John Swinburn

Where is “home?” Is home the place of one’s birth? The place—or places—where one spent one’s formative years?  The place where one settled in adulthood? But what is home to people whose lives define the word “wanderer?” Is home a place, or an idea? Or is it, in the final analysis, a myth? A wish for roots that do not exist or, at least, do not grow in stable soil?

I do not know where home is for me. Or, even, whether I have a home. Or have ever had a home. Even though I spent my formative years in Corpus Christi, Texas, I do not necessarily think of that city as home. Nor do I consider Austin, where I went to college, home. Or the towns and cities where I lived after school. Or the places where my jobs took me. Houston. Chicago. Dallas. Even in retirement, am I home? Is Hot Springs Village, Arkansas home? But if not a place, I do not know where—or what—constitutes home. Some say one’s family is home. But family may be scattered to the wind. Family may be the remnants of the people of one’s childhood. Or, for some, family may be the people with whom one is most comfortable; friends, acquaintances at work, people at church…and on and one.

Family and home are ideas, not things or places. But ideas change. So, too, do the concepts associated with “home.” Maybe you can never go home again because you were never “there.” “There” may be an illusion, a wish, a dream, a desire—a vision without substance.

It’s something to think about when considering whether anything or anyone ties me to a place or, for that matter, to people. Home may be oneself. And only oneself. One can go anywhere and be with anyone or be entirely alone and be home. Or homeless.

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Fear gnaws at flesh and bone because the ugly emotion needs the sustenance we too readily are willing to give. We freely feed fear, giving credence to  an absurd, warped rationale: if we feed fear, it will go away.  In reality, fear dies of starvation. Fear withers when faced with confidence and when confronted with a refusal to acquiesce to its appetite. Resisting fear is not always easy, but the effort almost always is preferable to the paralysis that accompanies giving it to its hunger.

To him who is in fear everything rustles.

~ Sophocles ~

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Sleep continues to elude me. I woke last night at 11:30. Then again at 1:30. Then at 3:30. Except for the last time, I was able to get back to semi-consciousness—for a while—within half an  hour. After the 3:30 waking, I gave up after half an hour of trying. Four o’clock on the nose. If I thought I could get back to sleep, I would return to bed. But each of the earlier attempts involved attempts to overcome aches and pains in pursuit of sleep; arthritis and its cousins made it clear by 4:00 that there would be no more conquests of arthritic pain for a while, so getting up was the best option. At least I can give Motrin some time to work…if, indeed, it will work, even a little. Dammit! I don’t know whether a massage would do me any good this morning. Maybe a steaming hot bath. Probably not. I’ll just tolerate the aches, instead, and complain.

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Plans and predictions change. If all goes according to expectations, the closing on the sale of my house will be complete next Tuesday, with funding on Wednesday. I’m crossing my fingers and toes.

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I cancelled a massage this morning (my first one in many, many years) because the closing on my house was scheduled for today. At this very moment, my neck, back, shoulders, and the back of my head are in dire, dire, dire need of the healing power of strong hands.

The closing on the sale of my house has been postponed. Ach! Probably until Tuesday. But I may still be called to the title company to sign various documents that, I hope, will facilitate the closing process whenever it actually takes place. I have come to the conclusion that people involved in real estate transactions—professionals who engage in property ownership transfers professionally—may be sadists. The complexities associated with title searches, easements, easement exclusions, mortgage calculations, etc., etc., etc. seem purposely designed to impose stress on both buyer and seller. The processes could not be more stressful if they involved agreeing to consume Rohypnol in advance of having Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer over to the house for a forced sleepover. Jeez!

But I have to look at the situation through the lens of a practicing Buddhist, who might rightfully say, after doing all I can do, I should just let it be. It is what it is. What will happen will happen. Yeah. Easy to say, not quite as easy to feel.

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Word people. When I ponder the meaning of that two-word phrase, I realize the two words, taken together, can convey as much meaning as an entire book. Those words categorize people—people who belong and those who are excluded from the coterie. And the phrase subtly acknowledges differences within those who are included. Word people may be adept at using words to convey description and, possibly, emotion; the canvas and the paint of language. At least two—but probably three or more—classes exist within that broader category: those whose technical proficiency with language is most evident in the quality and structure of the stretched canvas, those whose virtuosity with blending words creates stunning visual and emotional images, and those whose genius merges technical skills with creative brilliance. Of course, each of these capabilities exists on a three-dimensional continuum that incorporates degrees of proficiency with the other capabilities.

I know this because I observe it from the perspective of someone who has achieved enough understanding to comprehend the enormous distance between his own capabilities and mastery. But I know it, too, because there exists a usually unspoken and often publicly unacknowledged camaraderie between word people. Even between relative novices like me and undeniable experts like Salman Rushdie or Margaret Atwood or J K Rowling there is a connection. The connection between word people may be invisible to those who do not belong to the group, but it is evident to those who do. The connection can be quite strong, too, like brothers or sisters or lovers. It can be evident even before they identify one another as word people. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. The connection is mysterious; two word people can stand in a room, far from one another, and feel an odd sensation. Like a diaphanous shawl wraps around their shoulders, binding them to one another. That is not always true. It is especially not true of the word people I would call  technicians: the prolific writers who produce voluminous, formulaic materials that rarely need editing but that also fail to believably capture and convey emotions.

I’m rambling on about a subject for which I have no credentials. I spout off my opinions and beliefs as if they were indisputable truths. They are indisputable truths. To me. At the moment. But I can change. And I often do. I shift between the persona of a poet and the character of a novelist and the identity of an essayist or short story writer. An aspiring actor, in other words. Or someone who tries on different personalities to see which ones best fit his mood at the moment.

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Yesterday’s visit to the dermatologist’s office yielded this: the spot on my nose that was biopsied quite some time ago is basal cell carcinoma. The recommended treatment (the “gold standard,” a nurse told me) is the same one performed on my left hand several months ago: a Mohs Procedure. That is, a dermatologist/surgeon (?) slices out tissue around the offensive area until no cancer is found in the extracted tissue. Then, it’s sewn up and left to heal. The alternative treatment is thrice-weekly application of a chemo-cream for six weeks. I chose the latter. Mi novia was unhappy with my choice. I will think on it. My body seems to be telling me it may be time to just give up. Let nature takes its course. Decay gracefully. I joke about it, but sometimes I really do feel like quitting the fight. The amount of time and energy dedicated to doctor visits, treatments, etc., etc. takes away from time I could spend on road trips or visits to animal sanctuaries or spending money in ridiculously expensive restaurants or…whatever.  Decay. That’s what it is.

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I am hungry. I may have some yoghurt and bran flakes. Yoghurt substitutes for milk, which ran out two days ago.

It won’t be long now. Just a matter of weeks. Maybe a month, at most. Once the house-warming activities and events are behind us—once the visits to see the new place have all been made—and once I have finished unpacking and have ordered my life here in these new surroundings, I will work on changing who I am. Not uncovering the man beneath hundreds of layers of masks but, instead, creating a new person.

This new person may include a few scraps of the old one, but he will be built largely from scratch. The new person will adjust to his surroundings, just as the old one is doing. Yet he will not simply adjust; his surroundings will become part of him. He will be part forest, part bird song, part dim light of the sun struggling through the trees to make its way to the ground. He will consist of cool breezes and torrential rains and the steam rising from hot summer mornings. And he will be part human, but only a little bit. He will minimize the human part because…because he has seen what humans can do and be. He will want no part of those hideous aspects of humanity, so he will replace them with gentle philosophies and gratitude and acceptance of a world unchanged by arrogant intervention. But he will build barricades, too, and stockpile the armaments necessary to repel intruders who might try to provoke a return to the way he was before he rebuilt himself into someone new.

I am not very familiar with the Bible. I have never studied it. I have never believed it was more than an amalgamation of stories intended to convey messages that often compete with one another. But it includes elegant slices of philosophy. And it contains language stunning in its splendor. Once passage I have read many times, usually with conflicting emotions, is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,  And a time to die;
A time to plant,  And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,  And a time to heal;
A time to break down,  And a time to build up;
A time to weep,  And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,  And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,  And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,  And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain,  And a time to lose;
A time to keep,  And a time to throw away;
A time to tear,  And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,  And a time to speak;
A time to love,  And a time to hate;
A time of war,  And a time of peace.

There is, indeed, a time for everything. There is a time and a place for rage and for grief and for unrestrained passion. The time, always, is now. Now is all we have. Tomorrow is just a hope and yesterday is only a memory. Now is the time for everything. Now is the time to act. Yet didn’t I begin this post by saying “It won’t be long now. Just a matter of weeks. Maybe a month, at most.” The process must begin in this very moment. Planning is not acting. But acting without planning offers little hope for tomorrow becoming the “now” one wishes to experience. And, so, I plan for tomorrow’s Now, knowing Now may never come.

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“Why did they do this to us? We’re good kids. We didn’t do anything wrong.” The words of a little girl who survived the Uvalde massacre. I can barely stand to think about the unendurable pain the attack caused, and will continue to cause, for victims and their families and friends.

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The time is twenty minutes to six. Dim light in the sky beyond the darkness of the trees suggests the day is here, but the forest clings to night. The forest shields me from approaching day, but it cannot do it for long. Soon, trees will be fully visible out the window. The birds I hear now may be visible as they plunge from the trees toward the feeder, snatching nuts and seeds and flying away again. Everything outside my window is grey now, though, as if I were peering through the viewfinder of a camera that reveals the world beyond its lens only in black and white and grey. But there’s little white out there now; just black and grey. I can see the hood and top of my car, though; white. Both cars are in the driveway at the moment because the garage is jammed with stuff we have yet to unpack. We may decide some of the stuff is unnecessary. We may continue thinning for months. Or years. I look at that garage and long—again—for the time when everything I own will constitute what I am wearing and what I am carrying in a knapsack. Ach! Morning light is spreading like wildfire! Soon, the day will have irrevocably arrived.

Two and one half hours from now, I will join a group of male members and friends of my church for breakfast and conversation at Debra’s, a little diner four or five miles “in” from the west end of the Village. The road that runs from the west end of the Village to the east end is roughly fifteen miles long. I used to say Debra’s was in the center of the Village, but I know better now. I wonder how many people I’ve lied to over the years about the location of the place.

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Two chigger bites that I know of, so far. I loathe chiggers. I ache to live somewhere chiggers cannot survive. But I probably could not survive there, either. Damn. Time to stop dreaming about a chiggerless existence and get on with tackling the day’s challenges.

Anguish. Inconceivably painful, debilitating, powerless anguish. It is the never-ending emotion facing the families and friends of the children killed in mass-shootings. Mass-shootings that have become so common that the public seems hardened to them; accepting of them. Anguish once gripped all of us when one of these horrific events unfolded. But now we join the “leaders” of our nation and its states, who raise their voices in condemnation of these horrendous crimes in which innocent people…children…are gunned down. Like the politicians, we scream and cry and offer empty thoughts and prayers and condolences to the families of the victims. But, also like the politicians, we do almost nothing. We weakly insist that “something must be done” about gun violence, but we do not become so enraged that we absolutely, unequivocally demand action. We keep electing impotent, self-serving narcissists, people whose unprincipled adoration of an ambiguous Second Amendment overrides their extremely modest levels of compassion and responsibility. Until inconceivably large numbers of people surround legislative buildings in Washington, DC and in state capitols, screaming for action and refusing to permit the ineffectual political hacks to leave until satisfactory action has been taken to control guns, we have no choice but to blame ourselves for the continuing gun violence and mass shootings that plague our nation. Until we empty legislative bodies of the power-mongers who occupy them and replace them with genuine public servants—people who take their responsibilities to the public seriously—we are complicit in the bloodshed.  Admittedly, it’s not just the easy availability of guns and ammunition; it’s a thousand other triggers that release mental meltdowns. Those, too, must be addressed. But, first and foremost, it’s the weaponry. Second Amendment whores be damned, we must control guns. Their idiotic arguments hold no sway with me. The “right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” does not apply unrestricted to nuclear or biological or chemical “arms,” nor should it to guns. Reasonable restrictions must be imposed on gun ownership. Else bloodshed and our associated guilt will continue unabated.

