John Swinburn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Martha Stewart ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Lao Tzu ~

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

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

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

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

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

~ Carl Sandburg ~

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

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

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

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

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

Zen practices may help. Time will tell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Everything is all right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Gloria Steinem ~

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

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

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

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

   ~ Deb Calleti ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   ~ May Sarton ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want a long, relaxing vacation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

~ Aristotle ~

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

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

Temperatures should hover between the upper sixties and the lower-to-mid-seventies through Friday. In spite of the rain and accompanying high humidity, this feels close to ideal to me.

If money (or the insufficiency thereof) posed no limits on me, I would seek out a place where temperatures year-round were close to what I am experiencing this week; I would build my home there, surrounded by vast empty acreage and an impenetrable wall or fence.  I would pay people to shop for me and bring me what I want and need.

That “ideal” is selfish. It ignores the needs of people who might be ejected from the land I commandeer. It is lunacy to think a wall or a fence would keep out the “riff-raff.” It is shameful for the term “riff-raff” to spill from my mind through my fingers and onto the keyboard. It is embarrassing even to conceive of selfish desire for privacy, isolation, and self-imposed seclusion—one that might overtake my sense of what is right and just and proper. But the fact is, selfishness exists. It exists in me. I should not want what I cannot—and perhaps should not—have. But what “should be” and what “is” often are very different. That discrepancy accounts for the injustice and pain prevalent throughout our planet.

Yet who are we to decide what “should” or “should not” take place in the world? We tend to make assertions as if they were pronouncements from a supreme power, ourselves, who is the arbiter of what’s right and wrong. But we are simply instruments of the natural order; we possess no special place in the hierarchy of life that gives us the exclusive right to make pronouncements about what is or is not just. Their languages and brain processes differ from ours, but the gazelles and the cheetahs in the savannahs of Africa might have valid, but very different, views on the justice of the predator/prey relationship. We argue forcefully against allowing animals to starve from neglect, but we meekly buy steaks from the butcher, taking care not to inquire about the treatment of the animal that supplied the beef.

Somehow—in their customs or beliefs or wisdom acquired through experience—the indigenous peoples around the world have managed to find a place of balance between good and bad, predator and prey, and desire and gratitude. The tension I have always felt, between living with and incorporating within me those concepts, seems to have been eased long ago. I think the society in which I live is responsible for that tension in me. There are no universally accepted “truths” to guide people in our society. Instead, for direction we rely heavily on competing religions, governmental rules and regulations, and sometimes warped familial traditions.  I suppose conflicts between societies and their unique “truths” have always existed, but acceptance of all the layers of ecstasy and pain was a part of the ancient traditions. And the core reality that all creatures rely upon, and should revere, the world around them has been a constant for millennia. Humankind has broken that core reality into fragments, grinding some of the pieces into dust and shaping others into knives.

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Facts overwhelm wishes and dreams. We confront the reality that people do not always share their wishes and dreams. Sometimes wishes and dreams are merely fantasies. Reality carves desire into long, pliable ribbons that can be woven into ropes that, in turn, either bind us to an impossible future or tie us to a harrowing past.

I often “think aloud” with my fingers, as I have done in the paragraph above. These little thought bubbles do not necessarily have any connection to my reality; only to my imagination. I suppose my “thinking aloud” can be dramatic—sometimes elaborately so. Drama, though, can emphasize the impacts that ideas and emotions can have on us; so, it is not always superfluous. It can be informative, insightful…educational.

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It’s just a tad past 5:30. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and then shower and shave. I have a doctor’s appointment early this morning…in just about three hours. Between now and then, I should be able to clean my body, make my teeth sparkle, sort my thoughts, and have a satisfying breakfast. “Should” is the operative concept here. Off I go to tackle the dissonance between wishing for something and actually doing it.

This morning’s drenching rains and rumbling thunder are not entirely welcome. But watching rivers of yellow pollen flow away from the house and off the deck lessens the burden of a sullen, wet, grey day. This morning, the buyer’s inspection of my house is scheduled to take place. I wish, for the sake of the buyer and the inspector, the day would clear and brighten so their endeavor would be more comfortable. Unfortunately, the weather forecast does not bode well for their comfort. At least the majority of the inspection will take place inside, I assume. But the inspector will no doubt need to get to the crawl space and make rounds around the exterior of the house; I feel for the person who must cope with today’s rain. I do hope all goes well and the buyer is satisfied that the house is in excellent condition and requires no repair; we shall see.

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Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.

~ Diogenes ~

Wouter André De Backer—AKA Wally de Backer, AKA Gotye—wrote a song I like quite a lot, both the music and the lyrics. The song is Somebody That I Used to Know.  I first heard and saw the song performed on Facebook, I think. That first exposure to the music was courtesy of a Canadian pop band, Walk Off the Earth. That performance was spectacular, in that it was a mixture of the music and an extraordinary performance by band members playing ukeleles, guitars, etc. Later, I was mesmerized by another performance, this one in a multi-media video incorporating kinetic art with instrumental music, merged with people (Gotye and the New Zealand singer-songwriter, Kimbra) performing the song. Both performances were extraordinary. But the thing that struck the most responsive chord with me was the poetry and the depth of emotion of the lyrics. In particular, these: “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness” and “But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough.” Those lyrics conjure emotions that fit like a glove; they extract from me emotions of a long time ago, when I was attempting to mature out of teen angst into old age. It was a long, laborious process. At any rate, I heard the music again this morning as I was wandering through the vast, empty rooms of the internet, seeking something to grab me and awaken a part of me that sometimes seems too deeply comatose to ever again emerge. Whether the music accomplished that herculean task has yet to be determined, but hearing it spurred memories to crawl out of hibernation, leaving their lairs for brighter places. When I heard it this morning, I felt compelled to find out more than I knew, hence my new knowledge that it was written and performed by Gotye, a man with multiple identities.

