John Swinburn

If I’ve written about hugs recently, I hope I will be forgiven for another round of hug-appreciation; I just feel the need to give accolades to the value of hugs. Hugs used to make me very uncomfortable. I felt like I was invading someone else’s space and they were invading mine. The only hugs that seemed good and natural were the ones I shared with my late wife. Otherwise, there was nothing pleasant about a hug, really. I went through the motions when greeting people, but I did not really like hugging or being hugged. But then something changed. I don’t know if it was a single experience that brought about the change, but I feel sure that one incident had a lot to do with it. A person hugged me, commenting that a hug should last for quite awhile; I think the idea was that it takes more than a cursory touch for the goodness of a hug to take hold. I remember thinking how good it felt to be in that embrace. The idea that such an experience should be more than fleeting appealed to me. That elation of being in that embrace is something I hope I can recapture. But hugs—if one of the participants makes it last too long for the other’s comfort—can be awkward. For that reason, even though I like long hugs that convey real affection, I tend to make them short and incomplete. By incomplete I mean a hug with a very light touch and an almost cursory (and nearly impossible to feel) squeeze. It’s too bad, in my view, that people tend to feel uncomfortable with the bodily contact involved in actual hugs. They tend to accept hugs almost at arm’s distance, with only a few square inches of clothing touching another few square inches of the other person’s clothing before the “hug” is over. I think the variations in the depth and breadth of hugs calls for more descriptive terms. Calling everything within those variations a “hug” is akin to referring to all cars as “vehicles” instead of Chevrolet or Toyota or Buick or Honda, etc. So, how about some more descriptive terms for hugs? “Clutch” might best describe a hug in which each participant wrap arms tightly around the other and holds on tight for twenty seconds or more. This kind of hug is what I have grown to enjoy and appreciate. A “cling” could describe a less tight embrace that also lasts for quite some time. Less tight might signal that the relationship is deep, but will not lead to cohabitation. At the other end of the spectrum, a “flump” might be the word to describe a flaccid, brief, essentially superficial hug. I find those kinds of hugs distasteful and disingenuous. Of course, they may be genuine expressions…but not of affection…more like distaste or disapproval.

What the hell. Any hug is better than no hug at all, isn’t it? Of course it is. Hugs can repair things that are broken, just as they can strengthen things that already are strong.

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The world will not collapse if I relinquish all of my responsibilities. Every one of them. Even if I sit alone for weeks in a stone building on a deserted beach on a coastline no one ever visits, swilling vodka, the world will not implode. No matter what I do or do not do, the world will take virtually no notice. Nothing of consequence will change, regardless of how active or inactive I am. The message to myself is this: almost nothing I do is vital to the survival of the planet. Nothing I do has an appreciable impact. My point is that all sorts of fabulous circumstances and awful experiences befall billions of people every day, with or without my intervention. Life goes on. If I were to depart Planet Earth on a spacecraft bound for Mars, glaciers I left behind here on Earth would continue to calve and disappear at alarming speed.  If I were to stay right where I am, doing what I am doing, glaciers here on Earth would continue to calve and disappear at alarming speed.

That’s the macro view. My existence is essentially irrelevant and meaningless. But the micro view is radically different. My glance at someone at just the right moment could have an enormous impact on a person. Perhaps the words I write here could be sufficiently thought-provoking that a reader’s perspective on something important to the reader changes. Giving someone a hug at precisely the moment they need it most could be my most significant contribution to humankind. Or, at least, to the person I hugged. Little interactions on an individual basis are the ones that really matter. The only ones that matter.

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Vladamir Putin is roughly one year older than I. I cannot imagine someone of my age engaging in such horrific acts as Putin. But I must accept reality; Putin is a brutal monster. He cunningly established himself, during his career in military and state intelligence services, as a political operative, able to assume positions of increasing power. He worked in foreign intelligence with the KGB before resigning to pursue a political career. For a short time after moving into Boris Yeltsin’s administration, he served as director of the  Federal Security Service (FSB). Scanning his professional history, it seems obvious to me that his philosophical perspectives were established and fed by his years in foreign intelligence. He has been an enthusiastic supporter of Soviet-style power consolidation for many years. Apparently, he believes in an ethos that rewards nationalism and expansive control.

