John Swinburn

Human beings have the capacity to understand and, at the very least, tolerate people who look, speak, or think differently. But that capacity is tested in too few human beings. Instead of treating differences as both interesting and acceptable, humans tend to see them as unpleasant and threatening.  Different languages, appearances, and approaches to interactions with the world around us make life interesting. I find it difficult to understand insular people who assume differences are bad. The world would be so much more peaceful if we accepted others whose worldviews differ from our own. Saying that, of course, I recognize that my own prejudices and bigotries reject my preference for open-mindedness. That is to say: hypocrisy.

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“The house” occupies almost every corner of my mind almost all the time. “The house” being the one we’re updating with new paint, new flooring, several new light fixtures, some new plumbing fixtures, garage door tune-up, etc., etc., etc. Although the process of updating it is engaging, I am getting a bit tired of the project’s tendency to control every aspect of my life. Spur-of-the-moment activities interfere with the predictability required of the process of updating the house. Appointments must be kept because delaying them could result in lengthy, troubling delays. But it’s not really so bad; just a tad annoying. And I really do look forward to finishing the project, at least to the extent that we can move in, sell my house, and get on with a moderately stable life.

Speaking of “the house,” we had something of a reprieve yesterday afternoon while the flooring was being removed. We visited with a friend for a few hours and, late in the afternoon, even took her over to have a look. While occasional reprieves are nice, they seem to contribute to the delay; yet we could not have been productive yesterday afternoon, so there was no such contribution. It was a welcome and necessary delay. And today we will take a couple of hours to visit another friend. Then, back to it. I look forward to having more time to cogitate and mull and muse.

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You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate.

~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo ~

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Facebook had a friend suggestion for me this morning. A woman from my high school class; I knew her then, but only vaguely. Her profile indicates she’s a politically conservative and religiously over-the-top fundamentalist. I skimmed a few posts: bible verses, intellectually-stunted memes, right-wing blather, and other content that suggests a dim wit cemented with unwavering opinions. Sure, sounds exactly like the kind of person I’d find appealing. I can imagine communicating with her would be a bit like arguing with a lamp post. I think Facebook has me confused with someone else.

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A year ago, ice and snow confined me to my house for several days and tested my patience. But it also caused me to consider, with gratitude, my good fortune. As much as I might have wanted to get out of the house, I was comfortable where I was. I had plenty of food, clean water, electricity, warmth, a beautiful view out my windows, and everything else I needed…and then some. Whenever I felt irritated at being caged in my house, I forced myself to consider where I might be, instead. If circumstances had been unkind to me, I might instead have been shivering in a cold tent, aching from hunger and thirst, and craving any creature comfort that might help warm me just a bit. I might have had nothing for entertainment but time…and thoughts of how I could secure enough food, water, and warmth to survive. Those thoughts, forced on my by my guilt for wanting even more, should float through my brain more often.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

~ Epictetus ~

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I have a very, very vague recollection that I once read a novel by Orhan Pamuk, but I cannot determine whether, in fact, that recollection is true. In reviewing information about the novels he has written, the only one that seems even a little familiar is Snow.  But that would be a stretch. Because I cannot determine whether I really read a Pamuk novel, I think I should create a list of all the books I’ve ever read. But that would be a nearly impossible task, because I generally forget books within a month or two (or less) of reading them.

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It’s time to embrace another day.

At least I did not get up at 3 this morning. I awoke just after 2, but managed to drift off quite a while later. But I was awake again before 4:30, so I opted to get up for the day. While sipping my first cup of coffee, I skimmed through this blog, stopping to read a post and view some photos I took in August 2015, when my late wife and I wandered through the Jones Mill Industrial Park, where we encountered a building that housed (or had housed) the Arkansas Midland Railroad. August 2015 was a carefree time. The harsh realities of life and death have forced their way into my experience since then.

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Today, the flooring company has arranged for someone to come rip out hardwood and tile in our new house in preparation for installation of the LVP. We’ll also get a visit at the new place by a representative from a garage door service company; the two garage doors and their respective automatic openers and ancillary devices need a tune-up. We spent the day yesterday, as usual, painting. We have almost finished painting both bathrooms (except areas I have been unable to reach and some spots in need of touch-up). A coat of primer went up over the lime-green walls of the laundry room yesterday, as well. Painting is much more time consuming for a novice like me than I remember it being for a novice like me. For any big painting jobs in the future, I will hire it out, regardless of cost (within reason). Good painters are worth what they are paid.

We have new faucets and various other bathroom hardware ready for installation in the master bath. And new toilets await installation in both bathrooms after the new flooring is installed. New light fixtures were installed throughout the house not long ago. Eventually, the house will be quite livable. But, first, we need a knowledgeable door repair person to check and adjust virtually every door in the house. Once we move in, we’ll direct our attention to landscaping and such. Home ownership involves a never-ending cycle of work and expense. But it may be worth it. I’m beginning to appreciate the concept of living in expensive condos, though, in which the work element is transferred to the expense part of the equation.

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Assuming all goes according to plan, a good friend will come to the new house this afternoon for nice visit. We need a break from “remodeling,” and there is no better respite from that chore than to spend time with a good friend. If the flooring guy is still there, though, we may change locations and meet at our current home. As much as I’d like to show her progress to date, I’m more interested in simply spending time with her. Only a very small number of people are such comfortable fits that I feel completely at home in their presence; she is one of them.

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Though I picked up an online grocery order just a week ago, I will go out a bit before 7 this morning to pick up another one. While I’m out, I’ll probably buy gas for my car (I’m almost out, a rarity) and stop by the post office to pick up mail from my box. Speaking of groceries and related matters, I wish I had easy access to affordable full-meal home delivery or, at least, grocery stores sold healthy, tasty, inexpensive, ready-to-eat meals that I find appealing. Lately, when we finish our work for the day at the new house, we’re in no mood to prepare a meal. Therefore, instead of a meal at the end of the day, we’ve either gone out for a burger for lunch or have bought sandwiches from Subway. Growl. Look, I’ve found something to complain about!

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I read an article on the NPR website that confirms for me the bureaucratic idiocy of the Catholic church. A Catholic priest used one wrong word in performing baptisms over a period of years; the Catholic powers-that-be decided that error invalidated the baptisms. Because, baptism is said to be the “sacrament that grants access to all the others,” any subsequent sacraments (e.g., confirmation, marriage, etc.) could be judged invalid.  The wrong word? The priest used the word “we” instead of the word “I.”  The priest spoke these words:

We baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

The sentence should have begun with “I.” The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said on its website, “It is not the community that baptizes a person and incorporates them into the Church of Christ; rather, it is Christ, and Christ alone, who presides at all sacraments; therefore, it is Christ who baptizes…If you were baptized using the wrong words, that means your baptism is invalid, and you are not baptized.”

Excuse me, Catholics, but this utter nonsense is…utter nonsense! What I presume to be an innocent mistake in a single word should not throw thousands of people (those who buy into this absurdity) into existential panic. My religious bigotry is showing; I realize that. But I cannot help but think people who have been brainwashed into believing in the sacredness of the rituals of a “make it up as you go” religion should not be subject to such trauma by the very church that caused them to be subject to such pain.  Okay. Off my “pulpit” for the moment.

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In spite of my distaste for organized religion, I recognize it has significant value for many people. One aspect of that value, I think, is religion’s ability to effectively quantify (maybe explain is more appropriate) the concept of sacredness or holiness. Both terms are as valid in a secular context as they are in a religious context, but religion seems to better attach meaning and value to them. Religions seem more willing than non-religious perspectives to acknowledge the emotions invested in things or ideas or people judged “sacred” or “holy.” When I consider something sacred or holy or both, I have a deep emotional attachment to it, a sense of awe, I suppose. That sense brings me to an emotional point at which my eyes may brim with tears. “A sacred bond of ever-lasting friendship,” for example, is one “tangible” example of a deeply-felt secular experience.

I’m too distracted to go into any more depth. Putting on shoes so I can go pick up groceries is occupying my mind at the moment. Personal philosophy is being edged out by practicalities.

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Off to engage with the day. And to be glad for the opportunity!

For various discernable reasons, I feel overwhelmed by obligations that, in reality, are not obligations. They are options I have chosen to treat as obligations. Perhaps “chosen” is not the right word. I should replace that word with “allowed myself.” I have transformed wishes into commands that exercise control over my time. These commands are not commands at all. They are imposters. They pretend to be obligations by dressing as obligations and speaking the language of obligations and drawing lines in the sand as if they were absolute obligations, not subject to challenge. These sly bastards have succeeded in convincing me to convince myself that I MUST behave in ways that are not REQUIRED, but merely DESIRED.

This is nothing new. And it’s not unique to me. All of us allow options to behave as if they were obligations. We allow our expectations of the consequences of failing to exercise our options to convince us that options available to us are, instead, obligations.

I realize, of course, the arguments that it’s all a matter of semantics. Well, yes and no. It is a matter of semantics in that an “obligation” may not equate to a command. But it is not a matter of semantics in practical terms. In practical terms. we treat options as if they were commands and, in so doing, we transform options into obligations that we treat as commands.

Perhaps this discussion could be made clearer with the use of concrete examples. I’m sure that is true, but I am not in the mood for concrete examples. I am in the mood for abstruse abstractions. Although this entire discussion is not especially abstruse. One simply has to be in a receptive mood in order for the simplicity of the concept to sink in.

Okay. I give in. I’ll offer at least one concrete example. Maybe more. I must finish painting the inside of several rooms in the new house before we begin the process of moving. No, I want those rooms to be painted before we move, but I am under no obligation to ensure that it is done. Nor am I under any obligation to do the work myself. If I want the job done, I could pay someone else to do it. But I have allowed my desire to have a different color paint on the walls to transform into a requirement that the walls be painted. Further, my desire to refrain from spending money on a professional painter has obligated me to do the work myself. No, my desire to refrain from spending money made me choose to do it myself. I am under no obligation to save money. Nor to do the work myself. Nor, for that matter, to ensure that the colors of the walls is different when we move in than they are today.

And that’s just one example. I could write about dozens more. Hence the feeling of being overwhelmed. I’d really rather simply sit and let the world go by. Or go visit The Momentary in Bentonville. And, while I’m at it, visit Crystal Bridges to see the latest exhibits. Or eat in some of the fine dining establishments in and around Bentonville. Or try some of the alluring bars in the same area. Or, perhaps, buy an expensive home within walking distance to all those attractions. I believe I’ve gone off the rails; my fantasies, though, correlate directly to my options that masquerade as obligations. They are all connected. I could offer proof, but I’ll just leave it as is because I have no need to prove anything to myself. Well, that’s not true, either, but discussion of my emotional uncertainty has no place in this paragraph.

See? This is what I do when my mind is hidden behind a locked door that can be opened only by entering a combination on its lock…but I’ve forgotten the combination. Or the lock is broken. Or the hinges are rusted shut. Or I’m at the wrong door and, no matter how hard I pound on the door, no one will open the damn thing to reveal that I’m in the wrong place.

It’s now 5:26 a.m. and I’ve been up since 3:02 a.m.  I was awake several minutes before I got up. I am confident I will slip into sleep early this evening. Maybe even during the afternoon hours I will nod off. But I should try to stay awake and alert until 10 or so tonight so I can actually sleep through the night. But my aching knuckle will wake me, I’m afraid, so there’s really no point in trying to sleep, knowing that sleep will elude me when my damn knuckle starts throbbing. I’m beginning to think my “sprain” may be more like a “tear.” Tissues hidden beneath the skin on my ring finger could be torn to pieces. Tendons or muscles or connective tissues in my finger might be shredded beyond repair. Yet I continue typing away, oblivious to the irreversible damage I am doing to my own phalanges. Or should I say phalanx, since it’s only the one finger?

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I may trade my Subaru Outback for a pickup truck. Probably not, but maybe. I regularly have use for a pickup, but I prefer the gentler ride of the Subaru. Actually, I’d much prefer the much smoother ride of a Lexus or a Toyota Avalon or their luxurious car cousins. But in terms of practicality, a pickup is hard to beat. A van, though, might be a contender, because its cargo area is protected from the elements. And a van can double as sleeping quarters with the right modifications—or in situations in which the collapse of civilization somehow renders living in houses in the Village unsafe. Hmm. Pickups, though, can be horrendously expensive. Vehicles that once were considered purely utilitarian and, therefore, were extremely inexpensive (compared to the “luxury” of cars with automatic transmissions and power brakes) are now akin to collectors’ items; or so it seems, based on asking prices. Seriously, $65,000 or more for a pickup? WTF! At that price, it should come with a pleasant companion (I’ll call her Samantha) who gladly would give the driver neck rubs any time he desires. But I’m getting away from my point: trading my car-like vehicle for a truck-like vehicle. I doubt that I’ll do it. I doubt, in fact, that I’ll give it serious consideration. But I’ve made rash decisions before. And I may do it again. But not right now. Not at this very moment.

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This overly-long, wandering, nonsensical diatribe is about to come to an end. My poor finger is pleading with me to stop torturing it. And I can hear readers crying out for me to do the same. Although I doubt anyone else will have read this far. But if I had the money, I would offer to buy the first a new car for the first one to contact me and say “extravaganza.”

