John Swinburn

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

Each time I read those words, or hear them spoken, they resonate with me. They capture, as well as any words can, the truth about the dangers of injustice, especially the perils that arise when we remain blind to or silent in the face of injustice. If we ignore injustice unless it affects us directly, we are complicit in its ravages; we pave the way for more injustice. Eventually, turning a blind eye to inequity or oppression robs us of the ability to successfully fight when we become targets.

Those words of Martin Luther King, Jr. were spoken during the NAACP prayer breakfast I attended on Saturday. I heard them again from the UUVC minister yesterday. And I read them again this morning, this holiday that recognizes Dr. King’s birthday. I think our world would be a better place if we spoke those words, in place of the Pledge of Allegiance, every time the Pledge is spoken. I would not object, in the least, if school children were asked to recite Dr. King’s insightful words every day before classes began—and then discuss their meaning. By the way, pledging allegiance to a flag, in my opinion, is an example of mindless obedience, in and of itself an affront to the concept of freedom. The addition of “and to the Republic, for which it stands” hardly excuses the forced indoctrination implicit in the recitation. Patriotism is one thing; nationalism is another.

Today (January 16) is the official Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the Monday assigned as the annual placeholder for his actual birth date (January 15). The idea of adjusting holiday dates simply to give us three day weekends is, in my view, tasteless. While I suppose holiday is the right word to celebrate the birthday of figures whose actions transformed society in some way, I detest the use of the word to describe solemn occasions—occasions like Memorial Day. Memorial Day is not a holiday. It should be a day of mourning or reflection about the horrible price of war. Uh, yes, I deviated from my main point. But I was finished. For now.

+++

I am not “fast on my feet.” I wish I were. Unfortunately, I usually have to take time to mull matters over before I feel comfortable making a definitive statement about them. My vague recollections about my performance in classroom debates tells me I always have been slow to think things through. My brain just does not work at the speed of light. And, even after reflecting on issues under discussion, often I discover I have nothing of consequence to add to the conversation. This is not always true, of course. On occasion, I can be quick to react on matters that touch a nerve. Too often, though, reactive responses fail to consider all the relevant factors, making my response seem either irrelevant or unconsidered. During sixty some-odd years of making such mistakes, I have learned to remain silent much of the time. While staying silent while debate rages around me can make me appear stupid, reacting without adequate time to reflect can confirm that the appearance is spot-on. For these reasons and others, I far prefer to write than to speak. I think faster with my fingers than with my tongue.

+++

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

~ Khalil Gibran ~

+++

What are people in my sphere really like? What does through their heads? I wish I could engage in long, one-on-one conversations with them, with their guards down and their inhibitions cast aside. Honest, deeply personal and absolutely confidential sharing of wishes and regrets and hopes and fears and a thousand other secrets. The trust inherent in such openness is hard to come by. One would have to be absolutely confident that shared secrets would be locked in two impenetrable vaults. Breaking that confidence would be fatal to the relationship. But having absolute confidence that the vault would remain locked would further cement and deepen the relationship. The problem, of course, is that such absolute trust requires both mutual interest and mutual willingness to invest in the relationship. Rare, indeed.

+++

I wonder what kind of child I was? And what sort of teenager? And I wonder how my mind worked—and what went through it—as a young man? How, I wonder, have I changed over the course of my life? If I could remember more of myself as I evolved, I might better understand who I became—who I am becoming. It is rare, I think, for individuals to recognize that they undergo constant, fundamental, changes for their entire lives. Events affect us; how we perceive the world around us and how our minds process our experiences. And our minds, reacting to the external world, flex and bend in ways we do not recognize until we reflect on who we once were…if we remember enough about that person. Even as I write this morning, I am a little surprised at how different I am today from who I was five years ago. The tightly-wound spring has relaxed quite a lot, And some of the righteous certainty has almost completely dissolved into regret for the failure to realize the fatal errors of my utterly unjustified self-confidence…and the damaging impact that over-confidence had on people around me. Yet on reflection I finally realize much bravado overcompensates for justified self-doubt.

+++

I bought a new computer yesterday. I won’t have it in hand and operating until later this month. I hope my sick and injured laptop survives long enough to see me through the inauguration of new technology. We shall see.

+++

Morning’s early grey light is upon us. I can see the outline of the trees as if the darkness of the night has remained there, but behind them the world is casting night off in favor of a dim but brightening light. What will today hold? I am not sure. Off we go.

Kolbjørn Landvik and Calypso Kneeblood and Lineoleum Price have suddenly come back into my life, returning after a years-long absence. They appeared at my figurative mental doorstep, looking thin, dirty, and bedraggled, their pleading eyes enough to make me open the door and let them in. These men were not the same ones who left without me. When they headed north, toward the Canadian wilderness, they were full of fierce bluster and bravado, convinced that living a demanding, isolated life far from the hypocrisy of modern society would cleanse their souls and let them relive their youths. When they returned, the look of defeat was in their eyes. Perhaps they would have had more success had they made their pilgrimage when they were young men. But storming off into the far reaches of places unknown—as each of them approached their seventieth birthday—was almost certain to be too much for them. They had to learn that sad truth for themselves, though. Only after trying and failing to recapture and relive youth could they begin to come to grips with an unfortunate reality. If a person misses his chance to pursue challenge and adventure in his youth, that chance is gone. For good. Though missing the idiocy of running with the bulls in Pamplona is no doubt good fortune, failing to take advantage of opportunities to experience life as a youthful vagabond closes doors that can never again be opened.

Kolbjørn and Calypso and Lineoleum, their faces frozen in perpetual sad frowns, came back as dejected old men. They regaled me with tales of what they wished they had done with their lives. But what they had done, in reality, was far less enthralling. They had followed a path that minimized risk at the expense of joy. Their mundane lives, hidden behind fictional stories of heart-stopping adventure, were like the lives of so many others: dull and predictable and embarrassingly pointless. When they left for the far reaches of northern Canada, the three of them hoped they could overcome the soul-crushing emptiness of lives lived far from the edge. They hoped they could atone for safe, predictable, uneventful lives.

Atonement cannot be had. There is but one chance to live each moment. Once that moment is gone, it cannot be retrieved. History devours every minute, every second. Life experiences cannot be snatched from the ravenous jaws of time. We can delude ourselves into believing otherwise, but even our delusions cannot hide the painful truth.

So, where does that leave me? Have I become the caregiver for Kolbjørn and Calypso and Lineoleum? Must I now attempt to ease their transition into old age and all the regret it brings with it? Must I endeavor to change their wished-for adventures into believable artificial memories, recreating lives never lived?

Perhaps it is I who is living a fantasy. Perhaps they have lived wildly full lives, experiencing all the madness and folly and ecstasy of life on the cutting edge of joy. Maybe their foray into the Canadian wilderness left them with memories of experiences more joyful than expected, even in their wildest dreams! Are their eyes really pleading, or am I projecting my emotions onto them?

Time will tell.

+++

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations— one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.

~ Søren Kierkegaard ~

+++

I awoke before 4 this morning and immediately went about my new routine. I may find it a bit tough to adjust to the new morning ritual. Challenging or not, though, I must get used to it. Or suffer the potential consequences somewhere down the road. Those consequences might take years to surface. Or they could occur almost immediately. So, unless I have a desire to experience, first-hand, a plunge into something unknown and unpleasant, I must adjust. And, so, I will. Dammit. There are so many things I wish I could change about the past. I wish I had never been a smoker. I wish I had taken better care of my physical and mental health over the years. I wish I had allowed/forced myself to more aggressively take risks. I wish I had done many of the things I wanted, but was too afraid, to do. I wish I had never been the inexcusably cruel bastard who lived inside my body for so long. I suppose I was angry with myself for being who I was, rather than who I wanted to be, and lashed out at the people around me rather than take it out on myself. Forgiveness for the unforgiveable is an unobtainable fantasy.

+++

I burned my last cone of incense this morning. A new supply should arrive this week. The aroma of incense does not sooth me. It is my reaction to the smell that sometimes causes me to relax. It is my imagination. I trick myself into believing the wafting scent has a calming effect on me. I see through that ploy, but I play along. Or maybe I don’t see through it. Maybe I tell myself I do because I do not want to be manipulated by a belief that has no foundation in fact. Either way, it does not matter. Such a small, insignificant issue does not deserve any attention at all. Yet I devote time and space on the computer screen to it. Why? Because that’s what I do. I fill my computer screen with words that convey ideas that do not matter. Some days, I feel like I should have joined Kolbjørn and Calypso and Lineoleum on their misguided journey in their search for meaning. But had I done so, I probably would have died, shivering in the frigid cold.

+++

Here it is, 6 a.m., and I am ready to call it a day. For the blog, at least. Time for me to plunge into the day in an effort to make it worth my waking. Breakfast is hours away. It’s a good thing I am not hungry. I am pleased I woke early today. It allowed me time to reflect and time to recover from that reflection. Onward toward dawn!