Imagine that J. Edgar Hoover had managed to be elected President of the United States. His history of using illegal but essentially invisible strong-arm tactics would have given him unprecedented ability to frighten those around him into refraining from opposing his authoritarian tactics as Commander in Chief. Hoover’s history of running the FBI gave him access to information he could manipulate to destroy his enemies; Putin had similar access to similar information in the Soviet Union and in Russia. A J. Edgar Hoover administration could have led to horrendous abuses of power in the U.S. A Vladamir Putin administration has done and is doing that in Russia today. And it is flexing its muscles and attempting to spread its wings.

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And we’re off. My house went on the market, officially, some time after midnight last night. Most of the photos are dulled by the fact that they were taken when the house was enveloped in fog; there was very little sunlight to brighten the images. I hope the Realtor’s recommended price is the right one for this house. I hope the house will sell fast and the closing will happen quickly and without a hitch.  And I hope the buyer is a nice person who will get along well with the neighbors on both sides; they are nice people who deserve nice, considerate, helpful neighbors.

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I wonder whether anything I write is the right thing at the right moment? Does it matter, on the micro level? It doesn’t, of course, on the macro level, but I hope it does, for someone, on the micro level. For me, I suppose writing is the equivalent to salvation, though I’m not sure what it’s saving me from. I suppose it saves me from exploding or coming unraveled or whatever else happens to a person when he keeps everything tightly hidden from view until, when it breaks out of its self-made prison, it suddenly shatters the sky with the enormity and ferocity of its release. Yeah, if writing can save me from that, all of the unread letters and unfollowed advice and the rest of the drivel will have been worth it. Just keep me from releasing an explosion of emotions kept sealed in a steel safe.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

~ Robert Heinlein ~ (from Stranger in a Strange Land)

It is possible to love another person, a stranger, so intensely as to be evidence of the validity of the words Heinlein wrote. That reality came to me quite some time ago from an image—not sure whether it was a photo or a video—of two very young children, a boy and a girl. They were young brother and older sister whose parents had been killed in a warlike conflict. They huddled together in front of their utterly destroyed home, crying. It was obvious from the words of the announcer or narrator that they had nowhere to go and no one to look after them. I remember feeling such intense compassion for those children. I loved them. And I felt I could never be happy until I knew they were safe and happy and had a good chance at a tolerable future. That love either dissolved over time or it became less intense.  I no longer need their happiness to ensure mine. But when I think of them, my gut tenses and I feel that original pain I felt when I saw them.

So, what does that tell me? Love changes. It evolves or matures or ripens or whatever else one might say happens to it. It is different one year in from ten years in from forty years in. It can grow enormously, from a tiny seed to an enormously large tree. Other seeds can grow, too. Some of them flourish over time. Some twigs and larger limbs break off and fall to the ground to decay. The product of some seeds grows unruly and must be trimmed or cut down.

It tells me, too, that love differs from person to person and context to context. Love can be that towering oak or that tall and slender pine. It can be an annual or a perennial. It can perish from too little water or too much heat. Its presence is sometimes announced by the startling aroma from its flowers or by the soft scent of its sage leaves. I am rambling again, as I am wont to do. I’ll stop. At least I’ll move on to another thought.

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A fierce tension exists between seeking to minimize one’s possessions and wanting the joy “possessions” bring. That tension once was far less than it is today. What once was a modest strain—the same sort of strain between equal masses on a double-pan balance scale—is now a vicious pull. Thanks in large part to the successes of advertising and marketing, the force of weight on one side of the balance has grown many times over. Advertising and marketing have transformed us into consumers of beauty, rather than observers of that beauty. When I say “beauty,” I mean the bounties of life, both experiential and palpable. There is an enormous difference between consumption and observation. As consumers, we are not satisfied until we actually have objects of beauty in our possession. As observers, we embrace the beauty delivered to our senses, without feeling a need to own it. Observers visit a National Park. Consumers purchase the land for exclusive use.

The possibilities of migrating from an economy based on owning to one based on sharing are limitless.