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I have a few items I must either sell or give away before I move in a couple of weeks. A queen-sized Sleep Number bed (including frame); a walnut desk with a credenza of sorts (a separate piece) rising from the side of the desk away from which I sit when at the desk; and a corner desk…possibly a few more odds and ends. Oh, and some wrought iron outdoor patio/deck furniture. Just thought I’d mention it here, in case someone from HSV who needs/wants some furniture happens upon this page.

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The thunder and lightning are getting more fierce and the rain is coming down harder. If I were in a boat on Corpus Christi Bay, I would call this a dangerous squall. Here, I call it a moderately disturbing squall. Inasmuch as I’ve been up for hour and have other things to do, I will let the squall rage while I get back to work, preparing for my impending move.

Generally, we do not bother exploring in depth the world at our fingertips.  It seems we take certain elements of our lives for granted, assuming there is nothing much to know about them other than that they are “there.” I am just as guilty as anyone else for failing to understand and acknowledge all the intrigue and stunning surprises easily available to me…but not sufficiently fascinating to merit my undivided attention.

Chances are good that many—perhaps most—people reading this post are unfamiliar with Louis Camille Maillard. Maillard was the French chemist who described the process  known as the Maillard Reaction. The Maillard Reaction takes place between amino acids and reducing sugars, giving browned foods their distinctive flavors. It is a “form of non-enzymatic browning which typically proceeds rapidly from around 140 to 165 °C (280 to 330 °F), according to Wikipedia. The Maillard Reaction occurs to produce the unique flavors of bread crusts, oyster sauce, toasted marshmallows, toffee, etc., etc.

I believe I learned of Louis Camille Maillard and the Maillard Reaction just this morning, as I skimmed an article on BBC.com about oyster sauce. The article explained that “it is made from the liquid oysters have been poached in, boiled until it’s caramelised and dark and then enriched with soy sauce and spices.” Perhaps I would have known about (or remembered) Maillard and his eponymous process, had I attended culinary school. Or read more extensively about the causes of flavor transformation during the cooking process. I have done neither, hence my ignorance of the man and his namesake description of a crucial process in cooking and the flavoring industry.

The details of what causes and what occurs during the Maillard Reaction are far more involved and complex than I want to get into. I would not remember all the component actions and reactions involved, even if I delved into learning about them with a passion. I simply am not a person to recall excruciating details, such as “the reactive carbonyl group of the sugar reacts with the nucleophilic amino group of the amino acid to form a complex mixture of poorly characterized molecules responsible for a range of aromas and flavors.” But I do enjoy and appreciate exposure to information about a common occurrence in the kitchen that produces innumerable flavors, depending on the chemical constituents of foods being cooked, cooking temperature, time, the presence of air, and the extent to which the foods being cooked are stirred (or not).

I could learn so much about so much more if only I opened my eyes a bit wider and paid closer attention to my immediate environment. If only I asked questions the way a child asks them; with wide-eyed wonder and insatiable curiosity. And I need not become an expert in anything—by giving free rein to my curiosity, I would just a better-informed person. A little happier person, simply by knowing more about…stuff! Though I think I may be a little more curious about the world around me than the “average person” (as if there is such a thing), there is so much more room for expansive, explosive growth in my curiosity. Allowing that expansion to occur involves little more than honing one’s consciousness…asking questions about almost everything in one’s life.

What is responsible for differences in food preferences between people? Why do I like rye bread more than I like wheat? Why do some people intensely dislike the taste of anise, while I like it very much? What causes a person to be physically and/or emotionally attracted to someone and why is that attraction reciprocated (or not)? What causes one’s hair to become grey or white with age? Why are lancet windows so common in churches? Literally millions and millions of questions like and unlike these are available for the asking and answering. If we devoted our attention to knowing more about our own small sections of the world, we might find that even the mundane, heretofore boring, aspects of our lives can be made enormously interesting.

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Intellectually and emotionally, I feel so much younger than my age suggests I should. I can get extremely excited about things that generally are assumed to be the provinces of the young. My interests often are more in line with fresh-faced college students than with people whose lives have been amply seasoned by experience and frustration. I make mistakes one would not expect an old man to make; one would think someone who has lived this long would know better… I do not want to go through a period of life in which the audacity of youth is abandoned and forgotten. On the other hand, I do not want to relinquish the extraordinary wisdom one accrues simply by having more temporal experience than is available to the young. I want to experience both the wild passion of youth and the unparalleled serenity of knowing I have lived a life well-spent. I suppose that describes wanting my cake and eating it, too.

