),” the concept emerged in response to a request from a man in the UK who desired a technological solution to ending his life. The man suffered from Locked-In Syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system in which a person is paralyzed except for muscles controlling eye movement.

According to materials on the Exit International website (note my skepticism about the organization, below), “the Sarco aims to provide a hypoxic (low oxygen), hypocapnic (low carbon dioxide) death.” Various safeguards associated with the device (restrictions on the availability of detailed specifications of the device and other controls, etc.) are meant to ensure that the Sarco is used only by people of sound mind who are committed to ending life in a peaceful, pleasant manner, without  intervention by doctors, the state, or other “intruders” on an individual’s pursuit of a serene, dignified death. By the way, the Sarco (and, I presume, the specific design for the device) was conceived by Philip Nitschke, the founder and director of Exit International. Nitschke was formerly a medical doctor in Australia; he opted to abandon his licensure when faced with demands that he abandon his very public support of the right to die movement in order to maintain his registration.

Though I support the concept that people should have the right to decide to end their lives when living becomes an irreparably excruciating experience or when one’s quality of life has degraded completely and is beyond recovery, the Sarco  may not be “the answer.” For one thing, the cost of creating  (3-D printing) the device is high: roughly $18,000 US, according to the Exit International website. For another, people who experience irreversible pain or otherwise have powerful, defensible reasons to take their own lives may not be in a position to arrange for production of a Sarco device. And, even if they could, they may be physically unable to put the device to use without assistance. The device can be controlled only by the user, once inside the pod; but the user may require significant help getting inside. That required assistance essentially negates the claim that using the Sarco is entirely in the control of the person who wishes to die.

My issues with the Sarco device notwithstanding, I subscribe to Exit International‘s published philosophy. But for several reasons, I am skeptical of the purity of the organization’s motives. Membership in Exit International costs $100 per year or $1000 for a lifetime subscription. Access to certain “member benefits” requires payment of additional fees. For example, access to the The Peaceful Pill eHandbook – Essentials Edition costs $85 for Exit International members and is said to be “sold only to those over 50 years of age, of sound mind or who are seriously ill.” While I fully understand why an organization might charge a fee sufficient to cover necessary costs, I am highly suspicious about the level of Exit International‘s charges. And I am more than a little cautious about the organization because its website seems a bit too commercial in tone, as if its primary but unannounced objective is to maximize its profitability.

Interestingly, Exit International is not listed among the 58 member organizations of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies (WFRDS). According to WFRDS, there are 80 such organizations worldwide, so several others have opted not to belong to WFRDS; but the majority do. Hmm.

Okay, I’ve drifted a bit. My interest in the Sarco device was piqued because of my strong belief in individuals’ right to decide to die when they experience unrelieved excruciating pain or when their quality of life has declined to the point of making living an irreversible exercise in anguish. In my view, the State has no business interfering with a person’s decision—in response to such circumstances—to end his or her life. Granted, the decision is irreversible and should be taken only after intense consideration. And, granted, suicide in the absence of irreversible circumstances should be discouraged in the strongest possible ways and fiercely guarded against. But the reality is that everyone dies. At some point, when the reasonably comfortable enjoyment of life is known to be permanently impossible, the individual should have the uncontested right to decide when to end it.

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They asked me what I thought about euthanasia. I said I’m more concerned about the adults.

~ Jay London ~

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I realize the content of this morning’s post is not as cheery as are my usual happy thoughts, but it is a topic that should not, in my view, be addressed in hushed tones. Death, as painful as it is to loved ones of those who die, is a normal conclusion to life. I think we should talk about it more openly and without feeling that we’re entering territory that is too “morbid.” Death is a difficult subject, sometimes, but it is one that warrants conversation.