All that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

~ Lewis Carroll ~

Today began when I was awakened by the obnoxious sound of my smart phone’s alarm, which I set last night before going to bed. In normal times (whatever they are), I would have been awake before the alarm sounded. But lately I have been unable to depend on my usual habit of arising very early, so I set the alarm for 5:30. I was sound asleep, deep in a dream (about which I remember absolutely nothing, other than the fact that I was dreaming), when the noise interrupted my slumbers. The fact that I woke briefly several times during the night might explain my sleeping-in this morning. Or maybe not.

After showering and shaving, I followed what will become a new morning routine: Weigh myself, swallow a handful of pills, jab myself to measure blood glucose, take my blood pressure and measure blood O² level, and record all the measurements. While my reaction to the new normal is not especially positive, I view it with some measure of gratitude; unlike millions the world over, I am able to invest the time and energy necessary to have a fighting chance of being healthy enough to live a reasonably comfortable life.

The reason I set the alarm, rather than simply waiting to get up when the mood struck me, was a commitment to attend a breakfast of the local branch of the NAACP. Recently, I wrote about joining NAACP and planning to attend the breakfast. The fact that the event was the 25th anniversary prayer breakfast for the branch did not register with me until a day or two ago. I have never attended a prayer breakfast, nor have I ever had the desire to do so, but we were committed, so we went. I have long since gotten over my overwhelming distaste of traditional religious ritual, having learned to tune out and tolerate when necessary, so I was prepared to ignore much of the program. Surprisingly (to me), the program was quite interesting and informative. Even the call and response interactions between speakers and audience were intriguing and entertaining. The speeches and entertainment, too, were engaging. I was pleasantly surprised to see the large ballroom of the convention center filled to compacity, too. I expected that my church group of 18 to 20 would be among the only White folks in the room, but I was happy to see quite a few other white faces supporting the positive work of the local NAACP branch. Live and learn.

+++

The new acacia wood dining table, along with the wool rug now beneath it, was delivered yesterday. On one hand, I am delighted with both of them; they look wonderful. On the other, I am disappointed in myself for succumbing, again, to unnecessary acquisitiveness. Though the purchases represented a net zero increase in home furnishings (we donated the antique oak dining table and the throw rug beneath it), my lust for “pretty things” seems not to have diminished in the least. At this rate, I will never be a minimalist. Not that the label has any real emotional meaning to me, but I do wish my desire for things I do not need could be more aggressively reined in. Buying things simply because they are visually appealing illustrates a personality flaw in me. And doing so even in light of the fact that I have told myself, repeatedly, that I think it best to save money than to spend it reveals an aberration in my thought processes. Regardless of all that, though, the table and rug are beautiful.

+++

It’s mid-afternoon. Not at all the time for me to be blogging. It does not feel right, so I will stop. For now.

The time is closing in on five o’clock as I begin writing. I have been up since just before four. My mind has been struggling, without success, to remember a perplexing dream. I recall only that the dream was intense and quite vivid. That monstrously vague recollection—more a feeling than a memory—of my dreamscape is frustrating. Maddening. I almost can feel my blood pressure spike. The muscles in my jaw and neck remain tight, even after deliberately trying to relax them. The dream is responsible for the tension, I think. But I can summon almost nothing about the dream experience, except for its intensity. That, and the anxiety the nocturnal mystery seems to have caused. Perhaps it was spillover from watching the short Belgian crime drama series, entitled The Twelve (original Flemish title De Twaalf), we watched the last couple of nights. The storyline revolves around the jury charged with making  a determination of the innocence or guilt of a woman accused of two murders, including that of her own child. Several characters in The Twelve were played by actors we had seen just a few nights ago, while watching another Belgian series, Under Fire (Onder Vuur). I find it intriguing that Netflix seems to have an algorithm that selects the service’s recommended offerings for me to view. The Netflix AI must have believed in recent weeks that I am either Belgian or French. In the past months and weeks, Netflix apparently decided I was Norwegian or Danish or Finnish or Icelandic. On those rare occasions lately when I have watched programs in which the characters speak English throughout, I have felt oddly out of place and deeply unsophisticated. I blame Netflix for my ennui, but it’s clearly an affliction for which my brain is responsible.

Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

~ Leon Trotsky ~

+++

I tried to see a therapist or counselor several days ago, only to be told by the staff at the Ouachita Behavioral Health check-in desk that I could not be seen because, at present, none of the available counselors can accept Medicare patients. When I offered to pay out of pocket, I was told that is illegal. I was offered the option of being put on a waiting list, which was already sixty names deep, but that list seems never to grow any smaller, the woman told me. She sent me on my way with a list of referrals who might accept Medicare patients. Or who are legally able and willing to accept cash payments. The experience was beyond frustrating. When I have calmed sufficiently (it may take another week or two…), I will explore some of the referred counselors and therapists. And I may write a letter to someone (though I know not who) to complain about the stupidity of the Catch-22 bureaucratic obstacle to providing healthcare services.

The reason for my attempt to visit with a counselor/therapist is that I think I agree with mi novia and others who believe I am, and have been, depressed. Not all the time, mind you, nor especially deep. But, still, somewhat anxious and depressed; or just down. A reaction, possibly, to feelings of guilt and regret.

Lately I have become acutely aware of some of the failings of the healthcare system in this country (some of which I think can be directly linked to the mindless bureaucracy of Medicare). I have waited since the latter part of October for a rheumatologist to give me an appointment, after being referred by my primary care physician’s office. When, finally, I spoke to human by phone, I was told I could see the referred doctor in Hot Springs in late May. Or, I could get an earlier appointment if I were willing to go to Little Rock for the appointment. Another flaw in the system was revealed to me when I tried to fill a new prescription for a glucometer and test strips a week ago today. Medicare apparently requires a mass of paperwork before authorizing the Part B supplier to fill the prescription. Finally, late yesterday afternoon, I received a call telling me I could pick up the prescribed device and accompanying materials. There is more, but I must keep my blood pressure in check.

+++

It was an oversight. I had removed my shampoo from the shower the day before and forgot to return it to its normal spot. I was already in the shower when I discovered my blunder. But it was no big deal; I would simply use mi novia‘s shampoo. My ability to see close-up without glasses, though, is abysmal. So I had to strain to read the text on the container, but I was satisfied it read “shampoo.” I pushed on the top of the plastic bottle, releasing what appeared to be a beige gelatinous substance. I smeared the gel on my hair and rubbed my scalp furiously. After I rinsed my hair, my scalp felt rather oily. Not liking the way my hair felt, I decided to wash my hair again, this time using the suds from a bar of Dove soap to accomplish the task. The conversation that followed my shower, when I mentioned to her that I had used her shampoo, led mi novia to the realization that I had used her shaving gel. No wonder my hair felt strangely oily after applying it to my scalp.

That gaffe brought to mind a mistake my mother made when I was  living at home, perhaps when I was still in high school. Somehow, she managed to absent-mindedly pour from a bottle of lemon oil (the stuff used to polish wood furniture) rather than the bottle of vegetable oil when making an oil and vinegar salad dressing. Fortunately, the mistake was discovered before anyone ate the salad. My recollection of that misstep makes me wonder: was there a genetic component to my screw-up with the shampoo?

+++

What great idea might I be in a position to pursue at this point in my life? I suspect that pursuit would require my fatigue and mental exhaustion to be replaced by vigor and intellectual energy. The idea of exerting myself to conquer the emotional equivalents to surrender is almost too much to confront. Too much work. A struggle that requires too much effort. The thing is, I am relatively young compared to, say, a nonagenarian. I might have twenty more years to overcome the struggle, with a positive, attractive, appealing outcome. But that train may have left the station, thanks to our society’s worship of youth. When faced with a choice between wisdom and youth, wisdom usually is discarded without fanfare. The fanfare is reserved for youth. That is true in the world of work and the world of entertainment. And most other aspects of life. I read a report this morning that says aging can be reversed. The report, featuring the work of Professor David Sinclair (professor of genetics at Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and codirector of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research) and others, is intriguing. According to the article, Our bodies hold a backup copy of our youth that can be triggered to regenerate. If I could physically reboot and install that backup copy, I am relatively certain I would change a number of bad or unhealthy habits from my youth. And my middle age. And my golden years.

+++

The clocks soon will proclaim we have reached the six o’clock hour. Time for more coffee. And time to burn one of two remaining cones of patchouli incense as I reflect on matters meaningful and mundane. I entered an order yesterday to replenish my supply of patchouli cones. I should have done it sooner.

The grey sky, pale and cloudless, is visible behind swaying trees. Waves of sound—mimicking the cacophony of the ocean shore—keep time with the trees’ movement. In one instant, the entire forest seems to bend back and forth in response to strong gusts of wind. In the next, absolute stillness takes hold, as if the scene had been captured by a still camera. Watching and hearing those transitions between frenetic motion and cool tranquility, I get the sense that weather is a sentient being.

Weather. The word is an abbreviation for humans’ perception of a changing physical environment. The dictionary definition is the state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. That seems so sterile and empty. Hurricanes and tornadoes and snow storms are not so antiseptic. Driving rain and floods are not so dull and impersonal. Weather is the natural world around us, in all its frantic moods and sleepy laziness.