I think my perpetual sense of youthfulness may exist because I never fully matured; I never had to. Having children, I think, tends to cause people to mature more completely than living as a childless adult. Children require care and attention I did not have to extend. Adulthood as a parent involves taking on enormous responsibilities for another person’s well-being that adulthood without children does not require. I would not trade my freedom as a childless adult for the responsibilities of a parent. But parents almost invariably say having children is the most spectacular experience they’ve ever had. So, we’re both happy with our circumstances. However, I suspect that, when two adults—one who had kids and one who did not—pair up, tensions can be enormous. The childless adult’s freedom can be curtailed and the one with children can feel pressured to minimize the intrusions of parenthood on the adult relationship. I write as if I were pronouncing a truth—in fact, it’s just supposition, based on both assumptions and observations at arm’s length.  That’s another aspect of youthfulness that appeals to me: the ability to presume I know more than I actually do. 😉

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I would like to look in your eyes this morning—fix our gazes upon one another—for just two minutes. Would that uninterrupted period of staring at one another be uncomfortable? Would it be transformative in some way? Would it make one or both of us feel like we know the other a little better? Would we feel that we had looked into one another’s mind…and what might we think we see there?

Try that with someone today. Just two minutes of uninterrupted gazing into another person’s eyes. Whether that person is your spouse, your sibling, your parent, your child, your friend, or your secret lover—take two minutes to learn whatever that time teaches you.

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It’s almost 6. Time to shower and shave and get ready to embrace whatever this day brings.  Oooh, but, first, another cup of coffee. (I can be so easily distracted by something attractive and “shiny.”)

My sister-in-law (my late wife’s sister) bought a new pair of “readers” the other day. When she dropped by for an early-morning visit yesterday, on a whim I decided to put them on. I was surprised when I looked at the selfie I took; I actually liked the look! I’ve never liked my appearance much; there’s something uninspired and drab about it. But these glasses changed everything. The only problem (and, of course, there is a problem) is that I must wear glasses with nose-pieces that keep the frames slightly away from my face. Otherwise, my long eyelashes brush the inside of the lenses, causing me to feel a modestly unpleasant sensation and, eventually, leaving tiny oily slashes on the lenses. I suppose that means my eyelashes are oily. I suppose I could cut the eyelashes (a risky proposition), but I’m not inclined to do that. Maybe I’ll just get a pair of glasses I can wear only occasionally, when I feel the need to boost my self-image for a moment or two. I like these glasses frames; they make me far less unappealing. Maybe it’s my scroungy beard that does more to hide the deeply unexceptional appearance behind it. Or maybe it’s both. Whatever.

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Three recently-hatched Carolina wrens leapt from their nest, which is hidden in an awning under the eve of my house, yesterday. They fluttered their insufficient wings; maybe the fluttering was adequate to soften the landing. For the next several minutes, they rested, then fluttered around the deck, then rested. The birds looked like they had long but delicate little eyebrows as they rested, contemplating their next attempts at flight. Eventually, while my attention was diverted elsewhere, they managed to jump/fly up to the deck railing and, then, leap off. One, at least, was able to fly/glide to a nearby tree. I assume the others did the same. I do not know the habits of Caroline wren babies once they leave the nest…do they return? I am sure I could look it up online, but that would require a diversion of my attention and my fingers, which could delay this potential post for years. So, I’ll wait until later to find out.

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Something—maybe a poet’s elegy for his father—prompted me a few days ago to think about my father. I tried to remember what he was like when I was a maturing young man and, later, a grown man in his late twenties and early thirties. My long-term memory has always been spotty, at best, so I do not have a particularly large assortment of memories from which to choose. I was about 32 when he died, so that would have been not quite 38 years ago. Memories from that era of my life are sparse, but I remember bits and pieces of life then. My father, long since retired, worked off and on as a security guard at night. I know he did it in part to supplement his tiny Social Security income, but I sensed that it was more a matter of having something to do with his time that caused him to do it.

I remember worrying that he would fall when he climbed up on the roof of a shed he was constructing, with the help of one of my brothers. And I remember that same worry when he and another brother took apart the remains of our house that Hurricane Celia  destroyed. That would have been at the beginning of my junior year in high school.

My mother and father moved to the Houston area from Corpus Christi in the late seventies or early eighties, I think. Their first house was in The Heights, a now-upscale area of renovated old homes. Even then, the gentrification of the neighborhood had already begun. Homes in that area were beyond the means of my wife and me, though both of us wanted to live in the area. We had to settle for suburban Katy, where homes in new developments were far more affordable, though far less appealing. I do not remember why my parents sold their Heights home; I just remember they did. And they moved west, to the fringes of Houston where I lived. Their house was only a couple of miles from ours.

All these thoughts about those “old days” came trickling out of me again this morning. There’s never a flood of memories. They leak out of my head, moment by moment, until I am able to cobble together a cohesive recollection. I realize my reconstructed experiences may be inaccurate. But, then, aren’t all memories biased by the experiences of the person having them? Each of us experiences the world from a perspective no one else on Earth shares. So, while our recollections may be correct for us, for others they may be warped or worse.

Memories are not like photographs. They are more like mixed-media paintings—oils and water colors and textured fabrics on a receptive background. The results may be clear and realistic, almost like a photo, but more often the image is semi-abstract. Either lighter or darker than the original from which the likeness was obtained. And colored by the mood and motives of the artist. There’s a photograph on the credenza above my desk. The image is of all six of my parents’ children on the occasion of a milestone birthday of my oldest brother. If, when I look up at the photo, I let my eyes lose focus, the image looks like a stylized, semi-abstract,  water color painting of my family. My memories of my earlier days are like that painting; soft and imprecise around the edges, colors flowing gently from one sister’s shirt to a brother’s vest to an almost colorless background wall. No matter how long I look at that photograph, a few minutes later I cannot recall all of—even most of—the details. That’s how memories work, I think. We recall only that a snapshot was taken, not what was in it.

