John Swinburn

If news of the enormous August 2020 explosion of parts of the grain silos at the port of Beirut reached my eyes and ears, I do not remember. I suspect I never heard details of the catastrophe that killed more than 200 people, injured another 6,000-plus, and damaged entire neighborhoods all around the port. An article posted in August 2021 called the explosion “one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history.” Journalists who investigated the cause(s) of the explosion seem to have reached no conclusions, considering the circumstances surrounding the tragedy hidden and unknowable, thanks in part to what appears (from my perspective, at least) to be intentional withholding of information by people who should know and should share what they know. A judge, tasked with finding the cause of the original blast, has faced political opposition for bringing to justice people he believes are culpable for the explosion. The most common theories about the August 2020 blast suggest it was triggered by a smaller blaze that ultimately ignited a large store of ammonium nitrate—that is the same substance used in the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I have seen videos of both the Beirut and the Oklahoma City blasts. The Beirut blast was, by far, the largest and most destructive. One theory is that exploding fireworks provided the mechanical trigger necessary to set off the huge ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut.

The 2020 explosion was in the news again when, on July 31, the northern block of the remaining silos collapsed in a monstrous cloud of dust after a weeks-long fire, ignited by grains that fermented in the summer heat. I watched a couple of videos of the most recent collapse, which sent smoke and dust billowing into the sky and which plunged nearby areas into darkness. But watching those videos and the ones I viewed of the original blast revealed that the recent blast was minor in comparison.

I watched the first nine minutes of a 25-minute investigative journalism video report on the 2020 blast. The video was interesting—really intriguing—but my mind is racing too much this morning to focus on that video for 25 minutes. I will return to it.

Is it just that I forgot about hearing news of such an incredible catastrophe or does news of monumental catastrophes from that part of the world no longer stun me, so that I easily forget about them? I suspect it’s the latter. Perhaps I heard about the blast but dismissed it as “just more distant, unpreventable chaos that does not affect me directly.” If so, that is embarrassing in the extreme; not just embarrassing, but sickening in its revelation that I might be able to dismiss enormous loss of life and homes as “somebody else’s problem.”

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Yesterday, after I returned from my brief walk in the woods, I glanced through the front door’s glass. In front of the house, a doe and her young, spotted fawn, grazed at the roadside, oblivious to my gaze, fixed on them. A moment later, a buck—his regal rack of antlers tall and impressive—strolled into the picture. At about that time, I heard mi novia stir, so I called her in to see the spectacle. We spent several minutes watching those three deer and then an additional several more, including another buck, a couple of does, and at least one or two more fawns. I a grateful for the opportunity to live in a place so hospitable to forest creatures. And I am delighted to have the occasion, from time to time, to have the chance to view them clearly and in moderately “slow motion.” I feel the same sense of gratitude and delight when I sit here at my desk and at the breakfast table, looking through the windows as all sorts of birds take advantage of the seed feast we lay out for them on a regular basis.

Yet, in spite of my extraordinary good fortune, I sometimes feel utterly dejected, anxious…whatever the negative feelings that leave one feeling dull and spent and painfully aware of one’s inadequacies. In response to my expression of similar angst, several months ago, a friend wrote about advice he had received from a therapist—he had expressed his feelings that he had no right to complain about his depression, in light of the fact that his life was full of good fortune. The therapist compared the pain he felt to being scalded with hot water; the fact that an entire family somewhere else is fighting a losing battle against being burned to death in a housefire is irrelevant. His pain, the therapist told him, was his alone. Though that reality can sometimes make my emotions seem less absurd and less random, it also somehow makes it seem deeper and more real.

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September 15-29. That’s the first two-week period I could find without commitments. The first period available for a lengthy road trip. But two weeks is not long enough. Two weeks is just a start. A month, at least, is what I need. A month to explore places that could sooth my soul. That may be a bit of hyperbole; but it’s not too terribly off the mark. I just may clear the decks, as it were, of obligations for an extended period of time. Refuse to be held hostage to a calendar and the calendar’s insistence that it should control me, not vice versa.

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Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little.

~ William J. Clinton ~

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I hear a woodpecker attempting to tear my house apart. There’s nothing I can do. If I go outside, it will simply fly away, out of my reach. But it will return. Over and over and over, it will return. Nature does not care one whit about whether my house survives a woodpecker’s hunger or rage. I, alone, must stand up to nature (or the woodpecker), yet I have no power to reverse the course of nature. Pointless repetition, leading to an unknown and unknowable conclusion.

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You think I’m not watching you. You’re mistaken. I watch. I watch constantly.

This morning, I am scheduled to visit my primary care doctor’s office, where his nurse practitioner will grill me about my recent experience in the hospital, after having been taken to the ER by ambulance. Frankly, I am not sure of the point of visiting my primary care doctor, after having been attended to by specialists in a hospital setting. In that setting, the medical staff has access to far more sophisticated equipment and, I suspect, a staff trained in much greater depth and detail than a physician’s office staff. But I will go, anyway, because I was advised to do so. And my doctor’s office called me to check on me and set up a follow-up appointment the day after my release from the hospital. That follow-up, alone, was enough to impress me into following their advise and counsel with regard to a follow-up visit. I may question the hospital’s advise about what I put in my body, given their diagnosis of “acute” versus “chronic” issues. We’ll see. Perhaps the doctor’s patient-measuring scales will respond to me in surprise when they discover a slightly less-dense human standing atop them. I hope that’s the case.

I detest spending time in the hospital. Even a day or two is a day or two too long. Though hospitals are necessary and I am grateful we have them, I appreciate them in the same way I appreciate scalpels; I am glad they are available when needed, but I would rather not rely on them to keep me free of bloody lacerations.

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Suddenly, last night, The Sopranos came to a startling, unexpected end. No, how can I say unexpected? We were watching the last episode of the last season; how could I have been blindsided? I wasn’t blindsided. I saw it coming all along. It was not a radical departure from expectations. It did not stun me with its remarkable surprise. No. It just slapped me, hard, in the face. It forced me to imagine the final, heart-wrenching scenes, the ones not written and not filmed. So THAT’s over. I may need a respite from televised stress; just for a while. I might need to stay away for a bit from drama that stomps jack-boot heavily on the fragile morality of my delicate bones.

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I have always stood in awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.

~ Irving Penn ~

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Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement that expresses the perspective of the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Until this morning, I had never (to the best of my recollection) heard of the “discipline.” And, after reading just a little about it, I dismiss most of it as pseudo-science that is only marginally more appealing than Southern Baptist philosophies. Bogus evidence of the power of magic is still bogus; the “evidence” part of that phrase gives the rest of it away. If I were less charitable, I might call the “discipline” by another name, perhaps: “intellectual idiocy” or some other complimentary term intended to reveal just how deeply valid the philosophy is and always has been. I admit to being judgmental. But I also admit to being open-minded, once the pry-bars have opened the crack in my skepticism wide enough for doubt to enter…or exit.

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Last night’s final marathon of The Sopranos reminded me how attractive I find Juliana Margulies.  I remember first seeing her in ER, then later in The Good Wife, among various other sort-term roles in other dramas. I do not recall whether I have ever heard her speak as Juliana Margulies, rather than as the voice of a character she played. I have an unrealistic hope that, if I heard her being interviewed about issues of substance, I would hear thoughtful, intelligent responses that would affirm a solid intellectual foundation. Maybe it’s not unrealistic; maybe it’s just depressingly unlikely. Incidentally, I came upon the term “anthroposophy” while reading something about Juliana Margulies.

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I sometimes hesitate to share with the world, here on my blog, my frame of mind. If I am not sufficiently cheery, words of concern may find their way to my ears or eyes. If I express humor, the assumption seems to be that I am the picture of pure happiness, unscathed by blunt trauma or injuries caused by invisible knives. Sometimes, I want only to document, for my own purposes, how I felt during a particularly difficult or especially gleeful time. Those brief moments, extracted from a pretty damn chaotic series of experiences, do not define who I am or how I feel. But I can understand how people might assume they do. What else do they have to measure my moods against? Just me and my head, in rage or fear or depression or hilarity, banging  against a wall of my own making.

I learned some things, maybe, while watching The Sopranos. I learned how expressions of rage or simple anger or grief or joy can emerge from mundane circumstances that we, who experience emotion, nurture into sustainers of “a certain mood.” We feed our own emotions with a diet we manufacture from raw materials we bring to the metaphorical kitchen. I knew all this, of course. We all do. But to watch it play out in such obvious fashion through the actions of such remarkably skilled actors…well, that’s instructional, informative, insightful.

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Monday. Here it is. I’m off to confront it head on.

I love to be nudged into examining issues from new perspectives; to look into matters from unfamiliar points of view. That provocation is almost always at play when I watch BBC Reel videos. Yesterday morning, after my walk up and down my street, I watched and listened to a video entitled, “The Dark Side of Empathy.” Watching the film forced me to think in a different way about an emotion I’ve always considered purely positive. I won’t try to explain it here; I’ll leave that to interested readers who want to learn more. But I will say the comments by some of the psychologists who were interviewed caused me to consider, deeply, the difference between empathy and compassion. Unlike empathy, compassion has no obvious, menacing dark side. Another brief video, which I have yet to watch but is on my list for some future morning after I come to grips with another new day, is entitled, “The Psychology Behind Conspiracy Theories.”

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A striking blog post—from another blog, Kelly’s Quest I visit on occasion—gave me pause this morning. As I skim some old, incredibly verbose posts, I feel the statement is aimed squarely at me:

You are too full of gibberish, you know too much. Because of your borrowed knowledge and too many words moving inside you, you cannot see the wordless beauty that can only be experienced in silence.

~ Osho ~

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I do not recall the last time I droned on about exploring other places to visit or live. I do not recall, but I am relatively sure it was within the last week. I won’t apologize for feeling the need to do it again, taking on my role of travel agent to the chronically nomadic. Today’s place to visit is Light on the Hill, a retreat venue that accommodates both individuals and groups. Describing itself as “a healing and inspiring space for reflection. deep inner work, and spiritual growth,” it puts itself in a position in which it simply MUST perform. Of course such places understandably turn the tables on their clients and patrons, responding with “it’s your responsibility to do sufficiently deep work that it leads to spiritual growth.” But that’s just supposition.  Located about 35 miles south of Ithaca, in Van Etten, New York, the retreat center presents itself as a refuge from the rest of the world, nestled in a wonderland of forests and lakes and overwhelming tranquility. I’m ready to make the trip!

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At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.

~ Brendan Behan ~

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Look into a mirror. Search that face for clues about who is hiding behind the façade. The eyes are the best sources. They reveal everything; they really are the windows to the soul. The person looking back at your is not always easy to see. But look deeply. Try to glimpse the timid figure tucked away behind that obscure reflection; that shy child who is still trying to understand that chaotic world beyond the limits of the imagination.

Now, peer furtively but intently into the eyes of a nearby stranger. Pay no heed to her beauty or his frightening countenance—look deeper, to the real person. You will see a timid figure, much like your own, hunched behind a protective shield of emotional armor. Engage with the stranger long enough and the shield will be lowered, slightly. But it will never be dropped or discarded. Because it may be needed at some point. We all must shield our eyes, on occasion, whether with a raised hand or a raised shield. Or a raised sword.

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Years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts entitled something like “Doing Without.”  My purpose was to give up, for one month, something I took for granted and in or with which I indulged regularly. One month it was coffee. Another it was red meat. Another it was booze. Etc. The idea was to test my discipline and to do a “rinse and repeat” on my brain. I wanted to clearly identify the effects of various elements of daily living on my life in general and my sanity in particular…though, really, sanity was not top of mind at the time. It was easy to give up things I put in my body; edibles and such. It was not at all easy—impossible, I found by the time I abandoned the exercise—to overcome or abandon the emotional and intellectual controls and whims that swirl around inside my brain. More on that another time. I feel like stopping now.