Now, the wind is howling. The trees are lurching back and forth, as if they are trying to extract their roots that shackle them to the ground. The wind howls, a low, guttural noise laden with menace. But the wind has no intent. It simply exists. Humans sometimes attribute all manner of motives to the natural world, as if the world around us were as emotionally fragile as we so often are. Nature is not angry. The wind and the waves and the driving rain of powerful storms are not fierce. Ferocity implies savagery. Yet the natural world does not possess emotions nor intentions. Wind does not rage. But we insist on assigning human qualities to the natural world. That is absurd. Or is it? When we are not drowning in the flood of emotions, we dismiss the idea that weather—and the whole of the natural world—is conscious. We laugh at the idea that all living creatures, except us, can feel the same emotions that drive us. Oh, we acknowledge that animals can feel fear. But we refuse to accept that plants can communicate with one another. Or that tomato plants, for example, can feel agony when their fruit is ripped from their stems. What nonsense! Right? Yes, if one accepts that humans truly understand the nature of Nature. But No, if one accepts that humans cannot—at least not yet—fathom the possibility that pain and pleasure and a thousand other sensations we feel may be echoed in the natural world, but in ways we cannot appreciate because we lack the physical and chemical and biological structures that enable the natural world to experience itself.

It is late. I awoke very late today. I went to bed early last night. Something must be awry. Or I am evolving or devolving or otherwise changing. I should inquire of African violets; might they know more than I about what causes aberrations in patterns of sleep? Possibly. But the very idea of asking African violets to answer questions is preposterous. A sure sign of madness or, even worse, acceptance of one’s innate ignorance.

All right. I will stop for now. I will try to launch into a more reasonable form of consciousness than this mystical morass that has, thus far today, enveloped me.

Today, after a phone visit with a fellow church member to discuss a “workshop” I have agreed to facilitate, I will stop by another church member’s house to copy a video onto a flash drive. That is in preparation for facilitating discussion after the video has been shown to interested participants. Then, I will drive to Benton to run a few errands. And, then, I may go to Costco.  Or someplace else. Who knows? My brain is in a fog this morning; no reason, just the dullness associated with uncertainty.

+++

If there are precipitating factors, I do not know what they are. Whatever triggers the experience, certain memories—like wave upon wave of  white-hot metal strips touching delicate, sensitive skin—cause me to shrink from the world. When that happens, I seek ways to burrow into a protective nest, hidden from sight. Though I seek, I never find. Because there is no safe refuge. No place to escape the torment that comes in the form of remnants of shredded comfort…transformed from soft sheets of smooth cotton to rigid strips of petrified steel and sharp rocky outcroppings.

Those soft, protective passages keep me from dissolving into a withered lump of wet bone and clumsy fear. But they expose me to the harshness that resides within reflections of the eyes’ images. These are the kinds of delusional hallucinations that merit intense privacy. They warrant a conversation that includes petrified steel and diamond-hard stone in battle against soft, supple fabric. That is all the chaos I am prepared to share at the moment.

+++

An hour already has passed. In the blink of an eye, that river of time has dried up, revealing scorched banks. When I write, I tend to incorporate drama into the dullest of dull passages. No one else seems inclined to do that. But they willingly laugh when I retrieve overly-long words and phrases and sentences borrowed from pre-history to emphasize contempt. The laughs are derisive. They are not servile attempts to erase the derision.

+++

I will pause now. Until tomorrow? Today? Sometime.

Muscles in the back of the neck become tight. The shoulders and upper back stiffen, as well. The tension causes knots to form within long strips of rigid, contracted muscle. Ribbons of tendons, stretched almost to the point of snapping, surround and strangle sensitive tangles of snarled nerves.

Thus is the onset and expression of the kind of cramps caused by stress. Anxiety. Tension. When the worst of the cramps subside, the body remains poised to react to the slightest provocation. No significant loosening of the bindings. No relaxation. Just a moderate diminution of the hard-edged pain. A slight transformation, from cords of braided steel to braided cords of rock-hard, brittle rubber.

Those sensations are like old memories, pulled from deep within a morass of dusty recollections. Neither the sensations nor the memories are welcome. They bring back experiences I hoped would have dissolved—and did, for a while. But now they are rubber bands, stretched beyond the breaking point yet refusing to break.

Some of the more recent experiences were brought on by exposure to incredibly outlandish bureaucratic Catch-22 situations. And simple bureaucratic stupidity, baked into mindless bureaucratic interactions. Yesterday, for the first time in months, I felt like screaming, breaking glass, and roaring like a lion that had been poked one too many times.

+++

The wood from acacia trees is harvested, primarily, in Asia and Australia. It is said to be a sustainable source of wood, with wide-ranging uses including furniture, flooring, and wooden musical instruments (e.g, guitars). In my opinion, it is beautiful wood, with colors ranging from orange to yellow to red to deep, mahogany brown. I mention acacia wood because, when we were out shopping for a replacement for a rug beneath the table in the dining room, we bought a replacement for the table. The live edge acacia wood table has black metal legs, the live edge an angular base giving the table a distinctly modern look. Oh, we bought a rug, too. Both are to be delivered Friday.

We both were drawn to table when we first laid eyes on the wooden top. Perhaps it is the fact that the flooring in our house, composed of luxury vinyl planks, was manufactured to mimic the look of acacia. We had come to the conclusion that we could easily live with the antique oak table that belonged to mi novia’s abuela. But happenstance can change the course of a day in an instant.

+++

We had a superb, turmeric-laden lentil soup for dinner last night. My sister-in-law brought it over yesterday morning, as she is wont to do; when she makes a big batch of soup, she often shares it with us. And she makes excellent soup. Mi novia, while she liked the flavor quite a lot, was not as much a fan of the soup as am I. I am a huge fan of lentil-based dishes; she is not. She would have liked the soup even more if the lentils had, instead, been peas. I suspect I could enjoy a pea version, too, but in my view lentils belonged in that soup. It was spicy, but not overly spicy. While the soup was heating, I added some vegetable broth and a bunch of fresh spinach to the pot, as instructed by my SIL. Excellent flavor. Healthy. Comforting. Satisfying. I am a fan of soup. Not really an aficionado, but I could become one with just a little more exposure. This morning, for breakfast, I will finish off the tiny bit remaining. That will make me happy for a while.

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.

~ Emil Cioran ~

+++

I vaguely remember the feeling. Bursting with excitement. Ecstatic, with a sense that I knew precisely what constituted happiness. Giddy. Alive! But I do not remember what caused me to feel those sensations. I know they were brought about by simple experiences, but I do not know exactly what. Could it have been the first time I caught sight of a glacier? Yes. Or could it have been watching a friend achieve and be recognized for achieving a long-time goal? Yes, that, too. Could it have been boarding a plane with my late wife, taking off for an adventure in Europe? Yes. So many things once sparked such overwhelming excitement. Today, though, the exuberant feeling that I have encountered the pinnacle of delight is less than scarce.  It is exceedingly rare. How does one get that back?

+++

Mornings are fast. They are speed-skaters on steep, smooth sheets of ice. Blink and they are gone. They are blurs that refuse to come into focus for even for a moment. It is not just time that races by. It is life. Always too late to do or say what should have been done or said.

A chance event can behave like a stick of dynamite that, when detonated, breaches the mental dam that holds back a flood of memories. After more than fifty years, long lost recollections can rush in, hydrating layer upon layer of forgotten experiences with freshly resurrected memories. When the dam breaks, dry, brittle sheets of experience that buried history for decades can wash away, revealing years of detritus left by the tides of time.

Recently, a friend from high school—someone with whom I have not been in touch for more than fifty years—contacted me, more or less by a fluke. He found my blog, then contacted me by email. And he wrote and mailed a letter to me, even before I responded to his email message. His messages unearthed memories I did not even realize were hidden deep in my brain and made me think of old friends who I have not seen since I graduated from high school in 1972. His mention of a group of guys, of which I was part, called the Schlitz Seven triggered recollections of good times when our carefree cadre of under-age friends drank beer, grilled ribeye steaks, and otherwise paid homage to the calls of banality and decadence that many guys in their late teens hear. I really did not know some of those memories were actually in my head, retrievable only by breaking the dam and unleashing the flood. I look forward to dredging up more of those memories, bringing them to the surface, cleaning them up, and drying them off. My memories of my youth are few and far between. Now, though, I know at least some of them have not disappeared. They are accessible by diving beneath the surface.

+++

As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.

~ Julius Caesar ~

+++

Penny, if you read this, I want you to know I sent you an email. 🙂

+++

World events of late disturb me. Right-wing attacks on government institutions (Brazil), horrendous floods (Pakistan), the ravages of war (Ukraine), and the collapse of the environment (the disappearance of glaciers) play havoc with my serenity. I can do little to nothing about any of these world events so, according to logic and advice, I should not worry about them. That advice is easy to give, hard to live. As a human being sensitive to the plight of other human beings, it is hard to dismiss the horrors that surround us. Yet the advice (do not worry about things you cannot control) is crucial to maintaining one’s sanity (or, in my case, retaining what’s left of it). What is the tipping point between care and worry? I wish I knew.