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The “old” house is empty and clean. Nothing demands that I return. Yet I remain emotionally attached to the place. Especially the view to the southeast. And the room my late wife used as a study, and office, and a getaway. I’ll have to get over that attachment, though. Or, at least, that attachment will have to reside only inside my head; not be expressed by my physical presence.

I spend time the last few evenings sitting outside on the deck of my new house. I’ve quickly grown attached to it. The view is radically different from the one I was used to, but it is just as emotionally engaging. The dappled light through the tall trees and the sound of the wind in the leaves are calming. The deep privacy of the place wraps around me like a blanket, enfolding me in comfort; an escape from the madness of the world outside our little pocket of gentle solitude.

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So much remains to be done in our new home. Months of tailoring it to ourselves await us. While I’d like to snap my fingers and see it all completed, part of the enjoyment will come from doing it slowly, methodically, deliberately. It will unfold as it should.

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Wrinkles still abound in the fabric of the sale of my old house. I still await completion of a convoluted process involving restricted “release of easements.” Friday’s closing depends on that process being completed…today. I can only hope that occurs; I have no control over it not. It is in the hands of others. And I learned yesterday that funding will not take place on Friday; I will have to wait until Tuesday, at least, for the proceeds of the sale to go into my bank account. Although I have faith that everything will proceed as planned, it is my nature to worry. I feel tightness in my neck and shoulders and chest. My mood is clouded by easily-provoked eruptions of unnecessary concern…or anger. When this process is finished, I will try to remake myself into someone who is smoother, calmer, easier to be with. Easier for me to live with. The entire process—of buying a new house, selling another one, emptying the other one of too much “stuff” and filling the new one with it—calls attention to the need for greater simplicity. It reinforces my sense that attachment to material things is restrictive, confining, and unhealthy.

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I learned yesterday that my brother and his wife, who recently returned from a trip to Portugal that included both a river cruise and visits to various sites throughout the country, contracted COVID-19. They are recovering, but their trip was plagued by their illness. Despite all their precautions and the precautions taken by the cruise line, etc. they contracted the virus. We have a friend who also contracted the virus, after her husband did. Though she says she has only minor symptoms, the virus is forcing her to isolate, thereby infringing on her usual carefree and very active lifestyle. COVID-19 remains a threat to everyone. It will remain with us for the foreseeable future, I think, as will all manner of other diseases and maladies, including monkeypox.

I had only heard of monkeypox in passing until this morning, when I explored a bit about it. According to a U.K. based website, most people who have been diagnosed with the virus have self-identified as gay or bisexual men who have sex with men. While that fact may limit the likelihood that the rest of us could be infected, it is of course possible that it’s not limited to men who have sex with men. And even if that were the only means of transmittal, everyone can be affected by it because it affects people. It could become more than a vague humanitarian concern, too, because people who are important in our lives could be affected by it.

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It’s just after 5:30. I’ve been up for about an hour and a half after having slept about six and a half hours. Early to bed, early to rise. Healthy: not so much. Wealthy: I wish. Wise: Meh. I had another bizarre dream last night. It involved going to see doctors with my late wife. Both of us were there for an unknown (to me) reason, but the doctor seemed to think it had something to do with weight loss and stamina. He asked me if I could walk a mile. I said I used to walk 4 miles a day and some days walked 10. He said that was good, but what about now? He and his female counterpart, who was seeing my late wife, led us through a set of doors that led into a house. There, we encountered more of the doctors’ colleagues: an older British married couple whose bulldog puppy took a liking to me. After I said something (a greeting, perhaps), the man asked if I was British. I said, “no,” and he said he thought he heard an accent. My recollection of the dream falls apart after that; I know it continued, but have no idea what occurred afterward.

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I sold my collection of 150+ vinyl LP records last night, unexpectedly, to a good friend. She will come collect them in the not-too-distant future. I had listed them for sale on Facebook; when she saw I was selling them, she jumped at the chance to buy them. I then offered them to her for free, but she says she insists on paying me. She is right there at the top of my short list of favorite people, people who matter deeply to me.

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Rain, which I’ve heard falling since I got up, is now visible in the morning light. The birds have begun singing their morning songs. I will take those as signals for me to get up out of my desk chair and get to work in the kitchen.

This disjointed post is now finished.

Another early morning. I woke a bit before 4, but opted to stay in bed until the clock struck four. My office is very dark, except for the light from my notebook computer’s screen. I need a night light in this room so I do not stumble into a box or otherwise cause myself some grief. Even with the light from my computer’s screen, I cannot see my coffee cup on the desk next to me; I need a night light to avoid the unpleasantness of coffee spillage.

Most of yesterday’s scheduled activities went according to plan. But we did not make it to Little Rock for dinner and the Bonnie Raitt concert. I’ll write another time about the reason we missed it. In lieu of driving to Little Rock, attending a concert, staying overnight in a nice hotel, and driving back early this morning, we continued watching another television series we began night before last. I think we may be the only two people in North America who have not already seen Mad Men. Thus far, I’ve found the first few episodes of season one interesting; at least interesting enough to keep me watching. Based on the rave reviews I’ve read and heard, though, I was expecting to find the show absolutely riveting from the start; maybe a few more episodes will put the rivets in place.

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By twenty minutes past five, there is barely enough light from the sun to see very, very dim outlines of trees in the forest outside my window. The darkness of night, even with a street light not far from the house, is stunning. Pitch black is an apropos term for it; looking outside is very much like looking into a pit of coal-black tar. But the definition for pitch, used as I just did, is not easy to come by. Used as a noun, dictionaries seem intent on limiting the word to music or inclination or slope. My usage refers to what one online source refers to as “a viscoelastic polymer which can be natural or manufactured, derived from petroleum, coal tar, or plants.” I prefer “pitch” to the longer, more precise definition. But, back to the near-absence of light. I like this mysterious, dark, nearly hidden part of the day. Darkness in the early morning has a different character from darkness at night, even late at night. Early morning darkness has a special feel about it, as if it is in silent communication with the person experiencing it. Early morning darkness and I have a special relationship; an intimacy available only to those of us willing to break with the habit of sleeping in past dawn’s light.

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This morning, the last major donation resulting from our move will be made. ReStore, the Habitat for Humanity retail outlet, will pick up the too-tall bed frame and a few other items. And we will load the last of the items in the garage into the borrowed truck and take them to the new house, where we will try to find a place to put them. Despite having had the old house cleaned yesterday, I discovered at the end of the day that the cleaning person missed an entire room; the one off the garage. So, I will have to do a bit of clean-up in there. And I will leave a note for the buyer, giving her details about all the odds and ends she needs to know. I’ll need to go back, too, to clean the oven; I did not ask the cleaning person to do it, so it is up to me. After that, though, there will be no reason to return, except perhaps for one last look at the place I spent the last seven years with my late wife. It is surprisingly difficult, this divestiture of the place where death caused our marriage of almost 41 years came to an unexpected end.

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Filtered light has begun to make it possible for me to safely walk outside without tripping or running into trees. Birds have begun to sing and call loudly, alerting the world to the fact that it’s morning. I will go outside now for a brief exploration of the driveway and beyond.

Time speeds by early in the morning. I awoke before 4:30 and, as I begin to write this post, suddenly it is 5:45. My time spent revising an informational letter to the buyer of my old house took much longer than I expected; my message to her may be overkill, but I feel compelled to give her as much detail as I can about the house, the neighbors, and related stuff. I have always had high expectations that people from whom I buy homes will give me enough information to ease my transition into the new house; my expectations rarely have been met. Regardless, I want to be the exception, the surprisingly helpful seller who genuinely wants the buyer to have an easy, positive experience as they move into their new home. Little things, like letting them know when garbage is picked up and what brands and colors of paints were used in various rooms of he house, can be helpful. And leaving a book full of instruction booklets that came with the HVAC system and the stove and the microwave, etc.  It’s all so easy to do and can be so helpful. I wonder why it’s not as common as I think it should be? But, as someone said to me recently, some people simply don’t care. The instruction books, etc. may discarded the moment a buyer moves in. So be it. If that is what they want to do, they can do it. It won’t stop me from making the offer, though.

Now, it’s 5:53. I spent eight minutes ranting about my philosophy of the propriety and protocol of home ownership transition. Why do I document such trivia? I don’t know. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s symptomatic of a mental disease. Maybe it’s a hopeful effort to encourage others to behave as I wish they would. Or maybe it’s just my fingers needing exercise and finding the opportunity in forcing the keyboard to express my take on home ownership transition etiquette.

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The day on the other side of the glass is taking on a dim, silver-grey look, as if the reflection of light bouncing off a massive sheet of tin is bathing the world outside my window. I suppose it’s the cloud cover that’s doing it—not a sheet of tin. I wonder why I would interpret this morning’s appearance in that way? It’s the prism inside me. It’s the way my eyes and my mind refract and interpret light. I look at the world through a set of lenses that behave like rose-colored glasses—except my glasses this morning are tinted with tin or silver or some mixture of silver and grey…which is the color I ascribe to tin. My prism is not always silver-grey. Sometimes it is peach or deep, forest green. Sometimes it is fragile tan, the color of bleached sand. Other times, it varies from purple to orange to cerulean blue. Moods affect changes in perception. Colors appear to change, depending on one’s psychological context. Dark and brooding. Light and cheerful. Detached and distracted.

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I dreamed last night that I was driving a borrowed car, trying to get home in time to meet my wife (she was still alive in my dream) to go to dinner with friends before the Bonnie Raitt concert. Somehow, I got lost. I had been driving on a highway, but found myself on a dirt road in the middle of a tiny town in Central Texas. I asked a teenager I saw on the roadside for help finding the highway; he advised me to contact the local police. It was then I noticed that I was wearing only underwear. I was carrying the handset of my (now-defunct) landline telephone. Scene shift: I was inside a police station. Two female police officers said they would arrange for me to be taken back to the highway to my car (apparently I had left the car on the highway and walked?). But first I had to agree to return to the little town and clean out an abandoned building. Scene shift: I was inside a bus, which ostensibly was taking me to my car. But the driver would not talk to me. And I noticed the time; it was well beyond the time I should have met my wife for the drive to Little Rock. I had no operable phone and no one on the bus was willing to let me borrow theirs.

In real life, mi novia and I are going to Little Rock today to see Bonnie Raitt in concert tonight. We will meet friends, who also will attend the concert, for dinner beforehand. I will double check to make sure we both have our phones. We hope we do not need to worry about getting lost—unlike last time we went to the concert hall, when we missed an exit, thanks to massive road reconstruction. Road construction that, according to reports I have read and heard, is only getting worse and more confusing. I will double check to make sure I am wearing more than a pair of underwear before we depart. I will not board a bus in advance of the concert.