A fresh, hot cup of coffee. Another smoldering cone of patchouli incense filling my study with a scent that awakens memories of years ago. On my desk, evidence of procrastination abounds—so many little things left to tidy up, paperwork obligations undone, and paper that should have been filed or discarded days ago…testament to my innocuous indolence. It is early yet, not yet a quarter to five, but the day around me feels ready to flow forward, perfectly attuned to my own readiness to assert dominion over my tiny kingdom.

So begins another Saturday morning. Nothing special, but for some reason I find the ordinary disorder of this very early part of today almost too good to be real. I am an incredibly fortunate man to be who and where I am. I am beyond lucky, having people in my life who make this ordinary disorder, and everything surrounding it, so stunningly beautiful. I am filled with gratitude for everything in my life, even the unpleasant challenges. Without them, the happier components of my experience might not be so obviously and emphatically good. I wish I could capture this feeling of euphoria and distribute it to everyone I encounter and everywhere that needs to feel peace and appreciation—fill the atmosphere in Russia and Iraq and the entirety of Asia and Africa with it. Ach! My goals are too lofty. Perhaps I should start with other rooms in this very house and slowly move outward from there.

It’s too bad the pendulum of such a mood can swing so abruptly and forcefully to the other end of its arc.  There must be some acceptable way of preventing that dramatic swing from euphoria to despair.

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Okay. I’m too lazy to continue writing. So I’ll copy and paste the majority of a very long post (from one of my abandoned blogs) from ten years ago in which I described in excruciating detail my experience being supoenaed to testify at a trial in Los Angeles. It’s not really THAT boring, so please read on, if you have the time and the inclination:

July 18, 2010

I spent seven days, last Wednesday and Thursday, trying to testify at a trial in Los Angeles. I had received a subpoena that commanded me to be in Los Angeles for a week, beginning July 13, so I dutifully made my arrangements to go.

The FBI agent who was my contact told me not to worry, I wouldn’t really need to be there for a week. In fact, he said, I would only need to get there one afternoon and leave the next, after dutifully testifying in the case against someone the U.S. Attorney said had scammed many people out of many thousands of dollars. I believed the U.S. Attorney. Still do.

ANYWAY, I flew last Wednesday morning on a flight that got me to L.A. at about 12:30 pm local time. After dashing to catch the SuperShuttle, I sat inside said SuperShuttle for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes while the driver wandered aimlessly around LAX looking for marks. A mere hour and a half after we left the airport, after the driver hurriedly dropped off half the population of L.A. who was riding with me, I was the last rider to be dropped at my hotel.

IN THE MEANTIME, my office sent me an urgent email: the U.S. Postal Inspector who was working with my FBI agent friend had called to say go to my hotel and stay there and await further instructions. So, after I checked in to the hotel, I went to my room and sat patiently. Oh, I didn’t mention that the flight from Dallas to L.A. was supposed to have “food for purchase.” I was actually planning to have my lunch on board that plane. But apparently someone forgot to stock the plane with week-old dry bread and hard, hard, actually brittle salami; there was no food to be had.

Well, I couldn’t very well go to the hotel restaurant to eat because I was expecting a phone call from the FBI agent or the U.S. Postal Inspector or the U.S. Attorney or someone of like official capacity. And I couldn’t very well order room service because I might be called away before it was delivered or, worse yet, have to leave a perfectly good room service tray untouched in my room. So, I decided to wait.

You see, I had arranged to meet a fellow blogger and her husband for dinner. So I could wait to eat until dinner. Over the years, I had stored enough energy around my waist, neck, and thighs to sustain me until dinner, I reasoned. So I would wait.

Incidentally, all I knew about my fellow blogger was what I had read and seen online. The fact that she and her husband could have been, for all I knew, L.A.’s most fashionable serial-killer couple, did not phase me. I wanted to meet KathyR and the man she claimed to be her husband.

But I digress. Back to the story at hand. I waited. I continued to wait. And I waited more. No calls from the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspector, the U.S. Attorney, or anyone else. It was getting late. I was getting worried that I still would be waiting to hear from the Feds after KathyR arrived to meet me at my hotel. So I called and left her a message explaining the situation and suggesting that, if she would rather not risk being unable to have dinner even after the drive to downtown L.A., that would be fine. (This call of mine was NOT my way of backing out of the date due to my fear of becoming the latest victim of L.A.’s most fashionable serial-killer couple.). She called back to say she and her husband were already on their way and that, if things didn’t work out that I could go to dinner, she and that man would just consider it “date night.” I felt better.

Then, I waited some more. Just before KathyR was to arrive, the phone rang. It was the FBI agent. He apologized profusely that he had been unable to call me earlier; he had been in court, where, I learned, communication of any kind is forbidden. They still needed to talk to me. Now, please. I explained I had potential murderers, possibly cannibals friends waiting to have join me for dinner and that I would need to meet them downstairs to let them know I needed to visit with the Feds. He begrudgingly agreed to let me go downstairs to meet my doom friends; he would call me back in five minutes.

I proceeded to the hotel bar, where I instantly recognized KathyR. She was sitting with a man I assumed to be her husband. I explained what had just happened and that I was afraid I could not join them for dinner. They bought me a Grey Goose martini and we chatted for awhile, then FBI guy called and I agreed to leave the hotel at 7:00 pm to go visit him at the courthouse. I found KathyR and her husband, a non-blogger who seemed, nonetheless, to be a decent human being, to be interesting people and was annoyed that I could not spend more time with them. However, during our brief chat, she and her husband (I’ll call him Allen) agreed to visit me in Dallas, where I would be required to take them to the world’s most expensive steakhouse, otherwise known as Pappas Brothers Steakhouse. [My secret plan, though, is to lure them to Dallas, then to take them to a seedy dive or two to demonstrate that “Hidden Kitchens” offers good things to those who risk life and limb.

I have digressed again and again and again. Back to the plot. I loped off to the courthouse, where I was met (after a brief delay) by a Postal Inspector and led up to the U.S. Attorney’s office. I waited still more and, finally, was led into an “interview room” to be interrogated. The FBI agent was still a bit miffed at me, I think, because I had not come right over when he called. I soon learned why, though; he lives a two-hour drive from the courthouse and had been working 7 am to 9 or 10 pm for more than a week. ANYWAY, he managed to get out of having to participate in the interrogation, which was undertaken, instead, by an Assistant U.S. Attorney, shadowed by the Postal Inspector. They informed me that they would call me between 9 and 9:30 the next day to tell me when to go to the courthouse. Finally, I left the office for my hotel around 9:00 pm. I then had a hamburger and two more Grey Goose martinis and went to bed.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast of miso soup, nori, smoked salmon with capers, and eggs benedict with bacon on the side (I freely admit to being a glutton), I waited in my room for the call. It came as promised and I was told to go to the witness room at the courthouse at 11:00 am. I got there early and waited. And waited. And I waited some more. At 12:15 or so, the witnesses (there were five of us there) were told to go have lunch and return at 1:30. We did. Finally, witnesses started being called. Four of them were called by 2:45 pm. About 3:00 pm, I began to start worrying whether I would make my 6:00 pm flight.

But not to worry! The Assistant U.S. Attorney and her entourage came in just at 3:00 pm, She explained that things were going well, better than she expected. So, my testimony would not be needed! Oh, joy, I thought! She explained, further, that the last witness had addressed most of the issues I was expected to cover and that, had I been put on the stand, the defense counsel probably would have attacked my credibility, accusing me of bias, etc., etc. (this due to the nature of the organization I was representing).

SO, I went to the 12th floor as directed to get my reimbursement vouchers, whereupon I was sent to the 15th floor, where I was made to fill out forms. I asked about the quickest way to the airport. I was advised to take the D-Dash bus to Union Station, where I would then catch the Fly-Away Shuttle to LAX. I wish I had known about that the day before. I spent $7.25 to get to the airport in about half the time and at a quarter the price it took the day before to get from LAX to the hotel.

It goes on. But you get the drift.

I want never to lose my sense of awe and surprise. I want never to erase from my psyche a sense of childhood wonder at the natural world. Too many old men and women seem to have abandoned the carefree attitudes of their childhood. They are no longer lighthearted and buoyant. Instead, they seem sour and brittle and perpetually dissatisfied with the cards they were dealt and the deck from which the dealing was done. They sneer and snarl at eclipses. They have no interest in the remarkable tides of the Bay of Fundy. Instead of marveling at the ingenuity and raw creativity of the people awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, they scoff and say their discoveries are utterly impractical—useless.

I do not want to become that chronic complainer, that ball of unhappiness stuffed into a human form. Yet I think I can understand how it happens. Disappointments pile upon disappointments until the environment is a toxic sludge of crushing adversity; there is no room for optimism and awe in that dense forest of disillusionment. Somewhere along the way, those folks have had enough shoulders to cry on or ears to hear their troubles or  helping hands—with no expectation on reciprocity— extended to them. That failure of society to recognize needs and help fill them then extends the blame for the chronically unhappy elderly to the rest of us. “If only” we had stepped in when a need was obvious, things might have been different. Indeed. Recognizing the need and doing something to meet it are two very different things with very different values attached to them.

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Keep your silly, unattainable fantasies to yourself, else you will be deeply disappointed to learn they are solely your own. No one else shares your ambition to walk the length of Route 66. No one else wants to join you in a boat far, far from shore on a clear, moonless night, to look skyward and count the stars. No one shares your vision of the “perfect life.” But maybe someone else has learned to keep their fantasies to themselves after being mocked one too many times for having them. Perhaps there is a soul-mate “out there,” or even a bevy of soul-mates who, if situations worked themselves out just so, would reveal themselves or be revealed to you. Maybe you should broadcast your fantasies far and wide, so that you might find that someone else does, indeed, share them. But be prepared to be disappointed, just in case.

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Before I write any more this morning, I will take a brief break for a walk up and down our secluded little street, which ends right around our house in the cul-de-sac. I feel a need to go outside and feel unadulterated air against my skin. Air that hasn’t been filtered and chilled and modified to make me feel artificially comfortable….

…and, so, I have completed my walk and cleared some of the tangled fragments of thought from my brain. Walking—even for someone whose stamina is at an all-time low and whose shortness of breath is, at times, frightening—is therapeutic. Walking, I think, must unleash an outpouring of serotonin and dopamine that makes one feel well and think positive thoughts. Those feelings do not always last long after the walk, but during the exercise they flood my head to make the process of slowly trudging up and down a forest road an exquisite experience.  But, then, my mind seems to slam into a solid wall. My head recoils in shock as my neck jerks backward from the surprise. Aha! The real world confronts me, with its jagged claws, razor-sharp teeth, and an appetite for the contentment of people like me.

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For quite some time, and especially during the last two or three months, I have invested considerable mental effort to overcoming my propensity for impatience. I regularly ask myself, when I feel myself growing impatient, “Why allow yourself to be frustrated with something you cannot change?” It has not been just the speed, or lack thereof, of actions that have bothered me. It has been the tendency for people to inject a tangled mass of jagged barbed wire into circumstances that would respond far better to soft dust cloths. To date, I have been generally satisfied with my efforts to “chill” in circumstances to which, historically, I might have erupted in angry frustration.  I have been able to dismiss others’ annoying behaviors as aberrations. But my newfound patience quickly is growing a bit thin. Perhaps these recent annoying intrusions into my pacific frame of mind have been lumped together temporally by coincidence. Maybe it has been out of sheer luck (or misfortune) that they have occurred so close to one another.  Or, possibly, my frustration is a signal that I am, indeed, misanthropic at my core. It’s the people, not the circumstances. Absent the people, the circumstances would be what they are; they would sort themselves out, eventually. Or, more likely, the circumstances would not merit a second thought. But, throw people into the mix, and a serene setting becomes a firestorm that greedily consumes all the available oxygen in the room. Rather than permit the growing calm inside me to evaporate in the heat of an arsonist’s fire, I could attempt to douse the fire or I could simply walk away from the flames. I will depend on time to determine my response to the heat.