+++

I joined the NAACP yesterday. I have intended for quite some time to lend my support to the organization, but lethargy and procrastination were in control until yesterday. Yesterday, during an “Insight” service at church, the young man who is president of the local NAACP (Marsalis Weatherspoon) spoke about the organization, what it is, and what it has been trying to achieve. That was the push I needed to take action. That, and mi novia‘s decision to do the same. I support the organization’s mission and I would like to further its ability to fulfill it. We are joining eighteen other church members at an NAACP breakfast next Saturday, held in conjunction with celebrations of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Later in the month, we will attend a film screening of We Have Just Begun: The 1919 Elaine Massacre and Dispossession, a documentary about the Elaine, Arkansas massacre that left hundreds of African American men, women, and children dead.

Too many historical events, like the massacre in Elaine and the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre that took place on and around Black Wall Street, have been shielded from public view for decades. The more people who are made aware of these atrocities in our history, the more people will come to realize that our country needs to hear apologies and to witness some way of making reparations to the descendants of such horrific events. And not only to direct descendants: an entire culture, Black and White, has been impacted by these hidden depravities. Ach! I sometimes am embarrassed to be human.

+++

My computer is failing me. It regularly shuts down Wi-Fi, requiring me to go through several steps to restore it. I have been talking about buying a new notebook for some time. This trouble with Wi-Fi, coupled with the fact that the beast is increasingly slow, slow, slow, has convinced me. But I am confounded by the millions of choices. And I am deterred by the fact that, whenever I buy a new one, I will have to go through hours of set-up to get the damn thing to work. I would gladly pay someone to experience the frustration on my behalf, but I do not know of anyone who does such stuff. Oh, well. That’s life.

+++

Enough of my rambling. I have to get on with the day. I hope you and I have a very good, productive, satisfying one.

Question everything. Believe nothing, least of all the stories you tell yourself. Your certainty scorches the thin layer of ice under your feet…your only protection from the boiling cauldron of misjudgment beneath you.

~ John Swinburn ~

Roughly three and one half years ago, with those words, I proclaimed the dangers of certainty.  Yet even in light of that proclamation, too often I stand on the icy edge of an active volcano’s caldera, behaving as if the risk of being swept into the bubbling magma is worth the thrill of invincible faith. Like both fire and ice, certainty is dangerous. Certainty forms an impenetrable seal around the mind, preventing doubt from entering. In the absence of doubt, one ignores challenges to his perspectives. He dismisses possibilities that threaten to undermine his convictions—convictions woven from threads so delicate a sideways glance could shatter them into a million pieces. Infallible knowledge—which constitutes the way in which we view certainty—is far more dangerous than doubt. Doubt, in fact, tethers us to multiple, often conflicting, possibilities. Possibilities that can keep us from falling headlong into the abyss. I am wary of certainty in other people; even more wary when it takes hold in myself.

+++

The problem with arguments against certainty, of course, is that nothing is assured. Absent certainty, we cannot trust anyone else. But it goes even deeper…we cannot trust ourselves. Without certainty, we must question everything—we cannot be sure of others’ motives, nor can we be sure of our own emotions, no matter how intense. Doubt can serve as armor against all sorts of ordnance, but it also can serve as an almost impervious wall.  A continuum between certainty and doubt must exist; we must move back and forth along its contradictory length, choosing the proper perspectives for every set of circumstances. Bouncing between certainty and doubt can drive a person mad, but failing to do so cements the insanity in perpetuity.

+++

I do not hate vegans, nor vegetarians, nor flexitarians nor pescatarians. But some of them hate me—perhaps not me, personally, but people who behave as I do—because I live outside the tiny sphere of behaviors they find acceptable. I find it odd that we tend to choose limited characteristics or attributes or behaviors as the triggers for our loathing. Nutrition (or food preferences). Religion. Political philosophy. A person can find dozens, maybe hundreds, of other reasons to hate or, at least, dislike people who do not share our worldview. Or, if not our entire worldview, the view from a tiny window. Oddly enough, some of these detesters express great appreciation for diversity—but only when that diversity coincides with their own worldview. I wonder whether a cattle rancher who loathes vegans would be as adamant if the vegans he loathes were not so condemnatory of the way he earns his living?

+++

As usual, the morning has zipped by with astonishing speed. It’s now about 7:30 and I need to rush to shower, shave, and get dressed for an Insight service at church. Though I would rather stay home and loll about in my casual morning clothes, I suspect I will be glad I made the effort to go to church, once I have done the deed. At least I hope so.

The morning, thus far, has seemed almost a frenzy of activity, said activities infringing on achievement of my desired serenity. I suppose I will have to get used to the dislocation of my treasured quiet solitude; the directions given to me at my doctor’s office will squelch my tendency toward calm, slothful indolence. I am to take daily, early-morning blood glucose readings, check my blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation, breathe in the healing fog from a nebulizer, devour a handful of pills (the number of which increased by one after yesterday’s visit with the nurse practitioner), walk (at an early hour, walking will be restricted to some time on the treadmill), and probably a few more rituals intended to improve my health and prolong my life. Despite their intent to improve my lot in life, these rites have succeeded, so far, in making me feel old and infirm. And why should I not feel old and infirm? I am 69 years old. I have behaved, for much of my life, as if my body could be mistreated or ignored, with no consequences. The chickens I freed long, long ago have come home to roost; if I insist on continuing to behave as if I am physically and mentally invincible, I will reap my just, but unpleasant rewards. The choice is mine to make: live within the strictures of  relatively rigid self-care. No longer am I in fine fettle; if I am to retrieve a semblance of the fineness of my fettle, I must adjust my habits. And so I will. I hope. Oh, I will, but whether I can persuade myself to transform newly-acquired good habits into permanent behaviors will be the test. And the measure of my comfort and longevity.

+++

Finally, a Speaker of the House has been elected. I fear the process has done irreparable damage to an already badly faltering institution. But I tend to agree with Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur, who was profiled in an online article on CNN.com this morning, that the institution has other troubles. She has urged the Democratic party “to wake up to the plight of ‘industrial and agricultural America,’ lest that important segment of the population throw their full-throated support behind the Republican party (even though, in my view, Republican policies treat that segment as if it were simply an expendable means of achieving the party’s desired objectives).

For quite some time, until three or four years ago, I laughed off the idea that the Democratic party paid little attention to the circumstances of middle America, and that it was almost exclusively representative of coastal elites. But I have changed my perspective. Though my wants and needs and preferences in almost all areas of my life mirror those of the coastal elites, I believe the legitimate needs of middle America has been largely ignored by both major parties. And I think my long-held implicit insistence that the soul of the nation be molded into a likeness of my image is unreasonable. And dangerous to democracy. Everyone’s perspectives deserve equal consideration. Even the people I consider deviant right-wingers deserve to be heard. More importantly, they deserve evidence that they have been heard and that their viewpoints have been given more than cursory consideration. I doubt that evidence will be forthcoming from either party, because the parties have morphed into machines whose only functions are to protect themselves and to fight to ensure their superiority over their adversaries; their constituencies be damned. What an unpleasant realization. Although the January 6, 2021 insurrection was an abomination, perhaps a different sort of insurrection, fueled by the rage of the vast, unheard massive moderate middle, could awaken what is missing in most of the members of Congress: a sense of obligation to serve their constituents and their country.

+++

The morning is grey and still. Rain is in the forecast. Weather is one of the eternal forces over which we have little control. Perhaps we should not try to control the weather, paying attention, instead, to our own humanity.

+++

There is wisdom hidden in the reflection of ourselves in the mirror. Our opposites. We look in the mirror and think we see ourselves. In fact, we see only the surface of someone else. If we look deeply, though, we can see beyond who we are and who is reflected in the glass. We should pay heed to him or her. There’s wisdom back there, if only we would probe for it with our minds.

Once again, my love affair with the solitude of early morning darkness promises to be all too brief. Though I awoke at a reasonable hour, showering and shaving interfered with the commencement of the day. The time is now 6:30; what remains of darkness soon will be overtaken by daybreak. I need another hour or two of night, but I will get only an hour until the sun rises. Light will overtake darkness long before “official” sunrise at 7:20 or thereabouts. The little time during which the sun remains hidden is insufficient to allow me to ease into the day the way I would like. Setting my alarm every evening would enable me to capture the morning’s darkness, but the noise would rouse mi novia, possibly interrupting the time she most needs to sleep. Besides, the idea of setting an alarm to return me to my natural rhythm disturbs me. Cursing and complaining will accomplish nothing. I must simply adjust and adapt to whatever is happening to my circadian rhythm. Life does not always cooperate with one’s wishes.