Once again, I’ve wasted someone’s time by wandering aimlessly through my mind and documenting many of the steps taken on the journey. Watching paint dry can be more engaging than attempting to develop interest in someone else’s vague and pointless memories.

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I got up earlier than usual, around 4. The clock turned to 6 just now. I may practice 5-minute meditation, using Alexa’s free service to guide me. I would love for the rest of this day to be based on a cool, calm, Zen-like start. We shall see.

Sometimes, one finds it necessary to take unnecessary risks. That is, exposing oneself voluntarily to circumstances that friends and family would label irresponsible and dangerous is required for one’s sense of happiness and sanity. Those instances when one feels compelled to engage in perilous activities must be kept secret, lest the sphere of one’s tiny little world explode into a monstrous, limitless, self-immolating supernova. And therein lies the dilemma: is the momentary excitement of an unnecessary risk worth the incineration of incinerating a routine that is perfectly comfortable, if unexciting? Such risks must not always be kept secret. For example, many years ago, on a whim I paid $100 to climb into a small airplane, get tightly strapped to a guy I’d just met, and plunge out of the craft from a high altitude. My one episode of sky-diving was unnecessary, risky, and (depending on one’s perspective) irresponsible. But I felt like I had to do it. It could have been (and thus far, has been) my only opportunity to experience the thrill of free-falling for several seconds. I had a similar, but decidedly less dangerous, thrill when I arranged for a hot-air balloon ride for my late wife and me as a birthday present for her. In both cases, it was not necessary to keep the experience secret.  But sometimes the experience one requires to feel fully alive must be kept close to the vest. That dangerous thrill has to be kept in the dark recesses of one’s brain or else one’s world could be consumed by the flames of rage, suspicion, and distrust. For example, if a person felt compelled by intense curiosity to experience the effects of cocaine or heroin or meth, that lust for a dangerous experience (or, after the fact, the actual experience) would best be maintained in strict confidence with oneself; even sharing it internally with oneself could lead to explosive results. The unquenchable desire to take unnecessary risks has to be measured against the likelihood that taking the risks could lead to one’s demise or, almost as bad (or, perhaps, worse), the utter destruction of one’s comfortable and content lifestyle.

Even the quietest, calmest, most rational among us have those secret desires to take impossibly dangerous risks. Or those people have already taken the risks and have kept them hidden. Or they have taken the risks and found them sufficiently compelling to merit taking them again; with great care to ensure they remain secret, nearly impossible to be uncovered. I look around me and wonder who among my family and friends and acquaintances may have taken—or be contemplating—almost unspeakable risks. And, then, I look in the mirror and wonder the same thing about him.

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Yesterday evening’s Zoom call with my siblings felt good. For some reason, the last couple or three Zoom video conference calls with them have seemed more relaxed than the ones before. Our interactions always have been comfortably informal, but these last few have felt especially good, almost as if we were sitting together in the same room, chatting about recent events and offering up observations about whatever happened to enter our minds. Last night’s call lasted about an hour and a half. That, I think, is about the limit for such video conference calls; after that, they begin to seem a bit labored, with too many silent stretches during which participants strain for something to say to reignite the conversation. At any rate, the sibling engagement was good. Next time, we’ll try to have my nieces and nephews join in, hiking the number of participants to about a dozen. I hope that feels as comfortable and relaxed as last night’s conversation. The next one will have to wait until my oldest brother and his wife return from their river cruise in Portugal and their subsequent exploration of the country in and around Porto. I envy them making that trip; it sounds both relaxing and exciting.

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For months and months, I’ve been saying to myself and to anyone else who would listen that I feel a need to go on a road trip. Actually, I need to go on several. I need to go to California to see my sister and to see Colleen’s ninety-year-old mother. And I need to go on a road trip (perhaps it’s the same one) that will allow me the luxury of traveling as slow as my curiosity will require. And as fast as I need to go in order to reach a destination that is more attractive than “here” and “now.”

And I need to go on my own to a desolate place to think and write and sort out in my mind the unwanted realities of aging. How does one cope with arthritis pain as it grows worse and worse, with no cure in sight or even a way to soften the symptoms? How does one accept the body’s inability to do what once was as natural as breathing? How does one learn to accept knee pain and joint inflexibility? Will I be able to accept these things and adjust to them, or would I (and the people around me) be better off if I simply set a limit beyond which I would be unwilling to go?

I keep putting off the actual road trips. Instead, I make occasional quick jaunts on the road for a day or two. I do this in between responsibilities associated with buying and remodeling and selling and so forth. A real road trip requires abandonment of such responsibilities. Ignoring obligations. Exploring the future and the past without being attached to either.

The A problem with me is that I sometimes need both isolation and proximity at the same time. I want to be completely alone, but in the company of someone who will comfort me. I want to have no obligations to supply love and compassion, but I want to be needed and wanted.  I am several people together in one body wrapped with with smoke and sinew.  I am certain that certainty is an illusion. My emotions are at once as soft as a rabbit’s fur and as hard as granite. Icy blood dams create dangerous rapids of animosity in my veins, while warm rivers of compassion fill my eyes as they witness injustices and pain. I want to reach out for an embrace but instead recoil in fear of rejection. Rage and fear are different expressions on the same face.  The origins of modesty and shame live in the same sullen prison cell, a place where the mirrors are cracked and smudged with the dust of bad experiences.