I am curious about life experiences that have shaped the attitudes and beliefs of people I know; both people close to me and others with whom I know only casually. If the world were as accommodating as I would like, I would have the opportunity to sit with people, privately, and ask deeply personal, probing questions that might help me understand how these folks came to be who they are. It would not be enough to just ask the questions, though. The questions would have to be answered. Honestly. Openly. Thoroughly. I doubt I would feel comfortable asking many of the questions about which I might be deeply curious. We all have secrets of one kind or another that are so personal, so private, that we do not want to share them with anyone. Ever. Not even ourselves, I sometimes think. But it is precisely those deeply personal matters, the ones that may fuel some of our behaviors and attitudes that cannot otherwise be explained, that one must know in order to truly understand certain crucial aspects of a person’s personality. Getting at the answers to questions that might explain aspects of a person’s personality would require the “investigator” to be absolutely trustworthy. And the one asked to give the answers would have to firmly believe in and completely trust the questioner. That kind of trust—both earning it and giving it—is extraordinarily rare.

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After bouncing back and forth between various Scandinavian television series, I finally finished the final season of Borgen, a Danish political masterpiece, last night. Before that, evenings were consumed by three exceptional seasons of Deadwind, a Finnish crime series, much of which I had watched some time ago, but needed to revisit in order to fully grasp the entire riveting storyline. I suspect my adoration of Norwegian and Finnish and Swedish and Danish and related television and film is fed, in part, by my fascination with both the similarities and the stark differences between Scandinavian society and U.S. society. Not just the broader society; the characteristics and attributes of individuals in society. My life-long interest in certain vaguely appealing aspects of cultures that help define entire populations drives my interest, I suppose. Though I have a moderately deep and abiding interest in those aspects of cultures, my interest has never been sufficiently deep to fuel real passion. It seems I lose interest after a while, though my interest always returns. Perhaps my entire life can be explained by assuming I may have lived under the influence of undiagnosed ADHD. My experiences are rife with deep but brief plunges into topics of interest, after which I skitter near the surface of those topics and a thousand like them. My interests are broad but shallow, leading me to say about myself: “My interests are broad but shallow.” Or, “I know very little about so very many things.”

That’s a repetitive theme in this blog, isn’t it? One day (or one year or more), I will spend time with an astute therapist or other mental health professional who will help me delve into what makes me tick. I really would like to know why I do not seem to have the capacity to more thoroughly explore matters of interest to me before I lose that interest—at least temporarily—in them. It must be caused by psychological deviance of some sort. I am curious about it; just not curious enough to pursue it with enough vigor to find the answers.

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When I woke—much later than I would have liked—the temperature was 25°F. My computer claims it has now reached 29°F, on the way to 55°F. I am ready for temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70s. I want to feel thoroughly warm. Comfortable. But I’ll have to wait for several weeks, I suspect. Or months. On one hand, I want time to speed by. On the other, I want to pause the passage of time; even reverse it. I would reverse it if I could. Perhaps reverse only certain aspects of time, allowing me to reorder my experiences in some fashion. Weave multiple dimensions of time into a tapestry of experience that would wrap me in the kind of warmth that sunlight cannot offer. Ach. Daydreams. Fantasies. The sort of impossible dreams that bring tears to my eyes and sorrow to my soul. The kind of wishes that cannot overcome the brutal force of regret.

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It’s late. Almost 8:30. Time to abandon this expression of…whatever it is. Breakfast calls. Though I am not hungry for food, I need sustenance.

I woke early enough this morning. But, even so, I have no interest in doing anything. Not writing, not eating breakfast. Nothing at all. I want to go back to bed and sleep through the day and through the night and into tomorrow. It’s not that I am physically tired. Yet I feel mentally exhausted, as if every shred of energy that powered my interests and imagination is gone. I just want to crawl into a cocoon that shields me from the world around me. But I have obligations today I can’t ignore.  I have tried to ignite a spark of something inside me, but the fire flares for only an instant, then immediately burns itself out. I hope I can conceal my disinterest in life for long enough to get through two meetings.

It is pointless for me to be writing this. But I’ve done it, so I’ll call it my post for the day.