+++

No matter how much I wish to write this morning, it simply is not in me. I want to record my thoughts, but they would require too much explanation; without amplifying them in great depth, people reading them would misinterpret them. My thoughts would be mistaken for madness, whereas in fact they are simply expressions of curiosity. They would be interpreted as expressions of curiosity too easily be read as warnings that I am edging toward a dangerous precipice; which is not the case. Just philosophical inquiries about emptiness. Queries about whether a vacuum really can exist. And, if it can, whether space is “something” or “nothing.” We think we know more than we know. Everything in us and around us is steeped in mystery so deep we cannot hope ever to reach the bottom. Or the top.  There’s a reason I cannot write this morning. Language is inadequate to express emotions and perceptions. And so I will surrender, for now.

Noise. Perpetual noise. Like the constant humming or grinding or scraping of crickets. If what I “hear” is simply evidence of tinnitus—or even if it is not—I want it to stop. Now. Some days, I suppose I’m just used to it. Others, like today, I feel myself losing any traces of sanity I might still possess. Those incessant sounds tempt me to strive for absolute silence, using any means necessary to end the ceaseless buzz. An ice pick through the eardrum might do it. Or an explosive device, detonated the distance of a hair’s width from my ear. Or ears. Which ear is it? Or is it both? Perhaps only by drowning the sounds in yet more sounds will do it. Sitting next to railroad tracks as an enormously long freight train races by would at least mask the crickets. At least for a while.

+++

The dream, details of which have completely escaped me, was frustrating and frightening. If I could remember it, I would record the unpleasant experience, with the objective of interpreting its meaning sometime later, when I am in a more serene mood. But that would do no good. The “meaning” of dreams often is nonexistent. It is simply a jumble of images and sounds and irrationality, sculpted around a sensation that feels like it should have meaning but, in fact, has none.

+++

I finally met the woman who bought my house. She contacted me several days ago, by text, looking for a reliable HVAC service company. The heat in what is now her house had gone out just before a strong cold front was expected to descend on the state. And she mentioned that she had some mail for me. I gave her contact information, but opted to stay away for a few days, given that I was in the midst of a fierce cold, or something like it. Yesterday, though, I drove over. We chatted for a while and she gave me the mail, which included a sticker for my car license tags that I had paid for a few months ago but had not received (and had forgotten). When I entered the front door of the house, the view immediately gripped me; it was what had sold my late wife and me on the house when we bought it in 2014. But I now value even more the solitude of the forest, where I have no neighbors. Things change.

+++

I may decide to drive to Little Rock tomorrow to close out a bank account. A short drive might satisfy my urge to take a road trip, but I doubt it will extinguish the desire to get away, on the open highway. An excuse. That’s all I need. Some reason to get in the car and go, But my annual physical is scheduled for next week, so I cannot just strike out for parts unknown without causing some grief for my physician’s office. And that’s the sort of thing that matters these days: keeping the doctor’s office happy. Crud.

+++

I must leave soon. My blood draw and other lab work awaits. This is what occupies my time of late. Maybe I will make  it to breakfast with the “church men” after the blood-letting. Ach. I must get dressed and go.

My very long-time habit of waking extremely early seems, unfortunately, to be dissolving. This morning, I woke just after 6:30, a full hour later than my normal “latest” time to wake. The loss of an hour or more of my private time of isolation may be “healthy,” but I truly miss those lonely hours. It is not just the length of time alone I miss, it is the darkness. There is something about looking through the windows into empty blackness that sooths me. Pre-dawn darkness, when I am alone with my thoughts, nourishes my imagination and feeds my need for the purity of solitude. Yet, I have slept in lately. This morning, I woke around 4:15 to pee, but chose to return to bed, where I slept for more than two more hours. I could have, as usual, gotten dressed and padded out into the dark house, but instead I decided to take just a few more minutes to rest. A few more minutes. Maybe it’s just the remnants of my severe cold that is keeping me from my old familiar patterns. I truly hope so. And I hope I can readjust my sleep habits, returning to the reliable hours of darkness that replenish my…what is it?…soul, for want of a better word.

+++

An acquaintance, with whom I have not spoken in quite some time, is a gifted writer. A few years ago, she wrote a short book that she chose not to try to publish. Instead, she shared it with just a few of her colleagues who, like her, enjoy writing. I was fortunate to be among them. She called the book’s genre “granny porn,” in that its plot revolved around a group of elderly men and women who lived in an old house which served as home to a co-ed group of old folks who were sexually interested and active. It’s interesting to think back to my youth and even my middle age when, I remember, the idea of sexually active oldsters was essentially unheard of—almost preposterous. Why the idea that libido might simply dissolve into disinterest made any sense is beyond me. I suppose the tendency for issues of intimacy seemingly to become increasingly private as one ages might contribute to the idea that sex is restricted only to the young. I am not sure what prompted me to think about “granny porn” this morning, but as the matter has surfaced in my brain it makes me think. I wonder whether “granny porn”—based not purely on prurient interests but on the natural evolution of sexual relationships as one ages—might develop a strong following among people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties? Of course, at some point one’s interests in sex must begin to wither simply as a matter of changes brought about by aging. But until then, I would think that literature based on reality, rather than uninformed assumptions, would have a reasonably good-sized market. I doubt I’m going to write much pornography, but someone probably should. 😉

+++

Last night, we watched five of six episodes of a Netflix limited series entitled, Hold Tight.

IMDb‘s description of the series does not do justice to the storyline: “When a young man goes missing soon after his friend dies, life in a tight-knit, affluent Warsaw suburb slowly unravels, exposing secrets and lies.” Set in modern-day Warsaw, Poland, the series started slow, in my view; slow enough that I considered trying something else for the evening’s entertainment. But I am glad we stuck with it. By the beginning of the second episode, though, I was committed. By the end of the fifth episode, I was riveted. While initially a bit difficult because it was performed in Polish with English subtitles, it did not take long to forget that I was not “hearing” it in English.

Harlan Corben, the writer on whose work Hold Tight and several other Netflix limited series is based, is deeply involved in the television/film production of a number of his works. I suspect I will explore some of his 34 novels in the coming months and years.

+++

Mi novia and I went out for a late breakfast this morning, thanks to the absence of some of the normal ingredients of breakfast. Subsequently, we made a trip to the post office and then drove by the site(s) of the tornado that damaged several buildings in and around the Jessieville schools on Monday. From there, we drove just a little north to the approximate area where a body was found off Highway 7 North.  That, and a stop at a pharmacy to pick up a prescription for me, was our excitement for the morning. Only after returning to the house and dawdling for a while did I realize I had not finished writing my blog for the day. Curses! I really must get back on track so my sleep cycle corresponds to my writing processes.  And now, as it nears noon, I will cogitate on the matter. Until tomorrow, I expect…

Last night, I slept only intermittently. During those brief periods when I slept, I was semi-conscious; my so-called sleep was a troubled amalgamation of wishes and fears and reactions to imprecise concerns going back to my childhood—a nasty brew that attempted to drown me in memories that might not even have been my own. I think I’ll sleep far better when I return from my doctor’s appointment this morning. Speaking of which, I should leave here around 9 for that visit.

+++

Powerful storms swept through the area yesterday afternoon, evening, and night. The most severe seem to have been north of the Village, where either powerful straight-line winds or a tornado tore into the Jessieville schools, leaving significant damage to buildings and sports fields. The extent of the damage has yet to be reported in full, thanks in part to the fact that our local newspaper is not a full-on news source (it is more of an ad-rag with extremely limited capabilities to pursue and report news). Time will tell just how extensive or limited yesterday’s storms were.

+++

I remain far, far from capable of writing the way I normally write. My cold/flu/affliction is on its way out, but it continues to inhabit me, causing all manner of discomfort or displeasure. I loathe this feeling of ill health and unease. I thought I was over it yesterday morning, but it seemed to have returned with a vengeance later in the day. Enough of this. I will set my alarm in a moment, to alert me when it’s time to leave. In the interim, I will attempt to drift into sleep for just a while.

What delights will 2023 bring? What pleasures? What pains? There’s no value in anticipating the unknowable, nor use in wishing for circumstances over which I have little or no control. Hopes and dreams and dreads sometimes seem such wasteful expenditures of energy. But in what, instead, should we invest ourselves? As I contemplate my multiple answers to those seemingly simple questions, the pointlessness of guessing games becomes clear, yet all we can do is guess, for we have no way of telling the future. We can attempt to shape it, but unless we truly are willing to commit “time, talent, and treasure” to modifying our lives, we delude ourselves into thinking we have any control. One can see the absurdity of the dilemma, I think: one has no control unless one exercises the control one has. Control involves taking risks. And risks involve deliberately ceding control. But ceding control, by risk-taking, is the only means by which one can hope to take charge. Circular reasoning. “Living in sphere” is how I have decided to describe it.

+++

I am restless. Not restless in the sense that I simply want to get out of the house, though I am restless in that sense, too. I am restless in the sense that I want to exchange my circumstances for another set. But when I try to envision the set of circumstances I want to explore, I tend to imagine my current self in a new environment. I need to imagine a different self in a different environment. Or, perhaps, a different self in the same environment. Changing both who and where I am would accomplish the difference I seek. But changing who I am without altering my environment would do the same, I think. Both, though, done simultaneously, would be a more thorough revision to the circumstances that define me—both in my eyes and in the eyes of those who see me.