Writing, from my perspective, is both tedious and stimulating. It combines elements of torture and elation, though not always at the same time. Perhaps the most important aspect of writing for me is its ability to prove to me that I can still think and that my imagination remains active and flexible. And that, somewhere inside me, a sliver of creativity exists that has the potential of breaking through, shattering an underlying layer of depression and anxiety.  Many days I find my fingers wandering aimlessly over the keyboard, tapping out words for no other reason than to keep my hands busy. On occasion, though, those same fingers seem to have a purpose—a reason beyond keeping company with the other prisoners affixed to the end of my hand. Today, those same fingers only pretend to have a purpose. They try to convince me that they can express a grand theme; but I know better. One of them, still aching and tender from an attempt to hold onto the leash of a neighbor’s powerful dog, screams at me to stop typing. The others urge me to ignore the whiner and allow them to release ribbons of text that might become a powerful piece of short fiction or, if I give them time, a novel with both intellectual substance and entertainment value. I cannot be fooled. The whiner, while perhaps overly dramatic in insisting he is in agony, must be given his due. I will make this morning’s needless ramble somewhat short.

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Though I did not watch the game, I know this morning that the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in a tight, 23 to 20 Super Bowl.

I know, too—thanks to a friend’s posting of a video showing how chickens are horribly, inexcusably abused by this country’s greed-driven leaders in poultry production—that henceforth I will allow myself to buy chicken only from sellers that can believably assert their humane treatment of the creatures before and during slaughter.

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My poor, whining ring finger can no longer tolerate this abuse. I fear I may have sprained it, though it looks just like the other fingers. Maybe some Motrin or aspirin will magically heal it. Until it’s better, I’ll rest the poor dear. At least for a while.

Here in the Little Rock Double tree, darkness pervades the quiet room. I am trying to be quiet, so as not to wake my sleeping companion. When she wakes, we will see about breakfast, then while away the hours until we walk next door to experience almost three hours, en mask, of a Broadway play, Hamilton. We watched the Broadway version, on the small screen, a few months ago. Today, though, we will witness a live performance. I’ve grown familiar with the music, though I will admit that I have not followed the lyrics very well. Last night, I read a transcript of the entire musical, so I feel even more attuned to the story and the words with which it is told.

This foray into a public venue with large numbers of people is a bit scary. Even though masks are required, we have no way of knowing who among the sea of our fellow patrons have been vaccinated. It’s a risk. At some point, I suppose, one has to let one’s guard down very briefly to maintain a sense of social cohesion. Heretofore, we have mostly stayed away from church—so this is a big deal.

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To the world you may be one person, but to one person, you are the world.

~ Unknown ~

Our detour into Little Rock obviously interrupted our work on the new house. But yesterday, the gutters were cleaned and new gutter guards were installed (assuming the job was finished). And that followed Friday’s momentous meeting with the flooring guy, during which we decided to take all the floors down to the subfloor and have new LVP put down. The flooring we selected is beautiful; it is called “Spice Acacia.” The timing depends on availability of the flooring, the installers, and the cooperation of Mother Nature. Tomorrow, I will return to my life’s work of painting the interior walls. I look forward to my freedom. And to a visit from one of my favorite people, assuming she will not shun me because of my exposure to Hamilton fans this weekend. (This public version of a private message is not intended for all audiences.)

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If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.

~ Haruki Murakami 

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Enough with this one-fingered typing. To those I love, may your day unfold as it should.

I’ve encountered—mostly through literature and film—several characters named “Destiny.” In most cases, the name seems oddly in conflict with the haphazard nature of their lives. Recently, I was reminded of another “Destiny” I encountered in passing, this one in the flesh. This one strikes me as the prototypical teenager, a child attempting to break into adulthood while clothed in layer after layer of thick, ill-fitting drama. But for the damage being done to her by living the quintessential soap-opera life, seeing her evolution from afar might be entertaining.

I will admit to unwarranted bias: who names their child Destiny? That act seems to me  a mother’s blatant challenge to the gods, shrieking and shaking her fist and saying, “What do you think you’re gonna do to me, huh?! I’m gonna throw this kid out there with a name that suggests she has a date with fate and I’ll just wait to see what you do about it!” Inevitably, of course, the child grows up in a double-wide trailer surrounded by chickens, living with a permanently unemployed and unemployable mother and an alcoholic father who beats his children to demonstrate his anger at his losses in poker games.

What is it that gives certain names unsavory backstories from the start? I suspect it has to do with the portrayal in literature and on film of characters with those names. Something about those characters’ troubled lives appeals to certain soon-to-be parents; it must have something to do with the parents recognizing themselves or their upbringing in the characters. Their unfortunate children must then live with the label that accompanies their names.

I realize, of course, my comments thus far may be highly offensive to people named Destiny and to people who have friends or family members with that name. To them, I would say “remember, I am just a bigoted nobody, so pay me no heed.” I write, even when my writing exposes me for what I am. It’s a sickness, I think. And there’s no treatment for it.

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The strengths and weaknesses of ties between people have been on my mind lately. What, I wonder, causes people to be drawn to specific others? We’re all very similar in so many ways—what unusual aspect of one another so captures our interests that we invest time and emotion and all manner of other personal energy in developing relationships? The question may be best examined by looking at familial ties. In families, the constant closeness with one another must reveal unique, attractive characteristics in other family members. Each member of the family has his or her own peculiar attributes that appeal in some ways to other family members. Though each idiosyncrasy varies significantly from the others, it connects our interests in personal ways.

The same thing that binds family members must apply to others. Somehow, uniquely attractive characteristics of other people come to our attention; almost instantly, a connection develops. And like familial connections, the ties can become frayed over time. Friendships dissolve or explode; romantic entanglements rupture; family ties erode and break. The power of those connections can be as strong monstrous cables that hold up bridges or  as weak as soap bubbles that explode upon contact with a blade of grass. Time seems to have little or no bearing to strength; a short-lived relationship can exceed by thousand-fold the strength of a life-long relationship.

I have lived in Hot Springs Village for almost eight years. During that time, I have experienced the formation and dissolution of several relationships that seemed strong, at first, but withered quickly and finally dissolved. But I have experienced the formation and evolution of a few other relationships that seem destined to form cables. As I look back at my life before I moved here, the number of cable-worthy relationships that developed was tiny, but the number that withered and dissolved is almost too large to count. As we age, I think we become more conscious of the impact of time; it seems to accelerate. Thanks to time, we become less inclined to invest in low-potential relationships, so fewer wither and dissolve. But we invest more time and emotion in a shrinking number of relationships that hold significant promise. Because of those investments, that smaller number yields greater long-term results. Not a large number, but a larger number.

This entire one-sided discussion may be unique to me. It probably is. Never mind what I’ve just written; it’s not for you, it’s for me.

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“Plunge.” That is a forceful word. It conveys strength. Raw power. The word actually growls as you get near it and it flexes its enormous muscles. Think of how the word is used: “He plunged a knife into his opponent’s heart.” “The diver plunged into the shark-infested waters.” “Eliza and Bernard took the plunge; the Justice of the Peace presided over their wedding at noon.” “Roberto plunged into the duties of coroner with deadly precision.” I wonder whether anyone has ever named a child “Plunge?” It would not surprise me. I like highly uncommon names. Not names like “John.”

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Speaking of powerful. Yesterday, a large, friendly, extremely powerful golden retriever (or some kind of cream-colored retriever) escaped a neighbor’s house. My girlfriend and I tried to corral him so we could return him to the neighbor two houses down. I attempted to grab the dog’s collar, but she was unwilling to have me do it. My ring finger got caught in the collar as she twisted; it felt like she twisted it off my hand. I screamed in pain; I finally extracted my damaged hand from the dog’s collar. The neighbor, aware the dog escaped, drove down to get the dog. I am certain the dog could have bench-pressed me while lifting her owner’s car with the other paw. Jesus! My finger still hurts like hell this morning.

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When I speak on the phone to someone I do not know, I have a habit of imagining what the person must look like. I am not quite sure why I do that, but I cannot seem to break the habit. I think it may be a mechanism to enhance the “value” of the person in my mind. The same thing is true when I receive text messages or email messages from people I have not met in person. I make up facial features, hair color, eye color, etc. I’ve discovered I’ve been wrong about their appearances far more often than I’ve been right. When I have imagined blond hair, it has been dark brown. When I’ve imagined brown eyes, they have been blue or hazel. Round face: oval. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In spite of my poor record (known to me because I ultimately come face-to-face with people with whom I’ve spoken on the phone), I still do it. I just need to have an idea of what a person looks like. Am I alone in this tendency to assign appearances to voices or textual messages?

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The day is here. Darkness has dissolved into light. Time to commence my daytime activities.

My parents never had much money. Their jobs were not well-paying and rearing six kids siphoned off every cent they had. To my knowledge, they never had much in savings and they had no retirement income except Social Security which, for them, was not much. They never had money to take vacations or to build or buy nice houses or to live real middle class or, would that it could be, upper middle class lives. I was quite conscious of the fact that the house I lived in for most of my formative years was not as nice or new as my friends’ houses. I was aware of the fact that we never took the same kinds of trips my friends’ families took. I assumed we did not visit relatives in distant places because we could not afford to make the trip. Maybe that can explain, at least in part, why I am so sensitive about money. I am extremely wary of over-spending. I worry about depleting my retirement reserves before I need them. I may be over-conscious of the fact that I have only my Social Security and my personal savings to carry me through until I die, so I tend to try to preserve my personal savings and rely solely on Social Security to the extent possible. That trait can lead to being teased about my miserly tendencies and my hesitance to spend money on things other people might not think twice about: new clothes, etc. One of the many reasons I decided not to have children can be traced to  witnessing my parents’ poverty relative to the parents of the kids who attended school with me. I did not want to work my entire life, only to reach retirement age with little to no money to enjoy the time I had left. It’s hard to know how much, or how little, to spend when the amount of time I have left is a complete unknown. That’s true of everyone, I suppose. What the hell am I rambling about?

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Thinking about my own upbringing (and the few memories I have of that experience) leads me to wonder about the early lives of my friends and acquaintances. I listen to my girlfriend talking about her youth, so I know a fair amount about her experiences. But what was Steve’s early life like as an adopted child? And how about Jim’s childhood? And other people, both face-to-face friends and online friends? What about them: Patty and Ducky and Roger and Deanna and Rhonda and Janet and Mark and Robin and Phil and on and on and on. I think it would be interesting to read a “my life until right now” summary from each of them, roughly ten pages in length, that might offer a glimpse into their very personal histories. I realize how little I know about so many people with whom I’ve had long-standing relationships. And, with the exception of what I’ve remembered and exposed in this blog, they probably know little about the early experiences that shaped me.

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I think I suffer from anxiety. “Suffer” may be too strong a word, but whether it is or not, lately I feel anxiety far too frequently and too deeply. A little anxiety is good; it’s motivational and requires a person to look out for his own well-being. Too much, though, can be debilitating to some degree. So, before my sense of being somewhat overly-anxious becomes more intrusive and destructive, I decided to explore how to reduce or redirect it into something else.

I assessed the extent to which I exhibit these symptoms, said to be elements in the diagnosis of anxiety disorder:

Excessive worrying—check
Difficulties sleeping & restlessness—check
Fatigue—check
Concentration issues—check
Irritability & tension—triple check with exponential emphasis
Increased heart rate & palpitations—not that I notice
Sweating & hot flashes—no
Trembling & shaking—nooo…welllll…a little…sometimes
Chest pains & shortness of breath—check
Feelings of terror or impending doom—not quite that intense, but…

Some of the signs simply are one’s normal reactions to the world around us. To what extent does one have to exhibit the symptoms to warrant a diagnosis of anxiety disorder? I haven’t a clue. Whether I have an anxiety disorder or simply feel more anxiety than normal of late, I have no interest in taking medications to control the symptoms. Instead, it occurs to me that a simple and deliberate meditation-based approach might be just as effective or more so. So, I depend on Google to lead me to resources.  The number of resources that ostensibly help with anxiety through meditation or mindfulness is stunning; dozens of online and other resources that promise to change the purchaser’s life. After skimming several fee-based meditation offerings, I decide to stick with resources that seem genuinely informative and do not ask for money. And, importantly to me, do not offer extravagant and absurd promises.

The Mayo Clinic’s discussion of anxiety—and dealing with it through meditation—surprised me a bit with its inclusion of religious components (which I interpret as suggestion options, not as demands). In a pretty lengthy online article, it offered suggestions on how to develop a meditation practice. (What follows is mostly verbatim from the website, but with a few personal edits):

Breathe deeply. Focus your full attention on your breathing. Concentrate on feeling and listening as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils. Breathe deeply and slowly. When your attention wanders, gently return your focus to your breathing.

Scan your body. When using this technique, focus attention on different parts of your body. Become aware of your body’s various sensations, whether that’s pain, tension, warmth or relaxation. Combine body scanning with breathing exercises and imagine breathing heat or relaxation into and out of different parts of your body.

Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra, whether it’s religious or secular. Examples of religious mantras include the Jesus Prayer in the Christian tradition, the holy name of God in Judaism, or the om mantra of Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

Walk and meditate. Combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you’re walking, such as in a tranquil forest, on a city sidewalk or at the mall. When you use this method, slow down your walking pace so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet. Don’t focus on a particular destination. Concentrate on your legs and feet, repeating action words in your mind such as “lifting,” “moving” and “placing” as you lift each foot, move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground.