Writing is frustration – it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.

~ Philip Roth ~

Would that he were correct. Perhaps for someone like Roth, it’s failure two thirds of the time. In my experience, it’s more like ninety-nine one-hundredths.

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I can feel, at the same time, giddy and deeply depressed. Am I alone in that capacity to experience diametrically opposed emotions simultaneously? For my entire life, I’ve wished for someone in my life who is both unafraid to explore the full range of their emotions and willing to talk about them. I realize I could share the full range of my emotions with a psychologist or counselor, but that would be only half the equation. I want to know what goes on in someone else’s head, someone whose emotions might not necessarily parallel mine but are sufficiently similar that we might speak the same language. It’s not just the expression of the emotions I want to explore, either; it’s their genesis. Do they emerge from a purely internal process that is unique to every human body, or is their etiology from a common electrochemical reaction that takes place in all similar creatures?

Admittedly, I am more interested, first, in “what” than “how.” I want to know what someone feels and thinks and why they think they react the way they do to whatever triggers their emotions. Only after an understanding of what do I want to explore how; how do these emotions form and how can we better control them. If, indeed, we want to control them.

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It’s approaching 8. Though I’ve been up more than two hours, I feel like I’ve frittered away part of the day by allowing myself to sleep until 5:30. I’d better get in gear if I’m going to retrieve some of the time I’ve lost to sleep.

Map out your future – but do it in pencil.

~ Jon Bon Jovi ~

The ashes of a cone of incense, burned two days ago, remain on the corner of my desk, proof of my indolence—I should have disposed of the remnants of that incense long before now. If I did not know otherwise, I would think the cone was ready to be lit, appearing as it does—perfectly conical and solid. But if I touched it, it would collapse into a mound of fine dust.  I know I will have to light a new, truly solid, cone when I want to unleash a torrent of soothing scents.

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

~ Bob Marley ~

People, sadly, can be like that cone of burned incense. A person can appear confident, happy, and completely “together.” But if something touches a raw nerve or triggers a painful memory, that illusory image can dissolve like smoke, evidence that the smoldering embers of an emotional fire have consumed him. Unlike that cone of incense, the person cannot be discarded and replaced with a new one—one suitable for burning. Yet that sort of thing happens all too frequently. When someone’s attitudes or behaviors suggest burning embers inside them, people around them step away to avoid getting scorched. From a safe distance, they watch as the fire depletes the fuel, leaving only an empty shell.

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Living, as I do, in a perpetual state of fantasy, I spend considerable time exploring “what— ifs.” One of yesterday’s “what ifs” involved living in Toms River, New Jersey. Toms River is one of the most affordable towns in New Jersey, right on the Jersey shore. The climate there is much more temperate and livable than much of the interior of the state; winter lows are easily tolerable and summer highs generally are comfortable. Housing there is considerably more expensive than Hot Springs Village, of course, but it is not really outlandish. Unless, of course, you want waterfront property. If you do, you have to be willing to pay for houses that have been raised up on pilings to avoid future catastrophic floods—like the one that devastated the town during Hurricane Sandy. Aside from the possibility of drowning in a hurricane-driven surge of Atlantic Ocean waters, living in Toms River, New Jersey seems to have a number of positives, though many of them are due to the proximity of other places, rather than the city itself. As I examined aspects of Toms River, I came again to the realization that almost anyplace is livable, under the right circumstances. Everyplace has its pros and cons. One must simply adapt to cultural nuances that might be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I’ve done that before…many times. I adapted quite well to living in Chicago. I adapted quite well to living in and around White Plains, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut—though, granted, living in those places for less than a year, combined, and traveling away from them on business quite frequently gave me limited time to “adapt.” Regardless, though, my experience suggests I am at least reasonably adaptable.

The reason I explored Toms River is that I was curious about which states had the largest percentage of people who consider themselves either liberal/progressive or moderate. New Jersey was among states identified as leaning liberal (though Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts had higher numbers). A search of lower cost of living states led me to the Jersey shore. The entirety of New England and the upper Atlantic coast leans liberal, which suggests to me the political environment might be easier on my psyche than most places…in the USA. I still think I belong in Canada or Norway or Denmark, though.  The fact is that I probably live today where I will live in five years and ten years and twenty years if I’m still alive. Though that means I’ll be around people who matter to me, in another sense it saddens me to think I will not give myself a chance to evolve in a different climate…both weather and social. Oh, well. Time will tell whether I’ll be here and/or alive in five years. Time tells us all we need to know.

I have always claimed to welcome change. To relish it, in fact. To lean into it with great expectations. But sometimes I find myself resisting change for no apparent reason. It is as if change represents a discomforting disturbance to the status quo; the current state of affairs I have come to appreciate more than I realized. Laziness probably accounts for some of that resistance. But fear must play a part, as well; fear that change could reveal inadequacies and, therefore, failure. When I contemplate these matters—looking inward and trying to be honest with myself—I get the sense that I might have been a pretty astute psychologist, except for the fact that I am missing a thousand other necessary attributes. It’s a matter of “necessary but not sufficient.” But there I go again, veering off track.

Change imposed on us is harder to accept than change we initiate. Resistance to change imposed on us might be fueled by our distaste for either losing control or ceding it to someone or something else. But fear, again, is probably the most likely culprit. We are afraid of the unknown that accompanies change. Something as simple as considering a haircut can spark that resistance, that fear. “What will people think of me if I cut off my long hair? Will I no longer be viewed as pretty or attractive?” Frequently, I think, our resistance to change is based, at least in part, on the fear of how it will impact others and/or their perceptions of ourselves. The changes we dread most, I think, are the changes that confuse us about what they might represent in our lives and in how we view ourselves.

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The Mediterranean diet is not a diet at all. Rather, it is a lifestyle represented in the preparation and consumption of food. People who live in the Mediterranean do not follow a prescribed meal plan, nor is there a uniform diet or menu common to the region. In fact, plenty of people in that part of the world eat foods that are unhealthy; plenty of those same people live unhealthy lifestyles. But, by and large, people in the region tend to live a dietary style that many, if not most, doctors and dietitians promote as wise and healthy. In a nutshell, here is how many domestic dietitians describe how we (the rest of the world) can follow the Mediterranean diet, thereby getting many of the same health benefits as people who live in the region and come by the culinary lifestyle naturally:

Fruits and Vegetables
3 servings (½ to 1 cup per serving) of fruit per day (1 serving = ½ to 1 cup)
3+ servings ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw per serving) of vegetables per day

Legumes (beans & lentils)
3 servings (½ cup per serving) per week

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
At least 1 tablespoon per day, but no more than 4 tablespoons per day)

Fish (focusing on those high in omega-3 fatty acids)
3 servings (3-4 ounces per serving)
Note: Salmon, sardines, herring, tuna and mackerel are all rich in omega-3.

Nuts
At least 3 servings (1 ounce or 1/4 cup or 2 tablespoons nut butter per serving) per week
Note: Walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts are especially recommended.

Whole Grains & Starchy Vegetables
3-6 servings per day (1/2 cup cooked, 1 slice of bread or 1 ounce dry cereal per serving)
Note: Potatoes, peas, and corn are among the most commonly mentioned starchy vegetables

Poulty
Maximum of 2 to 3 servings (3 to 4 ounces per serving) of skinless white meat poultry per week, baked, broiled, or grilled.

Dairy & Eggs 
Maximum of 2 servings (1 cup per serving) of low-fat milk and 1 egg per day; limit cheese to 3 servings (1 ounce per serving) per day.

Red Meat
While many dietitians recommend completely avoiding red meat (beef, pork, veal, lamb), they say if we insist we should limit our intake to no more than 1 serving of lean meat (3 ounces per serving) per week.

Other recommendations are to dramatically limit the intake of alcohol and the consumption of baked goods and desserts; nothing new, of course. But reasonable and logical.

With these recommended guidelines, it appears to me it would be a pretty simple process to develop a weekly or monthly menu, which in turn could be readily translated into a grocery shopping list. In my case, given some additional restrictions placed on me by doctors who say certain foodstuffs would be especially hard on my digestive system, the process might not be quite so easy, but it’s certainly not an insurmountable challenge. And, in my case, the benefits of following the rough guidelines of a Mediterranean diet would include much-needed weight loss.

All of the previous comments heretofore notwithstanding, Italy is a member country of the Mediterranean region. Last night, as I watched the last episode of the penultimate season and the first episode of the final season of The Sopranos, I became ravenously hungry as I watched the characters consume massive amounts of pasta with all manner of sauces that looked incredibly appetizing. How, then, can I ascribe to Italian food any “healthier than thou” attributes? How does that Mediterranean meal fit into a scenario in which the Mediterranean diet represents the holy grail of healthy eating? These are, of course, rhetorical questions. “Too much of a good thing”…and all.

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The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.

~ Barbara Kingsolver ~

I demolish my bridges behind me—then there is no choice but forward.

~ Fridtjof Nansen ~

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Compare a cup of coffee—the way it tastes and makes you feel—to the sensation of sitting alone in an open-air convertible automobile on an isolated overlook,  gazing at the beauty of the endless waters of the Pacific Ocean. The idea of comparing two such radically different experiences is absurd, of course. But is it? If we consider each component of experience, separately, the absurdity of the idea of comparison lessens.

Coffee’s bitterness in the mouth, versus the salty sweetness of the ocean breeze. The smell of the ocean air, versus the aroma of coffee in the nose. The impenetrable near-blackness of the coffee versus the blue and green water against pink swirls of color of the horizon. The warmth of the coffee cup in your hand versus the cool Pacific breeze against your face. The hardness of the coffee cup versus the softness of the upholstered seats of the car.

It is possible to compare two seemingly unrelated experiences vis-à-vis the consideration of each element of their elements, separately. And, if one can compare two experiences, one can compare four. Or forty. Or four hundred. The intricacies of the observations will of course grow to the point of almost impossible complexity, but the comparisons will, nonetheless, be informative.

Comparisons that, on the surface, seem absurd, form the basis of all our life choices. The choices and the comparisons between them are almost innumerable. I suspect the confusion most people face—when given the luxury of options—in making decisions about schooling and career paths and marriage and a host of other major life events arises from the difficulty in making and assessing comparisons. They ask themselves, “what are my choices and how do I decide between them?” Enumerating the options, though complex in itself, is far simpler than evaluating the options.

A teenager approaching high school graduation may face choices between going to college or securing a job or attending trade school or entering an apprenticeship program or taking a summer or a year off, among many others. For each option, she may have to consider dozens or hundreds of corollaries; if college, what about living arrangements? Dorm? Apartment? Co-op? Staying at home? And for each of those, another set of considerations: Roommate(s)? Eating arrangements? Costs and covering expenses? And within each of those, still more comparisons and subsequent decisions.

Every single aspect of one’s life involves comparisons between experiences that may seem utterly unrelated but which, somewhere deep at their core, are inextricably connected. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one’s perspective), it is rare for us to be taught how to break down prospective experiences into their component parts and to compare each of those elements. Instead, we are given hints and clues as to what life may offer and sent off into the world to seek out options and process them, converting our decisions into experiential wisdom. Some people refuse to let mere chance dictate our futures, insisting on following paths that limit our choices but offer predictable long-term outcomes. Others of us stumble into circumstances that sustain us, purely by accident. And some people trip and fall, only to pick ourselves up repeatedly until they find an adequate, if not especially desirable, niche. And still others never learn how to differentiate between choices, always making decisions that seem always to be self-destructive.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

~ Franz Kafka ~

The practice of comparing options and making decisions based on those comparisons is by no means limited to kids entering young adulthood. It applies equally to every stage of life, all the way to very end, up to and including choices about how to live out one’s final years.  At some point, though, I suppose making choices becomes more trouble than their outcome is worth. I suspect it becomes easier and more satisfying to just go with the flow. And perhaps that’s the easiest and best way to begin the process, as well. Take what comes, come what may.