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I have a rather busy schedule today: 1) meet a guy at my old house so he can pick up some outdoor furniture I am giving him for his mother’s house; 2) meet with a woman who I will pay to do a thorough cleaning today of my old house; 3) take what seems like a vast amount of trash to the local dump; 4) move everything still left inside the old house to the garage; 5) take what I can out of the garage to store somewhere in the new house; 6) call the electric company to stop service in my name as of next Saturday; 7) shower, shave, and put on presentable clean clothes; 8) handle a few other administrative errands; 9) drive to Little Rock; 10) have dinner in Little Rock; 11) go the Bonnie Raitt concert; 12) sleep like a log—I hope. It’s not really as complex as I make it sound, but it’s plenty complex for me. I crave a day free of worry about what I need to do that I haven’t done—a day so utterly free of demands that it will make my nerves and my muscles relax into absolute leisure. When will that day come?

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Breakfast this morning will consist of avocado on a whole grain English muffin with a bit of lemon juice and salt on top. And, then, I will commence my busy morning. Now, I will go cut the avocado, whip its flesh with a fork, and ready myself for a delightful taste experience. Right here in my imaginary casual fine-dining restaurant adventure, called the French Kangaroo, now operated by mi novia and me.

Last night’s ferocious rainstorms, punctuated with brilliant flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder that shook the rafters and rattled the walls, brought dramatically cooler temperatures. I love violent rainstorms, but when they grow into beasts that spawn tornadoes, my love diminishes considerably. Last night, our phones suddenly screamed tornado warnings and advised us to seek shelter immediately. I do not know yet whether any tornadoes touched down in our vicinity or beyond. Yesterday’s 85°F felt even hotter, thanks to the humidity. The storms brought about significant change. Today’s humidity remains high, but this morning the outside temperature is in the mid 50s; the high is forecast to be just 62°F. Despite the cloud cover, the atmosphere is clean and clear. The pollen has been washed out of the air, so even on this dim, grey morning, the forest looks crisp and vivid. The edges of the leaves are well-defined. The look sharp and certain, unlike their shriveled, overheated selves of just twelve hours ago. When I walked outside, I was met with an abrupt, cool slap in the face. It felt good. A nice way to start the day.

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Nature is never other than serene even in a thunderstorm.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright ~

Today will, again, be dedicated to emptying and cleaning the old house. A few more loads in the car and/or truck should be all that’s necessary. Then, it’s a matter of cleaning and tidying the place in preparation for the buyer, who is scheduled to take possession on Friday, after the closing. Before I head over, though, I will sit and gaze out my window as birds attempt to get their fill from the bird feeder hanging a few feet away. Like yesterday, blue jays swoop down from their perch on the shepherd’s pole from which the feeder hands. They cannot perch on the rim of the feeder, as they are far too heavy; the feeder would tip over from their weight. But it’s not just the blue jays that have trouble perching on the edge. Much smaller birds, too, seem to be unable to simply perch on the edge of the feeder and get their fill. They, too, grab and dash, though they can stand on the edge for a moment before they must fly off.

When I sit, mesmerized by birds, I try not to let myself think about what kind of birds I am watching or otherwise be curious about their sizes or wing shapes or profiles. That sometimes is hard (especially when the bird I’m watching is obviously a blue jay or a cardinal). I try to empty my mind of knowledge and curiosity; simply be entertained and enthralled by them. These incredible creatures defy gravity. They fly through the air, between tree branches and around leaves, at break-neck speed, never crashing into limbs or trunks or twigs. I am in awe as I watch them.

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As much as I loved the view from the deck on my old house, I think I love just as much the feeling I get as I sit on the deck of the new place. Here, the deck is covered and the trees are clustered nearby. Forest creatures, including birds of course, are just a few feet away. There’s a quiet serenity on this deck that was not available in the open air of the deck at the other house. While both places have their unique appeal, I think this view is more peaceful and comforting. Looking out from the deck at the other house seemed to increase my wanderlust; I could see distances and I wanted to be in those distances. Here, though, distance is invisible. Here, I look out from the deck and I see the edges of my cocoon; the arms of Nature embracing me.

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I am not comfortable writing everything on my mind. At least not in a place readily accessible to anyone and everyone. Some things are too private, too personal. One’s thoughts can cause one embarrassment if revealed to the world. Or they can be subject to misinterpretation, creating illegitimate but understandable grief by people who misinterpret them. Or they can be so intimate that they belong only to oneself; they cannot be shared even if one were to make every effort to share them.

Even with those caveats, I wish I could write all my thoughts. Document them so that, one day long after I die, someone might come upon them and discover things about me know to no one else—not even me. But how does one write something that reveals one’s own unknowns? That is a trick no one has ever learned. But people have discovered the writers have done it, if only by accident and without realizing it.

The admonition here is this: write, write, write. Write what you don’t feel comfortable or confident revealing. Just write it down. Empty your heart and mind through your fingers. One day, someone will learn something about you that you never knew.

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Even though I have more work to do than I can accomplish if I spent six months trying, I still feel the need to get away. A road trip. A significant, lengthy, time-consuming road trip. Will I do it. Time, alone, will tell.

Belatedly, after two full days in the new house, I baptized the new tile shower this morning. My intent was to finally wash off the sweat and grime before I went to bed last night (the sheets were already in dire need of a washing machine bath), but sleep overtook me before I could carry out my intent. But this morning, after waking quite a bit later than has been my custom of late (just after 5:30), I inaugurated the shower. The tile floor and gentler-than-I-like water pressure will take some getting used to, but getting clean felt wonderful this morning.

Now, the time is barely past 6:30 and dim daylight is an hour old. A dull grey cover of clouds shields the forest from the sun, but high humidity clothes it with a feeling warmth befitting a sunny midday. When I walked outside, the air seemed thick with heat, though the temperature is only 73°F. The conditioned air inside the house, warmer than outside, was more comfortable. So, I sat in front of my computer, ready to spill my thoughts onto the keyboard, when I saw a blue jay swoop down from a tree branch and land on a pole from which a bird feeder hung. The bird quickly decided the bird feeder had no place to perch, so it leapt from the pole, snatched some seeds in its beak, and flew away. This happened a few more times. During a lull in the fly-and-dash meal, a ground squirrel shimmied up the pole. It eyed the dangling feeder, trying to decide how it could get at the seeds. Its only option would have been to jump from the pole onto the feeder; finally, it determined the effort and potentially catastrophic result of missing the jump would not have been worth the effort. It left, dejected in its inability to secure massive amounts of what might have been delicious seeds.

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I took a break to have an early breakfast with mi novia, who got up just after 6:30, a good hour earlier than her normal time to arise. She reported she did not sleep well. Ideally, she would have gone back to bed to give it another try, but I think she feels obligated to help with the remaining efforts to empty the old house. I could do it alone, but she can be stubborn and would reject that notion. Now, she is showering. I will end this rumination and head to the old house. One more day of this endeavor, I hope, will be adequate to empty the house. Then, all that is left to do is a thorough cleaning. And, then, pursuit of a new life in a new place.

The first full day in the new house unfolded in an almost orchestrated way, as if designed to reinforce a message delivered the day before: friends know the right time to appear, delivering comfort and brushing away stress. The two of us unloaded and unpacked boxes and we moved more belongings that we did not ask the movers to move, even though the previous day’s exhaustion had not dissipated. The pressures of the move continued to build, with little opportunity to relieve that mounting tension. Until good friends checked in with us, late in the day. And then came to our rescue. They visited, with relaxing conversation—and bearing an assortment of good things to eat and drink. As I sat there, feeling the stress drain from me, I thought of a Joe Cocker tune: With a Little Help from My Friends. Friends—who were there for us on the day of the move and the day after, both physically and in spirit—matter. Quite a lot, in fact.

+++

Today, it will be more of the same. And a trip or two to the landfill to discard stuff that should have been abandoned long ago. And lugging still more stuff to the new house. It will get sorted out, eventually. In the meantime, though, it will look like chaos, but it will be peaceful chaos. When the electrician has come and gone, when we get the washer and dryer properly hooked up, when we reconfigure the laundry room to accommodate the second refrigerator, when we get towel bars and toilet paper holders and such on the walls, when the pictures are hung, when the boxes have been emptied and new shelves have been readied to accept boxes of books and the items from my long-stored collection are properly displayed…then we’ll have made a big dent in the to-do list, the list that seems to have been growing since the beginning of time.

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The day looks grey, so far, a prelude to haze and heat. Tomorrow’s forecast includes the possibility of strong thunderstorms. Today is the day, then, to empty the old house and to get the discards to the landfill. Quite the task. It’s hard to think about such stuff, distracted as I am by the birds dropping in on the feeder just outside my study window. But think about them I must. So, it’s off to prepare for the tasks at hand.

Exhaustion. It can arise from too much physical exertion or too much emotional stress. It can emerge from the realization that abstract wishes and dreams may not lead to concrete experiences. I blame this morning’s exhaustion on an amalgamation of causes that, taken together, make me feel a little like I had a losing altercation with a brutal prizefighter. Though I did very little of the heavy lifting involved in yesterday’s move, I feel like that’s exactly what I did. Heavy, heavy lifting.

But the stress of the day was eased, dramatically, by my sister-in-law whose rescued the day by responding to my call for help at 5:30 in the morning. And by a wonderful friend who delivered coffee and pastries a few hours later. And by another wonderful friend who offered to buy lunch and who, late in the day, came by the new house to help celebrate the launch of a new experience in a new place.

As the day wore on and the aches and pains of moving day settled in for the duration, I thought about how much I have come to depend on the generosity of people who care. That caring was so evident during the day yesterday. Some lyrics from a Greg Brown tune, Spring Wind, came to mind…

My friends are getting older
So I guess I must be too
Without their loving kindness
I don’t know what I’d do

I am too tired to keep writing. But not too tired to get back to unloading “stuff” in the car; the energy necessary to continue unloading last night just wasn’t there. I hope I have enough energy today to continue emptying the old house. It’s not an option. It’s an absolute necessity. Back to the wars.

Almost hidden beneath layer upon layer of more mundane recollections is my memory of a  childhood fascination with volcanoes. Though the details are long gone, I recall receiving a treasured gift—from my parents, I think—of a book about all sorts of geological wonders. The book was full of four-color photographs and illustrations, eye candy to a kid enchanted by the wonders of the natural world. Among the pictures were cross-sectional drawings of volcanoes and photos of red-hot lava pouring from fissures in the Earth. The accompanying text explained, in terms a child could easily understand, how liquid rock beneath Earth’s surface sometimes burst to the surface, spewing molten lava and dust into the atmosphere. I do not recall whether the allure of volcanoes preceded or followed the gift of that book. Regardless, that book became one of my favorites for what seems, now, like years.

Today is the forty-second anniversary of the massive eruption of Mount St. Helens, classified as a stratovolcano, in the state of Washington.  By the time of that event, my fascination with volcanoes had cooled, though news of what would be classified as the deadliest and most economically destructive volcano in recorded U.S. history triggered a resurgence of interest. But my interest in the geology of volcanoes was eclipsed by astonishment at the sheer magnitude of the volcano’s explosive power. According to an online summary published by the U.S. Geological Survey, 57 people died as a result of the eruption. “More than 185 miles of highways and roads and 15 miles of railways were destroyed or extensively damaged,” the summary reported. It says “more than 200 houses and cabins were destroyed” and “many thousands of acres of prime forest,  as well as recreational sites, bridges, roads, and trails, were destroyed or heavily damaged.” Referencing a National Geographic article, Wikipedia asserts that “Geologists predict that future eruptions will be more destructive, since the configuration of the lava domes there require more pressure to erupt.” Despite that frightening prediction, the economy of the Mount St. Helens area, heavily reliant on tourism, has not only returned to pre-eruption levels but has surpassed them. That is also despite the continued volcanic activity, until 2008, after the eruption. 