Brilliant blue flashes of light and growling, rolling, ground-shaking concussions from cracks of thunder woke me from a dream. With no coverings over the windowpanes, every flash of lightning illuminated the room, filling it with an otherworldly fluorescent blue cast. The dream. I do not recall the dream, except that I woke shouting, in fear I was about the fall. From what? Into what? I do not know. I know only that my sense of fear—or the fierce cracks of thunder and blue light—was en0ugh to provoke a shout as I woke.

These ferocious thunderstorms augur a dramatic change in temperatures. So say the weather prognosticators. When I awoke this morning, the outdoor temperature was 68°F; only an hour and a quarter later, it is 59°F. Temperatures are expected to drop quickly, bringing the high for the rest of the day down to 52°F. Yesterday’s high—76°F in Little Rock and 74°F in Hot Springs Village—felt wonderful to me. Showers and 52°F, clearing a bit to partly-cloudy (but still 52°F) is not an appealing experience.

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If I were a Finnish barber attempting to schedule a client’s next haircut, I might offer a specific date to the client and then say “Katso päivämäärä aikataulustasi,” which translates into English as “Look at the date on your schedule.” Fortunately for me, I am not a Finnish barber. Because if I were, I would be unable to utter those Finnish words. I probably would not have any clients, thanks to my inability to speak or understand their language.  (And my lack of tonsorial arts might present a problem.) As I contemplate the problems I would face with such simple communication, it occurs to me that refugees and immigrants who do not speak English but who wind up in the United States must have a terribly hard time adjusting. It is hard enough during one or two day (or week) visits to a place to be unable to communicate in the local language. Attempting to establish oneself for the long term would amplify the difficulty; I think it would be nothing less than excruciating.

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A pair of Finnish police detectives—one of whom is an uncontrollable renegade and the other slightly more controllable—in the series we have been watching, Deadwind, regularly stop at the espresso machine while discussing a case. I rarely drink espresso, but when I have occasion to drink an especially dark, rich, flavorful demitasse of the stuff, the experience makes me think about getting another espresso machine. I used to own an espresso machine, a rather inexpensive one (by quality espresso machine standards). But I did not use it much; not because it produced a bad cup of espresso or was difficult to use or time consuming…none of those are true…but because I rarely had access to the right beans. And the grinder I used was incapable of grinding beans as finely as excellent espresso requires. On extremely rare occasion, I had the opportunity to lay my hands on a vacuum-sealed brick of an Italian brand of espresso-grind coffee. Even in my low-pressure little machine, the beans produced spectacular espresso. And when my source for the beans, an Italian guy who owned a premium, high-end espresso maker, used them in his machine, the resulting cups of espresso were marvelous. Incomparable. Energizing. Life-changing. Alas, I have lost touch with the guy. And I do not recall the name brand of the brick of espresso-grind beans. I doubt I could buy them, anyway. My source used to buy several bricks when he traveled to see family and friends in Toronto, where an importer friend of his supplied him with the stuff. My source shared only two bricks with me, I think, but they produced among the finest cups of espresso I have ever had—from my machine.

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How’s this for a fantasy? New, highly charismatic leaders have emerged, almost simultaneously, in the U.S., China, Russia, and the two Koreas. Each of them are friendly with the leaders of several other major countries. The primary five leaders collectively have enormously persuasive political power. The five leaders convene a “world leaders” meeting, during which the assembled group concocts a bold plan: to merge once desperate enemies into an enormous single entity whose sole objective is to achieve equality and parity among the citizens of the planet. The single most difficult obstacle, they reason, is inefficient and ineffective communication. So, they set about creating a new global language. And a plan for all geographic areas to adopt the new language. And to require its citizens to become fluent in the new language, while maintaining their own (and teaching both languages to their children and other under-age dependents).