Engage in prayer. Prayer is the best known and most widely practiced example of meditation. Spoken and written prayers are found in most faith traditions. You can pray using your own words or read prayers written by others. Check the self-help section of your local bookstore for examples. Talk with your rabbi, priest, pastor or other spiritual leader about possible resources. [John’s comment: In my mind, a secular “prayer” that acknowledges benefits I did not earn and offers appreciation to the “universe” for the day would more than suffice.]

Read and reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts, and taking a few moments to quietly reflect on their meaning. You can also listen to sacred music, spoken words, or any music you find relaxing or inspiring. You may want to write your reflections in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader. [John’s comment: My blog may serve this function, though perhaps reading others’ thoughts will be more calming.]

Focus your love and gratitude. In this type of meditation, you focus your attention on a sacred image or being, weaving feelings of love, compassion and gratitude into your thoughts. You can also close your eyes and use your imagination or gaze at representations of the image. [John’s comment: While love and gratitude are, I think, essential, focusing on a “sacred image” seems unnecessarily religious.]

Based on what I have read and my intellectual and emotional response to it, I think the outcome of working on the new house will be beneficial to an anxiety-relieving “meditation” practice. A comfortable and quiet place in the woods, in an area well-suited for walking without concerns about traffic, can be calming in and of itself. I can already envision taking daily walks that double as meditative acknowledgements of my good fortune. Repeating a mantra (something I would have considered no more than a ridiculous ritual in years past) that has some special meaning to me is an intriguing idea, though I’m not sure just what that mantra might be. I’ll think about it. I like the idea of reading and reflecting. And I already know and feel the importance of love and gratitude for everything I have—including physical possessions, a sense of being safely “at home,” and my life experiences that molded me into who I am and continue to shape me every day.

Obviously, I wouldn’t devote so much time to reading about and reflecting on anxiety if I did not feel its effects on me and on others in my sphere. I don’t think my anxiety is any greater than anyone else’s, but regardless of its severity or lack thereof. But any time it crosses the line between giving me a healthy awareness of my life’s situation and making me feel wary of “what comes next,” it merits attention.

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Secret longings. Fantasies. Wishes that, though in conflict with one another, provide the fuel for desire. These are things I will write about when I find the perfect place to think and view what hides behind the curtains in my mind. And I will return to Struggles, Arkansas and to my life and times when I was Kolbjørn Landvik or a dozen other characters on whom I may have modeled my life. I wrote a piece I called Fikshun, but I’ve never posted it here. Perhaps I will one day before long. I’ll get back to writing. I will.

If not for my growing fascination with posts made in the Facebook group, That’s It, I’m Architecture Shaming, I would not be so increasingly conscious of the brutalism style of architecture. But several members of the group regularly post photos of architectural atrocities that look like they were designed and built in deference to the totalitarianism of growling Soviet and East German dictators. And so I find myself able to identify a product of a brutalist architect with only a fast glance. Even people who are not familiar with the style will quickly recognize brutalist buildings: massive, plain grey concrete with sharp edges and devoid of “dainty” touches. One member of the Facebook group, in commenting about a photo of a brutalist building in Tasmania—now labeled a heritage site—says the building cannot really work in such a sunny locale because it “needs a backdrop of a grey sky to truly be appreciated for the love story to concrete that it is.” He nailed it. Brutalist architecture is, indeed, an homage to the “beauty” of massive, dull, grey concrete. All that having been said, though, I have found myself developing a much greater appreciation for brutalist architecture since joining the Facebook group. Having never made a comment about any of the posts, nor having posted anything myself, I am strictly a lurker. As a blogger hungry for engagement with my small band of regular readers, that is a deeply embarrassing admission.

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Just one week ago today, I placed what I considered an enormously expensive online grocery order with Walmart. This morning, I will pick up yet another very large order, though it is not quite as pricey as last week’s spending spree. If we were more energetic and better meal planners, we would be emptying the cupboards and freezers instead of stocking more and more “stuff” in them. Some stuff, of course, must be regularly replenished: milk, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies and the like, etc. But crackers and jam and peanut butter and jalapeños and olive oil and several other items probably should have made last week’s list even longer and more expensive; it’s not like we could not have anticipated a week ago needing them a week hence. Today’s order, though, includes meats (chicken and ground beef) and Greek yoghurt; we could have gotten by without them, opting instead to thaw foods in the freezer and/or open canned foods. Oh, well. Eventually, we will wade through the massive of collected foods. Before we move, we no doubt will decide life will be easier if we eat what we have, rather than pack and move boxes full of canned goods that could well belong to survivalists. Now that I’m shopping online, I rather enjoy grocery shopping. I’ve never been especially keen on wandering the aisles of supermarkets, looking for products that store management recently decided to relocate from one side of the store to the other. Ordering online is so bloody easy! I almost feel guilty that it’s not more work. But not quite.

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You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

~ Pema Chödrön ~

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I have long admired the writing of Pema Chödrön. She is an American Tibetan Buddhist and an ordained nun (whatever that means). According to Wikipedia, she is former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism (Greek to me) and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Chödrön is principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. I think it odd that I wish I could be a student at the abbey, so I could experience the teachings of an 85-year-old Buddhist nun. I suppose my appreciation for her began when I read one of her many books, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

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We spent a few hours at the new house yesterday, taping trim to protect it from paint and applying a layer of paint to the walls of what will become my girlfriend’s study. She chose a grey-blue color that I initially thought would be rather unattractive (but, hey, it’s her study). After painting about eighty percent of of the room, I changed my mind. It was a stellar choice. So attractive that I changed my mind about my study; I will use the same color on the walls in mine. Unlike her study, though, I will have to paint the ceiling in mine, because someone (I assume the dimwits from whom we bought the house) painted the ceiling dark sage-Army green. That was not the only abuse those people heaped upon the house. If nothing else, though, their treatment of the place gave us the opportunity to give it the TLC it needs to, eventually, become an attractive, livable home. I’m trying to be grateful. Trying very, very hard.

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I just got notice that Walmart could not fill part of my order: no ground meat and no Greek yoghurt. If I were paranoid, I would question whether the company cannot or has simply decided it will not fill the order. Perhaps someone who works for Walmart has decided to torment me by selectively refusing to sell to me items on my shopping list. Wouldn’t that be a fun game to play, if one had access to Walmart’s online shopping system? Just randomly select items from a shopper’s list and claim the items are not available, offering the shopper a cryptic message, such as, “We are unwilling to fill part of your order; you will not receive the zucchini you desired. Our refusal is based in part on recent behaviors of certain of your family members; we find those behaviors offensive. Should those behaviors continued, delivery of your next order will include items you do not want but which you will be forced to accept and pay for. Let this be a warning to you.”

And with that, I will crawl out from under my rock and wander into the day.

I saw a re-post on Facebook this morning that caught my attention. I wasn’t sure whether the words simply resonated with me because I endorse the sentiment they convey or, instead, whether they caused me to have an intensely introspective moment:

If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more?

Many of the comments that accompanied the post expressed gratitude to a supernatural being for gifts bestowed on the commenter. I found those comments especially shallow and utterly meaningless. They expressed appreciation “to” something external to the commenter. They seemed to me to position the commenters as helpless beings whose good fortunes, such as they were, came about because of some benevolent creature over which the commenters have no control. Something about that repulses me. Those comments almost caused me to turn away from the statement as just another hokey, imbecilic meme that extracts hokey, imbecilic comments from deeply superficial people.

It is foolish to squander the time you have to live your life here on Earth by telling others how to live their own lives.

~ The Grammarist ~

But I did not allow the responses, which I found pathetic and empty, to control my response to the assertion contained in the question. Even though the question is, in my opinion, an unnecessarily negative way of expressing a highly positive philosophical position, I think one’s response to the question is what matters. The more I thought about it, the more I realized why the words hit me the way they did. And, as I continued to contemplate the words—and my harsh reaction to the comments they elicited from others—the more I realized my reaction constituted unnecessary emotional expense. And those words made me recall my several short-lived attempts to develop a daily practice of gratitude. I suppose my idea of a “practice of gratitude” is akin to others’ practices of meditation. Maybe it is exactly the same thing. Whatever it is, I want to rekindle or resurrect the desire to develop a practice of gratitude. By doing so, I expect I will more fully appreciate my existence. Not that I will happily welcome every experience I have, but that I will try to take from every experience a lesson in living.

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A friend suggested to me not so long ago that I frequently use the word “shard” in my writing. Instantly, I realized she was right. I not only used it, I over-used it. I used it because I thought it seemed precisely right for those instances in which I used it.  But I could have and probably should have selected another word if for no other reason than variety.

Another word I used with greater-than-average frequency is “spectrum.” I think the ideas I convey when I use that word cannot be as effectively conveyed with any other words. It just fits, perhaps because its meaning expresses my perception of the range and density of experience. It applies not just to the range of colors on a scale of visible light, but to the range of related experience in every facet of our existence.

I may find another way of expressing the range of related experiences. Until I do, though, I will continue to use and perhaps over-use and very possibly misuse “spectrum.”

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The underlying philosophy that guides my life—except when I allow my biases and emotions and prejudices and multitudinous flaws intervene—is embodied in the proverb that says “live and let live.” The world would be a far better and more peaceful place if humankind would simply adopt and, more importantly, live by that philosophy.  This morning, as I pondered the extent to which I embrace what I consider my core philosophy, I read what others have to say about the phrase and its meaning. Here’s something I found online at grammarist.com; I think it is especially illuminating:

To “live and let live” means to be tolerant, to live one’s own life in the manner that he wishes and to allow the other fellow to live his life in the manner that he wishes. The philosophy of live and let live does not necessarily embrace or condone the differences of others, but it promotes accepting the differences of others without trying to change them. It is foolish to squander the time you have to live your life here on Earth by telling others how to live their own lives.

It is easy to express that “live and let live” is one’s guiding philosophy but much more difficult (at least for me) to accept and respond accordingly to that guidance. I find it more than a little hypocritical to espouse tolerance while simultaneously condemning intolerant behaviors (and the people who exhibit them) in others. The preceding sentence should be tattooed across my forehead as a reminder of my own hypocrisy. Something like it should be printed on bathroom mirrors all across the planet. Actually, a paragraph or two might be necessary to fully express the underlying message.

One shouldn’t belittle oneself. Except when warranted.

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Once again, I went to bed late, yet could not sleep past 3:00 a.m. It’s about a quarter past 5 and I’m beginning to feel like I might be able to sleep if I were to try, but I’d probably sleep until 8 or 9 if I did. I have things to do today, so I’ll try to stay awake for the duration.

Time to slice a cantaloupe for this morning’s breakfast. I might supplement cantaloupe with breakfast sausage. Or I might fall asleep in front of the stove.

Mistakes can be costly in many ways. They can cost money, time, energy, confidence, and comfort. Failing to own up to them can cost even more. Respect and trust are two of the most costly aspects of denying—or failing to admit—mistakes.  Everyone makes them. Probably every day. But sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to admit them; to do so, we seem to think, would weaken us in the eyes of others. In fact, the effect of admitting mistakes has the opposite effect. That admission, whether labeled courageous or not, tends to elevate our standing among people who matter. The admission pairs well with honesty; the two are intertwined like cables.  There can be horrific consequences of mistakes, of course. When an architect or builder makes mistakes that lead to a building’s collapse, neither an admission nor a heartfelt apology is adequate. Like everything else in life, mistakes—and the forgiveness afforded their makers—fall somewhere along a scale from quite minor to monumental. As we plod along in our lives, we try to avoid making mistakes, but inevitably we make them. Most of them can be corrected, but some of them can’t. Even the ones that cannot be corrected—at least most of them—can be forgiven. The choice to forgive is not up to the person who made the mistake, though. Sometimes, it is not even  up to the one(s) harmed by the mistake. Societies choose whether to forgive mistakes that may or may not harm society as a whole. The intertwined subject of mistakes and forgiveness could be the fodder for long and illuminating philosophical conversations. But those conversations require both the right circumstances and the right people. Both elements sometimes are too briefly available, though. So, the conversations remain unspoken until everything is in place. That is true of almost everything, though, not just philosophical conversations. Our entire experience of existence relies entirely on pieces of an incredibly elaborate puzzle coming together in just the right way at just the right time, which is an enormously unlikely occurrence. Viewed from that perspective, virtually everything we experience or witness or learn about is a miracle of one kind or another. Maybe a minor miracle. Maybe a miracle of immeasurable proportions. Life itself, and the absence of life, is an unlikely reality. Maybe they both are mistakes. Life is a mistake and death represents forgiveness. Or vice versa: death is a mistake and life represents forgiveness. Long philosophical discussions can be both illuminating and ultimately pointless. Except for the illumination.