To a great extent, accomplishing that dramatic reconfiguration of my circumstances would involve changing my story. That is, I would have to tell a story about myself that differs from the “truth.” For that “truth” to take hold, I would need to surround myself with people who, today, I do not know and vice versa. Staying where I am, then, would make impossible the idea of a different me. I would have to enter a new environment as a man with a different story. That is, I would have to abandon my history and the people in it; I would have to lie. It would require me to enter a new environment where I am unknown. There, I would introduce myself as a different man with a different past. A mysterious stranger whose history would mold itself around the way I want to be perceived. A believable history hard to confirm or contest. The transformation would be enormously interesting to me, but essentially impossible without a willingness to truly abandon—at least temporarily—my life as it exists today. I would have to leave my present circumstances behind me; my family, my friends…everything. That would be the most painful and most difficult aspect of the exploration. And, I do not have the wherewithal to put people through it. Unless…unless I could share my plans and get buy-in from people around me. Agreement to let me disappear for a while, only to return after my—hopefully—successful transformative experience. Ach! It’s silly to even think it. But I think it, nonetheless.

+++

Though I awoke around 5:30 this morning, my blogging thus far today has been sporadic. I am returning to the computer now (around 8:40), with the objective of finishing today’s post, after which I will rest/nap for a bit. I think I am close to wrapping up my cold/flu/whatever, but continue to tire quite easily, which I find more than a  little irritating. I do not recommend this affliction, whatever it is, for several reasons—not the least of which is the constant tiredness/weakness that accompanies it.

+++

Temperatures today should reach the mid sixties, dropping off to the low fifties and upper forties in the several days to follow. I am easily chilled of late, so I will go outside only when necessary (tomorrow and a few days hence, I have long-established doctors’ appointments).  I look forward to the time when I’m fully recovered from this crud; enough, at least, to deal with cool temperatures without feeling like an elderly geezer unable to cope with temperatures below 80°F (okay, that’s stretching it, but I make the point for emphasis). Enough of this talk. I’ll wrap it up here and take a pause to recover from inadequate sleep.

Whether it was the flu or a fierce cold, I’ll probably never know. Whatever I had—have—kept me from writing coherently for a few days. I chose not to try to post anything the last couple of days of 2022, opting instead to conserve my mental energy. That conservation did no good, other than allow me a little time to rest. Aside from hiding for all time the thoughts that went through my head as the year ended, my rest accomplished nothing of consequence. But keeping away from people these last several days probably saved others from catching whatever ailed me; and whatever remains with me: the coughing, headaches, body aches, chills, and various other symptoms that caused me to sleep so much. And to fail to sleep when I so desperately wanted to. I doubt whatever it is I had/have is still contagious, but to be safe I am remaining in a quarantine of sorts at home. I would not enjoy going out into the world yet, anyway, as I still feel a little weak and uncertain on my feet. Within a few days, I am confident I can and will safely return to the real world. In the interim, I will continue to contemplate the transition to a new, but artificial, measure of a segment of time.

+++

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

~ Seneca ~

+++

The Gregorian Calendar, which is now used by most of Earth’s population for civil purposes, first replaced the Julian Calendar on the day following Thursday, October 4, 1582; that next day was designated Friday, October 15, 1582. The ten-day adjustment was made by Pope Gregory XIII as a means of “correcting” the calculation of the dates of Easter. The adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, replacing the Julian Calendar, has been taking place ever since Pope Gregory XIII started the process. Ukraine and Yugoslavia and Russia, for example, adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1918. Saudi Arabia did so in 2016.  My interpretation of the Gregorian Calendar we all use, without thinking, is that it is the result of the merger between astronomical physics and religious accommodation. The calendar is a convenience and a generally simple shorthand that allows us to speak the same language with respect to the measurement of the passage of time.

+++

The end of 2022 is behind us and the beginning of 2023 is here. Both are artificial measures of time, but they serve as milestones; markers to which we can point when examining changes that have taken place in our lives. My hope is that the beginning of 2023 will serve as the marker of positive, productive, rewarding, happy changes. Not only for me, but for everyone. If I had the ability to magically improve the world at large, I would exercise it. And, in fact, I have the ability to do just that. So does everyone else. It’s simply a matter of putting it to good use. I cannot change everything, but I can change something. It may sound cliché and trite, but I am convinced it is true. That always is true; not just at the beginning of a new year. At any moment, we can decide “I will contribute in positive ways, rather than complain or otherwise get in the way of improving the lot of others’ lives.”

As I look back at what I’ve written, I can see that I am not fully recovered from my illness. My mind remains foggy. That will change. But at least I am on the path to shaking off this fierce cold or flu or whatever it is. And when it is finally gone, I will spend time in deep thought, recovering some of the ideas that have been dormant this past week or so. I vaguely remember some I think are worth making available to anyone who might wish to read them. They will be here, in time.

+++

Three monstrous crows just landed on the driveway outside my study window. Their “caws” are loud. How many crows does it take to constitute a murder, I wonder?

Millions of people are in far worse shape than I. People around the globe live in extreme poverty, are exposed to existential dangers posed by war, face climate disasters that could bring utter ruin, or any combination of other horrors much more severe than mine.

Still, I feel pretty shitty. My head is stopped up, as is my chest, I have a loud and painful cough, my throat is sore, my badly aching joints and muscles are causing me all kinds of grief, and I have a headache that vacillates between painful and simply bothersome. I have slept—or attempting to sleep—in the neighborhood of 52 hours since Monday afternoon. Whether it is the flu or a severe cold, it will disappear in its own time. I’ve tested, twice, for COVID-19 and the results are negative.

Until my symptoms disappear—or until they are, at least, tolerable—I will try to extricate myself from my inexplicable need to blog every day.  Even this short post is draining. But at least I am not facing war, extreme poverty, and other horrors that face so many people on the planet today. I am trying my very best to be grateful for the situation in which I live…and I’m trying to find my maladies tolerable.

Until I blog again, I hope you have all manner of reasons to be satisfied and grateful for your positions on the planet.

Yesterday’s creative void turned into a series of naps, punctuated by coughing, nasal decongesting, and other such symptoms of a cold. After said naps, I felt somewhat better. This afternoon, after another night’s and morning’s sleep, I feel considerably worse. I am completely stopped up and my throat is red and raw, presumably from attempts to snore through my BiPAP mask. I had hoped sleep would improve my symptoms. Such are the risks of advancing age. I will pretend to write, anyway.

+++

Christmas Day this year came and went without much fanfare. Ditto, the day after Christmas. The experience was pretty much as it always has been. I’ve had considerable experience with Christmas; years and years, so I have the routine down pat. The variations caused by the presence or absence of specific people become routine, too; the key to easing the adjustment is to enter into the season without expectations. Just go with the flow. Easier said than done, I realize, setting an objective is a good first start.

+++

I awoke early this morning, but I could not maintain wakefulness. First, I sat on the couch, drifting off. Next, I pulled a blanket over my chilly body and attempted to relax on the long white sofa. No luck there, either. So I went back to bed, where I slept several more hours. Mi novia supplied me with blankets and water and Motrin and DayQuil and various other drugs intended to erase or, at least, minimize the symptoms of colds. I remain thoroughly stopped up. My chest is clogged. I attempt to clear my sinuses, but have no luck. I suppose I’ll just have to suffer through this modestly mild misery.

My brain continues to feel fuzzy and uncooperative. I feel fuzzy and uncooperative all around. I give up on writing a blog. There’s no point in trying to write when one’s head aches and one’s attitude is surly and unpleasant. And so I will sit at my desk in this empty house (mi novia is out playing card games with friends) and howl, summoning creatures who might understand my mood and who might have certain ways to make me feel human again.

Usually, even when my mind is blank, I can sit down at my computer and write…something. Not so this morning. I have run into a wall ever since I awoke. An immoveable wall; solid concrete blocks laced together with steel rods. Its height is too great. I cannot reach the top, much less fling myself over it. And, so, I wait again. I’ll return here in a bit.

+++

Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.

~ Eckhart Tolle ~

+++

Well,  at least I can search out words of wisdom…as above…even while sitting inside this sinking pit, so devoid of creativity. The problem is this: I have nothing in my mind that I am willing to share with just anyone who happens along. In fact, there are precious few people with whom I would be willing to freely share. Those factors being in play, I think I’ll call it quits. I may return later today with a surprise non-morning post. Or I may not.

It’s Christmas Day. Last year on this day, I spent a good bit of the day making a variety of Spanish tapas for the day’s celebratory meal. However, the day was a bit rough, as one of my brothers was in the hospital in physical decline, awaiting the completion of bureaucratic processes that would allow him to be transferred to hospice care; he died 34 days later.