Perhaps the example comparing a cup of coffee with sitting in a top-down convertible is too complex to be a useful lesson. Maybe there is no way to prepare for life but to live it and hope for the best. The example, which in large part omits any consideration of consequences, may be inadequate for that very reason.  Who knows. I certainly don’t.

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I should not have attempted to write yesterday’s post, while moderately incoherent and under the influence of painkillers and sleep deprivation. Using my one-finger typing on my cell phone, to boot, made the message doubly irrational and laced with typos.

But I am home now. I was released from the hospital yesterday. I came home and almost immediately got in bed and went to sleep for a few hours, then took a brief break from sleep and did it again, the second time dozing in a recliner. Then watched an episode of The Sopranos. Then back to bed for another six hours. I’m awake now, my back sore from so much time in bed over the last few days.

The sound of my heartbeat is loud in my ears, loud enough and sufficiently disturbing that I almost wish it would stop. I don’t know why I sometimes can hear it so loudly. Perhaps it’s a message to me that life is loud and upsetting. That life interferes, intentionally, with serenity. An unwritten memorandum that life is, indeed, messy and noisy and troublesome.

But there’s no counterbalancing message in these noises. No competing theme that asserts the beauty and joy of life. It’s as if tinnitus, if that’s what it is, is a tool of the suicide fairy, working hard to convince me that the only way to silence the incessant whooshing, throbbing, beating, hammering, whirring of heart noises is to swallow a handful of deadly pills and let them do their magic.

Do not worry. I have no immediate plans to swallow a handful of pills and drift into permanent serenity. I have thought of plunging an icepick into each ear to put an end to the noise…just kidding. I’ve never thought of consulting a doctor about these heartbeat noises, because in the past the throbbing noises have been relatively infrequent. But lately they are more common and more maddening. So I may consult a physician. Yet if I consulted a doctor about every little physical annoyance, I would be labeled a full-on hypochondriac. And if I consulted someone about every little mental disturbance, I’d probably be confined to a protective padded room and denied the use of metal utensils for my meals.  If only medical doctors—the ones concerned with one’s physical well-being—were like psychologists, they would charge an exorbitant fee for a couple of hour’s worth of consultation. But the patient would, at least, have the doctor’s undivided attention for a while. Instead of three to seven minutes of a deeply distracted, not-entirely-present, person busily typing notes on an iPad for insurance defense purposes. In my experience, visits with medical doctors generally are restricted to two or three patient “complaints,” as if insurance or Medicare reimbursement were based entirely on limiting both the time and the topics allowed for each patient.

On occasion, I get the impression that doctors may not be entirely non-judgmental in performing their functions. During my brief time in the emergency room last Friday evening, one of the doctors—a hospitalist—seemed especially unfriendly. He seemed suspicious that I really have Crohn’s disease, which is what I had thought was the source of my pain. After my release, in reviewing the online tests ordered during my ER stay, I discovered that he had ordered a urine toxicology screen for:

• • Amphetamines
  • Barbiturates
  • Benzodiazepines
  • Cocaine
  • Opiates
  • Cannabinoid
  • PCP

Surprise! They all came back negative. Why, though, when the ER doctor before him who already had diagnosed the problem, did not to my knowledge suspect anything untoward, would this guy decide I might be chock-full of drugs? Oh, I was wearing an earring and I have a beard, reason enough. Okay, I may be overreacting…but I’ve never (to my knowledge) had a drug toxicology screen run during any medical encounter, whether office visit, emergency room, visit, or otherwise.

The bottom line for me, now, is that I have to change my lifestyle. Better food choices. Fewer calories. More exercise. No booze. The most common causes of pancreatitis (the hospital doctors’ diagnosis) are over-use of alcohol, high levels of triglycerides in the blood, belly injury or surgery, obesity, and various other triggers. Though I have a history of very high triglycerides and belly surgery and I am admittedly (though shamefully) obese, the doctors immediately came to the conclusion that I need cut down on and eventually stop drinking alcohol (which, incidentally, can cause high triglycerides). I am confident they are right. I’ve probably used alcohol as a means of dealing with issues that would have been better addressed in other ways. Self-medication is the term I’ve seen used with some frequency when describing others’ tendency to over-imbibe.

I think it was the same doctor who decided on the urine toxicology test who prescribed that I be given librium, a drug used to treat anxiety and acute alcohol withdrawal. I doubt his rationale involved anxiety. He never bothered to ask whether I had ever had any negative reactions to refraining from alcohol; if he had, I would have answered, honestly, that I have not. Not for a night or a week or a  month. But he did not ask. So I was given an unnecessary medication to treat a non-existent problem.  But, aside from never having problems with “withdrawal,” what if I have a problem I did not know about or acknowledge? I suppose the best response is to listen to the doctor who, when she signed papers to release me, said it would be best to “cut down and eventually stop.” But, instead, I think it’s best to simply stop. It’s cleaner and clearer. And, in the future, if I have any flare-ups of Crohn’s, suspicions of alcohol abuse will have no part to play.

But this tinnitus, or whatever, could drive me to hard drugs in the morning. Just kidding. I can just play loud music to keep my mind off my heartbeat.

July 24. 4:50 a.m. For the umpteenth time, Sandy extracted blood. For the exponential tum Angel took my temperature and checked my blood pressure. The doctors earliest determined my ailment is not Crohn’s disease…at least not this expression of sickness. They decided, instead, it is pancreatitis. Whatever it is, the pain is remarkably similar to Crohn’s. Not that it matters. Who go gives a damn? It demands lifestyle changes. It requires a different approach to food and fun. Else I die in the throes of gluttony. I sometimes wonder what is worse…spending days in the hospital or days and nights in culinary bliss. Life can be a bitch. A raging beast whose choices are ugoly and unpleasant.

This morning begins my second day in the hospital. When can I go home? When, indeed?

A snippet of fiction commanded me this morning to unleash it from the cage inside my head. It’s only a tiny fragment of what must be hidden inside my brain, but it claims there’s more where it came from. I may try to mine for it later. Or I may not. Well, whichever the case may be, here is the miniscule, utterly incomplete, fragment:

The stresses of her everyday life accumulated the way dust in an abandoned house collects from years of neglect. The little bothers and more emphatic anxieties banded together in an attempt to overwhelm her—they arrived slowly yet steadily. Sometimes they sprang on her suddenly, leaping at her from behind dark shadows that concealed unpleasant surprises. Over time, the cacophony of nerves scraping against nerves muffled the pleasant sounds of her hoped-for sounds of serenity and calm. The incessant noise grew loud and more insistent, as if determined to chase away from her every delicious morsel of peace. Almost all of her waking moments began to be filled with angst. And when she closed her eyes in the evenings—a rarity—sleep slogged through the night like an escaped prisoner fleeing bloodhounds in a mucky swamp.  Eventually, the intensity of her stress morphed into more powerful tension. And then into mental trauma that felt as burdensome as a heavy stone on her chest. Finally, after years of coping, her resolve collapsed. She could no longer maintain a front; no more could she pretend to be strong and sane and able to deal with her demons. All this came out later, after the episode that triggered everything that followed.

It happened on a chilly Saturday night in February. As was her Saturday evening routine, Siobhan Greely had dinner alone at the Prim Peacock, the quiet six-table restaurant on the first floor of the building where she lived in her walk-up flat. After dinner and her post-meal walk, Siobhan climbed part way up the stairs toward her apartment when she stopped. Later, she said she stopped for a moment to listen to the music wafting up from the street below. But that night, there was no street music. That night, the woman who managed the Prim Peacock said she heard a bone-chilling howl coming from the stairway. A moment later, the manager said, Siobhan came racing down the stairs, screaming incoherently that “the goddamn furies are after me!”

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For the second consecutive morning, I demanded that I take a short walk outside. I made two passes around the street’s circle just outside the house and walked up toward the end of the street, to the fire hydrant, and back. It’s not far, but for someone with my extremely limited stamina it was sufficient to get my heart started. The doctors I’ve seen recently have individually suggested that I need to do moderate exercise to help me regain my stamina. Moderate exercise may be too forceful a term; I just need to move a little each day. Yesterday, I saw a deer bound off as I entered the circle at the end of the street. Today, I saw nothing but heard birds make a racket in the distance; perhaps a creature, running from the sound of my footsteps, disturbed the birds’ resting places.

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Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

~ Thomas Jefferson ~

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This morning, we will make a two and one-half hour drive to visit friends for lunch. Coincidentally, we’ll take my collection of vinyl records to them; my friend was the first to claim them, so they are hers. I feel the need to get back on the road again, even though it has been only two weeks since we returned from our three-week road trip. This short trip is not going to satisfy me, either; I can feel that. I have a hankering for cooler weather; Wisconsin seems too hot these days. The appeal of eastern Canada grows by the day. Oh, well. We’ll see.

I have little intellectual energy this morning, so I’ll stop trying to accomplish the impossible. I’ll charge into the day, instead.

I woke sometime around 3 this morning, thanks to being completely stopped up. I thought about getting up only for a while, until my sinuses decided to cooperate with my breathing. But I changed my mind. So, here I am at 4, torturing the keyboard by jabbing it with swollen fingers. In just a few hours, at 9:30, I have an appointment with a new cardiologist. I decided I was not satisfied with the cardiologist I’ve seen since moving to the Village more than eight years ago. He is the same one who treated my late wife; the one I blame for failing to understand and properly treat the severity of the weakness in her legs. So, far later than should have been the case, I decided to move on to someone else. I let my primary care doctor’s nurse recommend the cardiologist I will see this morning. Perhaps I should have done more research about her; I know little of her background, but I will explore it in more depth after I determine whether I like the way she interacts with patients.

I hate the fact that I regularly see various specialists. That reality makes me feel old and infirm. I suppose I could just deal exclusively with my primary care doctor. But what would that do for me? Nothing, really. It would prove that I am willing to live a fantasy life, one in which the reality of aging does not apply to me. Rubbish.

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Gianmaria Testa was an Italian singer/songwriter who died before his potential was fully realized. Though he was only 57 when he died, during his relatively short life he composed and sang some beautiful songs. Poetry, really, set to music. Following is an English translation of his song, Seminatori di grano (Sowers of Wheat), followed by an embedded video in which he performs the song. The tune is from Testa’s album entitled Da Questa Parte del Mare; “On this Side of the Sea.” The album focused on the theme of modern migration: “…on the reasons for it, the struggles, the leaving, the decisions, suffering, of crossing seas and deserts, on the significance of words like ‘land’ or ‘homeland’ and the sense of uprooting and of loss that the transition imbues in you forever.” He was a man who, I feel certain, was deeply compassionate. It comes across in his music; I do not need to know the translation of the words to know the compassion and emotional weight they carry. Testa once said he hoped his children would never be ashamed of their father’s music; why would they, I wonder? His music illustrated the decency of humanity that we all wish we could find. Testa was an actor, writer, musician, composer, and poet. And he was a trainmaster; he never gave up that role, in spite of his musical success. He remained connected to working people. He was both their champion and their student.

I would encourage anyone who reads this post to listen to the YouTube video while reading the English language translation of the lyrics (below). The music, by itself, is moving; the music, coupled with the lyrics, is for me incredibly powerful.

Sowers of wheat

They arrived at the break of the day,
men and women, to the highland
with the slow, silent, vigilant pace
of sowers of wheat.