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I am not sure whether it was the pain in my knee or the troubling dream that woke me the second time. Maybe both. The knee has been giving me trouble for weeks. Maybe months. I understand the genesis of the dream, though it was a bit morbid. I was arguing with an attorney about modifying my will to leave my white sofas to a couple of friends who have made it known that they want them if ever I decide to sell them. “You don’t include pieces of furniture in your will,” the attorney snarled. I don’t recall exactly how I responded to her, but it was something along the lines of “It’s not your effing will, but I’m your effing client, so you’ll modify the effing will exactly as I prescribe!” The dream involved other items I wanted to include in my will, but I don’t remember what. I needed to modify the document right away because I expected to die soon. I wasn’t panicked in the least by that fact; I just felt a sense of urgency to get it done while I could. Weird and troubling. I can see how the dream could shake me awake. The knee has done it before. And at some time during the night last night, I remember my bedmate asking what was wrong; I must have been moaning in response to the pain in my knee. What a way to start the day: very early and with my mind on modifying my will.

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don’t think your way into becoming yourself.

~ Anne Lamott

After I woke, but before I got out of bed, my head flooded with thoughts about necessary repairs and modifications to the new house. I think I must have reflected on every hinge that needs to be replaced and every door that needs to be adjusted and every inch of paint that needs to be carefully applied at the juncture between the wall and the ceiling and every countertop that needs upgrading and every other imperfection that will require money to correct. By the time I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what’s needed. As I think about it now, the size and scope of what’s needed is not really overwhelming, but it is far beyond what I expected when buying a house that was ostensibly “move-in ready.” I thought, initially, all it would require would be paint and a willingness to overlook its copious imperfections. I suppose that willingness has turned to dust; I need to refresh it somehow.

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The other day, I wrote about how I found this image fascinating. This morning, as I contemplate the image, I realize how the actual piece of art must appear very different, depending on one’s perspective. Viewing it from above, it looks like the image I see in the photograph. But if I bend down close, it must appear less symmetrical. And if I put my head down on the sand next to it, the components in my line of sight must appear as a rather disorderly bunch of rocks. Its beauty emerges only with a degree of distance from the elements of the art. My late wife and I once bought a mug—it may still be around here, hanging on a mug rack—with an image that, close-up, looks like a bunch of pixelated abstract dots. But if you hold the mug a distance from your eyes, you see an image that appears to be a profile of Abraham Lincoln. The image on the mug is a copy of Salvador Dalí’s lithograph, Lincoln in Dalivision, which was created on the basis of Dalí’s painting, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at a distance of 20 meters is transformed into the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko). Interesting stuff. Evidence that distance and perspective play vital roles in how we see the world around us.

Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.

~ Bruce Lee ~

Today is my friend’s birthday. If justice prevailed in our corner of the universe, she and her husband would rush down to Hot Springs Village so we could celebrate her successful attainment of a certain age. Alternatively, we would head north, arriving just in time to open a bottle or six of wine or champagne or excellent cognac or armagnac and present to her a charcuterie board that would rival those offered by the best French restaurants. This edible delight would be awash in sausage, ham, bacon, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, confit, and other dishes about which I have virtually no knowledge but for which I understand I should hunger because they represent the pièce de résistance of the world’s cuisine. Alas, this little corner of the world is rife with injustice. So, we’ll have to make it another time. And another meal.

In the meantime, let me explain a little something about this delightful friend of mine. As the image accompanying this post suggests, she is both complex and beautiful; a woman whose intellectual capacity and ability to engage in abstract thinking are stunning.  And her memory is astonishing—astounding. She remembers everything, from the smallest inconsequential detail about the color of the button’s on a family member’s shirt to the most crucial slice of information upon which humankind relies for survival. One can tell merely by looking at her that she is a work of art, an example of how art and intellect coalesce into something almost otherworldly.

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Happy Birthday, by the way! When will we see you?

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There are other friends, too. People like Steve and Rhonda and Patty and Ed and others. But only one, the woman pictured here, is eligible for birthday celebrations today. Which is not to say I will not think about the others. I will. Without question. But only one will be the intended recipient of today’s birthday wishes.  And there you go.

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I may write more a little later in the day. Or I may not. We shall see. In the meantime, I will hope to be able to successfully maneuver patches of ice and refrozen snow so I can meet several contractors who may help convert the new house into a highly livable oasis.

The temperature this morning, as of about 5, was 21°F. Today’s high is expected to reach 46°F. But the air temperature will remain at or below freezing until around 9 this morning. These facts matter to me because the slush remaining on the roads, particularly roads that had little or no traffic yesterday, certainly has frozen solid overnight. Black ice and re-frozen snow melt make for treacherous driving conditions. Even though my car is an all-wheel-drive vehicle, I hesitate to drive it on hilly terrain covered with ice—especially steep, hilly terrain. I want to drive to our new house today. I started to drive over yesterday, but when I reached a steep area that was shaded by pine trees, I decided the risk of sliding off the road and down a steep embankment was too great…so I returned home. I wonder how different it will be today? Maybe I’ll stay in, as much as it probably will drive me approximately crazy.

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Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

~ Words from an Irish headstone ~

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I read this morning about California-born figure skater Zhu Yi’s falls in the Olympic competition in Beijing. Though an American, she was chosen to represent China in the event. Her unfortunate falls apparently gave rise to voluminous vitriolic comments on Chinese social media, though the mostly Chinese crowd in the stadium at the event applauded her as she bowed. I have grown to despise the concept that Olympic athletes “represent” their (or “a”) country. That idea foments rabid nationalism which, to my way of thinking, is anathema to the very concept of Olympic competitions. In my mind Olympic events are about individual and team performance. They are not meant to demonstrate one nation’s superiority over another; rather they are meant to celebrate individuals’ and teams’ extraordinary capabilities. The fact that Chinese social media attacked Zhu Yi simply demonstrates that China is just as susceptible to the imbecilic capacity for rabid nationalism as any other country. The shame about which the online attackers complain is not about Zhu Yi; it should be about posters’ own behavior. While I’m ranting about the Olympics, I’ll go on record as saying I think eligibility to compete should be limited to amateur athletes; athletes who are paid for their athletic performance should be ineligible to participate. Growl.

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I made sardines with grits for breakfast yesterday, just as I suggested I might. My breakfast had long-since been finished and the dishes washed and put away before my morning solitude ended a couple of hours later. During that morning solitude, the origin of sardines with grits never entered my mind. But when asked if the meal’s concept was “mine,” I responded that I doubted it, but I did not know its origin. This morning, before I began writing this post, I explored a bit, which jogged my memory. It seems sardines with grits is a fairly common dish in the Caribbean. Yet they are most common, from what I gather, in the Bahamas, which are neither in the Caribbean nor on its border. Notwithstanding their geographic distance from (or perhaps because of their proximity to) the Caribbean, the island nation is a full member state of the Caribbean Community. But that fact has nothing to do with sardines and grits, does it? No, so I’ll move on. So, based on today’s cursory research (and the resurrection of memories), sardines with grits is a Caribbean dish. I must have found mention of it long ago; I remember making it when I lived in Dallas, so it has been at least several years since I first tried it. My memory tells me I must first have encountered mention of the dish when conducting research for my “breakfast around the world” book, which I’ve never finished. I’ve never been to the Caribbean, so I did not come across it there. I remember another Caribbean (Jamaican) dish, one I’ve tried more recently, is saltfish and ackee. When I say “recently,” I mean since I moved to Hot Springs Village. I wrote about that dish on a blog post in November 2015.

The pause for research that led me to find the saltfish and ackee post also led me back to a March 2013 post I entitled “A Renaissance of Sardines,” in which I posted a recipe for sardines and grits. That recipe was slightly more involved than yesterday’s dish (which consisted of canned sardines packed in water, grits, and a few splashes of habanero sauce). The original recipe called for sardines packed in olive oil, grits, chopped black olives, and diced tomatoes.

While pondering those old recipes and the research I used to conduct in pursuit of my unfinished book, it occurred to me that my research tapered off when my late wife started exhibiting symptoms that her congestive heart failure was getting worse. Though she was not nearly as much of an aficionado as I, she enjoyed trying the occasional unusual (for us) international breakfast. When her interest began to decline, I no longer had a willing partner with whom to explore international breakfast traditions. I’ve never known of anyone else willing to explore gustatory adventures, at least not with regard to breakfast. That may not be true. I may have known others who are/were willing, but not in such an easily casual manner. Neither she nor I ever claimed to have the taste of a gourmet, nor to be fiercely and passionately committed to culinary matters. We both just enjoyed trying new foods and new flavors.

The oddest things can trigger precious memories which, in turn, can awaken grief from its slumber.

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I awoke this morning at around 3:30. I had an odd feeling that someone was standing nearby; there was no one standing nearby. I got up for a minute, but decided it was just too early to get up for the day, so I went back to bed. Just after 4, I admitted defeat and got up for good. Although I knew there was no one standing nearby, that feeling kept coming back, then fading, then coming back again. Finally, I decided I must have been thinking about writing a piece of fiction in which two people communicate with one another through their dreams. That must be it. But, still…

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I fell in love with this image I encountered yesterday. Actually, I fell in love with a number of images yesterday. Much of my day was spent at the computer, looking at art of various kinds. In my mind’s eye, I see images I would like to create on canvas or on the side of buildings, but I do not have the technical skills nor the mental capacity to transfer what I see in my head to the physical world. I admire artists whose hands and brains can work together in such extraordinary fashion that they produce magnificent works of art that I consider almost magical in their ability to spellbind viewers or participants. The image here should be relatively easy to replicate, with the right stones and the right beach. But that’s a bit like saying I should be able to create paintings just like the brilliantly colorful works of Leonid Afremov; all I need are the right paints, the right brushes and/or palette knives, and the right canvas. The successful merger of visions, skills, and materials requires at least a few dashes of magic.

You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, it’s wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy.

~ Thích Nhất Hạnh ~

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I vacillate between believing in the wisdom of people like Thích Nhất Hạnh and drenching myself in skepticism and setting it ablaze by striking matches made of disbelief. I prefer the way I feel when I think simple wisdom is the best guide to living a good, valuable, meaningful life. But I must admit that I feel that way less frequently than I’d like. I get frustrated. Upset. Angry at the world. “Why can’t we just…?” Is my fallback question when I think humankind is on the brink between perfection and irrevocable chaos. That is, usually.

But when I force myself to empty my mind of distractions and focus on the tangerine (a metaphor, in my way of thinking, for incredibly beautiful simplicity), the wisdom floods through as if a dam had been breached. Truth and love and palpable magic flows like silken honey. It’s really quite spectacular, albeit brief. Brief because I quickly realize the impossibility of getting everyone on the same “wavelength.” Oh, well.

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I feel as though I am being watched. Like someone is viewing me from a distance, tracking my moves. I sense someone’s eyes following me from the bedroom into the kitchen as I get up in the morning to make coffee and begin my day. A detective, perhaps, but not a police officer. And not someone paid to gather intelligence about me; no, it’s not a private investigator. Instead, I think I am being assessed. Evaluated. Sized up. The watcher—the voyeur—doesn’t see my every move. Probably doesn’t see me much, if at all. But she—if, indeed, the follower is a she—deduces what I am doing by analyzing what I say. And she infers, by carefully watching my shadow, the routes my body takes when it leaves one place and goes to another.

You probably have decided by now my story of being watched is just that; a story. Yes, it is. But it’s also tinged with suspicion. Suspicion is not the right word. No, curiosity is more like it. Is someone following my thoughts by reading what’s on my mind? Does someone I’ve never met extrapolate my broader thoughts by reading snippets of what’s on my mind in my blog posts?

What I’ve just suggested describes the way I sometimes create characters when I write fiction. I watch people in restaurants, in grocery stores, in their cars, etc., etc. And as I watch them, I take cues from their behaviors; those cues tell me what the people are thinking, where they live, how they make their living, and a million other details. Watching and listening, I get hints about others’ lives. I get enough to be able to get inside their heads so I can find motives for what they do and say. Eventually, I no longer have to watch and listen. Eventually, they do as they please and simply transcribe their thoughts and actions for me. My fingers sort and organize the letters into words and sentences, but they do the heavy lifting by telling me what to say.

Somewhere between being watched and allowing my fingers to respond to the commands of characters who exist in my head (often, though, because of characters who exist elsewhere), is the intersection between reality and fantasy. It is where the two merge that I find myself most comfortable. The real world is too harsh and demanding. The fantasy world is not sufficiently believable. Only where they come together does life feel natural and worth the investment of whatever it is we’re giving up to get it.

That’s an interesting concept, I think. Consider that life itself is a commodity we’re purchasing. Or is it purely an investment? What is the form of exchange we use to buy it? In Capitalist thinking, we must be investing life itself in the hope and/or expectation that we will have more of it to spend over time. That, of course, is ludicrous. Except that it’s not. No, by spending/investing wisely, we enhance the amount of life available to us. So, with proper food, shelter, and an environment conducive to sustaining life, we have more life to spend. Similar arguments could be made on behalf of other economic models, of course. Communism or socialism could demonstrate the same relationships.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This statement is not necessarily restricted to material goods or monetary units. It may apply just as well to emotional capabilities and requirements. If you have love available to give and I am in need of love, we have a deal. Except what do you get in return for giving? Or is reciprocity necessary in such an emotional exchange?