I’ve wandered into somber narrative poetry, a place tangled with thorny vines, webs of long-dead spiders, and the knotted, decayed remains of snakes. This place is not fit even for cloudy days; certainly not days tinged with sunlight and promise. I will try to climb the broken and rotted rungs of a ladder to reach the surface, but that is a long way to go. Better to try to make it than to wonder whether the dangerous trip to the top is worth the potential pain it entails.

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A few quotations about taking risk from people who took them.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

     ~ Goethe ~

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Leap and the net will appear.

     ~ Zen Saying ~

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Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it.

     ~  Chinese proverb ~

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Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.

     ~  Jimmy Carter ~

Another short, one-finger post. Here I sit in Bentonville, Arkansas, watching dawn race to spray light over the motel parking lot outside my window. Last night’s presentation by Alice Walton et al was interesting and informative, but I am ready to hit the road home. As much as I would like to spend time exploring Bentonville and environs, I have work to do in HSV. I want to shed the obligations sooner rather than later, so I must get back to it. But a short visit was enough to remind me that I could be quite comfortable here…an urban environment not yet made offensive by inevitable urban density, sprawl, and intolerable traffic. The problem with places like this is that they attract crowds who value what such places have to offer but who either are unable or unwilling to create them on their own. Instead, they flock to attractive places, making those spots unattractive in the process.

This lovely setting will be intolerable in short order. Development and the crowding it brings will suffocate the beauty of the place. The easily walkable environment will be choked by traffic, already ruining what once was an idyllic setting. Coffee shops and restaurants will be overrun by useless boutiques and convenience stores and densely-packed commercial office space. Developers could have allowed ideal density to set limits to growth, spurring developers to move on.

Okay, I’m now sitting in FierstWatch, waiting for avocado toast. Then, on the road home.

My mood could use some repair. The sound of the road will cure me. I have confidence.

There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.

~ Jack Kerouac ~

You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.

~ Dorothy Parker ~ (When challenged by columnist Franklin P. Adams to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence).

I always have appreciated the wit of Dorothy Parker. I thought I’d start today’s blog post with something that might make people smile…or take offense…or spray coffee through their noses. Parker’s adaptation of the familiar “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” is a tribute to both her familiarity with cultural aphorisms and her extremely sharp, biting wit.  My late wife enjoyed Parker’s witticisms. For that reason, I bought my wife a t-shirt imprinted with one of her favorite Parker poems:

Resumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

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If not for a full plate of things to do and places to go today, I would write. A lot. I wish I could record all the thoughts that are swirling about in my brain this morning—not by documenting them with my fingers on a keyboard, but by recording the thoughts and visions in my head so I could play them back in my mind. I think far faster than I write, though some people would argue in opposition to that statement. But I do. There’s so much going on in my head that I want to remember, but I know I won’t. There’s plenty of “junk” that gets in the way, but occasionally I notice something of potential value going through my mind and I’d like to have a way to automatically record it so I could get to it later and explore it in more depth. Alas, that’s not possible. Often, my thoughts are fleeting; so terribly ephemeral that they do not last long enough for me to record them in any form. My fingers are too slow and my mind is insufficiently agile to place them where I will remember them. Of course, I do not want to or need to remember most of what goes through my brain; there’s too much chaff there to want to save it all. But when near-perfect spikes of wheat become visible among mountains of chaff, I’d like to have a way to snatch it and preserve it. If only…I wish…etc. One day, people may have ways to instantly and/or automatically record what goes on in their brains. If that happens, they will take great pains to keep those recordings out of the hands of every other human being; the stuff going on in my head could be used to send me to the guillotine. Or worse.

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Last night’s performance by the Quebe Sisters at the Woodlands Auditorium was an interesting diversion from “normal” evenings that involve watching movies or television series or reading from my computer screen. Though western swing is not among my favorite musical genres, watching and listening to the talented sisters play fiddle and sing was an enjoyable diversion. And when they deviated from western swing and got into a bluegrass number, my engagement went up a few notches. There’s no question the sisters and their band members (a bassist and a guitar player) are extremely talented. I admire their skills and their dedication to a musical genre that they obviously have “in their blood.” I have my Realtor and her company, Re/max of Hot Springs Village, (which sponsored the event) to thank for tickets to the event.

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Today will involve an interview with one or more representatives of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), who will determine whether I quality for TSA Pre-Check status. Eventually, if I ever decide to travel frequently by air to and from other countries, I might decide to pursue TSA Global Entry. But not today. Today, it’s just TSA Pre-Check. Just in case I ever decide to fly again. Which I will, of course. Just when, though, I do not know. Better to get the details out of the way early so as to avoid scrambling at the last minute.