And they were looking for something that wasn’t there
between the dumping ground and the railroad
And they were looking for what wasn’t there
behind the police’s binoculars
and they folded their hands and eyes in the wind
before leaving.

All the way to the road and surrounded by the night
they arrived from the highland
men and women with the intent gaze
of sowers of wheat.

And they left what wasn’t there
to the dumping ground and to the railroad.
And they left what wasn’t there
to the tearing eyes of the police
and they stretched out their hands against the wind
that was carrying them away

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People who are in love with language are at risk of feeling its effects too deeply. The evidence suggests  that is true. Consider how many poets—writers whose words often are aflame with emotions—die by suicide. The emotional weight of the thoughts that emerge from constant exposure to powerful language is greater than most other people know. Think. Think. Think. That’s what language makes one do. It forces a person to consider everything. And when one considers everything, it is impossible to avoid thinking about pain; both one’s own and the agonies of others. The weight of that thought and the additional pain it brings can become too much. Not all writers succumb to it, of course; most do not. And most writers may not even feel it, at least not deeply. But those who do cannot help but wish—at least occasionally—it would end. For themselves, of course, but for everyone else. I’m fascinated by the number of writers who die from suicide; sufficiently entranced by them to want to know much more about what they thought in the months and days before they took that final step. I wonder what could have been done to draw them away from the ledge, as it were. I suspect there was little that could have been done. They probably hid their most devastating emotional pain from family and friends in an attempt to insulate those people from the darkness. But they probably had to force themselves to keep quiet; they must have wanted to reach out in the hope that, by sharing their suffering, their pain might have been eased. I suspect, though, they knew how impossible it would have been to share that suffering. Unless a person has felt it, its depth and darkness cannot be comprehended. And they would have lied, had they been confronted. There always has been a stigma attached to what is perceived as weakness or cowardice or attention-grabbing by revealing one’s emotional fragility.

Here is a terribly, woefully, awfully incomplete list of writers of all genres who—facing depths of darkness about which we can only speculate—took their own lives:

• • Sylvia Plath
  • Abbie Hoffman
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • Gerard de Nerval
  • Virginia Wolf
  • Wallace Allan Wood
  • Jack London
  • Arthur Koestler
  • Vladimir Mayakovsky
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Phil Ochs
  • John Berryman
  • Cesare Pavese
  • Richard Brautigan
  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Yukio Mishima
  • William Lindsay Gresham
  • Anne Sexton
  • Byron Herbert Reece
  • William Relling Jr.
  • David Foster Wallace

They may have been afflicted by mental or physical maladies that made living impossibly hard. Or they may have become so disenchanted with life that any other existence, even one which involved terminal emptiness, was more appealing. There could have been other reasons to have taken them to the conclusion that death was better for them, or their friends and family, than their continued lives.

I am not sure why I am more fascinated by the suicides of people whose vocations or avocations involved writing than by the suicides of train conductors or lawyers or civil engineers or store clerks. If someone were to compile a list of store clerks who died by suicide, I suspect it would be far longer than a list of writers who died at their own hand. There is nothing special about writers, except that they tend to reveal themselves and their demons, in one way or another, in their writing. Those revelations are less common, I suspect, in civil engineers and train conductors.

What the hell do I know about the pain of writers or train conductors or lawyers? I can only guess about what went through the minds of people who decided, ultimately, to take their own lives. Guessing is a pointless exercise. Only by devoting time and mental effort could I learn enough to make my guesses more than mere conjecture. And what value would my educated conjecture hold? I think we ought to respect the privacy of people who, for whatever reason, decide to end their own lives. And I think we ought to remove the stigma of suicide. Judging people for making decisions most people never have to make is, in my mind, supreme arrogance.

The list, above, of writers who died by their own hand represents just a tiny fraction of all writers who found the experience of living too much to bear. A search online of any one of their names reveals details of a life riddled with problems and challenges that might seem tolerable to most people. But to people who actually have confronted those problems—not just contemplated them from a comfortable distance—those difficulties might spark compassionate heartache. We cannot know what is hidden in another person’s mind. We cannot understand troubles that have not plagued our own thoughts.

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I’ve been sitting at this keyboard for too bloody long. It’s nearing 5  and I am no closer to understanding the secrets of life and death than I was two hours ago. There’s no point in going on. I’ll just settle back and see where the rest of this morning takes me.

There was a time when works of fiction were far more adept at capturing my imagination than were revelations about historical events. While fiction remains an important force in keeping my inquisitiveness and creativity alive, well-told stories of earth-changing historical events are at least equally interesting to me these days. The thing about “history,” though, is that it is viewed through the lens of time and experience, so even so-called dry facts and figures become fodder for interpretation. Actions and events have meaning beyond simple occurrence; their impacts are subject to one’s perspective and analysis.

One event in history (actually, the trigger for a plethora of events that followed) that recently has captured my attention and interest is the Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755. A BBC Reel video by Izabela Cardoso & Fernando Teixeira asserts that the response to the earthquake by the Marquis of Pombal (Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo) led to the modern science of seismology. The Marquis effectively ruled the Portuguese Empire as chief minister to King Joseph I. The event, the videographers and their primary sources suggest, coincided with and perhaps triggered the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, in which science and scientific evidence began to assert dominance over religious imagination and theory in interpreting the world around us. A writer (Vic Echegoyen, author of Resurrecta, an “historical novel” about the Lisbon earthquake) says the earthquake unchained a series of earthshaking events like the end of slavery in Portugal, which prompted the abolition of slavery in other European countries. Echegoyen suggests the response to the Lisbon earthquake was responsible in part for the American Revolution, as well. Though something of a stretch, that assertion is worth reflecting on and exploring further.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

~ Marcus Garvey ~

I love it when I get wrapped up in an issue about which I knew virtually nothing. The sense that there remains something new and different that has the capacity to capture my attention so thoroughly is breathtaking. It almost makes life worth living, after all, if for no other reason than to get to the end of the story. The down side of getting so enmeshed in such stuff is that I sometimes hit a dead end. Though I’d like to read the book, Resurrecta, I find that it is available only in Portuguese and in Spanish, neither of which is suited to my insufficient linguistic capabilities. If I were king, I would demand that all children be taught to fluently read and speak at least two—and preferably three or more—languages. Europeans and others who recognize the incredible value of proficiency in multiple languages are, in many respects, quite superior to Americans, who arrogantly seem to think English is the only language anyone needs to understand. Increasingly, I feel ashamed to acknowledge I belong to that arrogant subspecies.

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To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

~ Marilyn vos Savant ~

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My intellectual batteries sometimes seem to run so low that I feel at risk of joining the masses of people whose only sources of amusement are action-based violent video games and Survivor-like television shows. Fortunately, I actually haven’t crossed into that murky, ugly swamp of an existence, but on occasion I ask myself what’s stopping me. Whenever I have gotten dangerously close to abandoning inquisitive thought, I’ve gotten lucky in that I’ve encountered someone who is sufficiently similar to me and sufficiently different to spark my interest. And, then, we manage to engage in conversation that refuels my tired, nearly-drained batteries. Those of the people I call my friends. It’s too easy, though, to let those relationships languish while I embark on other pursuits that seem important but, in hindsight, always seem petty and superficial. The lesson always sticks, but not firmly enough to remove the risk. That’s why I sometimes think a regular practice of quietly reflecting on what is really important in one’s life is vital. It is by thinking, deeply, about such stuff that one comes to realize that material wealth has no real value; it is just unnecessary decoration.

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Real hugs last a minimum of twenty seconds. I learned that from one of those people who really matter. Anything less than twenty seconds is just a torso handshake, in my view. But casual hugs between mere acquaintances can take less time, of course. I think back to the constant embraces I have been watching on The Sopranos. The hugs are, in fact, handshakes elevated to full-body embraces, with kisses to the cheek added like a cherry on top of a milkshake. If one is reared in a culture in which it’s not just “okay” for male (and female) friends to embrace but, instead, it is expected and demanded, one has no qualms about hugs. But in other cultures—cultures ruined by puritanical ideas and attitudes—hugs seem to be viewed as overtly sexual and unbecoming “civilized” society. Ach! Humans sometimes are odd and unhappy creatures.

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Off I go to confront society and seek out hugs.

Sometimes the draw of isolation in the wee hours is stronger than the comfortable pull of the sheets. As I write this, it’s not quite 3 in the morning, when I’ve been up for almost an hour. I hope to convince my brain to settle down and let me get back to sleep, but before that happens I must expend the pent-up energy that got me out of bed in the first place. Perhaps it was a dream that caused me to spring awake three hours after I went to sleep. Or perhaps it was something else; an idea that emerges in those mysterious moments midway between the dreams of sleep and the reveries of semi-consciousness. What did it does not matter. What matters is that, once awake, I noticed that elves had packed my sinuses with wet concrete that was in the process of drying into a hard plug when I awoke. I now am awake and more alert than I’d like. What matters is that I want to return to that state of happy unconsciousness we call REM sleep. Talking about it probably will not do the trick. I have to find something else.

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I sat in front of the screen of my notebook computer, my eyes closed, letting my mind go where it went. No pressure, no direction, no admonition that sleep would come only after I allow the energy keeping me awake to dissipate. Maybe I went to sleep. I think it was more like going into a waking dream state. I felt comfortable, content. The slight headache I felt earlier was gone. I could breathe without wheezing or whistling. I was conscious of where I was and what I was doing, but not overly aware of my surroundings. It was as if I were experiencing myself third-hand. Odd, that. All was well until my sinuses—which I thought had recovered from their tantrum—decided to intervene. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of my cough. And there I was again. Awake. Ten after 3. Desiring sleep, but still awake.

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The doctor visits since our return from our road trip have revealed nothing untoward. Nothing of concern. As expected, the underlying “lose weight and get more exercise” has been the underlying theme, whether spoken or unspoken. But nothing else. That’s good news. So, the bottom line (thus far) is that I really do need to get some exercise. Slowly, very slowly, at first. Slow enough not to overtax my lungs, which are constantly short of breath, but enough to permit my body to gain a little stamina, bit by bit, day by day.

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Enough of this for now. I may try sleep again. If my effort succeeds, I will return to this after I wake for the day.

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I slept. Until after 7. Getting up so late causes me to feel like I’ve frittered away a significant part of the day. Fortunately, after I woke up late this morning, I was able to entertain myself for a while by reading about Baraboo, Wisconsin. Today’s high temperature in Baraboo is expected to reach 86°F, but tomorrow and the latter part of the week the highs will barely exceed 80°F, which seems delightfully cool in the context of this monstrous heat wave that has engulfed most of the country. The National Weather Service forecasts heat index values here will exceed 110°F after 1 pm today. Baraboo is beginning to sound especially attractive. Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, is even more appealing, with highs this week ranging from the mid 60s to the low 80s and lows settling around the upper 50s to low 60s. I haven’t checked on housing in Corner Brook, but I found a listing in Baraboo, a cute, updated, and well-maintained little bungalow for $259,900. Actually, I suspect even more appealing would be the area around Helsinki, Finland, where I found a 3-bedroom house (with an additional 2-bedroom guest house) on the sea coast for roughly $712,000 dollars. Except for the price, the place might be perfect. Anyone care to invest with me in buying this delightful place near Helskinki, where current and forecast temperatures of the upper 50s to the low 70s are expected? Your part of the investment will be only $550,000. Call me.

I want to be remembered as the man I wanted to be, not the man I was.

~ Confidential ~

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Some people seem capable of ignoring their flaws, as if flaws did not matter in the least. Others appear able to focus their attention on little else. Somewhere along that continuum of self-knowledge is a stretch we might call “healthy self-assessment.” On both sides of that limited stretch, the outcasts live. People who are self-absorbed, but at different ends of the spectrum. Hmm. How can they find their way closer to the center?