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Sometimes, writing is dangerous. Sometimes, the fingers want to express thoughts that must not be expressed  publicly if one wants tranquility to prevail. If I were to write what’s on my mind right now, I might offend some people, thrill others, and put myself in the position of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. One serves oneself and the world at large by keeping one’s own counsel. Yet, perhaps openness and honesty can bring about extreme clarity. One might discover that one’s thoughts are not entirely out of synch with the way others see the world. Hmm. That’s a risk sometimes worth taking. And sometimes not.

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I may make sardines with grits for breakfast this morning. Just for me. I think I’m the only one in the house who finds such stuff appealing.

One of my blog posts found its way into the February issue of The Springs Magazine. The publisher, JoAnn Mangione, who occasionally follows this blog, asked if she could include one of my posts in her magazine. Naturally, I was honored and delighted at the compliment. My little contribution is on page 8 of the February issue. My little piece represents a tiny sliver of the magazine. The magazine deserves a cover-to-cover read. If you’re interested in the arts and entertainment in and around Hot Springs, Arkansas, it is your best source of information.

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Except for recommendations we got to the contrary, we had planned to drive to central California within the past few days for a birthday surprise. We had hoped to see my sister during the trip. As life unfolded, though, delaying the trip was probably the best decision. But I’m anxious to make that trip before too many months have passed. As soon as we have comfortably completed our new house and sold this one, I want to hit the road for a bit. I say that a lot, don’t I? Well, yes I do. Because a long, meandering road trip has been on my mind for years. Almost as long as my longing for an orange Kubota tractor and a place to put it to use. I’ve about given up on my dream of working a piece of rural land; I’m too old and too sedentary these days. But I can drive. And I can get lost in awe as I encounter new topography and new horizons and awe-inspiring geology and vegetation and vistas that bring me almost to tears.

I will promise myself this: no later than June 1 this year, I will embark on a road trip; one long enough to satisfy my wanderlust for at least a while. It may be just two or three days long or three or four weeks long. And I don’t plan to do it alone. Whatever it is, I will do it so I can recover what’s left of my sanity. I keep telling myself there’s never a guarantee of tomorrow, yet I keep putting things off until “tomorrow.” That has to stop.

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I do not know whether road conditions will allow me to meet my floor guy this morning. I suppose time will tell.

I feel depressed this morning. There’s no etiology to my mood. Though there are plenty of things that could be partly responsible for it, I don’t think anything is to blame. I sometimes feel like nothing matters. But then, suddenly, the heavy grey blanket is pulled away from me and I can see and appreciate the blue sky. Not this morning, though. I want to see the blue sky and I want to feel and appreciate all the gifts of life that surround me. And I will. But not now. I wish I could flip a switch so that an electric current could flow through me, supplying energy and power to the emotions I want to feel. But I cannot find the switch. I feel around the doorway in the dark and it’s not there. I wish that, by walking through a door, I could instantly erase my existence from before I was conceived. Not like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but in a more realistic sense, like no one was impacted, positively or negatively, by my existence…that never was. This is not new. It happens on occasion and it always fades into memory. Not entirely gone, but not being so assertive that it invades my otherwise sunny disposition.

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My brother’s death last week was expected. Even after several days of allowing reality to sink in, though, it’s still hard to believe he died. It’s difficult to come to grips with the fact that he and I will  no longer engage in conversation. I will no longer be able to listen to him asserting strong opinions about matters about which we had radically different points of view. Within days of his death—before and after—the reality of his poverty asserted itself. Before his latest medical emergency, my sister had provided a few thousand dollars in funds for him to move from his longtime hell-hole of an apartment in a decaying old house to a senior living facility. Unfortunately, he fell ill and was hospitalized before he could move. Then, when his Medicare-covered hospitalization ran out (withdrawn because he no longer demonstrated the “progress” Medicare demanded to continue covering his care), I offered to pay for up to a month’s nursing home care while a long-deferred Medicaid application was completed and processed. He died just hours after he was moved to the facility…the facility that would not accept him until it received thirty days’ coverage in a shared room. At a rate of $7,530 per month.  When he died, I paid the nearly $1,000 fees required by the crematory. It was all a matter of convenience; other siblings would willingly contribute, but the process was greatly simplified with a single payer. It is my understanding that my expenses with the nursing home will be refunded. And it’s possible my brother’s bank account could be sufficient—thanks only to my sister’s earlier contribution for his move—to cover his cremation. My brother was extremely bright, but he made a lot of decisions over his lifetime that were not in his best interests. And he was the victim of circumstances beyond his control, as well. He was in part responsible for his poverty, but he was not entirely responsible. He did not deserve to live in poverty. No one does. But it sometimes is impossible to successfully intervene to counter the full throttle of social and economic engines that seem hell-bent on reaching an unwanted destination. Yet I wonder how his life might have been different if I had been willing to keep arguing with him even after he rejected the conversations. I could have refused to take “no” for an answer when he declined to accept my offer of providing start-up funding for his own air conditioning installation and repair company. I could have sent him money other times even when he said he would not accept it. Of course I’ll never know whether those or a dozen other financial and/or emotional support interventions would have changed the course of his life. But perhaps they would have. Maybe he would have had a healthy financial reserve so he could have paid for  his own care in his final days and so that his own financial cushion could have paid for his cremation. Maybe. But it’s pointless to speculate about what is now impossible.

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Sleet. Ice pellets. Freezing rain. Though I am not sure what is responsible for the noise, something relentlessly pelts the windows this frigid morning, making a sound unique to cold winter weather. When I awoke just before 4, an inch of white something—snow? ice?—covered the glass-topped table on the deck. Moments later, the sounds against the window began in earnest. The online weather forecast claims freezing rain is falling. It goes on to say that freezing rain will change to ice pellets this afternoon. And the forecast calls for temperatures to remain in the mid-twenties until late tomorrow afternoon, when they briefly will break through freezing, then drop to the teens through Saturday morning.

I suspect my Friday appointment with a guy to inspect the old flooring in my new house will not take place as planned. There will be too much ice on the roads to allow us to safely meet. I will be stuck here at my old house until sometime Saturday—maybe even Sunday—when Nature gives me permission to venture out to see what damage ice might have done to the trees and power lines. Thus far, our power has held. I hope it continues to keep us safe and warm for the duration of this winter storm.

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While the weather’s icy tantrum plays out, I will find chores to occupy my time inside. One of the tasks  on which I envision I will spent my time is to tighten the legs on all the dining chairs. When the chairs were recovered a few short years ago, the upholsterer stapled a piece of black fabric to the underside of the seat of each chair. That fabric covers the intersections between the seats and the legs of the chairs, making it impossible—without painstakingly removing every staple—to tighten the bolts connecting those pieces together. These Scandinavian chairs are brilliantly simple in design. But the addition of North American “style” has interfered with their simplicity. I truly admire the minimalist simplicity of Scandinavian design. I am not so taken with the North American stylistic additions. But at least the icy weather will give me time to do something I’ve put off for months. I hope I take advantage of that time, rather than frittering it away by engaging in mindless drivel.

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If the universe were in the mood to treat me more kindly, it would supply me with a month of isolation in a comfortable cabin in the far northern reaches of Canada—or somewhere else equally distant from the demands of the world. The cabin would be amply stocked with food, fire wood, and an assortment of tools and supplies to enable me to make ceramics, work with wood, pretend to make art with metal, and teach myself how to make stained glass objects. The cabin would have a computer on which I could write every morning and, possibly, many nights. While the computer would have internet access for the purposes of writing on my blog, I would be unable to read about or hear about world news. The only information I could get from the computer would be weather forecasts. By the end of the month, I would have answered my own questions. All of them. I would re-enter society with a better understanding of myself and how I can better engage with all the troubles that life and death throw at us. The answers are all there, inside. I just need to figure out a way to get at them.

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My mood is brightening a bit. I knew it would. It’s not even 6 yet and I’m tired again. It’s too early or too late to take a nap. And it’s too early to make noise in the kitchen. I will tiptoe around. It will be fine.

I disagree vehemently with a lot of people about their beliefs. I detest the repugnant philosophies of the KKK.  I find offensive the claims by some groups of men who insist that equal protection laws target men with the purpose of subjecting men to slavery by radical feminists. I am disgusted with people who insist that the Civil War was not about slavery but about States’ rights. But reacting to those philosophies and the people who hold them by stripping them of their ability to say what they think is contrary to the principles of democracy and the principles upon which the United States was founded. I have mixed feelings about giving a microphone to people whose words could promote or actually incite violence. But I think the excuse of snatching that microphone away to deter violence is too often a cover for silencing unpopular ideas. I loathe the idea that protected speech applies only to speech that espouses ideas with which we agree. That, in my view, is simply an “acceptable” form of forced conformity—mob rule disguised as democracy. It is hypocrisy of the highest order. Unfortunately, anti-democratic actions in the name of protecting human dignity are enjoying a monstrous upsurge. Silencing conservative viewpoints by refusing to allow conservative pundits to speak on liberal collect campuses seems increasingly to be in the news. The way to combat offensive rhetoric is not to silence it. The way to combat it is to forcefully argue against it, using honesty, logic, and an appeal to the deepest parts of humanity.

Whoopi Goldberg’s suspension from co-hosting The View (even after her apology and retraction) bothers me. She was castigated for saying the Holocaust was about man’s inhumanity to man and not about race. Before her censure, she said this:

“But I thought it was a salient discussion because as a Black person, I think of race as being something that I can see. So I see you and know what race you are…I thought it [the Holocaust] was more about man’s inhumanity to man…But people were very angry and said, ‘No, no, we are a race.’ I felt differently. I respect everything everyone is saying to me.”

Whether I buy her philosophy or her apology or not, I think stripping her of her ability to express her views is more offensive than any views she might have expressed.  In my opinion, Kim Godwin’s (president of ABC News) reaction to the controversy was more about bending to slanted public opinion than about “morality.” Godwin took the side of censorship. A principled leader who had the courage of her convictions might have, instead, said, “I find Whoopi Goldberg’s statements deeply offensive, but I find even more offensive the idea of silencing her because she disagrees with me. ” Or something to that effect.

Oh, I have been guilty of wanting to silence people (and calling for them to be silenced). But when I think, deeply, about what that means, I cannot help but be ashamed for behaving in such a brutally anti-democratic fashion. I absolutely abhor philosophies that I find offensive and dangerous and contrary to principles of human decency. But my distaste for those philosophies should not give me the latitude to suppress them. I should have to use my superior powers of logic to defend my position and to overcome the one I find offensive.

I find suppression of Whoopi Goldberg and the refusal to allow speakers (whether progressive or conservative) on college campus fundamentally wrong. It is, in my view, equivalent to book burning. And THAT, I believe, is the definition of evil.

The posts on this blog generally amount to conversations with myself. That is true even though my intent these days is to engage readers in far-flung dialogues that mimic the philosophical exchanges one might expect during a comfortable morning gathering over a long, leisurely coffee with friends. Or, during a late evening get-together over wine or shots of fine whiskey or smooth tequila. That’s the intent. Instead, these posts represent early-morning transcriptions of keenly personal conversations between an isolated mad-man and his equally reclusive doppelgänger; a man and his twin stranger who look and think dangerously alike.

The reader of this blog, then, who usually just skims the transcriptions and leaves without joining the discussion, is an eavesdropper. Someone who may be listening-in on the off-chance of gathering a juicy tidbit or who may be sufficiently bored to find even deranged dialogue modestly interesting—but not adequately engaging to warrant participation in the conversation. Perhaps it’s a bit like watching an automobile accident: it embarrassingly captures one’s fascination, but is not sufficiently intriguing to justify swerving at high speed into the tangle of bent metal and broken glass. An observation and a question arise from that similarity. Viewing an automobile accident usually prompts at least a few witnesses to inquire whether there’s a need for police intervention or medical assistance. Skimming the wreckage here rarely triggers such inquiries; instead, witnesses become like voyeurs who slowly drive by the aftermath of the chaos, assuming someone else called for an ambulance.

Admittedly, I can take comparative drama to absurd levels, but it’s just to make a point. That I feel a little like I’m having a one-sided conversation, although the dialogue does take place with myself, so it really is two-sided; just weirdly two-sided with someone who’s just as strange as the man in the mirror. The occasional comment from a reader, though, is like hearing the sound of a refreshing new voice chime in, giving the conversation much greater dimension and resonance. I wonder whether an early morning live podcast, either in addition to or instead of the blog, might trigger more engagement? Of course, comfortable early-mornings for me may be more like sinister times during which wakefulness is to be avoided at all costs to prospective “listeners.” I guess I could record the conversation with myself. But that might make the embarrassment of fascination with watching automobile accidents even more troublesome. Ach! Something to consider.

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For reasons too involved to warrant writing about them here, I did not pick up my glasses yesterday. In place of that errand, we saw the flooring beneath the luxury vinyl tile. Time will tell what we can/will do about our floors. Today, we will drive to Little Rock to visit a dining table whose cousin may wish to live in our new house. We will decide whether the cousin is a suitable half-sister substitute to our family of chairs. It may get messy, this effort to merge members of unrelated families from wildly divergent backgrounds into a nuclear family whose heads belong to a completely different species. But we’re adventurous. If anyone can, we can manage to meld screaming children from different cultures into a cohesive family unit that dutifully obeys its permanent foster parents.