After the grueling, 10-minute interview and fingerprinting, a quick road trip to Bentonville will occur. In Bentonville tonight, Alice Walton, Aggie Gund, and Darren Walker will speak at Crystal Bridges in connection with the screening of the film, Aggie. The focus of the film (and the conversation) addresses the intersection of art and philanthropy and social justice. I’m more intrigued by Alice Walton that I am with the film (at the moment). Ms. Walton’s wealth (the richest woman in the world?) is interesting, but more than that is the fact that she has been so generous with it. Funding Crystal Bridges (and ensuring its open and free admission) impresses me. Though she inherited her money, she seems to have worked hard to ensure that it does not benefit herself alone; she is a philanthropist whose exceptional generosity is worthy of exploration.  ANYWAY…just hours after the conversation and film screening (overnight), obligations in HSV will require a hurried return trip home. I need to get back home in time to attend a UUVC board meeting tomorrow afternoon. Then, I must hurry home to host and participate in a Zoom video chat with my siblings, who are scattered far and wide.

A full schedule can be either/both energizing and draining. I look forward to the opportunity, after the house closes and the move is complete, to have at least a few weeks in which my schedule is open or, at least, is mine alone to control. I imagine going someplace like the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow for a few days, where I can be both intensely lazy and intensely focused on nothing but writing and relaxing. We’ll see about that. But, first, I think a trip to California is in the offing so we can visit my sister and mi novia’s ninety-year-old mother. Despite the stresses of travel, that promises to be a welcome change from the frenzy of shedding old houses and making new ones livable.

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Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.

~ Pope Francis ~

If I had a way to do it, I would like to unobtrusively slip inside a person’s head so I could read or listen to or see the thoughts that reside there. Of course, that action would expose me to those deepest, darkest secrets about which I wrote yesterday. I would know, first-hand, those thoughts or experiences or ideas the person wants to keep sealed. I would feel the emotions that prompted the person to shackle those secrets to his or her brain, hidden from exposure to a judgmental world.

If I could accomplish that impossible intrusion, I would give iron-clad assurances the secrets would remain safely locked away. No one should fear revealing the secrets shared with no other person; not even the secrets exposed through unauthorized break-in to the impenetrable prison cells of our own making. My interest in learning what is inside a person’s head is not motivated by the possibility of achieving some surreptitious aim. My motive would be personal curiosity. That, and the possibility I might find we share concerns about the sharp edges and cavernous emptiness within the endless realms of our minds.

The targets of this curiosity of mine are numerous, though the identities of only a few come up with frequency as I daydream about such stuff. I think it is natural that my curiosity is piqued about people who read what I write here. What do they really think when they read my words? Do they think I am slightly daft? Irretrievably nuts? Dangerously psychotic? Moderately intriguing? A soul mate? A soul mate’s opposite? Because regular readers (as well as those who only occasionally stop here) rarely give me any feedback, slipping inside their heads is the only way to know what they think.

What does the woman who wanders the world in an RV with her husband think when she reads what I think? How about the man—a guy I think of as “G-man” because of his career in government—whose interests often parallel mine? Or my friend who finds the appeal of the road so strong that she collects vehicles to aid in her escape to the highway, should the need or desire be sufficiently strong? Or the woman who appeared in a recent dream with me on a houseboat on the Mississippi River? Or the pair of women, one of whom lusts for my leather sofas, in whose company for some reason I feel so utterly at ease? Or the woman who decompresses from demanding days by sitting on her deck, letting wine and gummies soften the hard edges of experience?

As I think about these people who at least occasionally read my blog, I realize they mirror the people I consider friends. And I realize they’re almost all women. Yes, I know, I’ve written many times about the fact that most of my friends are women. I still wonder just why that is. Maybe it is because I do not feel an immediate sense of competition with women, the way I do with men. But “competition” is not quite the right word; but it’s close. There’s something about other men (or maybe it’s not them—maybe it’s me) that makes me sense that I should be on guard, as if they are adversaries. It could be my assumptions about them—their strongest interests will be in things that hold little appeal to me: sports, hunting, golf, conservative politics, and so on—make me feel dull and imprisoned by their presence. That is grossly unfair, of course. But regardless of its propriety, there is it. So, what word best describes the sense I feel…if not competition, what word best describes it?

I may be wrong about who reads my blog, too. It’s entirely possible that men in my circle of acquaintances regularly or occasionally read what I write. But if they do, my curiosity remains: what do they think? Not just about what I write, but about everything? That’s what interests me. What people think and feel. What motivates them? What do they find off-putting? What philosophies guide the way they live their lives? What interests them? Why, for example, do they crochet or refinish furniture or work with stained glass or throw pottery or make sculpture? My interest is deeper than getting the “because it relaxes me” answer; I want to know why that particular undertaking eases those tense muscles.

There’s so much on my mind this morning. Much more than I’m prepared to write about. There’s excitement, of course, about selling my house. And moving to another one. But there’s fear, too. Fear that I might have unrealistic expectations. That’s true of me, though, almost all the time. I worry that I might be setting myself up for disappointment by setting my expectations so high; but, usually, my expectations either are met or exceeded. So why worry? It does no good. But I do it anyway, just in case. It’s silly and unhelpful and very possibly dangerous to my health. So was smoking; that took me more than three decades to finally stop. And I got lung cancer, anyway.

My late wife and I used to laugh hysterically when we talked about her misunderstanding of a lyric from John Prine song, That’s the Way the World Goes Round. Here’s the correct stanza:

That’s the way that the world goes ’round
You’re up one day, the next you’re down
It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown
That’s the way that the world goes ’round

But she heard:

That’s the way that the world goes ’round
You’re up one day, the next you’re down
It’s half an enchilada and you think you’re gonna drown
That’s the way that the world goes ’round

That’s how we should react to worry; just laugh it off. Easier said than done, of course.