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I “read” a book, Big Panda and Tiny Dragon, this morning. Mi novia insisted I read it. It’s a very, very, very brief book of drawings of a panda and a dragon with accompanying text of their conversations. The conversations are deeply rooted in Buddhist philosophies. It is a thought-provoking book; it is not revelatory, but it emphasizes issues and ideas all people should think about. Issues to which ample consideration should be regularly be given.  I suppose she wanted me to read it as a means of encouraging conversation.

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I’ve been struggling to think of something I wanted to write this morning, only to arrive at the conclusion that nothing I want to write is appropriate for an audience about which I know almost nothing. I know some people who read this blog consistently, but only a few. The rest? Who knows? They could be government agents or right-wing nationalists, for all I know. I’ll stop trying, for now. My failure to “produce” will not bring down the Republic.

Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.

~ Rene Daumal ~

The fictional Arkansas town I created and wrote about in 2017 was on life support from the outset. I think COVID-19 would have turned it into a ghost town, had I allowed the pandemic’s grip to take hold.  Since then, I’ve made at least nine posts in which I’ve written short fiction or mentioned the town and its key gathering spot, a tavern which serves as a gathering place for an unlikely mix of intellectuals and backwoods rednecks. That tavern, despite the fact that it does not exist, has become something of my Third Place. A town in Colorado where we stopped for lunch on the way home from our west coast road trip reminded me of my Arkansas town. Though much larger and more vibrant than my struggling little town, a few blocks of the downtown area of Trinidad, Colorado could serve as the setting for much of my story. Trinidad is much livelier and obviously more prosperous than my town, but its bones are, in many respects, the same.

The similarities between my little Arkansas town and Trinidad prompted me to explore a bit more about the Colorado town. I learned that the town became known nationally in the early 1900s for having the first woman sports editor of a newspaper, Ina Eloise Young—who was the only woman sportswriter to cover the 1908 World Series. Mine disasters, fires, and floods afflicted the town during the first few years of the twentieth century, but the town recovered from each. For a small town—the population peaked at more than 13,000 in the early 1940s, dropping to just above 8,000 today—Trinidad has been home to quite a few “famous” residents, including Bat Masterson and Stanley Biber, the latter a physician who pioneered and practiced sex reassignment surgery in the town, resulting in the town being labeled the “sex change capital of the world.” The website, historycolorado.org, says “For more than forty years, “going to Trinidad” became slang for undergoing gender confirmation surgery, and this otherwise quiet and previously little-known Colorado town found itself on the map, not just in the United States but the world over.” Another bit of national recognition came to the town, beginning in 2015, when the marijuana business got a foothold. Some residents of the town credit marijuana with reviving the “dead town.” A 2018 article in High Times quotes a restauranteur, Nick Cordova, as saying “Without weed, half this town wouldn’t be here. Literally.”  Stories about the exceptional rebirth of Trinidad were published before the 2021 legalization of medical and recreational cannabis in New Mexico, so it may be too early to say Trinidad is stable. But it looked good as we passed through not long ago.

But, back to my little Arkansas town. It remains in the back of my mind all the time. And it surfaces fairly often; more frequently than I write about it. Yet I want to write more about it. And I will. I will breathe life into the little town on life support. I will, somehow, replicate Trinidad’s rebirth in my little town. Whether the resurgence of my town lasts remains to be seen. Only after I write it into a believable existence and give it a period of life will I know where it is going. At the moment, I envision a series of stories that could, conceivably, be made into chapters of a novel. I haven’t made mention of the characters in my town; they are at the heart of the stories. My characters, as I see and hear and talk to them, are quirky—to say the least. They are larger than life in some ways, but in others they are absolutely as real as anyone within my sphere. When will I get back to this? When time-consuming obligations stop gnawing at me night and day. When I can devote the time necessary to put myself in the right frame of mind and get myself energized about writing nonstop for a while. When the time is right. If ever it is right. Time will, eventually, tell.

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The printer I ordered last week arrived a few days ago. Yesterday, I opened it and tried to set it up. It does not work. I am sending it back. I have a love-hate relationship with technology. Maybe it’s not technology I hate; maybe it’s the lack of quality control. Or maybe it’s ineptitude in manufacturing. Or maybe it’s manufacturers’ propensity to cut costs by slashing component quality. Or maybe it’s all the above. On one hand, I wish the “old timey” product quality would return. On the other, like everyone else, I would bitch and moan about how much quality costs.

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Yesterday, I set up a game camera on our deck in an effort to capture images of raccoons or whatever other creatures are devouring bird-seed at an ever-increasing rate. I have not yet viewed what, if anything, the camera may have captured. That will be an interesting undertaking. Maybe. But, first, I should shower and shave and get ready for church. I have to make a pitch for committee membership at the beginning of the service today. If not for that, I would not go. I am not in the mood for church. I never am in the mood, though, but I always seems to appreciate being there when I convince myself to go.

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I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

~ Anne Lamott ~

No matter how well-mannered you are—no matter how clean and pure your your thoughts and actions—no matter how distasteful you find violence or pornography or public displays of intimate behaviors that you believe belong only in the privacy of one’s own home—

It matters not that you are the model of decency and decorum. Hidden beneath all the layers of good behavior that put you in good stead in polite society is a beast that craves everything you claim to find reprehensible.

The existence of that heinous barbarian is not entirely your fault. Granted, it has been there all along, but it has been fed a stead diet that guarantees its growth—without which it might have remained stunted and controllable. But you live in a world in which its nourishment is always assured.

Television and film allow people to comfortably experience reprehensible emotions and behaviors from the safety of their own homes. Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, for example, draw the viewer into emotional storms that pump adrenalin into areas of the brain that thrive on excitement. You may reject those television programs, claiming the sex and violence portrayed in them is offensive to you. But that rejection is only a cover; it is an effort to hide your thirst for adrenalin. You would mainline that adrenalin, if you could, but you cannot. Your fear of publicly revealing the beast hidden behind your soft and gentle countenance will not allow you to risk losing control of the needle.

What parts of our psyches do we hide from ourselves? Does the gentle face we present to the world actually conceal a carefree savage, an emotional animal that hungers for action and danger and thrilling excitement? I suspect taking certain pharmaceuticals, both legal and not, might cut through the padlock that keeps the beast in its cage. On the one hand, we want to unleash that demon, but on the other we are afraid that, once released, it can never be put back in its protective cell.

Some of what I wrote above may be true. Most, though, probably is not. At least not to the extremes that I suggest. Writing can be either revealing or concealing. Or it can be both. If “both,” then “either” is evidence of dissembling. “Evidence.” That’s a word one might find in a district attorney’s office or in a courtroom. So, as I consider writing and the law—and occasionally breaking it—I realize the links between them. Writers may leave trails of evidence in their words or paragraphs or chapters. Like bread crumbs for the hungry reader. Thinking of bread crumbs takes me to the kitchen, a place full of aromatic spices and oils infused with herbs and pots and pans aching to be placed on a hot stove-top. How, I wonder, can a pot or pan feel an emotion? How can they ache to be subjected to intense, painful heat? Painful? Pots and pans cannot feel pain.

Do you see what’s happened here? Do you see that my brain has waded through swamps filled with unrelated “stuff?” And do you see that I have manufactured “truths” that probably have no basis except in the easily changeable words I used? Believe nothing. Believe no one. Everything is subject to verification. Verify everything before acting on anything. That is not possible, of course. Nothing is possible. Everything is impossible.  We live in a world in which highly structured chaos is randomly ejected into the emotional atmosphere at precise intervals. How does that make you feel? Anything? Anything at all?

Art surrounds us, providing an impetus to maintain our struggles to understand who and what we are. Art is embedded in everything we see and feel and taste and smell and hear. Even in the rare absence of deliberate art, we are immersed in its natural expressions. Trees and beaches and rocky ledges. Sunrises and sunsets. Dark, menacing oceans—at once comforting and compelling while just as ominous and foreboding—that stretch far beyond what the eye can see. We adorn our walls with art. But we sometimes fail to realize that art is in plain sight in the design of kitchen cabinets and in the trim around doors. And in molding, where walls intersect with floors. Lawn sculptures adorn large, empty stretches of grass…adjacent to landscape timbers and elaborate designs crafted from colored pebbles. And near bushes shaped and trimmed to look “just so.” Chairs and sofas and tables and lamps represent the expression of utilitarian art. Automobiles may once have been primarily modes of transportation, but today they are mobile collections of art and design.

This morning, I spent a few minutes marveling at the expansive artwork of Andres Amador, whose enormous, expansive earthscape designs on sandy beaches inspire awe. His art is breathtaking in its beauty and stunning in its brevity; he must complete his art on a tight timeline during low tide and then watch it disappear when water overtakes the sand. Yesterday, I viewed two photos of the side of a big, unimpressive building several stories tall. One photo showed it plain and unadorned. The other showed it after an artist transformed it into a stunning piece of art—a three-dimensional image of a kitten emerging from a cardboard box. Art, no matter its form, can be uncomfortable; it can make us think thoughts we would rather not confront.

Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home.

~ Gwendolyn Brooks ~

Beauty is not confined to the strictly visual, as I’ve already suggested. Chefs create art both visually appealing and a delight to the nose and the tongue. Musicians create aural art pleasing to hear and, frequently, that is accompanied by vibrations pleasing to one’s nerve endings…perhaps it’s one’s sense of touch? Photographers both preserve and create art with cameras; they present images exactly as captured by the lens and as manipulated by the photographer’s use of imagination and technology. Writers create and share insights and emotions and concepts through their use of language; they “get inside our heads,” where they “paint” images and ideas.

Our lives would be more fulfilling and more peaceful if humankind would cultivate recognition and appreciation of art in all its forms instead of seeking to control an uncontrollable world. The pursuit of power is an affront to artistry; art is an homage to universal freedom.

A line is a dot that went for a walk.

~ Paul Klee ~

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Sometimes I feel like having long, in-depth conversations on topics that, in my opinion, too few others find interesting. Like the importance of art and how it shapes our culture and our sense of what is and is not moral. I recall initiating a brief conversation in which I asserted the importance of art. The response was, essentially, “so what?” And that was followed by “talking about it has no value…our conversation will not change what anyone things about art.”  I remember thinking how the person with whom I was speaking must have been absent when even shreds of creativity and intellectual curiosity were distributed. That, though, is deeply judgmental. Though, in my opinion, deeply true.

The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just.

~ D. H. Lawrence ~

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No matter what D.H. Lawrence thought about judgement, I judge myself all the time. I recognize many of my innumerable faults (though probably not all of them) and realize my positive attributes can never equal them in number, nor overwhelm them in impact. I pass judgement on myself more quickly and easily than I do on others. Why? Because I know myself far better than I know others. That having been said, I know myself only superficially. There’s someone inside me I have never met and probably never will. Several someones, I suspect. Not literally, of course, but figuratively; we are far too complex to really understand ourselves. Our wiring is too labyrinthine to ever hope to fully grasp how it works. Or doesn’t. Anyone who claims to know themselves completely is delusional. Faced with circumstances we have never before faced can change our understanding of how we might react in such situations; thus changing what we understand about ourselves.

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And we’re off to happily engage with another Friday.

The distance between two places measures separation. The distance between two points of view implies the same. But, with contemplation and conversation, points of view can change and even merge. But places, whether in close proximity or remote from one another, cannot occupy the same spot. Yet points of view too often behave as if they were remote places on a map; isolated by vast distance and absolutely immovable.

Physical space separates places. Either intellectual space or emotional space—or both—keep points of view apart. Physical space has no stake in its location; it is what it is. Self-esteem, though, often anchors points of view to an immovable perspective. Wisdom arises from the exercise of one’s ability to cut the chain to an anchor. Without that anchor, a point of view is free to drift. It may settle far, far away or it may return to its original resting place. But in the interim, a point of view is free to absorb shreds of perspective that would have been invisible and untouchable had the anchor’s chain not been cut.