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I will admit to wishing for bad things to happen to the people from whom we bought our new house. It’s only fair, I think, that bad things, sufficiently hidden from them so as to be completely unexpected, should happen to disrupt their lives in ways they simply cannot imagine. I’m in an Old Testament mood this morning: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The principle of reciprocal justice, measure for measure, is offensive to me in so many ways, but it does appeal to the baser elements of my prehistoric personality. Maybe it’s my recent fascination with synchronicity that makes me find such a base and brutal idea so appealing—that old-style linkage between crime and punishment speaks volumes about the synchronous nature of the  universe.

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Secrets. The idea of keeping secrets intrigues me. I’ve kept some secrets for years and years and years because to share them might cause pain or discomfort or embarrassment for people who matter or mattered to me. Some people find keeping secrets nearly impossible. They feel compelled to share what should not be shared. They hope the person with whom they share the secret will have greater honor, better discipline, and more integrity than themselves.  Sharing the secret reveals that their integrity is no longer intact; it is so badly cracked that it leaks promises and honesty, as if a faucet was turned. But is breaking a promise by sharing a secret truly evidence of irredeemable corruption? On one hand, sharing a secret one explicitly or implicitly promised not to share is inarguably a breach of integrity. On the other, “it depends.” Just like “a little white lie” may be only a minor rupture in one’s honor—but it’s still a rupture. Somewhere along the spectrum between integrity and corruption, there is a point at which the scales are no longer balanced; one either has integrity or is corrupt. Unfortunately, that point shifts, depending on context. Nothing is black and white. Everything is a shade of grey; everyone has his or her own opinion of where grey becomes too dark. We attempt to legislate morality. That is like legislating the distance between the stars.

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I could go on. In fact, I’m in the mood to keep writing. But I won’t. Things on my mind right now are too much like walking on eggshells; no need to cause grief, as it’s in ready supply without my help. Yet I want to have real conversations about things that matter. Things that are difficult, but that warrant discussion and debate. Lots of things. Matters of honor and love and disdain and fury and serenity and everything in between. Things about which we wish we had definitive answers but know we will not reach that point in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of anyone now living or living one hundred years hence. Ach! I wonder what conversations with Plato or Aristotle would have been like? Would they have asserted their philosophies and defended them as unassailable? Or would they have been open to examining viewpoints that were utterly foreign to them? Existential crises bring about such thoughts, I suppose. Nothing to be worried about. Existence ends. Crisis averted.

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Time for a shower. I shaved just after 4, so I’m ahead of the game. Breakfast will follow at some point. Even though I’m hungry right now. I have sufficient discipline to wait for thirty minutes. Or so.

Once again, I was unable to sleep through the night. Though I went to bed early, I woke only two or three hours into the night’s sleep. From that point forward, I drifted in and out of sleep at roughly ten-minute intervals. Finally, around 3, I got up for a while. Then, back in bed by 3:30. And, finally, up for the day before 4:30.

I have a bit on my mind, though none of it represents anything overwhelmingly pressing. The most important matter, I suppose, is the need to call the funeral home in Houston. They told me Friday they would need the email addresses for my sister and brothers (and me), so they can send each of us a message. The message will invite us to “e-sign” a document attesting to the fact that we are my dead brother’s only immediate family and that we agree to and request that his body be cremated.  And the funeral home will want my credit card number, I imagine, to pay for the cremation. Therein one can clearly see the intersection of capitalism and the delicate social customs designed to soften the hardest edges of life. And the edges where life intersects with death.

Beyond those unpleasantly fresh reminders of my brother’s death just two days ago, my duties are rather dull and innocuous. I still have not gone to the optical shop to pick up the replacement frames for the ones that broke a couple of weeks ago; I will do that today. And the delayed process of removing the overlaid flooring in the new house is scheduled to commence today. So, I’ll need to clear the floor of tarps and paint buckets and chairs and other odds and ends. I look forward to learning whether the hardwood flooring beneath the less-than-stellar luxury vinyl tile can be saved. There’s more. Lots more. I should, from now until we move into the new house and complete the sale of the current one, reject any offers to be social. I should just work. But I’ve already made commitments, so I guess that is out of the question. I want a road trip. A long, meandering road trip. Oh, yes.

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Why is it that we establish such utterly arbitrary limits on certain human interactions? For example, we shake hands (or fist bump, courtesy of COVID), but hugging may or may not be an appropriate greeting. The legitimacy of hugging depends on an imprecisely defined degree of familiarity between two people. And kissing on the cheeks is acceptable only if the imprecision of familiarity is taken to another, equally impossible to measure, level. Kissing on the mouth is strictly forbidden, save between people whose familiarity is close in the extreme—except when it’s not.

When one is no quite sure of the degree of familiarity one has with another person, awkwardness abounds. I may feel sufficiently familiar with a person to feel comfortable with a hug, but they may not have reached that point yet…so an attempted hug may be met with an uncomfortably awkward withdrawal.

I’m not happy with this awkward imprecision. I wish we all felt comfortable with hugging, kissing, etc. Seriously, why is an embrace in which two bodies are in close, human-to-human touch acceptable, but a kiss between those two people, in which only lips are involved, is not? I realize I am asking rhetorical questions here. I might find it more than a little upsetting if my girlfriend kissed another man. But, of course, I should be permitted to kiss and be kissed by my women friends because….well, because double standard.  Aha! There it is! We (or I, at least) can ask and answer hypothetical questions with ease, but when hypotheses are put to the test in the real world, we retreat to  our old tried and true (and maddeningly imprecise) social limitations and restrictions. I am extremely liberated from old and outdated social conventions. Except when I’m not.

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A trigger, squeezed ever tighter during a particularly sensitive moment, causes a firing pin to slam against the capsule that holds a highly unstable primer, causing a spark. The spark ignites combustible material, converting it to a rapidly expanding fury. The explosive force of that bottled fury forces an object, at high speed, in the direction of its target to do the damage it was designed to inflict.

Was that set of sentences intended as a metaphor for the eruption of rage? Or was that a blow-by-blow description of the manner in which emotion launches deadly, irrevocable anger? Or was it simply an explanation of the process whereby a simple bullet becomes a deadly projectile? Perhaps it was meant as all three. Only the person who formed those sentences knows their intent. Even laden with knowledge of the genesis of those letters strung together, though, the writer drenches the words with interpretations that may not mesh with the way the reader deciphers them. We cannot know until after we have uttered or written words whether the meaning we attach to them will coincide with the audience’s understanding.

You may attach deadly significance to my empty threats against the peace and tranquility of someone I find offensive. But my emotive flash may simply constitute a mechanism wherein my murderous rage is softened into harmless, albeit deafening, noise. Societies impose somewhat arbitrary rules on behaviors; partly as a means of filtering out the frightening disparities between what a person thinks and what he does. Threats uttered at high volume, despite the fact that they may represent a process of “calming” anger into simple noise, conflict with some of societies’ somewhat arbitrary rules. We grudgingly accept (or not) the infringement on our liberties as a generally tolerable means of tamping down fear. Yet those rules can be too much to bear when they remove pressure-relief mechanisms. In those instances, the rules can trigger the very behaviors they are meant to quell.

I’m just thinking with my fingers again. And I acknowledge that my thoughts may be too abstruse to be understandable to anyone but me. So be it.

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Time to go about my day.

Whether—beneath the sediment of almost seventy years—layers of buried memories of my family of eight await excavation, I do not know. Perhaps the passage of time turned those memories to ash that cannot be recovered. Instead of hidden memories, fragments of others’ oft-repeated stories may occupy recesses of my brain. Those stories may not constitute my memories at all. Rather, they may represent the fading recollections of the other members of that immediate family of eight—all older than I—now whittled down to a far-flung family of four.

I cannot recall a single childhood memory in which my mother, my father, my three brothers, my two sisters, and I all are a part. I was five years old when my nuclear family began to disintegrate, the way families do when children begin moving away to begin their own private lives that do not involve the rest of the familial clan. The next to youngest, who was five years older than I, would have been developing his own identity by that time. His youngest sister was two years older than he. Of the remaining three, all assortedly older, the oldest was fourteen years senior to me. Now, more than sixty-three years after my fifth birthday, only half of the nuclear family of my youth remains. And I remember almost nothing of the nucleus. Memories of only bits and pieces of its component parts remain lodged in my head. And, as I acknowledged before, I suspect many of those memories are not mine at all but, rather, others’ recollections transformed from their stories into my artificial memories.

These days, when a sibling tells of a youthful memory set in the town of my birth, the story is entirely unfamiliar to me—unless, of course, I’ve heard the story before. I do not remember my parents’ friends, the neighbors down the street, the family’s dinnertime rituals (if there were any), and a thousand other things my siblings recall. Sometimes, because my siblings may not recall specific time-frames, I detect an element of surprise from them when I reveal that I have no recollection of events that are so familiar to them. But, then, when they realize I had not yet been born, the surprise disappears.

The absence of memories sometimes frustrates me, but not to the point of getting angry at time’s refusal to coordinate with my ability to recall. I simply wish I could picture, in my mind, what life was like during a time no longer available to my memory. Sadly, the ability to ask questions that require others to recall their history is disappearing. I can no longer ask my brother, Tom, for example, to explain why he was so upset when—at about age fourteen—I stayed out all night, fishing with friends. It’s the little things. I doubt my lost memories have survived burial under the sediment of almost seventy years. Still, I’ll continue to try to dredge them up on occasion. And, if occasionally I am successful, I’ll hose them down, dry them off, and make a record of them here on my blog.

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Until the past few days, I’ve never given truly serious thought to making “pre-arrangements” for my death. For a while, I thought I’d leave my body to a medical school, but that ultimately proved too much of a bureaucratic tangle to seem worth my time. Subsequently, I’ve thought I’d leave enough cash so that my body could be disposed of in whatever manner my surviving family or friends might wish. But the challenges of the months and weeks leading up to the death of my brother have changed my thinking. I now think the responsible thing to do is to remove the burden of end-of-life decisions from loved ones and, instead, to make plans in advance. It’s not always possible, of course, but to the extent it is, I now am in favor of it.

The least expensive way to dispose of a body today probably is by cremation. Caskets and funeral rituals and expensive flowers and so forth may comfort the living, but they do no good for the dead. And they require surviving loved ones to make decisions and spend money that may stretch financial means beyond the breaking point. So I am in favor of cremation.

It’s not just the challenges after death that I think should be planned in advance. Planning for the unfortunate possibility of prolonged decline and decay should not be the responsibility of loved ones but, instead, of oneself. It’s far too late for me to purchase long-term-care insurance, but it may not be too late to develop a plan whereby my assets can be protected against being drained by a long and useless hospital or nursing home stay. It’s not that I want the State to pay for my long-term care; it’s that I do not want to suffer the indignities of long-term care with just-barely-tolerable quality of life. Rather than pay for an unwanted extension of an unpleasant existence, I want my assets to go toward people and causes that matter to me, not to keeping me barely and painfully alive.

I do not know exactly what I can do to ensure that I ease the process for those who survive me, but I’m going to explore available options.

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I read a bit this morning about Wild Nephin National Park, a place in Ireland I wish I could visit. I’ll offer this extract from the article as explanation: “It was Irish naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger who described the Nephin Beg mountains in 1937 as ‘the very loneliest place in this country, for the hills themselves are encircled by this vast area of trackless bog,’ and little seems to have changed since then.”

Some days, I just want to be free of all human interactions; able to completely cut off all forms of communication so that I might as well be the only man on Earth. Reading about Wild Nephin National Park triggered that emotional need again; that sense that pure isolation might be the only way to keep me sane—or more appropriately, recover my sanity. The simultaneous harshness of nature and nature’s gentle protection work in concert to make one feel at one with the planet, I think. Knowing that a wave could suddenly kill me but that it could just as easily wash over me and and cleanse the grit from my life is enormously gratifying. Realizing that nature can take away every ounce of control I think I may have is somehow freeing. Perhaps it’s because nature cannot be swayed by what I think or do or say. I exist at the whim of the world in which I live and my existence could suddenly cease if that world “decides” it should be so. That comment incorrectly attributes motive to nature; anthropomorphism is an arrogant trait. We humans have the gall to assume we are the dominant forces in the universe. I think what I desire at this moment is an opportunity to listen to nature in the absence of human intervention; even mine.

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I’ll miss the rare occasions when my brother, Tom, and I spoke on the phone. We held radically different opinions and our viewpoints about the world often were at odds,. Yet our conversations somehow brought me down to earth, even when they raised my blood pressure. He had strong opinions about almost everything. So do I. Usually, those opinions were diametrically opposed. Often, both opinions were utterly free of facts to support them.

And I’ll miss hearing A.J.’s nails click on the floor as he came looking for me in the morning after waking. He was a sweet little dog. He never struck me as being “in synch” with my moods the way people often say their dogs are, but his moods could be molded to fit mine, I think.  Tears welled up in my eyes for a few minutes this morning as I thought about missing A.J.

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I am empty right now. Just empty. Actually, there’s something inside, I simply don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s an awareness that I know nothing. I realize I base everything I think on suppositions and assumptions, not facts. And I am not alone. Everyone does the same. We’re just babbling, as if we have answers. We don’t even have legitimate questions. We just run on and on and on without pausing long enough to try to absorb the truth that is all around us in everything we see or feel or taste or touch or smell. Our arrogance is more than enough to cause me to be enraged. And then I realize my rage is based on vapor that I can’t even see.