My mind is all over the place this morning. I need to take a deep breath and relax. A little meditation could certainly help. Just ease into the day, John.

An hour and a half from now, I have to drive to the grocery store to pick up an order I placed online last night. That will take my mind off the million and one things that are trying to cut me into an equal number of slices so thin I could see through them. And that is what I’m after when I think about slipping inside someone else’s brain: I want to see through the thick walls we put up to hide what’s behind them. And I’m back to square one.

Onward, through the haze of pollen and confusion.

Spring returned late yesterday, after leaving in a huff a few days earlier. Summer slipped in during Spring’s absence, arriving with a vengeful blast of heat that wilted blossoms and steadfast resolve. His fiery breath baked new-fallen pollen onto the hoods of cars and urged chiggers and snakes to emerge from their long winter naps. Spring’s return, though, was too late to shepherd insects and reptiles back into their respective dens; they are ready to spring on exposed skin and at unwelcome intrusions.

I prefer the coolness of actual spring to the heat of early summer. Or, for that matter, any summer. Though I was born in an unairconditioned environment and spent most of my youth in sweltering heat and humidity, my ancestral roots are in England and Scotland, where the climate is (or once was) far more hospitable to humans than is the moist oven of much of the southern United States. Consequently, occasionally I have to acknowledge the madness that causes me to remain in a place where intelligent representatives of our species would never have settled. Only a lunatic would stay in such a loathsome, unfriendly atmosphere when he could choose to live almost anywhere else—where the climate is considerably more hospitable. An advanced nomadic lifestyle—moving seasonally in response to changes in temperature and precipitation—would make far more sense than setting permanent roots in hot, rocky, scorpion-infested lands rife with chiggers and snakes.  But, all things considered, I’m reasonably happy here, under the circumstances. I would not want anyone to think I am a whining complainer, though that descriptor might well describe me during fits of discomfort with the local climate.

Yet, as I mentioned, Spring returned yesterday. Today’s temperatures are expected to reach only 66°F and tonight’s should dip to a chilly 48°F. That’s more like it. Despite the accompanying clouds and rain, those temperatures suit me SO much better than yesterday’s official 77°F (though my car’s temperature reading claimed it reach 83°F). I’m not whining, mind you, only expressing my actual emotions in response to unacceptably high temperatures.

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I recently skimmed an article that I believe suggested some scientists (physicists, I presume) have posited a theory that an alternate universe in which time moves backward exists as a mirror image to our own universe. As much as I find such stuff intriguing, I sometimes find it beyond far-fetched. Perhaps my skepticism is simply due to the possibility that my mind is not sufficiently open and accepting. Or, perhaps, my doubts are grounded in the idea that time moving “backward” is simply another way of saying “memory.” Perhaps these physicists, during psychedelic trips—stoned on peyote and LSD—are fascinated with how memory works…and that psychedelic fascination morphed into a theory that suggests a mirror universe in which time moves backward. Perhaps we should just ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall. Or talk to the physicists and tell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call. 

Either I’m fortunate that I did not experiment with peyote and LSD and the like or I’m unfortunate that I’ll forever miss the world-view-expanding experience of taking psychedelic drugs. As I grow older, though, I find that my fear of potentially devastating long-term effects is no longer as terrifying. I suppose the fear is still there, but long-term is no longer such a long time. My guess, though, is that mind-altering drugs have different effects on old brains than on young brains. Old brains have more experiences etched into memory, which could have an enormous impact on how the brain reacts to psychedelic substances. Something that, to a young brain, might be new and remarkable and mind-expanding, to an old brain might seem artificial—manufactured out of shreds of recall that are based on real-world experiences. This is all supposition. I don’t have a clue as to whether these idea have any merit or, on the contrary, are wasteful uses of the electrical and electrochemical impulses in my brain. Who know? I don’t.

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This blog is the only place I can openly “talk” about things that would be awkward or difficult in a setting involving real people having real conversation. Here, I can launch into stuff that might make participants in a conversation quite uncomfortable; but, here, none of us are worried about what the others think. But there are many subjects that I have thus far prohibited myself from broaching because they might be too awkward, too deeply personal, too close to the soft, painful spot inside all of us that we want to keep hidden. That spot is different for everyone, but we all have it. And we know we don’t want to allow forceps and scalpels and probes anywhere near it. But other people who write are readily willing to touch on virtually any subject. A woman I met and knew briefly as a writing instructor and guide said, in effect, writers “must be willing to explore even the most painful or the most embarrassing or the matters so personal that they could destroy relationships or families or…” Writers, in other words, should be fearless about what they write. This woman was discussing memoirs at the time. She directed her comments to whether memoirists should be completely, brutally honest. In her view, complete honesty—with all its potentially painful side-effects—is the only steadfast rule for writers. While I accept her assertion, I think it is true only for true, dedicated, unwaveringly committed writers who are willing to hurt not only themselves but others in the name of literary purity. Not necessarily to the rest of us. But everyone, I think, whether writer or not, should have a place where all those hidden parts of our lives, those deepest dark secrets, come out. Maybe it’s just acknowledging a memory. Maybe it’s writing fiction that mirrors—at least in part—the secrets we hide. Maybe it’s a recording a person makes, speaking in his or her own voice into a microphone, memorializing whatever secret action or thought they cannot publicly acknowledge or announce.