Though the plan is ludicrously ambitious, it is implemented and its requirements strictly enforced. The semi-autocratic cabal of world leaders gently but firmly insist on collective efforts to unify the citizens of the world and to ensure that the citizens can communicate across what once were borders. Over a period of several years—and several new generations of leaders who are carefully and closely coached by the original five—the plan for global unity is well on its way to being achieved. Suddenly, though, a threat to the planet challenges leaders to make decisions that will save almost half the planet’s population and sacrifice the others. An asteroid the size of Earth’s moon is heading toward the planet. It’s present trajectory will destroy all of North, Central, and South America, along with people on island nations near them. Technologies have been developed which could be used to divert the asteroid’s path just enough to change where it will strike Earth. The leaders must collectively decide who lives and who dies. Should the trajectory be left alone? Or should it be changed so the asteroid will instead destroy most of Asia and/or Africa? Once they decide, the leaders are obligated to inform the world’s population of their unanimous decision and the reasons for it.

And I am not really a fan of science fiction or disaster epics. But there you go.

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Today is Thursday, the day a clot of UUVC men gather at a local breakfast gathering place (I would call it a coffee shop but that would be something of an insult to coffee) to check in with one another while breaking bread. Let me amplify; the coffee is not awful, but it is not especially good, either. Our group of men might be more closely acquainted if we had access to superb coffee, which would give all of us a common experience about which to converse. As it stands, I suspect the conversation today will veer into discussions about the Super Bowl. I know the Kansas City Chiefs won over the Philadelphia Eagles. I know because I just looked it up to verify that I was right. And I was. But I was not sure of the words that came after the city names. I got the score right, though; 38 to 35.  My conversation might take the path of “medical adventures of old men;” I could relay my experiences yesterday, when I had two MRIs: one of my right shoulder, one of my neck. The online portal that ostensibly keeps records of all of my medical interactions with the “clinic” has nothing new this morning; no results. I suppose I will have to wait until next week, when I return on Monday for a visit with the rheumatologist. I suspect she will tell me there is nothing of consequence I can do but to take pills to moderate the pain. If the pain remains as it is today, I can live with that. I do not like the idea of relying on yet another pill (that she already has prescribed and which seems to be working fairly well), but I am willing to accept reality.

But I slipped right off the path of telling about the men’s breakfast, didn’t I? I am wont to do that sort of thing. My mind wanders. Sometimes it wanders off without telling me and is gone for days at a time. When it returns, it leaves me cryptic clues about where it has been, but I try not to follow them for fear of encountering something inappropriate it did while traveling in search of adventure. Wait! It’s after 7, so I have to begin the slow, laborious process of changing from my morning leisurewear to my more socially acceptable jeans and sneakers and sweatshirt (the temperatures are falling, as I said). And it’s off to breakfast!

The question arises in me periodically—or, maybe, it always crouches in the back of my mind: Where, or what, is “home?” In a mobile society, the concept that home is the place in which one was born applies to fewer and fewer of us. Even if we spent our formative years in one place, the likelihood that family members and friends will remain there after we reach adulthood diminishes by the day. And, even if we abandon the idea of home as a place and, instead, consider it a tight-knit web of  people close to us, home tends to dissolve into vapor. The cluster of people who once defined what we called home disappears as its members grow apart—emotional bonds shred or family and friends become physically distant from one another. Or both.

No matter that one might “permanently” settle in a new place and establish a new cluster of friends. No matter that a new family grows to supplant the closeness of the distant original. That original home, for most, is a memory at best. The idea that home is and will always remain either a place or a clot of people (or both) to which we will always have ready access is a fantasy. Close emotional bonds stretch until, finally, they break. Efforts to repair the damaged connections can never replicate the original. Many reasons may explain the impossibility of reconnection. Sometimes, links to the past feel like manacles. Or the substances of which the bonds were made have become extinct. Or time and experience have so altered them that the attachments are no longer sufficiently strong to keep them together.

Whatever the reason for the inability to revisit home, that loss leaves a person feeling a hollow sense of homelessness. Nothing can replace the sense of intrinsic belonging, once it is gone. We can lie to ourselves, claiming we have found a new place to dwell; a comfortable physical place in which our emotional connections with people who matter equal or exceed the original home. But there always will be an emptiness—a fragile cavern that can be neither filled nor extracted—to remind us that our home is irretrievably unreachable. Thomas Wolfe understood that reality, I think. He expressed that truth, in the form of his posthumously published book, You Can’t Go Home Again. 