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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

~ Socrates ~

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Today is an opportunity to repair the mistakes that led to yesterday, which turned into today. Tomorrow will provide a chance to mend the fabric of experience I will shred today. The day after tomorrow, if it comes, will exist to stitch together the patches left over from my efforts to mend those pieces of torn fabric.

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Time seems to accelerate early in the morning. And, perhaps, overnight while we are sleeping. We wish for a long, leisurely, satisfying sleep; our head touches the pillow and, suddenly, it’s time to get up. And, when we get up, the clock races ahead; 5:30 becomes 7:30 in less than the blink of an eye. I look back at 5:45 and 6:10 and 7:05 and cry for them to return. “Don’t go so soon,” I call plaintively, hoping they will heard me and heed my pleas. But they do not. They ignore me, as if I have no role to play in the passage of time. No part in transforming yesterday into today. I am being carried along in rapids of a river of moments that refuse to pause for even a second to let me get my bearings.  A stopwatch does not stop time; it only stops us from measuring how fast it is getting away from us.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

~ Khalil Gibran ~

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When is humbleness a flaw? When is pride a gleaming strength? The answers to those questions exist only in our imagination. In our perspectives. In our points of view. Context always controls us; either what we do or how we see what we do. And, of course, how others see us and themselves.

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I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

~ Edward Gibbon ~

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Wishing for cool weather will not make it happen. Only by finding a cool place and taking aggressive action to get there will take me into that pleasant place. The question, of course, is whether I have the courage to be aggressive. Time, as it flies by at a hundred times the speed of thought, will tell.

Last night, as we watched another episode of The Sopranos, we heard the shriek of the NOAA weather radio  from the other end of the house. It was too far away to catch what the automated voice said after hearing the disruptive alert. We paused playback and checked our phones for weather warnings. Nothing. Back to watching the television screen. A few minutes later, though, we heard distant growls of thunder. I paused the show again and ran out to my car, in the driveway, to close the windows; beastly heat of late has prompted me to leave them cracked a bit. Not long afterward, we heard wind whipping the trees outside the window; then, the sound of raindrops pelting the house. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Jagged lightning bolts, coupled instantaneously with explosive cracks of thunder, bathed the darkened house in blue flashes of light. In concert with an especially fierce lightning strike someplace close by, electric power to the house was cut. Though it was off for only a few moments, the outage was long enough to reset the WiFi modem and otherwise play havoc with electric-powered devices. Outside, the rain and wind—punctuated by claps of thunder and flashes of lightning—continued to display Nature’s intense power for quite some time. We wandered from window to window, watching leaves and twigs and branches, ripped from trees surrounding the house, and flung into the air.

We continued watching The Sopranos after the lightshow and booming symphony settled down. And, when we tired of the tension and drama of that show, I watched an episode of The Lincoln Lawyer. That series is by no means high art, but it was sufficiently distracting to keep my mind off the more unpleasant aspects of life in a society gone stark-raving mad.

Even as light begins to fill the sky as the time nears 6 a.m., I cannot see outside well enough to know whether any significant storm damage was done to trees close to the house. I suspect forest flora that, yesterday, were struggling to survive a lack of water in almost unbearable heat have been given an opportunity to live at least a little longer. I look forward to having a better look at how they respond as the day progresses.

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Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

~ Golda Meir ~

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My visit yesterday to an orthopedist was positive…basically. He said the pain in my knee was simply a natural response to the wear and tear of almost sixty-nine years of use. Nothing particularly troubling. Given that the pain I feel is infrequent and not unbearably severe, he said if he were me he would do nothing about it. And so that’s exactly what I shall do about it. Nothing.

After visiting the orthopedist and stopping at Michael‘s to allow mi novia to select a frame for a piece of art she bought during our recent road trip, we stopped for brunch at Cafe Kahlo on Central Avenue in Hot Springs. I recommend the place. Good service and good food. I like supporting a small, family-operated business like Cafe Kahlo. It helps that images of Frida Kahlo adorn the walls.

My follow-up with the surgeon’s (for my November 2018 lung cancer surgery) nurse practitioner was, as expected, positive. She scheduled me for a follow-up visit one year from now. Assuming the CT scan done in preparation for that visit shows nothing new, next year’s visit will be the last one scheduled; I will be free of another physician’s care. Hallelujah!

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Advice to myself:

Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Generally speaking, I have been reasonably successful of late in remaking certain aspects of myself. I have tried to follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice and, more often than not, I have been successful. I have to remember, though, that this is not a situation of fix it and forget it; it will require constant, lifelong attention. And I have to be willing to accept missteps not as evidence that I have failed but as evidence that I always will need to continue to strive for something outside my grasp: perfection.

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And here I am, ready to face whatever the day brings.

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.

~ Miguel de Cervantes ~

I came across a fascinating article yesterday on the BBC.com website. The article, entitled How does wildlife find garden ponds?, referenced studies that suggest the degree of polarization of reflected light might explain how dragonflies find water. As I thought about the subject, I remembered several times when I had been surprised to find various creatures living in environments that had been “wet” for only a short while. The BBC article mentioned eels living in a partially abandoned garden pond; a pond made by people, not a natural one. It occurred to me that the lakes in and around Hot Springs Village all are artificial. Yet, aside from the stocked fish, they are teeming with wildlife that just “happened onto” them. I would love to know just how snakes and salamanders and frogs and birds and so forth seem to find water so quickly and easily. I suspect that, if we knew the secrets to how wildlife finds water, we might be better-equipped to solve water shortages for humans.  Interesting stuff, in my opinion.

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I’m…an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.

~ Octavia E. Butler ~

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In hindsight, when I have been faced with unexpectedly shocking or otherwise troublesome behaviors from a person, I have come to realize I simply ignored earlier clues. The behaviors generally are not new. There were plenty of signs; I just ignored them or dismissed them. Or I refused to acknowledge them, in the hope the clues were simply aberrations. Usually, after I find myself stunned by such circumstances, I end up being disappointed in myself for having failed to anticipate them. “I should have known,” I say to myself, as I recount situations in which the clues would have been plain to anyone not wearing blinders. But we tend to overlook flaws in people we consider friends. Only when those flaws are so egregious they can no longer be ignored do we reluctantly accept them. And when behaviors are so utterly unacceptable that a person can no longer be called a friend, we look back on our reluctance to see the clues and wonder how we could have been so willingly blind. Such instances tend to put all of our relationships under a microscope, temporarily, as we attempt to evaluate whether we have allowed ourselves to be deluded in other circumstances. We become gun-shy, worried that we may be unable to differentiate, in terms of our relationships, between reality and illusion. Over time, though, we toughen and the pain recedes. But we never completely recover the innocence that enabled us to be surprised and shocked. And we never allow ourselves to be as receptive to interpersonal engagements as we once were. I wonder whether hermits became hermits because they were especially sensitive to troublesome behaviors from people who had been friends? Might they have opted to be loners as a means of protecting themselves from the emotional pain of unpleasant surprises?

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Physical wounds do not heal; they hide beneath scar tissue.  It’s the same with emotional wounds. They may not be entirely visible, but they remain as evidence of damage done to the psyche. Like physical damage, emotional injuries can be repaired, yet they are never the same as before.

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I woke at 3, but stayed in bed until 4. I’ve been watching the sky brighten since around 5. Like yesterday morning, the air outside is dead still. But the temperature is a couple of degrees warmer than it was a day ago. Though I have not been outside yet, I sense that I would feel even less comfortable today than yesterday. The hottest July 12 on record in Arkansas was measured as 116 °F in Jonesboro in 1901. Fortunately, today will not eclipse that horrible number. Not only was that the hottest July 12, it was the hottest day, period, in the state. I offer my gratitude to the universe for letting that record stand. And I am grateful that today will not get even close to it. Today’s high in Halifax, Nova Scotia is expected to reach 70°F; at present, the temperature is 61°F. I want to be there. Instead, I will wade into the heat, here in Hot Springs Village, and wander into the nearest actual town for a visit with an orthopedist, who will discuss with me the “loose bits” on my right knee.

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.

~ Marcel Proust ~

Despite the cool temperature (68°F), when I walk outside the day feels warm and oppressive to me. I suppose that is because the air is dead still. Even the slightest breeze would transform the morning’s weather into a delightful experience. Unfortunately, not a single leaf is stirring as I stare into this day’s dim morning light. The peak temperature today is forecast to be 95°F; unpleasant, but tolerable in comparison to just a few degrees warmer. The temperature here is actually two degrees cooler than Green Lake, Wisconsin. I suspect Green Lake feels cooler, though. And today’s expected high in Green Lake, 84°F, will be significantly more pleasant that ours. I mention Green Lake only because I crave a climate better suited to human habitation than the one facing us here of late. Today’s high in Green Lake is a bit higher than normal, but close. High temperatures in Hot Springs Village, though, regularly soar through the “normal” highs experienced in Green Lake. And we have chiggers here; the bane of my existence. Green Lake, though, has its own insect demons. No matter where you go, you face challenges that diminish what could be an idyllic experience. Where is the “ideal” place? Where is the climate (weather) delightful, the people welcoming, friendly, and wonderful, and the cost of living low enough that a family of four earning barely above the poverty-level could live comfortably? No, really. Where?

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I encountered good advice when reading about what various people have said about the weather:

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.

~ Anthony J. D’Angelo ~

Good advice is readily available. Good advice that’s easy to follow is more difficult to find. And it’s even more difficult to find good advice that accounts for one’s unique circumstances and also is easy to follow. Well-intentioned advice can therefore be maddening; as if the advisor assumes the situation facing the recipient of advice is identical to that of the advisor. Enough about that. The best advice is advice that works. It’s best, in my view, to take what works and discard the rest.

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For years, I’ve heard the aphorism/assertion that one should “eat to live, not live to eat.” And in some ways, that advice is absolutely correct—food is, at its most fundamental, nothing but sustenance. But the aphorism fails to recognize the intensely powerful cultural messages inherent in food and its preparation. The foods we eat and the way we prepare them for consumption say a great deal about who we are. They can convey our values and our dreams. And they can tell our stories as well as anything can. Dismissing the almost mystical qualities food and its preparation can have is equivalent to writing off the unique cultural ceremonies associated with childbirth or marriage or death or a dozen other important transitions and transformations every culture experiences and acknowledges. We might as well say “childbirth is just a means of  renewing the labor force” or “marriage is simply the articulation of an agreement between a monogamous couple” or “death is simply an opportunity to thin the human herd.” An article I read recently highlights the importance food played and plays in various indigenous cultures. In Cherokee culture, according to the author, “…strawberry becomes more than just a berry. That ear of corn is so much more than ‘just an ear of corn.’ It is an ancestor, it is our mother; a reminder of who we are, what we’ve been through, and why we must continue to survive. Every meal has the potential to be a small ceremony, a direct link between our ancestors before us and the future of our people.” I would argue that the importance attached to food in our North American culture is similar. The foods we choose say a great deal about the extent to which we value (or don’t value) diversity, adventure, risk, and dozens of other factors that foods help define or articulate. Another quote from the article speaks to the importance of food as more than mere sustenance: “Certain aromas and flavors make an imprint in our minds and have the powerful ability to return us to a particular place, person or experience much more intensely than a visual or auditory reminder.”

Eat to live. Of course. But also, live to eat the fruits of one’s culture and feed one’s dreams.

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I find attractive people who think, deeply, and talk about what they think.  PBS frequently puts such people in front of the camera; that’s one of the reasons I tend to watch PBS when I have access to “over the air” television. Soon, I will subscribe to YouTube TV so I can get access, again, to those people who think and talk about their thoughts. But I get access to similar people right here in Central Arkansas. I suspect similar people exist all over. It’s just a matter of finding them and establishing dialogue.