I realize, of course, broaching such a subject might prompt readers to think MY secrets are so ugly and dangerous and potentially damaging that releasing them would destroy my world. No, no so much. They are mostly mundane; only slightly erotic or perilous; moderately menacing; yet all of them are private until they carelessly slip out of my fingers onto the keyboard. Or are pried out of me.

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Today is trash day. Time to scramble to get the monstrously over-large barrel out on the street for the autoloader trash vehicle to snatch it up and empty it into the bowels of the garbage truck.

If all goes according to plan, the sale of my house will close on May 27. I got an offer less than 22 hours after the listing went live just after midnight on Friday. Despite quite a lot of interest, including tours by several prospective buyers, the person whose Realtor made the first appointment to view the house was the one whose offer I accepted. I was told by several people that the house would sell quickly and for a good price. I was nervous that…that might have been true for every other house in the area, but perhaps mine would be the exception. Still, I will be on pins and needles until the closing is finished and the proceeds are in my bank account. That, unfortunately, is just who I am.

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Perhaps one of my church auction “wins” will be valuable to me in combatting my tendency to worry about things over which I have little or no control. Despite handing out advice to others—”worry does no good, inasmuch as you don’t control circumstances”—I have a tough time accepting my own. My auction success, an introductory course on meditation, may put me on the road to a worry-free life. The course probably is not quite that effective, but it could help.

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Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.

~ Swedish Proverb ~

I posted this image on my blog on September 15, 2012 to accompany words with which I attempted to describe in somewhat abstract fashion the experience of a pre-dawn walk. The Swedish proverb, which came to mind as I mused about the worthlessness of worry, conjured that image from my memory.

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I am what some people might call passionate. Others might use a different term. Some might say intense. Some could say fervent. Or fierce. Or ardent. Or even wanton or wistful or salacious or…too many words describing too many emotional peaks that may be too forceful or, simply, uncomfortable to people easily made to feel awkward. I do not intentionally cause such emotional distress. But emotions, to my way of thinking, should be strong, so as not to be confused with “vague sensibilities.”  Hmm. This came out of nowhere.

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It’s after 7. My fingers melt after daylight unless I take them off the keyboard.

The transition from winter to summer occurred in the pre-dawn hours yesterday. Or so it seemed. Various seasons, rarely appropriate to the calendar, have come and gone during the past month or so. Frigid periods took place, followed by days of summer-like heat that accompanied massive pollen-drops from trees anxious to lighten their load. Whether the bizarre transitions confused the forest fauna or not, I am confident the flora are beyond confused; befuddled and mentally unstable surely describe both leaves and lichens these past few weeks. I envision bushes—huddled together to conserve heat—reeling in surprise as the polar vortex morphs into an up-close-and-personal visit from the sun…or an encounter with the bowels of a volcano. If there’s any good to this manic climatic dance, it may be that chiggers might not survive the see-saw temperatures. I am afraid chiggers can survive nuclear holocaust, though, so the “silver lining” may simply be smoke from bitterly cold grass fires.

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Yesterday was a busy one for me. Today similarly will be a full one. My cell phone rang rather early; a call from the Realtor’s office, asking whether a viewing today (Saturday) at 9:30 could be arranged. I answered in the affirmative, of course. And then another call, asking for a viewing yesterday (Friday) at 12:30. And then another call, asking for a second viewing by the 12:30 visitor. This happened as I prepared to go to the Democratic Club picnic yesterday afternoon, after which I would go to the UUVC services auction last night. And mi novia and I went to lunch before she and a friend left for an overnight trip to Little Rock for a Maya Angelou birthday celebration which included a concert performance by Ruthie Foster, a favorite blues singer. I did not eat at the picnic. Last night, as I left the auction, I had a boiled shrimp. I needed a little something for sustenance, after spending a small fortune on winning bids on several auction items. I got home a little after 9. My Realtor contacted me just before 10, telling me I have an offer. For the next couple of hours, I mulled over the offer; I decided to wait to give it serious consideration until I learn whether the first visit today might bear fruit. I got to bed just after midnight. I woke at 2:30. I tried to sleep again. Maybe I did, but not much. I got up at 5:11. It’s 6:25 as I write this. In about an hour and a half, the buyer of my refrigerator is supposed to come get the heavy beast. Then, an hour and a half later, I need to vacate the premises for another viewing of the house. We’ll see. And I have to go to church to pick up one of my auction wins; I walked out last night without it. And I committed to contribute $50 for a group purchase on behalf of the church…but I forgot to give my $50 to the person who headed up the effort. My head is not screwed on tight.

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A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

~ Aesop ~

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“If I had it to do all over again, would I?” That question is incredibly common, but utterly fruitless and stress-inducing. It labels past actions as probable mistakes, rather than opportunities to learn from experience. Yet, still, I find myself asking the questions that have no answer.  Would I choose the same course of education? The same type of work? The same places to live? The same relationships? If I could relive my youth, would I spent it in more productive pursuits?  Who the hell knows?! What is done is done. History cannot be revised to suit the present…or any moment. Maybe I am alone in asking myself these absurd questions that have no answer except the one we manufacturer in our minds; we have no way of knowing “what if…”

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The sky this morning is blue; a slight bit hazy, but blue. I will wander out, later, to see what I can see. I will refuse to let tension and stress make this day any more tiring than it should be. I’ll see how that refusal works in the real world.