You can force yourself to try forget the loss of home. But no matter how hard you try, the inescapable truth of its loss occasionally comes to visit. When it does, you recognize you do not really belong anywhere, because the place you once belonged no longer exists. You realize you are no longer tethered to people or place. You float in a void. You have no means to steer yourself, nor any way to land someplace to which you can be permanently affixed. You always will be subject to being dislodged and sent aimlessly back into space, hoping to find another connection which can, at least for a time, become a surrogate for home.

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When I woke this morning, I saw that I had received, sometime after midnight, a text message from a friend. She and her husband may be passing through Hot Springs Village next week, on their way to places beyond, and wondered whether I might be available to visit with them. I have not seen her since I retired in 2011. I saw her husband (also a friend) once, just a year or two after I closed my business, when he treated my late wife and her sister and me to dinner during a visit to Boston. I hope their visit comes to fruition. I would love to see them and learn about how their lives have progressed in the twelve years since I saw her. In light of my contemplation about home this morning, I wonder whether changes in them and in me might have changed the complexion of our casual friendship. Both of them were members of an association I once managed. We saw once another only occasionally, a few times a year at most, in those days. I will not let my overly-contemplative mood this morning spoil my enthusiasm for seeing them, though. I will groom my excitement, instead.

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Yesterday morning’s heavy rain turned into clear, blue skies in the afternoon. High winds swept the rain away, scrubbing the sky and leaving a pristine atmosphere. This morning, a thick fog has reclaimed control. According to the weather prognosticators, the temperature might reach 74°F today, before sliding back down to the mid-60s with rain late this evening. My drive to and from Little Rock (where I will undergo two MRIs) today should be reasonably clear and comfortable. The MRIs are intended to disclose, if possible, the causes of some extremely annoying pains in various joints (especially my right clavicle and right shoulder). I am not putting any money on the likelihood that the resulting images will reveal anything definitive.

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Appointments with doctors and other healthcare professionals are taking too much of my time lately. They interfere with my desire for freedom to spontaneously decide to take day trips or otherwise behave as if I had no claims to my time. Aging, though, brings with it the begrudging wisdom to permit infringements on one’s freedom, if those intrusions have the potential of keeping one healthy (or returning one to health). If I had realized, as a younger person, just how valuable one’s healthy body really was, I might have taken better care of it But probably not. Because I was invincible and could not be persuaded that I was not.

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Enough musing for now. I will abandon this mental spillage for something more interesting and engaging.

Today is Valentine’s Day. Like so many other holidays, it has been appropriated by money-hungry merchants and their philosophical kin, eager to transform a celebration into an opportunity to extract money from celebrants. I read an article this morning that suggested the occasion has “dark origins.” Though financial gain may not have played a part in its origins, lust and power apparently did. If one examines today’s celebration of the event with a critical eye, I think lust and power—along with avarice hardly concealed behind a transparent veil—continue to serve as its driving forces. Love ostensibly is the reason for the day, but in my cynicism, I have my doubts. Happy Valentine’s Day. I will happily lavish you with heart-shaped chocolates in return for unfettered access to your kisses and your nakedness and…

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I feel the urge to embark on day trips. Or week trips. Or month trips. Road trips of one duration or another. When I feel these urges, which seem to arise with increasing frequency, I find myself perusing advertisements for Class B recreational vehicles—expensive mini-houses (more like upscale tents, I guess) on wheels. Though designed for two, they seem to me to be somewhat better-suited to solo travel. But I think they would work just fine for two, provided they have retractable awnings and room to store comfortable chairs designed for outdoor use. I’ve been advised to rent one before buying, if I were to decide to buy, but the cost to rent them seems obscenely high to me. I’d rather borrow one from a good friend and repay the favor with something of equal non-monetary value. Among the problems with that idea, though, is that I do not have friends who both own such vehicles and have sufficient trust in me to feel comfortable with the arrangement. I do not blame anyone for that. Letting someone borrow something as expensive as a quality Class B RV requires more than trust—it requires requires unshakable faith, the kind that grows over the course of a lifetime of closeness. Maybe I’ll buy one, anyway. It’s just money, right? With that level of expenditure, though, I might feel obligated to spend most of the year on the road, in order to justify the investment. “Investment.” One does not “invest” in something guaranteed to shrink in monetary value over time. It’s an expense, pure and simple. But isn’t retirement an opportunity to incur expenses without regard to ROI? Still, I have not yet convinced myself. I may be incapable of changing a mind so firmly ensconced in frugality and risk aversion.  Hmmm.