The little boy who found volcanoes so intriguing all those years ago is still fascinated by them, though their allure is not as strong. Thinking back through the fog of years, I wonder how different my life might have been today if I had followed the passion, professionally. Would my interest in volcanoes still be infused with a sense of wonder or would I, instead, look at them through a lens of detached professionalism? Impossible to say…with any degree of certainty.

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I woke up at 3 this morning. It is now an hour and a quarter later. Less than four hours from now, a crew from a Hot Springs moving company will arrive and will pack up the “big stuff” to move it to the new house. Before they arrive, I will empty two refrigerators and their freezers into some ice chests, hoping the frozen foods will stay frozen until the refrigerators are operational once again. That is hopeful thinking, considering the fact the widespread advice that refrigerators be left unplugged for between four and twelve hours after moving to allow refrigerants, etc. to return to equilibrium. Failure to give them time to “settle” could result in massive failure of their ability to cool. Hmm. Here’s hoping the food will survive the move.

Let your home be your mast and not your anchor.

~ Kahlil Gibran ~

After the “big stuff” is moved, we will continue to move the “small stuff,” an undertaking that seems to be taking approximately forever. I hope the house will be empty before the scheduled closing, which is set for a week from this coming Friday.  Tonight will be the first one in the new house, surrounded by boxes that will not be unpacked and their contents put away for some time to come. The sheer volume of belongings being moved is another strong argument for a minimalist lifestyle. Living out of a knapsack continues to have real appeal, though I suspect I would change my tune if that came to pass.

After days and days and days of packing and moving, my joints and muscles are sore. My body is not accustomed, nor well-suited, to such abuse. I think I may need a six-week recovery period involving a full-body massage, daily. What I need and what I get, though, are different beasts. Ach!

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The exhaustion of readying for a move has taken its toll on our television habits. Rather than seeking out series that will keep our attention for multiple evenings, we have attempted to find brief injections of entertainment that require no long-term intellectual commitment. To some extent, we have succeeded by choosing to view documentaries. Documentaries typically are short, succinct, and focused. Yet in spite of their condensed nature, they tend to breed ongoing contemplation. Our brains do not shed documentaries’ “stories” the way they tend to shed pure entertainment. Pure entertainment does not settle in and build probing, intellectual nests, encouraging us to contemplate the message and its relevance to our lives. Documentaries are designed to encourage just that: “what does this mean and how should it affect our behavior, going forward?” So, was the decision to watch documentaries instead of “pure entertainment” a good one? Hmm. Good question.

I wrote about the documentary, Cowspiracy, a couple of days ago. Last night, we watched A Farewell to Ozark, an engaging documentary about the series and its effects on the cast and crew and the audience. Though light and entertaining, it prompted me to think more deeply about the way the series was created and the way its core stories were crafted and honed. But, then, we watched another documentary that, like Cowspiracy, sparked in me some intense introspection. Last night’s thought-provoking film, entitled Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, was an apropos thought-engine during the throes of moving. During the past several weeks, as we have shuttled thousands of things we own from one house to the other, my mind repeatedly locked in on the sheer volume of “stuff” we seem to think necessary for comfort or contentment, AKA happiness. Minimalism visits the degree to which acquisition—of both material “things” and conceptual achievements like job titles and more voluminous living space—can be counterproductive in the search for contentment. With the wisdom accrued during a night’s sleep, I think the documentary was only modestly well-done, but its message was brilliantly crystal-clear, in spite of its mediocrity: we readily allow marketers to deceive us into believing happiness can be measured by what we acquire. This is by no means a new idea, either to media presentations or to my own thought-processes, but the documentary reinforced ideas that have been rattling around in my head for a long, long time.  Those same ideas have rattled around in the heads of the people featured in the documentary. The difference is that they took deliberate steps to climb off the treadmill and focus on elements of their lives most important to their happiness.

Will my tryst with minimalism lead to a more intimate relationship? Only time will tell. I would like to think so, if only because I think Happiness is easier to identify when it is not surrounded by imposters dressed in tailored silk suits. If I look closely, I may see Happiness dressed in a loose-fitting kurta made of an unassuming, comfortable cotton.

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I try to put myself in the place of people who were close to—maybe best friends with—Jeffrey Dahmer or Adam Lanza or Payton Gendron (one of the latest mass murderers who used race as justification for his savagery). Would the sudden knowledge that these good friends of mine were, in fact, monsters utterly and completely destroy my faith in humankind? Would I ever be able to completely trust another human being? Would I ever be able to have even a little trust in another person? I do not know. I suspect it would be hard to believe in the inherent goodness of anyone after someone close to me engaged in such hideous acts. As I think about the matter, it occurs to me that I might lose faith, first, in myself. In my ability to see the person behind the mask. In my ability to judge whether a person is fundamentally good or fundamentally bad. It would not help that many, many people would question my innocence because I knew this person. It would not help to be suspected of somehow aiding and abetting my friend’s behavior. Or, at least, turning a blind eye to “obvious” clues about the perpetrator’s plans. Ach! But what if those beasts’ friends really were “in the loop” and could have done something to prevent the murder and mayhem they caused? See, it’s hard to be both compassionate and empathetic while simultaneously suspicious and skeptical.

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I have more on my mind. But, no, not for now.

Many, maybe most, of my clothes will be discarded today. Discarded is not the right word; donated is more appropriate. They are too small for me now. Or, rather, I am too big for them. I have allowed myself to balloon into the man I was ten or eleven years ago. Giving the clothes away, rather than keeping them so when I lose weight they will fit me again, feels like defeatism. Mi novia says it’s realism. Giving them away feels to me like an acknowledgement that the thinner man is gone and may not return. But she suggests having new, better-fitting clothes will improve both my appearance and my attitude. And, when I succeed in my quest for a more appropriate size (said quest, which has yet to commence, will begin shortly after our transition to the new house), I will feel good in rewarding myself with a new wardrobe. Hmm.

I do not like having a closet overflowing with clothes. I want to wear a very limited wardrobe. I want the majority of that limited wardrobe to be loose-fitting, comfortable clothes suitable for any environment. If an environment calls for something more “dressy” or “upscale,” I would rather just avoid it than succumb to the pressure to conform to a dress code I find stuffy and offensive. “But what about a funeral?” “But what about the symphony?” “But what about a black-tie affair?” My response, as of this morning, is this: “If I cannot go, wearing comfortable attire, I will skip the event. As for the funeral, the main attraction won’t notice what I’m wearing, anyway.” Oh, I’ll probably bend. Or change my mind. Or accept that my inflexible attitude is just as annoying to others as are their expectations of sartorial conformity to me. Have I gone off track, yet again? Why, yes, I believe I have.

Buttons are the fossils of the sartorial world, enduring long past the garments they were designed to hold together.

~ Martha Stewart ~

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When I woke this morning, I was in the midst of a dream in which I was handcuffed to a train car. I did not and do not know why. I was outside the car, standing on the edge of the train tracks.  Inside the train car above me, a woman was looking down at me through a window, but I could barely see her. The glare and the angle of the glass was such that I could only see that she was there, staring at me. I could not decide whether she looked sad or whether her facial expression was matter-of-fact. The train started pulling away, pulling me along with it. I panicked, thinking I would be dragged for miles. But a police officer wearing a blue uniform and a blue helmet with a pointed spire on top ran alongside me and unlocked the cuffs. As the train disappeared from view, the woman’s vague face, still looking at me, vanished in the distance. And that was that. I woke up, needing desperately to pee.

+++

During the last several days, the anxieties associated with moving into a new house and selling and old one have become noticeably more intense. At least I hope moving and selling are the causes of the behaviors I associate with intense anxiety. Rapid and repeated memory failures. Quick temper. Misplacing keys or billfold or cell phone or all three. Inability to stay focused. Fatigue. Moodiness. A general funk. But maybe those are not new. Maybe I am just more acutely aware of them because they are interfering with what I had hoped would be a relatively smooth transition—moving from one house to another is not an exercise in dizzyingly intricate complexity, after all. I suppose I will find out whether it’s a matter of simply being more conscious of those unattractive but innate attributes—or a matter of cause and effect. Or, perhaps, something else. Time will tell. I will try to process the experience from a Zen perspective; it is what it is. I don’t know, so it’s out of my control and unworthy of my worry. That, I suppose, is the best frame of mind when one is on a battlefield, pinned down by gunfire and watching missiles rain down all around. But that’s just supposition; having never been in that situation. Though I think I feel a little like that at the moment. I am aware that it’s irrational. But that awareness changes nothing.  Yet, as I consider the situation I am in, I feel pretty damn calm. I have done and am doing what I can to propel the process ahead so it unfolds as smoothly as possible. Could I do it better? Maybe. Would doing it better make life more worth living? I have to say, “no.” So, I am relatively confident that everything is all right. I told myself that a few days ago. And I’m telling myself now. And I am not dissembling; it’s the truth as I know it.

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Last night, on the recommendation of a friend, I watched an educational, interesting, insightful, and disturbing 2014 documentary film. Watching Cowspiracy helped to reignite my growing interest in exploring a plant-based diet. It also helped amplify my skepticism of the integrity of many environmental organizations. Several of them, it seems, choose to ignore the massive negative environmental impact of animal agriculture on greenhouse emissions (and, consequently, global climate change). Assuming the data presented in the film are accurate (or, at least, generally true), animal agriculture is a far greater contributor to greenhouse gases and their effects than are the transportation and petroleum production industries. That is, cars and trucks, etc. contribute a much smaller amount of CO₂, etc. to the atmosphere than does animal agriculture. The film obviously has an agenda, of course. And it presents information in a way that is clearly biased in favor of promoting that agenda. Regardless, it is an engaging, educational documentary. Bottom line: in spite of its transparent bias, it is a film every consumer of animal products should watch, if for no other reason than to reinforce the need to calibrate and square one’s moral compass.  I would bet even skeptics who watch the film are or will be affected by it.

All of that having been said, the documentary might have been more effective/believable if some of the consultants who argue for the film’s premise had been replaced by more credible experts. It seems to me that the credentials of one such expert, Richard Oppenlander, were oversold. If I recall correctly, the film did not give his background, but I felt that he was presented as an exceptionally qualified expert. In looking into his background this morning, I repeatedly saw him presented (on what presumably are his own websites) as Dr. Oppenlander. The more I looked, the more I came to find that is, indeed, correct. He is a dentist. Richard Oppenlander, DDS. Nothing says a dentist cannot be just as knowledgeable about the environmental impact of animal agriculture as someone with a Ph.D. in ecology and environmental sciences or a DVM who sees, up close, the effects of mass animal agriculture. But I think I would be less skeptical of the credentials of a so-called “expert” if that person’s qualifications were more inline with the subject at hand. But I’m a born skeptic. Maybe. Or, perhaps, I am like so many others who tire of being asked to accept as factual the information presented by a salesperson.