This year, I will roast a large (8.7 pound) prime rib. Various delicious side dishes will complement the rare beef and the obligatory (for me, anyway) pungent horseradish that goes with it. My late wife’s sister will come over later today to partake of the feast. And mi novia and my sister-in-law and I we will play Sequence. I am not a fan of most table games; Sequence is one of the few I find tolerable.  A new game, Ransom Notes, is another one I find interesting. We played the game last night after eating chile con queso and tamales.

As I sit here at my computer, my thoughts drift toward people who are alone today. I suppose today is no different from many other days, but troubling comparisons enter my mind: between people surrounded by friends and family and people who are alone. I have such thoughts every year. Every year, I vow to plan to alleviate, in the future, the loneliness for as many people as possible. And every year I reflect on the fact that I have done nothing to fulfill my vow. I wonder whether I am inherently depressive?

I woke up this morning with my shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and knees screaming in full rebellion. They react with rage at my every movement. Two Motrin probably is not nearly enough to calm the angry nerve endings that protest the mere fact that I am conscious. They would prefer I consume a tumbler full of vodka or a potent, sleep-inducing, pain-deadening narcotic and return to bed. Vodka is out of the question, and I am more than a little reticent to swallow the most-recently-prescribed narcotic: Tramadol. Tramadol belongs to the group of medicines called opioid analgesics, which act on the central nervous system to relieve pain. My hesitation to use the drug in response to a bunch of very painful joints is based on an experience in which I reacted badly. My reaction could have been to Tramadol or to the combination of Tramadol with other analgesics or to the combination of Tramadol with the lingering effects of anesthesia. Or Tramadol might have been guiltless. My frightening reaction, which included delusions and hallucinations and serious thoughts of suicide, may have had nothing whatsoever to do with Tramadol. But I am sufficiently concerned about taking the stuff that I probably will not do it unless my joint and muscle pain becomes intolerably excruciating. It’s not there yet. Frankly, my frightening experience does not mirror the side effects I have read about, connected with the drug. But my experience was sufficiently scary that I will practice an overabundance of caution. Maybe I should ask for something else to combat the pain of age-related decay?

+++

I have a story to tell. An embarrassing story about something that took place two days ago. A story that reveals the potential consequences of both excessive frugality and long-time neglect.

After attending the celebration of life service for a friend/member of my church—at which I read a poem I wrote for the occasion—we went to our friend’s home to visit with her husband and family. It was there, while I was speaking to him, that her husband pointed to something on the floor between us. Because I had just picked up a canape-sized ham salad sandwich on dark rye, I thought the dark “something” on the floor could have been a slice of the rye that I might have dropped. But it wasn’t; it was a crumbly dark piece of rubber. A while later, as I took a step, another piece of black rubber suddenly appeared on the floor. Immediately, I thought it could be from the sole of my shoes, in that my foot suddenly felt a tad lighter.

Change of scene: back home, in the master bath. I took off my shoes, only to discover the pieces of crumbling rubber had come off my shoes. Big pieces of the soles and heels of both shoes were missing. Though the leather uppers looked perfectly fine, the soles of my very old pair of Ecco brand shoes were crumbling. The shoes I bought several years before I moved away from Dallas were disintegrating while I watched. Mi novia expressed relief that the shoes had not begun to decompose while I walked to or from the pulpit in connection with delivering my poem of remembrance.

Needless to say, I am in need of a replacement pair of dress shoes. As nice as the uppers on my old pair are, it is time for me to discard the old shoes (probably 15 years old or older). I suggested to mi novia that I could just have the shoes re-soled; her reaction assured me it would be best for the shoes not to be reborn.

+++

I’ll end this rambling reflection by wishing everyone who reads this, and all who don’t, a good day. Whether among friends and family or alone, everyone is on my mind this morning. I am thinking about you,  And wishing you—personally—comfort and joy on this and every day.

+++

The Great Deception. Every year, millions of children are introduced to variations on a long-living lie sustained through collusion and delusion. Parents—intentionally and purposefully—lie to their children, never considering that modeling is far more effective in molding future behaviors than is simple instruction.

Do not believe the lie I told you, for years, about Santa Claus, but believe me when I tell you about the son of God, born of a virgin, who was crucified and died but came back to convince humankind that resurrection is a thing. And to absolve us of our sins. Or some such story. 

And we wonder why so many of us seem to worship a psychotic, neurotic, deeply insane autocrat? We’re taught from an early age that lies are okay and natural and that one should not feel at all embarrassed for accepting as truth the most remarkably absurd and obviously untrue statements and scenarios. That’s on you, parents of the world!

The vindictive sarcasm above to the contrary notwithstanding, I rather like the Christmas season. The lights, the aromas of cooking and just-harvested live trees, and the blatant expressions of goodwill are all rather appealing. And the stories about reindeer and eggnog and mistletoe. And candles. Especially the flickering light of candles.

And when I hear children giggling with delight about Santa Claus and all the good things people do during the Christmas season, I find that I can accept a few lies to unsuspecting kids. They’re going to learn through harsh experience about lies and lying, so we might as well introduce them to deception in a positive way. A way that will introduce to them the concept of open-mindedness; the willingness to accept and embrace  lies, even lies so utterly blatant.

+++

I read a poem yesterday at the celebration of life service, held in our church, for a friend who died last week. Her husband asked me to write and read a poem. Honored to have been asked, I wrote a short narrative poem.  I hope it captured her genuine goodness and her steadfast resolve in support of gratitude and justice.

I learned that a frozen water pipe at church caused damage when it thawed, just after we left, following the celebration of life service.  The damage caused cancellation of this afternoon’s planned service and “soup supper.”

Instead, I will make chile con queso and we’ll steam some of the pork and jalapeño tamales I bought couple of weeks ago from El Mercado Latino. It’s almost by sheer chance that we have everything we need for a traditional Swinburn Christmas Eve. Even beer, though I can’t drink it. It has been five months since I had acute pancreatitis. And it has therefore been five months since I have been off of alcohol. I should have lost a lot of weight during that period, but I must have replaced the empty calories in alcohol with the empty calories of round-the-clock snacks. Moving forward, I’ll reject such frequent snackery.  After the chile con queso and tamales. And tomorrow’s feast.

+++

Odd. I can be extremely flexible, which is how I want to be. But the opposite trait in me is just as strong. I can be rigid, utterly unbending. I can refuse to yield my position on matters both supremely important and extraordinarily trivial. There seems to be no discernable pattern to my broad-mindedness and my opinionated unwillingness to budge, even in the face of irrefutable evidence that my position is inarguably wrong. Fortunately, I think, the outbreaks of headstrong intractability are less frequent than are my periods of tolerance and understanding. Regardless of my position on the continuum, I am ever the skeptic. Even when I fully embrace a position or idea, seeds of doubt as to its rectitude sprout in my mind like kudzu, fed high-nitrogen fertilizer, that might overtake entire forests.

+++

Today is Christmas Eve. I wish everyone a pleasant, merry, safe, and memorable Christmas. I’ll write again tomorrow.

Brutally cold air—currently in the neighborhood of 1°F—surrounds my warm, cozy house. The wind chill value is and will continue to be considerably lower than that, between -15°F and -30°F, according to hyper-local weather reports and forecasts. So far, water pipes seem to have survived the plunge in temperature from a balmy 42°F around 2 p.m. yesterday. I do not recall a time when temperatures dropped so far so fast. Last night, when we finished watching the final episode of season 3 of Borgen, the temperature had plunged to 4°F.

Thanks to my efforts last Spring to clear my closets of clothes that no longer (that is, never did) fit, I have just one coat to protect me against the cold when I leave the house in a few hours. I sometimes question my intelligence or lack thereof. I suppose it’s not entirely a lack of intelligence. My over-abundance of procrastination is what left me without more clothes suited to cold weather. I put off shopping for clothes far longer than is healthy; my distaste for clothes-shopping is almost a sickness. “Almost” is inappropriate, I suppose. I should attend meetings: “Hello, I’m John. I struggle with an aversion to fashion…any clothing, actually. If left to my own devices, I might either be a nudist or a…what’s the opposite of clothes horse?” My aversion to shopping for new clothes is not so much a distaste for fashion as it is a loathing of the realization that off-the-shelf clothes do not fit. Ever. Only in fairy tales could I expect to find a shirt or a pair of slacks or a jacket or even a pair of socks perfectly tailored to fit my body.

Somehow, I managed to deviate from musings about weather to a semi-rant about clothes that do not fit because they were created for imaginary beings whose bodies differ radically from mine.

+++

How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~

+++

Seriously, I worry that the bitterly cold weather will gnaw at the harnesses of comfort. I worry that the cold might be too much for the walls and windows and doors to keep it at bay. Shivering in the dark, hoping for the miracle of electricity, is an eerie experience; yet one I have rarely encountered. I am extremely fortunate. I live in comfort. I have more than enough to eat. Even in the cold, I can rely on blankets to warm me.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

+++

How decent are we? We are willing to share a bit of our money with unfortunate people, but are we willing to share our homes with them? Do we invite strangers to come in out of the cold? Often, I see generosity as an attempt to replace guilt with something more palatable. We share a portion of our wealth, but we keep a more than adequate store for ourselves. We are willing to share, but only to a point far distant from risking luxury in the name of compassion. When I think of such stuff, I often think of lyrics from a song by Gordon Lightfoot:

And the house you live in will never fall down
If you pity the stranger who stands at the gate.