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MSU.

Again. And again. And again and again and again. Obviously, the time has long since passed when steps could have been taken to prevent the carnage. Actions now might lessen the number, but we have squandered our chances to reduce the number to near zero. Access to guns of all types is too readily available. Prospective mass shooters have seen and heard about too many role models to dam the flood of ideas that wash over them, triggering warped ideas of empowered hatred or revenge or control. Fanatical adherents to warped ideas about the intent of the Second Amendment are too numerous to make possible the collection and destruction of assault rifles and other weaponry unnecessarily available to virtually everyone. More aggressive mental health programs might make a dent in the problem, but the epidemic has become too widespread for the disease to be eradicated by treating its symptoms. I hold out no hope that mass shootings can be prevented. Or even that their numbers might be reduced. We now face the reality of being forced to live—and die—with them.

I wish my pessimism were unfounded. But I am afraid it is not. It is only a matter of time before a local grocery store or senior center or high school or bath house become a scene for a killing spree.

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Despite what I have written this morning, I am not an inveterate curmudgeon. I am more of a happy-go-lucky guy who is struggling to untie the ropes that have heretofore bound him to tentativeness. I am ready for more coffee and a reasonable breakfast; nothing tentative about that.

Discipline. When one thinks about the discipline required for successful dieting or exercising, one’s thoughts center on the self-control necessary to train oneself to follow a specific regimen. But when the subject involves correcting a child who has behaved badly, discipline adds punishment as an aspect of training. And when one refers to an area of special knowledge, discipline takes on an entirely different aspect; though it, too, relates to the ordered acquisition of information or ability. Language is fascinating. Words are fascinating. My fascination with words centers on the only language I use: English. As I consider how many languages I do not know, my interest in how words can have such different, but related, meanings grows exponentially. But that interest is based on assumptions,  not knowledge. Once again, I fantasize about acquiring the ability to speak multiple languages without effort; I wish I could get an injection or an electric shock or some other form of brain cell manipulation that would enable me to acquire fluency in a new language. I would willingly shoot-up at least once a day until I could communicate with ease in every language. But would those injections be legal? Would language acquisition by way of a syringe filled with a magic liquid be viewed in the same way society views the acquisition of mental ecstasy by way of a syringe filled with heroin? I can imagine society, with its voracious appetite for obedience to norms, intervening. Though I do not condone the use of heroin, for many reasons, there are similarities between its artificial means of achieving ecstasy and the ecstasy I might feel in acquiring proficiency in multiple languages. Something for me to think about; as if I needed anything else to clutter my brain.

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For some reason, over the course of many years, a line from a song/comedy skit presented during an old Smothers Brothers television program occasionally pops into my mind: “I fell in a vat of chocolate.” That line, and Tom Smothers’ report of his reaction to the absurd dilemma always struck me as funny. His reaction? He yelled “Fire!” Because, as he said, “No one would save me if I yelled ‘Chocolate!'” This silliness is on my mind right now because of the first line of a story I encountered on the NPR website this morning:

Federal workplace safety authorities have fined a central Pennsylvania confectionary factory more than $14,500 following an accident last year in which two workers fell into a vat of chocolate.

A representative of Mars Wrigley, the company fined for the accident at its M&M/Mars factory, told reporters, “As always, we appreciate OSHA’s collaborative approach to working with us to conduct the after-action review.”

I wonder whether the Smothers Brothers know of the incident? And I wonder whether the unfortunate workers were rescued after they yelled “Fire!”?