Skepticism aside, the bottom line is that I recommend the film. If nothing else, it will cause the viewer to ask questions and, perhaps, think about reducing or eliminating his or her dependence on diet based on animal agriculture. Oh, that includes fishing, by the way. The film’s producer, Kip Andersen, produced another documentary, last year (2021), entitled Seaspiracy. Though Cowspiracy touched on the negative impact of over-fishing, Seaspiracy takes those concerns to a new level and asserts that the way to save our oceans is to:

1. Shift to a plant-based diet
2. Enforce no-catch marine reserves protecting 30% of our oceans by 2030
3. End fishing subsidies (currently $35 billion per year, according to the film’s official website)

Just watching the trailer for Seaspiracy, I was stunned by the enormity of the problems caused by commercial fishing. No, let me restate that: I was stunned by the enormity of the problems caused by humankind’s insatiable demand for commercial fishing, which in turn is marching toward killing our oceans and, therefore, ourselves.

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Watching Cowspiracy last night triggered memories of my research, years ago, into the horrors of an ever-growing human population. I wrote a speech, which I delivered to a local group of Toastmasters International. Later, I expanded that speech into an essay I entitled The New Malthusian Imperative. Several years after that, I wrote another essay (same title) that got into the same issues. My arguments were based on the writings of Thomas Malthus, in the 19th century, in which he asserted that humans have a propensity to utilize increases in food productivity to promote population growth rather than to maintaining a high standard of living.  That view has become known as the “Malthusian trap” or the “Malthusian spectre” but my name for his call to control population The Malthusian Imperative.

Limiting the growth of population is a touchy subject. It involves conversations about limiting personal freedom in support of the greater good. It involves debunking certain religious ideologies in favor of clear, intelligent thought. It involves sufficiently educating the masses so that limitations on personal freedom can be minimized in favor of intelligent individual choices.

Last night, after watching Cowspiracy, we talked about what changes we should make in our lifestyles to help protect the planet from environmental collapse. My pessimism was stronger than my sense of obligation. I said it is too late.  We have waited too long to attempt to reverse the inevitable. Humans are too stupid or too stubborn to realize the massive consequences of their irresponsible behaviors; even if they suddenly decided to behave responsibly, they would simply delay the inevitable. Instead of the great grandchildren of today’s new parents living a dystopian nightmare as Planet Earth ceases to support them, it might be the great, great, great grandchildren who perish as a result of our selfish stupidity.

This deep skepticism, with its fatalistic view of humankind, will pass. In fact, it already has (to the extent that my mood is now more upbeat, although my sense of the prospects of humankind has not changed). I agree with the philosophy behind “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” That is to say, enjoy life to the fullest, because we won’t live forever.

Ach! Life can be so bloody confusing! On the one hand, it can offer such spectacular, enjoyable pleasures. On the other, excruciating pain. To borrow a phrase from a poet whose name is like mine, but to whom I doubt I am related, “pleasure, with pain for leaven.” And that poem goes on…but I won’t try to explain the thing. Here’s the entire stanza (I’m sure I’ve included this in a blog post before):

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.

Poetry, if we let it, can resolve our confusion. It can sooth our furrowed brows and transform our hard hearts into soft, perpetual refuges. Poetry can protect us from being battered about by an angry, dangerous, insensitive world. It can ease the tension of life in the wilds of civilization. Poetry is both a solitary comfort and a place for lovers to share their sensibilities. But it can be a simple cudgel, too, or a morning star flail intended as a weapon of death. Careful! I am trying to climb out of this pit and into the sunlight. There will be no morning star flails in this house!

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Today is Sunday, but church is not on the agenda. Instead, a frenzy of moving boxes—either carefully packed or haphazardly jammed with “stuff” unsuited to orderly packing—and making decisions about what goes where. Within the next day or two, I expect we may be calling on available bodies to help us transport thousands of little odds and ends the three miles to our new house. Or maybe not. Time will tell. It always does.

For now, I will ponder life and wonder, “Is this it? Packing boxes and rushing to take in a concert next week and returning to make decisions about stoves and where to store extra dishes?” The Great American Novel is no longer a dream. Never was, really. But the acreage, far from the hustle-bustle of “civilization,” and the tractor and the barn and workshop: that was a dream. It’s in shambles, now. The fields have weeds so high the tractor could not get through them. The barn has collapsed and the workshop is buried under its rubble. There, beneath that tangled mass of broken dreams, is a shredded black and white photograph of me, taken as a  young man. He never took the risk, because it would have meant making a choice he was unwilling to make. That’s what shatters dreams. But you do what you have to do to stitch it all together. It may not fit like the original, but it covers the scars.

The human mind is too complex—too unpredictable—to be reliably molded into a state of perpetual satisfaction. Religions have attempted to manipulate the minds of the masses for millennia. Simultaneously, psychologists and their predecessors have tried to harness the power of suggestion to corral thoughts into desired channels. With only occasional, but temporary, success, the latter have been just as successful as religion. Which is to say, they have failed miserably. But sufficient numbers of people have been persuaded to believe religious dogma and psychological proclamations and witch-doctors’ mumbo-jumbo that partial successes have been embraced by many as evidence of the infallibility of religious faith or scientific “proof.”

The idea that simply adopting a set of beliefs can guarantee everlasting happiness is absurd. But a lot of people seem to buy into the concept. A lot. Most? Ultimately, we have no real choice but to accept the chaotic randomness the universe; but do we have to like it? No. Yet we continue to try to wrest control of this uncontrollable beast through willing but utterly irrational self-delusion. But that self-delusion is not universal. Humankind has seen fit to form hundreds, if not thousands, of limited pockets wherein unified mass-hysteria is promoted and rewarded. From Southern Baptists to Sunni Muslims to practitioners of various forms of Voodoo, humans have each determined that their rigid beliefs are the sole “right” beliefs and that the rest are either insane or blasphemous or both. Irreverence in any form is not tolerated. But the same thing is true of science, though science usually is willing to change to conform to evidence. Until then, though, “evidence” is treated as “proof.” Bah! We know nothing! It is past time to admit it. I know nothing. Or, as the Zen Buddhist (who spoke at my church recently) said repeatedly about what he was taught and what he teaches: “I don’t know.”

I wonder why we (collectively, as in all humankind) seem unwilling to accept the impossibility of universal, perpetual satisfaction? Is periodic dissatisfaction too painful, too upsetting? Is the idea that we will never get the answers we think we deserve so unbelievable that we refuse to accept it? Don’t get me wrong; I, too, am unwilling to accept that I will never know what I want, desperately, to know. So I am just like the followers of Jim Jones and Pat Robertson and the Pope and Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and on and on and on. I wonder, though, whether those other followers frequently experience doubt so powerful that knowledge about everything seems uncertain and unbelievable?

To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.

~ Lao Tzu ~

The goal of universal peace is a waste of energy. It is a pipe-dream unworthy of its own pipe. Should we be satisfied with, or at least tolerant of, periodic wars, genocides, dictatorships, and all the other blatant examples of humanity’s deeply flawed psyche? No, of course not. But if not, how can I argue against the philosophies that claim to seek an end to those horrendous human foibles? I can’t. Yet I do. We have to stop seeing the world through the eyes and look at it, instead, through the mind. But will we?

A distant friend, Tara—formerly a Californian but now a Coloradan—unknowingly introduced me to Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi by quoting him in the header of her now-dormant blog. The header included these words: You are Perfect as you are and you could use a little help. Those words, in that particular configuration, appealed to me from the moment I read them. Until quite recently, though, I knew very little about the man who first uttered the phrase. I learned that the practice of Zen in the West was profoundly influenced by Suzuki-Roshi during his twelve-years in the United States. He arrived in the U.S. in 1959 and died here in 1971. His book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind sparked a conversation about the Soto tradition of Zen, a discussion that, I understand, continues today. I have yet to read the book but my growing interest in Zen Buddhism probably requires that I undertake that endeavor in the near future. My interest in Suzuki-Roshi and in Zen Buddhism is based both on simple curiosity and a real desire to adopt personal practices that have the potential of changing me for the better. That may be the wrong way to put it; rather than “changing me,” I should probably say “enabling me to change myself.” Even “enabling” may be the wrong word; perhaps it should be “persuading.” I know I have the capacity. I just need the discipline. No, I have the discipline—I simply need to exercise it. Perhaps, for me, the practices of Zen Buddhism are nothing more than straightforward paths to destinations I have long wanted to reach.  But, for many reasons, I have meandered back and forth along switchbacks on the wrong mountains, looking for the peak in a distant mountain range. Maybe I actually will stay on the formal path, wandering off of it only briefly from time to time as I live my normal and chaotic life. Time will tell.

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My fingers look like little sausages, swollen almost to the point that the skin will split from the internal pressure. I suppose it’s the weather; somehow, transforming my body into a sponge for atmospheric moisture. I long for the desert and its ability to extract molecules of water from pieces of petrified conifers. I want that arid place to draw out of me the store of water—and fat—that keeps me too large and growing. I blame my lungs and my knees for my lack of exercise. They are just convenient scapegoats for my slothfulness.  And I blame easy access for my tendency to eat much more than I need to survive. I have promised myself that, once I complete the move and am settled, I will change my lifestyle. Eat properly and get adequate exercise. If I cannot keep my promises to myself, can I be considered trustworthy in any circumstances? Am I reliable in any way? Time will tell about that, too. Will I keep my promise to myself? Or will I slides into a state from which I am unrecoverable? A corpulent slug, unable to bend and flex my muscles because they are surrounded by immovable fat. Ach! The very idea makes me ill.

I know. I should not wait. NOW is the mantra I should follow. But I have good, valid, private reasons for waiting until the right time. They are good and valid to me, anyway. And, because for the moment I am compos mentis, I shall make my own choices and execute my own decisions.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

There is a danger, of course, in waiting. A truck could fall from the sky, crushing me beneath its masses of steel, plastic, and glass…my body could launch an assault that is impossible to repel…a thousand other circumstances could intervene. But it is a risk I am reluctantly willing to take. For my own, private, personal reasons. And it’s not entirely sloth and unmitigated laziness that’s to blame for the deferral.

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Gratitude and guilt can go hand in hand. I look around at how extraordinarily privileged I am and feel enormous gratitude for that privilege. I have a nice home, plenty to eat, considerable personal latitude to do what I wish, and substantial freedom from fear that I will be attacked either by wild creatures or by greedy or power-hungry humans. I have much, much more than I need. That is where the guilt comes in. At what point should I stop accepting excess largesse, in recognition that my covetous nature is out of control (as it is for almost everyone in first-world civil society today)? I have too much. What I need is simply enough. But how do I define “enough?” And does “enough” mean any luxuries are too much?

It is the same with every aspect of one’s life. We should be satisfied with one fried but we want more. We should be satisfied with one house but we want a winter house and a summer house. We should be  satisfied with a full pantry, allowing us to prepare an elaborate dinner, but we want to be served even more elaborate meals at expensive restaurants. We should be satisfied with one romantic relationship but we reach out for more, attempting either to validate our desirability or to satisfy our lust. We should be satisfied when we earn our first million dollars, but we continue to crave money, seeking to reach the next, billion dollar, peak. We should be satisfied with access to public transportation but we want our own personal vehicles, giving us near-absolute control over when and where we go.

We’re grateful for the overabundance of “gifts,” but we sometimes feel guilty (as well we should) for having many of them. Guilt and greed go hand in hand, too. When we have more than we need, we may feel guilty, but we continue our acquisition of “things” or power, thanks to our insatiable greed. And our ability to blind ourselves to the dissonance between our good fortune and the egregiously bad fortunes of most of the world’s population.