Last night, I left my cell phone in my study instead of my usual practice of connecting it to an outlet just outside the bedroom door to charge. I wish I would have followed my usual actions. Had I done what I usually do, I would have received the call and the text about my brother’s death when they were respectively made and sent. My brother, Tom, died shortly after midnight this morning. Though he had been in severely declining health in recent months and weeks—and the speed of decline had accelerated dramatically in recent days—the reality this morning of his death is a shock.

My process of mourning his loss began long ago, when it became apparent that his generally poor health was getting worse. I thought, well over a year ago, that he probably did not have very long to live. Heart problems, renal problems, uncooperative joints, rapid weight loss, and a long and unceasing history of smoking all pointed to the inevitable. But steeling oneself to the inevitable does not make one immune to the impact of the inevitable. It hurts. A lot. Yet my brother’s death relieves both the physical pain he felt and the mental anguish those close to him felt as a result of knowing he was in discomfort, distress, and pain.

I am grateful that my brother is no longer in pain. And may the memory of my brother bring those who knew him some comfort in mourning his loss.

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Yesterday brought about the end of another life. The physical condition of my sweetheart’s dog, long suffering from a heart murmur, declined so precipitously that that the need to end his pain became obvious. Yesterday morning, my sweetheart made the difficult but absolutely correct decision to have A.J., her 12-year-old Shih Tzu, euthanized. Just after noon yesterday, we took him to the veterinarian, who very gently and painlessly put him to sleep. I knew A.J. for only eight months, but I became extremely attached to him in that time. I’ll miss him more than I would have thought possible just a few months ago. My sweetheart’s love of A.J. was immense and intense, which is why she decided his pain and discomfort had to end. She is a strong woman.

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These two sharp, deeply jarring jolts rattled my emotional cage. My mind is racing with thoughts about mortality and love and questions about whether expressing one’s grief openly and without restraint is a sign of mental health or mental illness. What is grief? Is it an expression of one’s own pain? Or is it a vicarious expression of the emptiness of that small piece of the world no longer occupied by a physical body—a body that represents an emotional entity that can no longer be experienced?

I am reeling with the experience of deaths too closely spaced. My wife’s death just thirteen months ago occasionally still sears me like a piece of molten iron, though the metal is cooling. My brother’s death this morning is a fresh wound of a different kind, but still sharp and painful. And the wound caused by the death of my sweetheart’s little dog brings about yet another kind of pain.

We live through these experiences, though. We have little choice but to accept them and the pain that goes with them. The pain will ease, though the memories never cease.

Last night, my niece arranged a quick Zoom video conversation with my hospitalized brother, after she and talked on the phone while she was on her way to the skilled nursing facility to visit him. I could barely make out a few words as he attempted to speak. My niece was able to make out a few more. But neither of us could fully understand his words before he became too tired to continue. Before he drifted off to sleep, I told him his family, including all his siblings, loved him. He seemed to acknowledge me and I think he tried to reciprocate the sentiment, but his voice was too frail for me to hear. No one is willing to commit to even a guess as to how much longer he has, but a hospice nurse suggested to my niece that his time is short; days, rather than weeks. Times like this, when it is impossible to ensure that a person understands one’s words and thoughts, tend to make ripe the opportunities for personal second-guessing. Did I say I love him soon enough? Did I offer enough help to him? What did I fail to say that I should have? What did I say that I shouldn’t have? As I sit here this morning, contemplating these matters, the only way to a moderate level of emotional stability is to say to myself that both the words and the acts of every member of his small family clearly demonstrated—and still demonstrate—to him how much we care. And he forgives me and the rest of us for things I shouldn’t have said. He knows.

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For several days, I’ve been playing Wordle each morning. It’s a clever little game in which the player is given up to six tries to guess a secret five-letter word. The player offers a five-letter word as a clue and the game responds by indicating which letters are not in the secret word, which are included but not in the proper place in the secret word, and which are included in the proper place in the secret word. The game is quite similar to a game my mother taught me as a child, the Five Letter Word Game. In that game, two opponents attempted to guess the other’s secret word by submitting clue words; the opponent simply said how many of the letters in the clue were included in the secret word. We used a sheet of paper on which we printed the alphabet in the middle of the sheet. We wrote down our clues on one side of the alphabet and our opponent’s clues on the other. Next to each clue, we wrote the number of letters shared with the respective secret words.

In Wordle, I use a strategy in which I first offer a word that has several vowels. Then, depending on how many letters are in proper placement or simply shared with the secret word but not in the right place, I offer another clue that excludes the letters already ruled out and includes the properly placed letter and the improperly placed letter, but in a different place in the word. Engaging little game that exercises the mind. Yesterday and today, and perhaps a time or two before, I identified the secret word with my third clue word. I’m right proud of that!

Wordle’s creator is a guy named Josh, who says he is an artist, product manager, and engineer who lives in Brooklyn, New York but apparently used to live in Oakland, California. Some more information about him is offered on his website at https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/. The link directly to the game is here. I think I might enjoy conversation with Josh.

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The fact that, in general, I find the company of women far more interesting than the company of men has been a topic included in many of my blog posts. Despite my intellectual efforts to determine with some degree of certainty why that is, I still haven’t uncovered the secret. It’s entirely possible there may be an undercurrent of sexuality that drives it, though if that’s the case I need to work on controlling it or risk serious repercussions that could damage my very solid relationship with my sweetheart. But I think it’s far meatier than subsurface sexual attraction. I think it has to do with the extent to which both my interests and my attitudes parallel (or perpendict, if that were a legitimate word) the interests and attitudes of the people I encounter. Stereotypically  “male” topics like team sports, hunting, and golf hold little to no interest to me. Consequently, I tend to avoid interactions involving those topics or conversations about them. Obviously, though, stereotypes often are invalid characterizations; many women like team sports, hunting, and golf. That very fact, though, reinforces the idea that interests and attitudes tend to shape my gravitation toward women; when I encounter women whose interests and conversation revolve around those topics, I find that I have little interest in those women. And when I encounter men whose interests more closely mirror mine (which, by the way, often mirror those more commonly associated with women), I find myself more comfortable with them.

Recently, I had a conversation with someone (I don’t recall who—it may have been a conversation with myself) in which I suggested a version of Match.com in which people would be paired not for dating but for platonic engagement might be useful. Especially for men like me who might like “masculine” relationships that are safer than “feminine” relationships (which can tend to make some male partners suspicious or worse).

Just a thought this morning. Triggered, I guess, by my random thought that I might like to engage in conversation with Josh, the inventor of Wordle.

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I’ve discovered (re-discovered is probably more appropriate) an interest in refurbishing old cars. My interest has not, thus far, translated into action of any kind. Instead, it has simply led me to a cable television program (I do not recall the name) in which highly-skilled auto-restoration specialists seek out or rebuild parts for old, classic cars and who restore the vehicles into better-than-new versions of themselves. The other night, I drooled over a couple’s restored Studebaker and I felt surges of envy course through my body as the restoration team unveiled a complete makeover of an old Chevy Malibu.

I do not even change my own oil anymore, so the odds that I’ll get into automobile restoration are slim. My lack of mechanical knowledge—coupled with an absence of motor skills and a dearth of the money necessary to support the restoration habit—makes any such gamble a bad one. But I admire people who have the wherewithal, both financially and with respect to skill and determination, to do the work. I’d love to sit in a garage and watch the pros actually do the work. Turning old, worn vehicles that are on or even beyond their last legs into sleek, desirable vehicles is an admirable undertaking. Oh, if only I had Jay Leno’s money, his garage, and his staff of auto experts.

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I want to organize or orchestrate or otherwise cause to happen a family reunion. Time has a way of getting away from us. It robs us of opportunities if we allow it to take them from us. COVID, though, has done as much to excise opportunities from our lives as has time. Perhaps the risks associated with COVID are worth taking. Time doesn’t present us with risks; it presents us with certainty.

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I feel a desire growing in me for hot, spicy breakfast sausage and rye toast. If I knew how to make decent gravy, I might do that, too. Or maybe biscuits in place of the rye toast. And eggs? Meh. I can take them or leave them this morning. I need to get back in the habit of having a breakfast consisting of a single poached egg, a couple of radishes, and a glass of tomato juice. Those were the days when I was thinner and more righteous. There’s still time. But it’s not unlimited.

When I awoke for awhile around 3:00 a.m., the idea that people sometimes might be able to sense things going on in others’ lives—even at great distance—came to mind.  You know the concept: a mother senses something is wrong with her daughter, who has just been in an automobile accident in a distant town; or a man suddenly feels an inexplicable sense of elation at the same moment that his wife’s doctor confirms her pregnancy; or a woman is   overcome with a sensation of sadness and concern for a friend in another country and the woman later learns that her friend lost his job at the same time as those sensations swept over her.  I’ve always doubted the reality of such claims. I’ve always accepted the idea that such cases of apparent extrasensory perception can be explained in a way similar to the way some psychologists have explained déjà vu: that is is an illusion brought about by artifacts of recognition memory in which recollection and familiarity become interwoven in some way. Recollection meshes with familiarity to create a sense that “I’ve been in exactly this situation before,” even though that might be impossible.

But, increasingly, I am allowing myself to be open to the possibility that experiences and/or thoughts may be transmissible in the same way that light speeds through space. If radio waves can flood the “airwaves” over incredible distances, why can’t “thoughtwaves” do the same? The fact that science has not yet been able to detect or measure such phenomena does not prove that it does not exist. In fact, science never disproves anything—no more than it proves anything. Science simply presents factual evidence and tests theories against that evidence. I admit to doubting, with a degree of certainty that science would say is unjustified, that there is anything to extrasensory perception. Yet I’m increasingly open to the possibility. Can someone “read” my thoughts at this very moment? Perhaps I’ll find out.

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I went back to sleep, finally waking for the day at a few minutes past 5:00. When I attempted to make coffee, I discovered that my coffee-making device, easily ten or twelve years old, may be reaching the end of its service life. I was able to get a cup of coffee, but only after coaxing the beast to cooperate with me. For several mornings now, the machine has given me signs of its intent to go on permanent strike. Perhaps I’ll take action today to replace it.

Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Coffee helps me maintain my “never killed anyone streak”
~ Anonymous ~

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My brother, the one who before Christmas was first was hospitalized and then transferred to skilled nursing, apparently is growing worse by the hour. I have tried to talk with him by phone within the last couple of weeks, but either have been unable to reach him or his voice has been so weak he could not talk. Being distant from a loved one who is gravely ill is difficult. Being unable to communicate with him is difficult. And it is tough to be unable to otherwise help him and those closer in distance to him. Fortunately, my (and his) niece is nearby and has been looking out after him to the best of her ability and at great personal sacrifice. We (as in the members of our society who permit it) should be ashamed of our failure to ensure more compassionate care of people as they come to the end of their lives. Bureaucracy and hard, cold capitalism should not displace human decency. But they do.

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The new lighting and fans were installed in the new house yesterday. They make an enormously positive difference. When we finish painting, complete the flooring, and take care of issues like gaps in door casings and generally cleaning the place up, it will be excellent.

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The sky this morning was the most spectacular sky I have ever seen anywhere! I took a few photos of this morning’s glorious sunrise, but for some reason I cannot get the photos uploaded to this post.  Though the photos do not begin to do justice to the beauty of this morning’s sky, they offer at least a hint of the unparalleled beauty of the sky here today. If I can, I will post a photo or two later. Rarely does a scene overcome me with awe in the way this morning’s sky has done.  Maybe never. I cannot describe how overwhelmingly, spectacularly, incredibly beautiful the sky was this morning. Viewing it was an experience unlike any I’ve ever had. Akin to a religious experience, perhaps.

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I’m ready for breakfast. Off I go.

The topic of synchronicity, not new to this blog, is on my mind. It occurs to me that synchronous occurrences are not always positive. They just as easily can be negative. When events take place in different places, involving people who have some connection, they may seem “designed” to illustrate a connection. Typically, it seems only positive events trigger thoughts about the connection. Yet negative circumstances, too, can spark realizations of the connection, though the connection itself may be entirely positive. I realize this paragraph may seem incoherent to most people—perhaps all people—who read it. Fortunately, I know what I’m thinking. It’s just too convoluted to chronicle in detail.

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Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

~ Franz Kafka ~

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The Associated Press sometimes seems to me a hybrid between news organization, cultural preservationist, historian, and keeper of wisdom and hope. This morning, in its AP Morning Wire, a link beneath an intriguing photo caught my attention: AP Photos: Beast-like ‘Carantoñas’ return to Spanish town. I followed the link and discovered a town I’d never heard of, Acehuche, a little town with roughly 900 inhabitants in Spain’s western Extremadura region. Through a combination of text and photos, the linked article revealed an intriguing story about a three-day festival celebrating the town’s patron saint, St. Sebastian. The festival involves men dressing up as fur-covered beasts called Carantoñas and women dressing up as “Regaoras.” There’s much more to the story, including fireworks, confetti, celebratory processions, and references to the pagan and early-Christian origins of the festival. I love stumbling across such fascinating stuff, about which I knew absolutely nothing before seeing the photos, reading the photo captions, and skimming the accompanying story. Just another reason I find The Associated Press such a valuable organization. The AP does not just report on society’s overnight progress in tearing itself apart; it offers a glimpse into reasons we ought not to allow that to happen.