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Mi novia and I have been watching Deadwind lately, a Finnish crime drama series set primarily in and around Helsinki. During the course of watching the first season and part of the second, it has become apparent to me that I have seen it before. But that has not dissuaded me, yet, from watching it again. It’s still interesting and, except for a few scenes that are so etched into my memory that I cannot help but recall that I’ve seen them before, seems new to me. Despite the fact that the series is entertaining, a number of conflicts and discrepancies in the storyline plague the series. But even those mistakes do not sufficiently taint the series to make watching it a second time an unsatisfying experience. That having been said, now that we are an episode or two into the second season, I may want to abandon it in favor of something I have not seen before.

Despite my affinity for foreign flicks, watching and listening to English language films and series from time to time can be a refreshing change of pace. Listening to Finnish or German or Swedish or Hindi dialogue while reading English subtitles is not hard. But it takes an intensity of focused attention not required for English language programs.  So, in a sense, watching English language films or television programs is more relaxing and “easier.” But, generally speaking, English language products are not as interesting to me. I assume the appeal of foreign flicks rests with the style of acting and directing, but that’s just a guess. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the differences.

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We may make our way to Little Rock today to pick up a jacket I bought a few weeks ago (that’s been altered for fit) and a semi-custom shirt. While there, a visit to Costco will be in order. And some aimless driving—unstructured sightseeing—sounds appealing to me this morning. First step, though, is a healthy breakfast, produced with disciplined eating in mind. Later in the day, disciplined walking will be in order. And off I go.

I read, with some regularity, NPR’s blog, Goats and Soda: Stories of Life in a Changing World [the story of the blog’s name is interesting, by the way]. This morning, I read a fascinating and entertaining story about “glam makeovers of Pakistan’s tractors.” Though the blog’s name seems (and is) whimsical, its content always intrigues and educates me. It exposes me to ideas and experiences I probably would otherwise never encounter. I love its freshness and its willingness to explore matters ranging from sensitive regional issues to topics that, at first blush, seem absurd or nonsensical. When I daydream about various disparate occupations I might have pursued had I been more courageous in my youth, journalism sometimes emerges from the smoke. Immersing myself in unique cultural experiences and then writing about them could have been exhilarating and fulfilling, I think. Reading pieces written by journalists who do precisely that reminds me of one of my millions of occupational fantasies. I can imagine being part of a team of journalists who feed and encourage one another intellectually. Perhaps one day I will write a fictional autobiography in which my time as a globe-hopping, culture-sampling journalist will feature prominently. Sigh…

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?

~ Virginia Woolf ~

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The top of the news today includes reports about a spate of incursions into U.S. and Canadian airspace. Most recently, a cylindrical object flying at roughly 40,000 feet was shot down by U.S. jets over Canada’s Yukon Territory. Though I have not explored any so-called “news” sources that double as conspiracy factories, I suspect conspiracy theorists are having a field day with this flurry of easily-manipulated media attention. Are these objects dedicated to research on weather phenomena? Spying? Information-gathering for extra-terrestrial alien civilizations? Government-produced phenomena aimed at distracting citizens during the coming imposition of global dictatorships? Intricate public relations elements of  new corporate product launches? Jesus Christ’s rebirth and return in a different, more modern, form? Or what?

More to my liking was a news story about an anonymous Pakistani who walked into the Turkish embassy in the U.S. and donated $30 million to victims of the recent earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria. That story, lacking in even skeletal details, sparked my curiosity. Did the donor have cash in hand? Did his or her donation take the form of a check? A money order? A cashier’s check? A plastic debit card? Or, perhaps, was this act a cleverly-disguised mechanism used to launder money derived from drug or arms trading?

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The thirteenth anniversary of my sister’s death is approaching; a week and a day hence. I do not mark the date on my calendar and I never seem to remember the precise date. Yet every year about this time memories of her flood my mind. And when that happens, invariably I check to see the actual date of her death: February 19. I suppose my subconscious keeps better track of time than does my conscious brain. At any rate, she is on my mind at this moment. When I think about her death, I think about her siblings and niece and nephew and me gathering in the shallow water where the Gulf of Mexico meets Galveston Island to disperse her ashes, per her wishes. I wrote a poem entitled Into Salt about that experience. Some days I feel too close to mortality. And I feel both anger and appreciation; anger at loss, appreciation for the cessation of suffering.