It’s all a tangled mess. Our lives are like a ball of snakes, writhing into ever-more complex, convoluted, labyrinthine experiences. But that’s what we’re good at. Living in never-ending complexity. Adjusting ourselves to fix circumstances. Molding our bodies and our minds to adapt to whatever life delivers to us; or delivers us to… “Molding our bodies and our minds…”  “But do not watch them make sausages,” I say. My sausage-like fingers got that way by indulgences heaped upon indulgences heaped upon indulgences. I intend to mold my body and mind so I do not have to continue watching them make sausages.

Zen practices may help. Time will tell.

Too many things on my mind have the potential of turning a blog post into an unpleasant diatribe. Two hours of writing this morning proved that. So I will turn my attention to packing. Maybe doing what caused my mood to turn south will turn it north again.

I feel the stress. It is of course a mental, emotional sensation, but it also is physical. Repeatedly, I am reminded that I have experienced several of life’s major stressors—death of a loved one, the emergence of a romantic relationship, the merger of two households, the purchase of a house, etc. And I am about to experience another—the sale of a house and a physical move to another one. Those stressors often are associated with various and sundry physical ailments and emergencies. Heartburn, headaches, heart attacks, stroke.

Knowing these things, one would think, should lead a person to do whatever is necessary to lessen their impact. But being in the midst of a stress-storm tends to cloud one’s ability to reliably monitor and modify one’s own thoughts. Chaos breeds chaos, it seems. Uncertainty reinforces it.

Several months before my wife died, I described the effects I felt from the stresses associated with her illness. I realized that those stressors bred others that encircled me. Tentacles of worry wrapped themselves around me until they became a monster with a powerful grip, prompting an internal emotional firestorm.

At some point, the stress becomes noticeable; not so much to others, but to oneself. Enthusiasm ebbs, leaving in its place flashes of dysphoria. A harsh, dry cloud of discontent settles over one’s thoughts like volcanic ash, sucking oxygen out of the lungs and replacing it with chalk.  Nonspecific anger increasingly bubbles to the surface, touching everyone and everything in one’s path.

Though rather dramatic, the description is accurate. Though not as acute today as it was then, I feel the physical effects of that firestorm. Aching muscles in my neck and shoulders and lower back. Headaches. Chronic tiredness.

Neither the mental nor the physical aspects of the stresses are constant. They are cyclical, going up and down, hour-by-hour, like the repeated wavy lines of an oscilloscope. Those ups and downs are predictable. And when the downs take hold, the fact that peaks will follow soon enough is enough to enable me to tolerate the valleys.

Inside my head there’s a constant longing for relaxation. A period void of obligations, schedules, appointments. A time when I need not worry about anything other than enjoying the present. I keep coming back to opportunities to eliminate, or at least minimize, stress. I think I’ll pursue them with fervor, once the sale of the house and the move to the new one is complete. I’ll call that pursuit of being stress-free the 3M process. Massage. Meditation. Marijuana.

But today, I will wade through the stresses of uncertainty and obligation. I will take a Motrin to alleviate a fraction of the pain. I will “soldier on,” knowing there soon will be a time when everything is all right.

Yeah. Everything is all right.

Except for the pressure of time, I would spend the morning cooking. I am in the mood to make a rich, spicy lamb stew; something reminiscent of the sort of meal one might find in coastal north Africa. Though I have never been to Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia, I feel an inexplicable kinship to the chefs and home cooks of the region. Today, I feel especially attached to them. I wish I could comfortably take the time to celebrate that kinship by creating a lamb stew whose aromas would mimic those of north African kitchens; kitchens of the  meat-eaters there, who gratefully prepare heavily spiced, lamb-based meals.

And I would take the time to cook the chicken I thawed yesterday morning with the intent of using it for a meal last night. But I was too tired to cook by the end of the day. And, besides, this household has to make some adjustments with respect to mealtime. I am used to three meals a day, while mi novia is content with a breakfast of cereal (which is fine, for a while…), followed by a lunch a bit after mid-day, and then snacks around dinner-time. I am confident that, once we move and can devote time to creating and/or renewing culinary and gustatory rituals, eating will again become a thrice-daily celebratory occasion. At least I hope so. But, back to the chicken. I might use the chicken in a recipe provided by Green Chef. Or, more likely, I might wing it, using ingredients that pair nicely with (and dramatically enhance the flavor of) rather bland bird-flesh. Spicy, in other words. Maybe a rich tomato-based sauce flavored with anise and/or fennel and garlic and lime juice. Or lime chutney! Except there is no lime chutney in this house anymore. There once was lime chutney here, but either it was used up or someone decided it was too old and outdated to be of any value. I am deeply suspicious of “use by” or “best by” labels attached to food. The implication of those labels is that food that has “expired” is the equivalent of ricin or strychnine or amatoxin. That’s rarely, if ever, the case. It’s just an insurance plan for the canning and preservative subcategory of the food industry. No, I’m not a skeptic; why do you ask?

I do not have the time to be blogging about eating or about the sinister deficiencies of the gastronomic-industrial complex. I have a LOT to do. Packing, moving, unpacking, handling the buyer’s repair requests, etc., etc., etc. The movers are coming a week from tomorrow. The termite inspector is coming today. The tree trimmers are coming today. I must take untold numbers of pails of unidentified paint to the hazardous waste collection site on Saturday. My desk must be emptied and ready for pickup tomorrow (but it’s going to a good home, so that’s good). I have to arrange to shred another ten thousand pounds, more or less, of paper. And, if that’s not enough, I have to shower and shave sometime soon. Ach! There’s something to be said for being rich enough to afford to pay servants; I think that’s true, though in reality I have never been sufficiently flush, financially, to make that statement with unequivocal certainty.

Cooking and then packaging and freezing enormous numbers of fabulous meals would be my preference this morning to fretting about the impending move, the upcoming sale, and the aftermath of both. But fretting is a waste of perfectly good mental energy. Yet, I waste it with the best of them. Meditation. I keep coming back to that. But I don’t seem to find the right time at the right moment. I need incense, soft music to lull me into a serene state, and the comforting voice of a woman whose slight English accent is just “foreign” enough to seem exotic. Yes, that’s what I need. That might transform me from a moderately uptight, slightly stressed, too tense man into a guy who is thoroughly relaxed and accepting of whatever comes his way. The kind of guy who, when faced with difficulties, lets them roll off of him like water off a duck’s back. Yes, meditation. Or, when time is tight, medical marijuana.

It’s 5:35 a.m. Time to get serious about doing something with the lamb and chicken I thawed yesterday. I need to get it done before breakfast. Thereafter, I will be operating at full-throttle until the day is done.

Somewhere—perhaps in the deepest, distant reaches of places no one else wants to go—is an isolation so spectacularly alone and so excruciatingly desolate it makes me sob in reverence. I have seen such a place, but only in passing. I saw it from the window as the train on which I was traveling slogged through the emptiness  of North Dakota and Montana. I saw it in the parched landscape fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico. I’ve seen it in precious few other places. Far from humankind’s intrusions and close to the raw reality that’s left after Time wears away what once held a different kind of magnificence.

The desolation and sensation of being utterly alone require more than untouched landscape and endless sky. If those attributes were the only ones necessary, the deserts of Nevada would be among those rare places. That incredible isolation would exist in Big Bend National Park or the desert west of Odessa, Texas. There would be dozens of such places, if empty landscapes and open skies, alone, could call forth that emotion of reverential awe.

There’s something else, though—something absolutely impossible to describe or define— that makes a place so uniquely alone and desolate that it simultaneously feel like both Heaven and Hell. Even to a person who believes in neither. It’s odd that so few places have felt to me like I was on the far fringes of experience. Almost on the edge; and willing and prepared to go over, just to see beyond. Even if there is no turning back; no way to return.

Maybe, though, it’s not so much a place that translates the wisdom of supreme aloneness into a willingness to step off the edge of experience. Maybe it’s the context of that place. The surroundings of that experience. But I’ve already said it…it’s impossible to describe or define just what makes ecstasy and torture not only attractive but essential.

Maybe the hunger for solitude and togetherness contradicts itself, but perhaps those two desires owe their origins to the same fundamental human need. And maybe that need manifests itself best in places in which one of those desires is supremely felt. Maybe that’s why I am so deeply in love with the idea of being the only passenger on a train slipping through miles and miles and miles of grain fields; with not even a telephone line or pole to break the monotony. As I watch the repeating patterns of grain, I imagine being with that one person who is my opposite on matters in which I need balance and my emotional mirror on matters in which I need solace.

“I need.” That’s the problem. It should be “I can.” As in I can provide the balance and the solace to that one person who is my opposite and my mirror. But, still, there’s the matter of the isolation so spectacularly alone and so excruciatingly desolate it elicits reverential sobs.

Where is the right place? Where is the balance and the mirror? And for whom should they stabilize and reflect?

All of these questions and these observations fly in the face of what I have been trying to learn my entire life. Especially now. Because, now is all we have. Yesterday, I listened to a practitioner of Zen Buddhism explain his approach to the world, which involves cultivating a “don’t know” mind. That is, acknowledging that we know nothing about what will be, because we haven’t experienced it yet. And we don’t know much else. But I know there is that place where there exists an isolation so spectacularly alone and so excruciatingly desolate it makes me sob in reverence. Yet I don’t know where, precisely, it is or how to get there. But I’m beginning to understand, as I mull this over on this early Monday morning, that “there” is in my mind. As is everything else. I  am beginning to understand the  power of acknowledging that I don’t know. I don’t know. I simply don’t know.

A close friend sent me links to some articles written by yesterday’s practitioner of Zen Buddhism. One of them, a deeply personal revelation about his response to circumstances surrounding his father’s and his son’s cancer and the effects of those experiences on his own thinking, caused me to think more deeply. And the more I thought, the more I came to the realization that I don’t know. And acknowledging that I don’t know has the potential of bringing about the end of that fruitless search for that elusive serenity about which I write so often. Or, if not end of the search for serenity, at least the realization that I don’t know whether that’s what I’m after.

I am not alone in my quest for whatever I’m after. Knowing there are others doing precisely what I have done is reassuring. But it is depressing because, if isolation and the serenity it brings is really what I’m after, then joining the company of others who are in the same boat will run counter to what I am seeking. Catch-22. I wonder whether Joseph Heller was secretly as Zen Buddhist whose method of explaining and then accepting the disappointments in life was documented in his best-selling book.

My thoughts seem to be like a tightly-wound spring that suddenly comes unwound, then slowly winds again. They (my thoughts) serve no function, other than to provide a backdrop against which a tightly-wound spring can be examined.

Ah, what a splendid day! Thanks to the generosity of my girlfriend’s ex-husband (who lent us his pickup) and my late wife’s sister (who provided both physical labor and an SUV she loaded with “stuff”), we got a tremendous amount done yesterday. Though there is much, much, MUCH more to do, we will use yesterday as a propellant for further efforts. The deck on the old house is virtually empty now and the garage is looking more like a garage and less like a staging area for a move.

After all the physical exertion, it was only fitting to end the day with a relaxing celebration. And celebrate we did! Gin martinis. Several gin martinis. I did not keep count, though I probably should have done. But how could I keep count while riveted to the television, watching Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night?

The Cinemax television special was filmed in 1987 at what was then the Ambassador Hotel‘s Coconut Grove nightclub. We commented during the program that many of our favorite musicians were on stage with Orbison. Our observations were verified by Wikipedia, which notes:

The backing band was the TCB Band, which accompanied Elvis Presley from 1969 until his death in 1977: Glen Hardin on piano, James Burton on lead guitar, Jerry Scheff on bass, and Ronnie Tutt on drums. Male background vocalists, some of whom also joined in on guitar, electric organ and keyboards were Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther and Steven Soles. The female background vocalists were k.d. lang, Jennifer Warnes, and Bonnie Raitt.