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I cannot bring myself to write much this morning about the travails of dealing with the failure of our society’s healthcare safety net. The circumstances are too raw and painful for me, yet I probably am among the least-effected by them. Today, more than ever, I realize how important it is to find a source of medications that, in a pinch, could allow me to end my life if ever I were to find myself in a hopeless quagmire of a heartless, bureaucratically-infused governmental labyrinth. Our “solons” at both the national and state levels should be hung by their tongues over a pond full of ravenously hungry alligators until the lawmakers complete the task of permanently remaking our healthcare safety net into the compassionate social system it should be.

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Today, one or more highly paid electricians will install new lighting in our eventual-to-be home. Yesterday, my sweetheart returned to the paint store the paint we had ordered. She returned with replacement pails of paint that replicate the color of paint we had mistakenly been given. Because I had applied an entire gallon of the “wrong” color and was By God not willing to redo all the work I had done, we decided to use the “wrong” color instead of the paint colors we had selected. As it turned out, we actually preferred the color the store gave us, so it worked out just fine. But between discovering the paint-store’s mistake and getting the replacement paint, there was a period of distinct displeasure. By the way, it was impossible to be certain, before I opened a second, improperly-labeled, second can, that the “wrong” color was, indeed, wrong. But the difference between the color we picked and the color we were given was sufficient to create some ennui. All better now.  Next, aside from new lighting, we soon will move on to another couple of projects: uncovering what lies beneath the vinyl tile on the floors and installation of gutter guards. We  hope to salvage very nice wood flooring and install some new tile and carpet (where wood flooring was not used, originally). If that is not possible, we will have new, higher quality, vinyl tile professionally installed to dramatically improve the looks of the place. The gutter guards will save me many dangerous hours of cleaning leaves from the gutters for seven or eight months out of the year. Then, at some point, we will get doors that do not latch (or even close properly) repaired. And we will deep clean both inside and out. Some day, we will move in to the other house. And, then, the ownership of my current home will change. How that will play out remains to be seen.

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As usual, I made a cup of coffee right after I got up this morning. And, as usual, I have allowed it to cool enough that it’s no longer sufficiently hot to be drinkable. Well, I suppose I could drink it, but I wouldn’t enjoy it. So, I’ll need to brew another after I finish spilling my thoughts onto the computer screen. Of course, I could forego another cup of coffee. But that seems a senseless punishment for something so trivial as letting one’s coffee cool.

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I wonder whether it would surprise people to learn how often they are on the minds of other people? Would casual acquaintances think it odd that thoughts about sometimes frolic through my consciousness? Would friends be astonished at how frequently they come to my mind? Would followers of this blog be stunned to learn how frequently I think about them (or, in some cases, how infrequently)?

These questions naturally lead to considerations about the opposite: how often or infrequently do other people think of me? How frequently or rarely am I on the minds of friends or acquaintances? Do my blog followers ever think of me?

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” That’s probably true. But it doesn’t really resolve the questions. We do not allow ourselves the luxury of dismissing our roles in others’ lives, nor their roles in ours.

I think quite often of Janet and Loren and Deanna and Lana and Rhonda and Ducky and Mel and Terry and Meg and Patty and Jim and Carol and Kim and Becky (and, of course, Colleen)…I could go on and on and on…there are so many others.  I don’t necessarily dwell on my thoughts about any one of them, but they flit in and out of my thoughts with surprising regularity. I suspect others experience the same thing. But unless we permit our introspection to focus on those thoughts for a bit, I doubt we even realize they are “there.” Until I began listing people about whom I’ve had thoughts lately, I would have been surprised that there were more than a tiny handful of people “in my brain.” But reality says they’re all “there.”

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Kafka was right. When I write with the knowledge that what I write will never been seen by another set of human eyes, I descend into that cold abyss of myself. I peel away the layers designed to protect me from others’ opinions of me. I write with brutal honesty, not just about  myself, but about the world as I know it and the people in that world.  With every word, the people in that world come into clearer and more positive focus, while often I seem to wither and fade in comparison with them. The cold abyss of oneself. When I think of it, I would not wish it upon any other human being, yet I acknowledge it exists for me. The cold abyss of oneself. Why choose to reflect on that, though? Why not the words of Sørren Kierkegaard?

Don’t forget to love yourself.

~ Søren Kierkegaard ~

Tuesdays are inherently better than Mondays, if for no other reason than—on Tuesdays—a local liquor store sells an already-cheap wine that I like to drink at a further fifteen percent discount. That takes the price down from $5.99 to $5.09. The store’s implementation of a fee for credit card sales jacks the price up a bit, I discovered during my most recent trip to buy wine, but I can maintain the full fifteen percent discount if I pay cash. Which I will. I do not begrudge merchants charging a fee on credit card sales; but I do not appreciate learning about the fee only after I look at my receipt. A prominent sign would be appropriate. Of course, I may simply have missed the sign. At any rate, today is Tuesday, so today is the day I should visit the local liquor store and stock up on Jacob’s Creek Shiraz-Cabernet. If I lived in an area in which Total Wine & More stores were readily accessible, I could buy bottles of the Australian wine at an everyday price that is fifty cents lower than my local liquor store charges. Oh, well. The price of living in a semi-rural community off the beaten path of mainline commerce is that the costs of the good life can be a tad higher than in congested cities.

The question inevitably arises, when I mention my affinity for my cheap Australian wine, about whether I would rather drink a more expensive wine. And my answer is invariably, “Yes.” But when I weigh my preference for a more expensive bottle of a cabernet or a shiraz cabernet blend against the considerably lower cost of my go-to wine, I usually choose my go-to wine. It’s a purely rational cost-benefit assessment; the savings I enjoy by buying the cheaper wine (versus a wine that costs, say, an average of $16-$20 per bottle) can be plowed into other things I enjoy. Leg of lamb. Netflix. A nice day-trip to Petit Jean Mountain. A superbly-balanced pocket knife. And let’s be entirely above-board here: after the first glass or two, the taste of a $5.09 (on sale) wine is almost indistinguishable from a $17 wine made from the same varietals. At least that’s true of my palate. I’m sure others may have far more sophisticated and/or better trained palates than mine. That’s fine. Let them spend their money how they like. I’ll try to make mine go as far as I can. Oh, and I am happy to very occasionally spend $20 on a superb (to my palate) bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.  (Though, generally, I try to stay with the lower priced SBs, as well, in keeping with my untrained palate.) I’ve found that some wines, both cheaper and more expensive than the ones I prefer, taste the way I imagine bottled loathing and bad attitude must smell. No matter what the most sophisticated sommelier or oenophile says, when I taste a monstrously expensive wine I find offensive, I do not beat myself up for my incredibly poor taste. I simply feel gratitude that my taste buds serve me and my bank account so well.

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I slept better last night than I did the night before, but my bed partner was sleepless from around 1 a.m. to well after 3:30 and probably much later. Insomnia could be a byproduct of the mattress, I suppose, but my guess is that it arises from other sources that may or may not be within our control. It is, again, a cost-benefit situation; is the lack of sleep worth the enjoyment of spicy food or liquor or psychologically thrilling films or hysterically funny comedies? We all make our own choices. Sometimes, those choices infringe on others’ ability to enjoy life’s little pleasures: like sleep or raucous enjoyment of food and drink and entertainment. I’m not sure why I’m wandering down into this rabbit warren involving the effects of lifestyle on one’s sleep habits; it was not my intent. I intended only to document the fact that I slept reasonably well while my sweetheart did not. A good friend of mine regularly accuses herself of overthinking things; she could be describing my lifestyle, instead. In fact, perhaps her self-accusatory statements are intended to prompt me to look at my own world-view. I’ll have to ask her.

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The demands of painting and otherwise devoting time to the newly-acquired house coupled with other demands on our time—over which we have little control—have severely interfered with our social life. Concerns about COVID-19, too, have curtailed our interactions with our friends, but the limitations can, by and large, be traced back to obligations that consume what otherwise would be free time. One must be careful not to allow other demands on one’s time to so completely consume one’s time as to eliminate social interactions, especially with friends. This is strictly an admonition to myself that we must carve out time for the people who are important to us, regardless of how difficult that carve-outs may be. Engaging with friends is—in the general scheme of life and one’s happiness in it—more important than painting walls or deciding on flooring or getting a haircut.

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.

~ Leonard Bernstein ~

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The stresses of yesterday have faded a bit, though their presence remains…just not so clearly in focus. Often, though detours or delays may seem preferable to the risk involved in high-speed freeway traffic, it is best to press hard on the accelerator and do one’s best to avoid sideswiping other vehicles or slamming into them head-on. With great care and intensity of focus, one can get through hideous traffic snarls and incidents of road rage to long stretches of empty highway. I think of Dallas and Houston and Chicago traffic as metaphors for difficult moments in one’s life. If one is not careful, it’s easy to get stuck behind a never-ending commute rush; but if entering the fray is the only way to make it back home, the risk and the difficulties are worth the effort.

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A conversation yesterday between some other people and me remains on my mind this morning. That conversation centered on a person who has insulted or upset other people by being quick to make comments, either in anger or in asserting control. That person invariably recognizes and apologizes for the outburst; the apology clearly is heartfelt and deep. But one of the participants in the conversation expressed an unwillingness to be forgiving. “It’s not enough to apologize for an outburst. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” I countered by expressing an understanding of the flash of anger; no matter how much a person may want to “control” it, some of us have tried hard to accomplish that wished-for control and have repeatedly failed. My contention is that self-control in such incidents is simply an impossible dream for some people. The flash or anger or control is so quick to happen that the person has no time to reflect or to censor it. Because I am one of those people, I feel compassion for others in whom I see true regret after their flash of anger subsides. It doesn’t always have to be anger, either. It can be a statement of opinion as if it were fact; that can grate on people just as much as what some see as unjustifiable anger.

As I reflect on that conversation, I wonder whether my sense of understanding is simply my way of excusing my failure to exercise control. Perhaps the excuse—that the emotion is so quick to erupt that there’s no time to reflect and control it—is bogus. It is sometimes difficult to admit to the possibility that one’s failures may not be the result of uncontrollable forces but, instead, the outcome of inadequate efforts. Excuses. Excuses. How does one differentiate between legitimate explanations and illegitimate excuses? I am sure I could answer that question with what looks and feels like a reasonable argument; my answer could easily go either way. But bias would inevitably enter that argument and may well control it. We tend to justify/excuse our own behaviors because to admit to their impropriety would be embarrassing and, perhaps, would brand us as less than decent human beings. The sense of inadequacy is one of the most painful emotions, because it calls into question our value in comparison to those around us.

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The day has begun. Today, my plan is to bring peace to those parts of the universe over which I have some influence.

I had too much on my mind to stay asleep after 2:00 a.m.  No matter how I tried to empty my mind, vexing thoughts kept filling my head. Anxieties, worries, concerns—whatever names one might attach to troubling matters—would not leave my brain. Finally, about a quarter to 4:00, I surrendered. For the last hour, I’ve tried to focus my mind by writing, but the thoughts that kept me awake have insisted on intruding on my efforts to string together words into rational sentences. In place of coherent ideas, damaged fragments of incomplete sentences sprayed from my fingers. Finally, though, I think the flood of broken thoughts has begun to subside, leaving only the occasional urgent flush of insanity issuing forth onto the screen. For some reason, I want to be sealed inside a spacecraft hurling through black space toward the distant edge of the universe; I long to be able to look through a single window so I can see what is in front of me, in the direction I am headed. That wish is enough to drag me away from the vexations that have kept me awake since the early hours of the day.

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The churning of my stomach is sufficiently powerful to make loud noises, noises that would interfere with conversations if I were in the company of people who wished to converse with me. Not only do I hear the peristalsis, I feel it, as if my internal organs are attempting to flee my torso. I do not use the word, peristalsis, often. In fact, I had to search out the word for the involuntary constriction and relaxation of the muscles of the intestines. But I felt compelled to do the research, because no other word adequately describes the process responsible for both the noise and the sensation of attempted intestinal escape. The strength of the churning is such that I am a little concerned my abdominal cavity may be unable to contain the fiercely nomadic organs. What will I do if they succeed in breaking through the barriers that lock them inside? Will I allow them to go, leaving me limp and almost lifeless  and unable to call for help? Or will I seize them with the last ounce of strength in my hands, hoping my grip will prevent them from attaining their freedom? I think I’ve managed to calm my mind, but not my body. I no longer sense the imminent escape of my bowels from my body, but I feel their dissatisfaction, as demonstrated by their angry twisting and turning. So, there’s no immediate need to wonder what I will do. That question will wait.

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Today will be very busy. So I won’t be able to sit, motionless, in the cockpit of a spacecraft with my eyes fixed on the far edge of the universe. That reality—that I cannot escape the demands of this world for now—leaves me sullen and depressed. My bad temper is not suited to this first day of the work-week. Even though I no longer “work” in the usual sense of the word, the week remains a work-week to me. Will it ever be just another series of days?

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Even though it’s not yet a quarter to six, I’ll get something to eat. That will probably exacerbate the peristalsis. Not only am I sullen, I may be stupid.