For some reason, those words and the rest of the lyrics to the song are more meaningful to me than I can justify or explain. They are more inspirational and more thought-provoking—every time I hear them or read them or sing them to myself when I am alone—than I expect them to be.

If only the longing for justice and decency and compassion was enough to cause people to behave differently. But it’s only enough to summon guilt; to motivate us to relieve that discomfort with temporary kindness and grace and sympathy.

+++

Somehow, a bit more than two hours have passed since I made my first cup of coffee this morning. I can see the world outside my window; it does not look as cold as it is, but there is evidence that the air is frigid. Thin patches of snow on the ground. And the bark on the trees looks like it could shatter if barely tapped with a hammer. But that’s strictly my imagination at work; I cannot see how brittle and delicate the trees are in this beastly cold. I can only imagine it. And avoid it to the extent I can.

Waves in the ocean, generated by wind, are said to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles. The language used to describe waves—their genesis, and their demise—is unique. Terms like fetch and swell and contact distance and stochastic process are meant to help explain the formation and behavior of waves; but understanding fluid dynamics requires more than language. An appreciation of the way water interacts with wind to explain the wizardry of living liquid entails accepting the equivalent of voodoo. Black magic. The embrace of Neptune or Poseidon, as one’s divine savior—or his rejection, as the monster responsible for the treachery of the seas.

+++

A kiss is just as difficult to understand as are waves. A kiss should have no more meaning, nor influence, than a handshake or a pat on the shoulder. But the power of a kiss dwarfs even the heartiest handshake. Or the most powerful hug or embrace. Not just any kiss, of course. The right kiss. The kiss that sends electrical current coursing through one’s body. The one that could power all the spotlights and electric motors in North America. With plenty of excess power to illuminate the far reaches of the most distant galaxy.

+++

More patchouli. Because the aroma of a smoldering cone of the right incense unlocks sensual pleasures. The scent of burning patchouli incense unleashes the silent thunder hidden deep inside one’s mind. Not one’s brain; one’s mind.  That joyous amalgamation of thought and emotion and physical sensation; the experience that launches desire and satisfaction and hope and a million more subdued thrills. Or is it all just smoke? Vapor that fools us into believing in fire?

+++

Between 1 and 4 this afternoon, the weather is expected to turn cold and angry. Snow flurries may fall as the temperature begins to slide; 42°F around noon, 38 degrees colder by midnight. If good fortune prevails, the roads will be sufficiently clear and dry by Friday morning to permit a crowd to attend the celebration of life of a friend whose death reminded me that mortality stalks us. One does not prepare for death; one prepares for the aftermath of one’s death. That is, if one considers the rawness of death and its impact on the rest of us. We claim to understand death, but when it happens to people around us, we suddenly realize we do not believe in death. Death cannot possibly be real, can it? Yet it is inevitable. Like the weather. Like temperatures plunging to an unbelievable 4°F. It is bound to happen, eventually. We will be cold and astonished at the sun’s abandonment. We will want to burn sticks of wood and logs and entire cities; anything to overwhelm frigid temperatures. But we will remain civilized. For a time, anyway.

+++

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid the U.S. a visit yesterday. I do not pretend to know how his visit will impact the direction of his country’s war against the aggression of Russia. Nor do I know how it will influence this country’s reaction to that aggression. We shall see. Eventually.

+++

It’s 7. Two hours have passed since I arose from bed. I wanted to sleep, but I was uncomfortable. Oh, well. I can sleep again tonight. Or, perhaps, sometime today. For now, I will wave goodbye to sleep. Until next time.

Today is the winter solstice, when one of the Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This is the day with the northern hemisphere’s shortest period of daylight and the longest night. Perhaps I would have figured that out on my own, had I lived four or five hundred years ago. Today, though, I take it on faith. Belief. Trust in the astronomers who understand the solar system far better than I ever will.

I might not have trusted astronomy (science), had I not been taught the value of the Scientific Method. I might have placed my confidence in religious figures, instead, having been taught of the infallibility of a deity and “his” chosen “priests,” for lack of a better term. Or I might have been inculcated with the mysterious “truths” of the invisible gremlins of the forests and their handlers.

I wonder how our descendants, a thousand years hence, will mock us for our unsophisticated misunderstanding of the universe? I suppose I will not be here to find out.

+++

I hate it when I sleep in, as I did today. Almost 6:30. Hours I could have put to good use; gone forever. That perspective on time tends to make me panic; I am losing some of the limited time available to me with each passing second. Whether I put it to good use or not, first it’s here, then it’s gone. Forever. Never to be retrieved. Never. Ever. Ever.

More than one perspective is available, of course. There’s the one that says, “I can’t get it back, so it’s pointless to miss it.” And there’s the other that says, “If I don’t put every moment to good use, I’ve lost that chance forever, and I will regret that squandered opportunity for all remaining time.” Or something like that.

It occurs to me that I have wasted more than a few moments by writing about them as if they mattered.

+++

When I am surrounded for more than a day or two at a time by people (that is, more than one person) I do not know well, I begin feeling on edge. When the time extends beyond three or four days, my anxiety transforms into displeasure. After a little more time has passed, displeasure might turn into overt surliness. Eventually, anger could replace the surliness. With enough time, I suppose, anger might morph into rage. Fortunately, I think I’ve maxed out at anxiety. My innate introversion seems to be getting more pronounced, in some senses, in my advancing years. I value privacy far more today than I did fifty years ago. I wonder, am I alone in my personality becoming more hardened into its original core as I age?

+++

And so Wednesday begins. And so Winter begins. The forecast for tomorrow night and Friday is brutal. Temperatures dropping to within a few degrees of zero. I may have to move to Ecuador.

Yesterday would have been an appropriate day to light a cone of patchouli incense, but I failed to think of it. Today, though, for a variety of reasons, it came to mind. So, as I sit here, the scent of the burning cone fills my nostrils. I cannot say with certainty that it calms me, but I think it helps. I should meditate more frequently, but I would need to awaken even earlier than I do. This morning, I got up around 5; even that, it seems, is not early enough. If I had arisen by 4:30 or, better yet, at 4, I would have felt unhurried and more attuned to the idea of meditation. Tomorrow, perhaps. Today, though, I think I could be sufficiently smooth. Blood pressure of 98/61 and a pulse of 61 suggests I may be relaxed. Yet the body can deceive; physically, I may seem relaxed, but an EKG might reveal something completely different: a frenzied, emotionally chaotic mind-storm. Fortunately, brain waves on an oscilloscope do not reveal the thoughts that undergird the mind-storm. At least not yet. One day, scientists (and others) may be able to read a person’s thoughts. That could be problematic for me, if murderous impulses were deemed enough to warrant arrest and imprisonment. But I’m going off on a tangent here; I’ll loop back into my more sane self.

+++

Out of the blue this morning, a friend from years ago is on my mind. We drifted apart over the years. “Drifted” is misleading; we clashed in ways that seem to have severed our friendship. Close friendships are few and far between, so their dissolution is especially unfortunate and painful. All these years later I am still distraught that all that’s left of one of those extremely rare once-in-a-lifetime friendships are memories and ashes. My memories of how our friendship dissolved are private, so I won’t share them—here or elsewhere. Maybe I should not even touch on it here, but it will serve to remind me—whenever I return to this post—that we should exercise more care to preserve relationships that are important to our well-being and happiness.

+++

This morning’s major news stories, like new stories most days, address issues over which I have absolutely no control: 1) The January 6 congressional committee’s findings and its criminal referrals about Trump; and 2) A major earthquake that caused damage and power outages in Humboldt County in northern California. There were other stories, of course: masses of asylum-seekers at the U.S./Mexico border; the Argentinian win of the soccer World Cup; the status of the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and the finding of guilt in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial; among others. On one hand, I understand the concept that an informed citizenry is important to a nation’s ongoing progress. On the other hand, I do not follow the logic that suggests I should stay abreast of matters utterly out of my control. Perhaps it’s that we citizens should maintain an understanding of daily national and global events in case something over which we might have some degree of control comes along. When one feels powerless to influence the “big picture,” one tends to shrink into one’s own little domain. At least this “one” does.  I may not have any influence over how to deal with Trump’s criminality or Russia’s immoral belligerence, but my control over what I eat for breakfast is nearly absolute, in the context of the available breakfast foods. And, of course, I chose where to live in retirement (thus far). And various other personally significant matters. If I were to devote as much attention to personal matters over which I have substantial control as I do to national and global news over which I am powerless, I might discover I have even more control than I think. I’ll mull that over for a while.

+++

Using my incense cones in an attempt to attain serenity seems forced. Forced serenity is self-defeating, I’m afraid. Still, I enjoy the scent of burning patchouli. And forcing myself to “chill” demonstrates to me that reality differs radically from fantasy.