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Speaking of Bonnie Raitt, we have tickets to see and hear her perform, along with Lucinda Williams, in Little Rock in two weeks, just a few days before the sale of my house is scheduled to close.

I have never been a fan of concerts, mostly because I loathe crowds and the chaos involved in finding a place to park at the outset. And I despise the post-show scramble and nerve-wracking traffic jams caused by concert-goers spilling out of the venue.  But we will not face those ugly elements of concert-going. We will stay arrive in Little Rock several hours before the concert begins, checking in to a hotel very near the music venue. After a leisurely dinner somewhere close by, we will walk to the concert hall. Following the show, we will walk back to the hotel. The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we will saunter back to Hot Springs Village. Assuming one can saunter while driving an automobile. I feel sure one can. As a young man (and even into early decrepitude), I was unwilling to part with the money involved in making concert-going such an easy-going activity. Now, though, I am willing to spend the money as part of the investment in entertainment. What I remain unwilling to do is to participate in the chaos of concert-going; if I cannot bypass that misery, I will happily forego the experience.  Such is the privilege of age and the attitude of “you can’t take it with you.”

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And while my mind is on gin martinis…a good gin martini, followed by several more good gin martinis, is a beautiful luxury. Imbibing a nice, cold gin martini (with three big green olives) is a decadence I find absolutely compelling. Ideally, I would mix a quart of gin with about six ounces of dry vermouth and shake the mixture ferociously in a container filled with ice-cold stainless steel chilling stones. Then, I would pour the mixture into an ice-cold container fitted with a pour spout; that container would go into the freezer. Then, I would place several martini glasses in the freezer. Every time a person in my proximity wanted a gin martini, I would simply stab three big olives (which I would keep in a jar in the refrigerator), place the speared olives in glass I retrieved from the freezer, place the glass under the martini container, and turn the spigot on the spout. Presto! Instant martini!

Because I do not have space for all these instruments of intoxication, I will be satisfied with occasionally preparing a much smaller number of gin martinis the old-fashioned way. Actually, until last night, I think I had gone a year or two (or more) without a gin martini. It is possible to survive for long periods of time without gin martinis. I am living proof.

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“Feast your eyes on…” On whatever one finds visually pleasing. But staring at something (but especially someone) one finds visually pleasing or just simply interesting often is considered rude. Or worse. For example, I find many women very attractive. And though I am thoroughly heterosexual, I find some men sufficiently handsome to warrant an envious stare. But most people seem to find being stared out offensive. So, even though I might want to “feast my eyes” on an attractive woman or a handsome man, I try to conceal my staring by modifying my behavior; turning a single stare into multiple furtive glances. I mention my heterosexuality when discussing the visual appeal of handsome men because it is relevant in the larger scope of the conversation. Meaning, just like staring at handsome men has nothing to do with sex with them, staring at attractive women is not a precursor to attempted seduction.

Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.

~ Gloria Steinem ~

I consider human beings sentient forms of art. And just like I find paintings and sculptures and all sorts of other artistic expressions sufficiently intriguing to stare at, I often find people similarly attractive. But society has taught us not to express our admiration of the art of the human form in the same way we express that admiration for inanimate objects. Yet we are encouraged to stare at some animate objects; zoos are created for that very purpose. And, I suppose, so are strip clubs. But it’s not quite the same, is it? I wish I could feel as comfortable in a restaurant or a grocery store or in church staring at a person as when I stare at an elephant in a zoo. “But people are not animals!” Oh, yes we are. But I am not the kind of animal you might think I am, after reading that I want to stare at beautiful women and handsome men. If you find me staring at you, my gaze fixed on you with unnerving intensity, you need not worry that I am planning anything untoward. It’s just that I find your human form compelling. But that assurance doesn’t give you much comfort, does it? No, socialization engrains in us an automatic skepticism of words that conflict with what we have been taught. So each of us must be satisfied with furtive glances. Or be labeled a potentially dangerous deviant. That’s a cheery thought on a cool Sunday morning, isn’t it?

This issue makes me think of another common phrase: “A sight for sore eyes.” I wonder whether, when one’s eyes are sore, a feast might sooth them? 😉

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This morning’s insight service at church will feature a presentation by a Buddhist. The title of his talk is “Suffering, Zen, and Cultivating a Don’t-Know Mind.” I find Buddhism intriguing, so I look forward to hearing his presentation. I was looking forward to participating in his post-presentation conversation, but that normal feature of insight services was scrapped in favor of what is being called a “Potluck Ladies’ Day Lunch.” This event replaces the “Mother’s Day” event that had been held in the past, but it essentially replicates it. Both events call for the men in the congregation to serve the women lunch and to clean up afterward…a nod to the fact that women usually are expected to both serve and clean up after men. I suppose some people might think a once-a-year role reversal is sufficient acknowledgement of offensive expectations based on gender. I don’t. I would rather have a discussion with a Buddhist and arrange for another insight service to discuss how we might work toward dismantling gender stereotypes. Oh, well. That will be a conversation with the church board and/or program committee at another time. Soon.

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Stereotypes are fast and easy, but they are lies, and the truth takes its time.

   ~ Deb Calleti ~

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It is just after 6 and the day is dawning. I’ve put in two hours of “work” so far this morning, so it’s time for another cup of coffee and a quick shower and shave. After church, I’ll put in another kind of work, the kind that will make my time in the shower a waste. I will be dirty and sweaty and in need of yet another shower. One of the outcomes of moving from one house to another is a higher-than-average water bill.

The day started like most other days, albeit a tad later than most. By the time I had taken my morning regiment of what seems like one hundred pills (but is far less), it was around 5:30. Before I made coffee, I struggled through a game of Wordle, guessing the correct word with four tries; not embarrassing, but less than impressive—fairly typical of my performance. When, finally, I sat at my desk to write what I am writing now—when I looked around the room at the familiar surroundings—a complex wave of emotions swept over me.

First, a sense of intense sadness that I will soon leave this house—this room that was my late wife’s retreat. This was her cocoon, the place where she voraciously consumed hundreds of books and watched television programs. The stuff she watched ranged from silly reality shows to intellectual explorations of issues that required intense critical analysis to understand. The books were equally as diverse. Murder mysteries with a female protagonist were her favorites. But she read extremely complex novels and biographies and everything in between, too. I felt an indescribable sadness as I thought about these matters.  Her beautiful life, the one that gave this room and this house a personality, is gone. But, here, at least I could look around the room and get a sense of her. Her presence was everywhere. In the books, the whimsical animals on the shelves, the stacks of papers that she went through in meticulous detail. The hundreds of recipes she gathered from magazines. And much more. Only a few books remain now; I’ve given most away. And the stacks of papers have been sorted and reduced to a size more manageable to me. I am— more slowly than might be appropriate in preparing for a move, but far faster than I like—discarding things that made this study hers. This move is, by far, the most difficult one of my life. I feel like I am cutting off a piece of my life that I can never regain.

But another emotion rushes over me, even in the midst of a traumatic sadness. It is a mixture of gratitude and elation. It is a feeling that, by clearing out reminders of a life I can no longer live, I am opening myself to an opportunity to start a new life. I will move into a radically different house in an utterly unfamiliar environment. I am exchanging breathtaking views of the valley below for a private oasis deep in the forest. Some of the daily reminders the old house gives me about what I have lost will be replaced by daily reminders of what I have gained. A woman who loves me—and who shows it is so many ways throughout every day. A relationship that I sense will only grow stronger with each passing day. Opportunities to learn from a new partner whose life experiences are, in many ways, different from mine but who shares so very many sensibilities with me. My sense of elation is magnified when I think of how quickly my life changed, for the better, with mi novia in it. She helps minimize those days when my feelings of loss are overwhelming. But her presence not only eases the loss of the past, it opens up opportunities for so many new and wonderful experiences. And she sees in me someone worthy of her time and her love. That, alone, fills me with a sense of euphoria.

The tragedies I have faced in my life, compared to those of millions of others, have been difficult but readily surmountable difficulties. They were and remain painful, but others have faced far more than I. I have survived my tragedies so far. And with the good fortune of a new love in my life, I believe I will overcome the most difficult and painful of them all.

Sitting here, now, I am both sad and happy, concerned and optimistic. Curious about the unexplored world around me, but satisfied with the comfort of the familiar. Anxious to break out of a hardened shell, but worried that shards of the shell might wound me. These competing senses are what makes us feel alive. The agony and the ecstasy of life surrounds us. We have to make the best of both as we make our way to the end.

Suddenly, yesterday, it hit me: the urgency of reducing the volume of food stored in two refrigerators and two freezers. When the time comes to move, just a week and a half hence, that volume must be considerably less. In an effort to make it so, yesterday I used up the remnants of a bag of frozen shrimp and a bag of frozen cod, along with a few ripening Roma tomatoes and a big handful of bright green spinach. Flavored with a couple of cloves of garlic, a bit of dried oregano, and a dash of red pepper flakes and coarsely-ground black pepper, the seafood tasted quite nice. I served it with the contents of bag of frozen broccoli (the kind that can be steamed in the bag), brightened with freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Note to self: fresh broccoli is approximately one thousand times better. Despite the disappointing broccoli, I thought the dish was excellent. I was rather proud of the fact that I made it up without the aid of a recipe.

But that was only a start. Between now and the time the movers come to relocate our furniture, we need to dedicate ourselves to powering through frozen foods and other stuff that might not respond well to an extended amount of time in an ice chest. There’s something to be said for buying a new refrigerator to correspond with a move; that way, food can be simply transferred from one refrigerator to a fresh, new one. That will not happen this time, though. I’ll make a mental note for the next move. Except, by then, I want my move to require only a knapsack and wanderlust.

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This morning, as I opened the application (WordPress) that I use to produce this blog, I noticed some statistics; I am fewer than thirty posts shy of reaching the magic number of 4,000. There’s nothing really magical about that number. But it seems almost impossibly large to me. Four thousand posts. How many times, I wonder, have I posted how surprised I am to have posted X-number of posts? How many times have I expressed the same thoughts; just repackaged with fresher words and burnished with more experience? How many times have I revealed secrets about who I am that I later regretted sharing?

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

   ~ May Sarton ~

But the thing that struck me most about approaching that enormous number was this: few, if any, of those posts successfully “get inside the head” of someone other than myself. As much as I want to see the world through your eyes, I cannot do that until you share the view with me. I think my posts might enable readers (especially those who frequently read what I write) to share my vista. I just wish those same readers would share theirs with me. When I try to see the world through someone else’s eyes, I recognize my vision is not clear enough; my view is blurred by tears or grains of sand or shadows of unknown origin. Whether through their own blog posts or one-on-one conversations or just their comments on what I write, I would value the opportunity to experience—at least to try to see—the world through your eyes. To feel the way they feel . To rejoice in their experiences or to wither at their insurmountable challenges. By writing, though, I attempt to understand the world from other angles. Including the one with the view through lenses that do not belong to me.

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Everything breaks. Fine crystal glasses. Pencil leads. Tree branches. Plastic chopsticks. Spirits. Hearts. Some things can be repaired. Others must be discarded or recycled in a different form or simply accepted in their imperfect, broken forms.