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Off I go into the warming day.

Very hot weather—kept at bay by air conditioners and ample supplies of clean water— illustrates good fortune as well as anything else. The ability to elude temperatures climbing toward and above the century mark emphasizes why gratitude for the “little things” is so appropriate. Other niceties, like leather sofas and expensive kitchen gadgetry and marble flooring and money for travel and a thousand other unnecessary luxuries, pale in comparison to the basic components of good fortune: food, water, safety, and adequate comfort. Protections from hostile environments, whatever forms they take, are more than niceties; instead, they can define the difference between life and death. I do not want verification by experience that spending a night and a day on the streets, without food or water or shelter, is the antithesis of good fortune; I just know it. And I need to spend some time appreciating it with a rarely-felt intensity. All of us who live in unacknowledged luxury would do well to contemplate and express gratitude for our good fortune. It would not hurt to share some of it, as well.

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Taking oneself or one’s philosophies too seriously can result in unplanned and unwelcome solitude. I can imagine that nothing would be more boring than spending a week listening to Karl Marx drone on about the merits of communism and the fatal flaws of capitalism. I would want to hear about his childhood, how he prefers cooking his eggs, his views on misogyny, and  his favorite jokes. Yet, based on what I know of him, I suspect he might be unwilling to deviate from those topics so near and dear to his heart. And I doubt he would express any interest in me: my childhood, my egg preference, my attitudes about sexism or racism, or things that tickle my funny bone.  I would find offensive and dull his well-intentioned exhortations, directed at me, to abandon “capitalistic” behaviors in favor of actions dedicated exclusively to the “collective.” One need not be so intensely single-minded as Marx to be annoying. But the closer one gets to being a one-issue thinker and talker, the closer one gets to self-made isolation. In years past, though, I have been accused of being sort of like that: somewhat two-dimensional, with my rather aggressive dismissal of team sports. I still have almost no interest in team sports, but at least now I acknowledge the legitimacy of others’ interest in them (though, for the life of me, I cannot understand just why team sports are such a draw to so many). Until not many years ago, though, I made it my mission to express a high level of disdain for team sports whenever the topic arose. Today, I try to restrain myself; to be at least tolerant of pastimes I find dull and uninteresting (unless sports is the only topic of conversation, in which case I remove myself from the discussion).  Yet my interests can be singular and restrictive, too. Foods and flavors, for example, are among my passions. I am sure my posts about food and my tendency to elevate discussions of food to the level of worship can be boring. Yet like my dismissal of team sports and my tendency to remove myself from conversations about them when I find them boring, others can do the same when my actions are too food-focused to suit them. I could probably go on and on about taking oneself and/or one’s interests too seriously; but that would defeat the purpose of this paragraph, if there is one.

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As I peer out  my windows this morning, I notice that the light of the sun is full, but the illumination is not so bright as to require me to shield my eyes. Sometimes, morning sunlight is far brighter than it is today. Exploring this matter, I go close to the window and look up at the sky. It is blue, but with a very pale haze blocking some of the sun’s rays. And banks of soft, translucent white clouds appear in bands against the blue sky. The thin veil of haze is enough to dull the brightness, but not enough to really dim the light. For some reason, this level of illumination draws my attention to the whimsical statue of a frog, sitting in a Padmasana (Lotus) position. in which each of the bulging-eyed-frog’s feet is placed on the opposite thigh. The whimsical nature of the Buddha-Frog is amplified by the fact that it is sitting only a few feet from the figure of a goose that was carved from what I believe is the stump and roots of an Indonesian tree. I am incapable of sitting in a Padmasana position. I would have to restructure the bones in my hips and legs; and my tendons would have to be stretched, through months of exercise. In a process I call exercism. As opposed to exorcism.

In an ideal world, you would come to my house just as the night’s darkness begins to fade into the dim morning light. We would gather—many of us would—near a window and we would look outside, soaking in the changes taking place outdoors. We would call one another’s attention to the changes and would ask one another to describe them and to offer observations about what they might mean. Do they mean anything? Can transformations in light levels have meaning? Should we assign meaning to them?

I would provide coffee for everyone. Or tea, if that were the preference. Or water. I might offer oranges; domestic at the right time of year, imported at other times. Flavors and aromas can enhance experiences. Memories of fragrances can recall experiences from another time; visual scenes, completed by recollections of sounds, arise in one’s head.  We would recount those memories, if we had them. There would be no pressure to recall, but if the scenes were there and you chose to share it, we would listen and watch it unfold with you.

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The morning continues to unfold. It is now just after 7. I’ve been up for more than two hours. Darkness was beginning to slip away when I got out of bed; it was almost gone just a short time later. The rapidity of dawn makes me think I may need to set an alarm so I can experience more time watching through the windows, staring at the darkness. But, for now, I will stop and think about it all. Everything. I will renew my coffee and cut up some cantaloupe and wander into the day.

A follow-up appointment with my primary care physician’s office. An initial appointment with an orthopedist. A follow-up visit with the thoracic surgeon. A therapeutic massage. Scheduling appointments with a cardiologist, a urologist, a pulmonologist, and God knows who else. The upcoming week is a sharp reminder of the fragility of human fitness. Either that or evidence that fear of failing health or injury rules our lives to a much greater extent than it should. Whatever these plans and appointments mean, they are taking place during a time in which we regularly are reminded that mortality and physical dangers are very real “things.” Tony Sirico, the actor who played  Peter Paul “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri on The Sopranos died on Friday. Japan’s former Prime Minster, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated on Friday. Seven people were killed and 46 wounded in Highland Park, Illinois on July 4 when a gunman opened fire from a rooftop. Coincidentally, mi novia and I have been watching The Sopranos for several weeks, getting acquainted with a culture of both violence and intense love and devotion. Perhaps the reason The Sopranos was and is so popular is that it normalized violence in a familial setting. Or that it normalized almost unshakable familial bonds in a setting in which violence is as commonplace as breathing. The Sopranos is not escape entertainment any more than the murder of innocent victims and political figures is a departure from reality television. We live (as long as we can) with challenges to the stability of our health and with reminders of the brutality of the human condition.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

~ Albert Camus ~

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One must wonder whether—not in the eyes of some imaginary god but in the eyes of his human contemporaries—redemption for past behaviors is deserved or even possible. That question is what prompts an exploration of what others have said. That issue is what claws at one’s self-esteem, at one’s sense of worth. At what point does there exist a fine line between excusable or tolerable and inexcusable or intolerable? If one had the ability to selectively erase one’s memory, I think the memories erased would be the ones in which selfishness and lack of compassion are on full display. Whether past behaviors are intolerable or not, some memories may be so shameful and painful that only erasure could cure them.  The fact that erasure is not possible seems to support the idea that memory is the way the universe exacts revenge.  Even on the road to redemption, no penance is ever enough.

The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.

~ John Deway ~

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For some reason, this morning I vacillate between modest happiness and deep sadness. No matter how I try, I cannot focus my attention on the positive aspects of my experience; I slip back into…something. It’s not despair, but I think it must be despair’s cousin. I asked mi novia, yesterday or the day before, what is anxiety? Is it depression? Is it worry, coupled with the doldrums? Perhaps I’m taking too damn many pills. Pills for blood pressure, cholesterol, nerve pain, thinning of the blood, improvement of Vitamin B12 in my bloodstream, prostate issues, breathing issues, etc., etc., etc. All those damn pills must collectively be clogging my brain, keeping me from experiencing ongoing normalcy. This dull unpleasantness is not normal. Or, at least, it did not used to be. Water. They tell me to drink more water. Get more hydrated. Flood my body with liquid. More electrolytes. I’ll try it. No reason not to.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

~ Alan Watts ~

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Housing. Investments. Choosing places to live based as much (or more) on financial considerations as on quality of life factors. More than “quality of life.” Quality of intellectual and emotional experience. What some people would call “spiritual” experience.

I can imagine an incredibly simple but profoundly complex life. A life undisturbed by the chaos of modern times, guided by opportunities afforded in the natural world around me. Simple, perhaps, but exceptionally hard. A life in which I must find or grow or chase or trap my own food. A life in which food is important, but shelter is equally vital. A life in which comfort never becomes the cudgel that permits me to degrade the importance of others’ food and shelter.

We do not necessarily deserve comfort. Sleeping on hard ground among snakes and scorpions and broken rocks with sharp edges may be the natural order. We may have corrupted it by pursuing comfort at the expense of understanding.

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A surge in active listings in the housing market, if not actually driving down home prices, is putting the brakes on their growth. I suspect actual prices of housing will fall, as well. I have seen anecdotal evidence that price drops may be in the offing. Watching Zillow listings in Hot Springs Village, for example, I have seen far more price reductions in the last two or three months than I saw in the last several years. That tells me I sold my house just in the nick of time to catch the wave of rising prices. Though prices, in the aggregate, may continue to climb for a short time while housing supply catches up with demand, the increasing number of price drops suggests the market is cooling. Of course, rising interest rates probably have a lot to do with a cooling market, but I think the market has gone slightly mad for a while. That was good for me in connection with the sale of my old house, but it also suggests the price of the “new” house may not have been justified; at least not justified in what I believe will be a cooling market. If my take on the housing market is correct, there will come a time in the not-too-distant future when buying “distressed” price houses (homes of decent quality and in decent condition that are on the market due to sellers’ financial need to sell) will present excellent investments. Time will tell whether I am right. And time will tell whether it matters.

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Yesterday, July 7, was the anniversary of the appearance on the market of sliced bread. Commercially-available sliced bread first appeared on the market on July 7, 1928 in Chillicothe, Missouri. Otto Rohwedder, who invented a machine to slice bread, and Frank Bench, his old baker friend who helped put the machine into commercial use, are the fathers of sliced bread. Before July 7, 1928, if you wanted sliced bread you had to cut it yourself. The history of sandwiches must have thus been markedly different before that date. Sliced bread before that date must have varied in thickness and in the “cleanliness” of the cuts—if, indeed, bread-based sandwiches depended on sliced bread. Perhaps sandwiches relied as much on chunks of bread torn from loaves, instead of evenly-cut pieces sliced from loaves. Sliced dark rye bread and uncut loaves of sourdough and French bread are my favorites, but I have to acknowledge the enormous impact Rohwedder’s invention has had on the bread world. The image here, as I understand it, shows signage atop the welcome center in Chillicothe, which is about 90 miles northeast of Kansas City, Missouri. That might make an interesting diversion during a little road trip.

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The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.

~ Omar Khayyam ~

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I think humankind was more knowledgeable about life and existence (the two, obviously, are neither the same nor are mutually exclusive) in ancient times, when humans had fewer diversions and distractions. In the absence of distractions, we tend to contemplate matters for which we seldom make time in today’s busy world. We think more deeply. We look at the natural world with greater interest and awe. We try harder to make sense of the beauty and horrors of life and death. When we refuse to permit ourselves to be confused by chaos of our own making, we can see that death can be just as beautiful as life. And we can understand that life can be as horrible and wretched as death.

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Mi novia and I mused, during our recent road trip, about the possibility that humanity is and has been an experiment conducted by the universe. A test to determine whether humankind can improve existence. And we both concluded that humankind probably is a failed experiment; a disappointing endeavor that merits cancellation so that other experiments may be tried. The universe has given us millions of years to prove that humankind can be perfected. Instead, we have proven only that we have the capacity to degrade deeper and deeper into an abyss of ugliness. We are sinking into being the antithesis of enlightenment; darkness of the most miserable kind seems to be our legacy. I hate to think such thoughts. I wish I were more optimistic about humankind. But I’m not. I  keep trying. I keep enjoying moments that suggest there is hope. The evidence, though, suggests otherwise. There will come a time, I think, when the universe will cancel the attempt to prove the unprovable.

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Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

~ Václav Havel ~