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Once again, I got up reasonably early this morning. But not quite early enough. I got up about 5:45. And I’ve been surfing web news sites and writing ever since. An hour and fifteen minutes into the day and it’s already daylight and I’m just finishing my blog post for the day. I want to accomplish more while the sky is dark; I’ll just have to start setting my alarm. A good time to awaken, in my mind, is 4:30. That will be an objective I will strive to meet more frequently. For now, though, I’ll simply experience Sunday.

If I could start over—from the very beginning—and had the ability to make the choice, I think I might choose to be Finnish or Estonian or Dutch. Many years ago, I spent a day in Helsinki, so the choice of Finland is based not only on information I have gleaned from the internet. And, if memory serves, I spent two or three days—again, years ago—in Amsterdam, so I have first-hand knowledge of the Netherlands. Though I have never set foot in Estonia, I know enough about the country to feel confident that choosing Estonian nationality would be a good choice, if it were mine to make.

Obviously, spending just a few hours in any place is not sufficient to justify a decision to remake one’s life. But the more I learn about these three countries, as well as a few others, the more confident I become in the legitimacy of my impossible wishes. None of these three countries sprang into my dream world overnight; I have for years imagined what life might have been like had I been born into a culture I perceive as—what is the right ways to describe it?—cleaner and simpler and more pristine and more fundamentally humane than the one in which I was born and matured.

I do not condemn American culture; it has been good to me in many ways I probably do not deserve. But I do not admire its overwhelming attachment to capitalism and the thirst for material objects and wealth that capitalism breeds. And I detest the adoration of individualism and its accompanying passion for guns that have metastasized so thoroughly that they seem to have nearly erased the sense of social responsibility. Power and control seem vested in those who have the most selfish, loudest, and most strident voices…and who have ready access to weaponry.  Maybe I do condemn many aspects of American culture…but that condemnation is not responsible for my appreciation of other cultures. No, the appeal of other cultures rests with the cultures themselves, not specifically in how radically different they are from the one to which I am bound.

Had I been more courageous as a young man, I might have fled from a culture in which patriotism and nationalism have become synonymous. I might have taken the risks necessary to explore other cultures through immersion, rather than simply hunger for them as I viewed them from afar. Had I been born in Finland or Estonia or the Netherlands, I probably would be multi-lingual. And probably I would be less risk-averse. But I might be dead. Or languishing in a Finnish prison. Or bitter about living in poverty, compared to the “average” American lifestyle, as I scraped by on my meager income as an Estonian farmer.

There is no point in wishing for the impossible, of course. Except to exercise the imagination. And to prompt one’s curiosity about circumstances markedly different from one’s own. While daydreams can be exciting, they can darken one’s day-to-day experiences with artificial obstacles made of imaginary clouds. Fantasies that cannot come true can trigger bitterness, if you let them. That’s a battle best avoided. Dreams should be tempered with gratitude for reality. Sometimes, appreciation is difficult to achieve, but worth the effort.

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.

~ Mahatma Gandhi ~

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Today, mi novia and I will attend a meeting of the local chapter/branch of NAACP. I do not delude myself into thinking I will ever be able to fully understand what life as a Black person is like. But I want to be as open as possible to being supportive of change, to the extent that the color of one’s skin or the cultural milieu in which one lives/lived is not an impediment to the safe enjoyment of one’s life. Perhaps immersing myself, on occasion, in conversations surrounding the fight for true equality will help me better understand how I can be supportive. And how I can change myself so that whatever vestiges of racism remain embedded in my psyche can be extracted and discarded. I wonder whether that is even possible? I shall see.

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The day has begun. Unless it is halted in its tracks, it will continue on until is morphs into night.

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To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’

~ Viktor E. Frankl ~