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I am leery of people who do not or cannot show deep emotions. A stoical countenance seems to me an overt repression of something I value as a window to a person’s identity: emotion. I tend to distrust a person who exhibits what the dictionary would call “a calm, austere fortitude.” I  assume that beneath that extremely serene exterior is a cauldron—a pressure-cooker filled with steel ball-bearings—heated almost to its limit and likely to explode at any moment. If I were unable to reveal the pressure of daily living through emotional release, I imagine I might at some point unleash an explosion that would rival an atomic blast; nuclear winter would follow.

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The temperature outside is a chilly 55°F this morning. The forecast calls for a high today of about 72°F; tomorrow, an increase to 77°F. Next week, highs will flirt with 90°F. The evils of summer are almost upon us. I may yet react to chiggers and summertime temperatures by moving to a more hospitable climate. There, I could bask in the comfort of weather better-suited to humans. And I could battle with myself about whether solitude and isolation can overcome the need to be in the presence of people who matter.

I want to live in a communal setting. Privacy when needed or desired, transparency and openness when appropriate. We all live in that paradise right now. But we close our eyes to it when it suits us. “That paradise” is wherever we happen to be. It’s just a matter of mind-set and taking advantage of every circumstance.

J’ai une âme solitaire. I listen to what I presume is an artificial voice—sounding like a woman’s voice—speak that French phrase. Google Translate is the source of the voice. The sound of her voice is matter-of-fact; inappropriately so, given the sad meaning those words convey. The rough English translation is “I have a lonely soul.”  I encountered that French phrase while reading a brief bit about the suicide of Boston lead singer, Brad Delp. Delp left a note with those words on it.

Something about that phrase resonates with me. In spite of the many good people in my life, I feel intensely lonely. I will not follow in Delp’s footsteps, but I think I understand how loneliness can consume a person the way it consumed him. What I do not entirely understand is why one can be so lonely while living a life awash in human relationships.

Loneliness is not about the number of people in one’s life, it is about one’s inability to communicate with other people in a way that feeds one’s sense of connection with them. The level of connection—the depth of communication and the degree to which it makes one feel connected to another person at one’s very core—is, perhaps, the key. Like everything else, in my way of looking at the world, connections exist on a spectrum. At one end, one feels so much a part of another person that the idea of surviving the loss of that connection is unthinkable. At the other, one honestly does not care if “the other” person lives or dies. In between, there are innumerable levels that bind people together like glue, ranging from a child’s paste to Elmer‘s to SuperGlue—the levels that feed the soul (to use a somewhat trite phrase) is apt to be the very strongest ones. They are the ones in which empathy and caring and simple interest are deep and unshakable. And they are the ones most difficult to achieve. I did not mean to go on and on about this; I suppose it just nicked a nerve, prompting me to use the keyboard to emote. Spreading feelings from my phalanges.  Enough of that. On to the next stream of consciousness rant. Loneliness, though self-imposed, can feel like external punishment. I won’t put you, the reader, through it. But, one last thing: Eric Andersen, a singer-songwriter for whom I have great respect and admiration, performed a song entitled Baby I’m Lonesome. He’s now 79 years old. He still may be performing. I saw a video in which he was singing that song. He looked like he was in a tiny folk club. I remember him, primarily, as one of the trio whose music I loved: Danko, Fjeld, and Andersen. They only recorded one album, I think. Shame. I would have bought many more from them.

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A few days ago, I opened a post here with a selfie, showing the new me in a pair of glasses frames belonging to my sister-in-law. I posted the same photo to my Facebook page which is, judging from the number of comments and “likes,” considerably more interesting than this blog. Since then, several people—both online and in person—have suggested I should rid myself of my “normal” frames and replace them with a set similar to the one in the photo. The implication of the suggestions, I think, is either that I look “good” in the alternate frames or, at least, “better.” One comment in particular, though, struck a chord with me: “You look better than I’ve seen you in years! Have you had some “work” done??” The woman who left that comment is a friend and former co-worker from a brief stint I had as the “number two” executive of an association; she replaced me when I left after a year.

Hmm. So, the frames have that much of an impact? Or does my friend remember me (we haven’t seen each other facet-to-face in, probably, five years) as a wizened geezer in wire-rimmed glasses? Of course, I have to bear in mind the fact that my friend looks much younger than she is (I think she must be in her early sixties; she looks like she is in her forties). That may have an effect on her perception of me, looking younger than I do in my “normal” glasses. Regardless of whether my “looks” have improved over the years or the glasses have a much greater impact on my appearance than I would have thought, I think I might take the advice. Not right away, but when I have some free time to search for frames.

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The buyer of my home submitted a list of requested repairs/changes last night. They are minor, though they will take some time to address. I plan to start dealing with them right away, with the hope I can complete them within a reasonable timeframe (before closing). I am not sure why, but I did not anticipate needing to set aside time in my calendar for this eventuality. That failing will cause my schedule to be rather cramped in the coming couple of weeks. Coinciding with the repairs, we have to finish packing and moving. We have arranged for the move to take place on the eighteenth, giving us a week and a half before closing to do a thorough cleaning and to handle any remaining repairs, if necessary. Though I’m sure we can get it all done, somehow, I already can feel mounting pressure to deal with it all. And, then, the final, final, final touch-up “stuff” at the new house.

I want a long, relaxing vacation.

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Last night’s call, telling me the buyer of my house had submitted a list of requested repairs/changes, came while at dinner at the lakeside home of good friends. Sitting outside with them, having a wonderful dinner on their deck, was incredibly relaxing. We started the evening with a lemon-drop martini, which I would gladly do with some regularity. During a dinner of smoked ribs, deviled eggs, beans, and scalloped potatoes (I may have missed something…it was quite a spread), our conversations covered an array of diverse topics: boats; barbeque rubs; dealing with aging parents; the level of knowledge of organizational detail leaders need to lead; the indiscretions of youth; and a thousand others.

During our discussions, the thought came to my mind that wide-ranging conversations about unrelated topics begins to bring people together. Over time, topics that initially are discussed in superficial ways tend to be probed more deeply. As people become more comfortable with one another, they delve even deeper into issues. Matters of fact begin to give way to the way people feel about the facts. The closer people become, the more likely they are to not only express their feelings but to respond to the feelings expressed by others. Their emotional shields begin to be lowered, so that different perspectives can be examined without risk of offense.

All these thoughts raced through my mind while simultaneously talking about buyer repair requests and the utility of pickup trucks versus sedans or SUVs in the environment in which we live. Maybe the fact that my mind so often runs at full speed along parallel tracks, one purely practical and the other purely emotional, is what causes me to feel lonely. Very few people can make it across both tracks, to the source. Either few people can cross the tracks or, perhaps more likely, I permit only a limited number to try. Train tracks as a metaphor for instruments of loneliness. Metaphors and similes are necessary to understand what I am thinking; otherwise, it’s all an incoherent jumble.

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I hear heavy rain pounding the roof. The weather forecast calls for cloudy skies in the morning, with thunderstorms developing in the afternoon. As much as I love the ready availability of what seems like a limitless supply of fresh water, I am ready for the rain to stop for a week or two at a time. And, as I typed that, the rain slowed to a light shower; on its way to becoming a mist and, then, just humidity.

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I sold my queen-sized bed last night. Thus far, we’ve arranged for the disposition of the power recliner, the bed, my desk, and various other odds and ends. Someone expressed interest this morning, through a Facebook instant message, in mi novia’s Victrola. I wish I could convince myself to go all-in on minimalism. The idea of having the freedom to relocate at a moment’s notice, taking everyone I own in one knapsack I could carry over my shoulders, is appealing. Not that I plan on relocating anytime soon. But having the freedom to know I could is high on my wish-list. “Ownership” is a concept that deserves deep and serious consideration. Because with ownership comes obligation and with obligation comes restriction and with restriction comes constriction. Ownership is, ironically, a metaphor for slavery. Or vice versa.

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If I were in a different place, I might go outside and dance naked in the street. No one would see me, so there would be no danger that reflections off my shiny white body would cause blindness in people unfortunate enough to be present. But I am in the same place. The same place in which I find myself every day. At my desk. Sitting. Typing. Thinking with my fingers. TWMF. I should get a vanity license plate that reads TWMF. People would be spellbound, wondering what the might mean? No one would correctly guess. Except you. Because you and I shared a secret here. I’m off for more coffee. In about two hours, for the first time in months, I will join a group of men from my church for breakfast and conversation. Though I enjoy the company of these guys, the conversation sometimes loses me: talk of golf and team sports leaves me cold; choking and gasping for breath as I try to find a source of oxygen (because, for me, golf and team sports sucks the oxygen out of the air).

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If you’ve read this far, I love you. It must be painful, wading through the detritus of the though process of a madman. 😉 I just realized I used to use detritus almost as much as I used to use shard. But I am the one who noticed my over-reliance on detritus. My friend, Patty, informed me of my addiction to the use of shard. I’m a recovering Shardist. Maybe that will be on my vanity license plate. But mi novia wants my plate to read So-Zen, reflecting what she wishes would become my newly serene and deeply calm mental state. She’s a dreamer.

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Even at 68 years old, I continue to believe my world-view and my personality belong to someone no older than 42, if that. And I’m willing to take the risks a 42-year-old might take. Like having a second cup of coffee.

A visit to my doctor’s office yesterday led, circuitously, to an x-ray of my right knee. The x-ray revealed that I am a degenerate. “Degenerative joint disease is seen with some osteophyte in the medial compartment and superior patella.” It further expressed “loose bodies present including the posterior intercondylar notch and the superior popliteal fossa.” What this means, in practical terms, remains to be seen. However, some Google sleuthing suggests surgery (perhaps arthroscopic) is the go-to response to discovering “loose bodies” hanging around one’s knees. No hurry, as far as I can tell. In the meantime, I will just be kind to my knee. I suspect my left knee is similarly-afflicted, but the pain was not sufficient to warrant an x-ray, I suppose. I never expected to be sufficiently defective to require remediation.

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Last night, I went to bed around 10, hoping to get around seven hours of sleep. But I woke several times, twice to go to the bathroom and a few times to wrestle with the breathing device (BiPAP) that seemed intent on whistling so loud as to pierce my eardrums. By 4, I gave up on my efforts to sleep for a solid seven hours; I would have to be satisfied with a tenuous six hours. Sometime during my restless sleep, I had several dreams in which I missed flights or cruise departures or buses or all three because my clock had stopped working; I remember nothing of the dreams but a sense that I had not wound the clock. I haven’t had to wind a clock since I was a kid, I think. Maybe the dream is symbolic; I left my childhood behind me as I failed to prepare for adulthood. Though I doubt that’s the symbolism represented by the dream, I feel a certain pride at my cleverness for thinking of the idea. Pride or not, though, I did not get as much sleep as I intended, nor as much as I probably need. I read something yesterday that suggested older people (I guess I am one) should ideally sleep seven hours a night—no more, no less. I have yet to meet that ideal. It shall be among my objectives for the future.

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Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

~ Aristotle ~

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One more large piece of my furniture is set to move on the greener pastures. My desk/ desktop credenza, at which I sit each day to write my blog posts, will relocate to the office of my church’s treasurer. The remaining items (queen-sized Sleep Number bed, corner desk, wrought iron patio furniture), if not sold, will be donated to Habitat for Humanity/ReStore. Progress. A little at a time.

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Life is a prelude to death; which is emptiness. When life ends, it is gone. At most, it transforms the substance of one person’s experience to the vapor of another’s memory. But even memories die. Knowing that, it seems especially important to take every advantage life offers, while we have it.