~ Jay Samit ~

I contend that we would be happier people, in general, if we were to reject the notions implanted in our brains by advertisers and marketers. We could be far happier—requiring far less money and all the other trappings of wealth—if we simply accepted the principle that ownership is onerous but sharing is sweet. That is just hokey tripe, of course, but the idea is valid. The challenges of ownership/consumption are far greater than those of experience/observation. Essentially, ownership is private and personal and rife with responsibilities, whereas experience allows private and personal engagement but with limited, shared responsibilities. I’m wandering off into a subject that is too easily misunderstood. And I am insufficiently capable of explaining it well enough to ensure I will not be misunderstood; so, I will leave it here for a reader to ponder and, I hope comment about consumption versus observation.

But before I go, I will return to a related topic I find compelling: co-housing. Co-housing allows participants (co-owners who share both the responsibilities of consumption and the benefits of observation) to experience communal life in a way that maintains both their privacy and their control. Co-housing involves each housing-unit individual/family owning private (stand-alone, single family property if desired) housing, along with shared ownership of common properties/facilities. I think co-housing, while just sticking one’s toes into observation versus consumption, might be among the best ways to introduce ourselves to the benefits and values of sharing and observation-based enjoyment, instead of tight ownership and control.  This is rich, isn’t it, coming from a guy who has just put his privately-owned house on the market, after having purchased another privately-owned house. I feel more than slightly hypocritical for promoting a concept I have not personally experienced.

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Speaking of hypocrisy, yesterday I officially signed the papers to put my house on the market. I suspect it will go on MLS, Zillow, and Realtor within the next day or two. Though the market seems to have slowed slightly (or, possibly, more than slightly) in the Village, there’s still considerable demand for housing here. Whether that demand extends to a house like mine, in the price range attached to it, remains to be seen. I hope I discover, quite soon, that there is, indeed, such a demand. If not, I have the wherewithal necessary to wait until my supply meets the appropriate level of demand. I wonder whether there is an economic model that embraces the best compassionate elements of communism (lower case “c”) and the most practical and pragmatic elements of capitalism (lower case “c” again)? Democratic Socialism, a term applied to a mix of political/social and economic theories, is too divisive (and probably inaccurate). Perhaps I’ll coin my own term for a new philosophy that would describe the society in which I would like to live. And the one I believe would be most satisfactory to the most people. Except the supremely greedy and the insufferably lazy. And a few other rotten people who I would tend to label something other than “human.” But I’m going off-track again, am I not? I am.

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I need to get my hands on a software application that mimics Adobe Photoshop but at a fraction of the price (I purchased and used Photoshop when had my business, but have long since forgotten how to use it…and I recall it being too expensive for personal use).  And I used the software to create the header for this blog. I need to replace the header, but I need to get my hands on something like Photoshop to create the graphic. I still have the same hat and the same sweater, but I wear different glasses now. And I have a moustache and a scraggly beard with a mix of light-brown and grey whiskers. Frankly, the facial hair looks much better than I expected it would. Although, to be entirely honest, I still think my “beard” looks like my facial follicles haven’t quite matured out of adolescence. I’m an old teenager, facial-hair-wise. Anyway, it’s time for a blog-lift. Maybe. But not until I’ve moved and my life is considerably more settled.

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We cannot force ourselves to love—or to withhold it. At best, we can curb our actions. The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.

~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ~ (Palace of Illusions)

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And with that, I’ll return to the real world of Thursday morning, when I will await a screen-repair guy and do other worldly things.

Emotions can consume a person, the way flames consume a fireplace log. After the conflagration, only ashes remain; the burnt-out, misshapen scraps of a façade that became fuel. That’s the problem with emotions. Although they can enrich life and make it beautiful, they can just as easily torch one’s sense of safety and well-being. Emotions become nourishment for heat that will sear and melt away the parts of us that make us who we are. That’s the danger of emotions. Their beauty can transform the flame of a candle into a uncontrollable blaze; an inferno that devours its source of strength and beauty.  Like all aspects of life, emotions exist along a multi-faceted spectrum, with hatred and love at opposite ends of one facet; fear and attraction the opposites of another. And on another, rage and peaceful embrace sit at opposing ends. We are simply vessels for emotions. When flames and sparks ignite them, the vessels in which they dwell become victims of their own willingness to attempt to contain them.

There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

~ Patrick Rothfuss ~

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I’ve been cautioned against getting too little sleep. This morning, I feel the lack of sleep catching up with me. Last night, I stayed up until close to midnight and slept only four and a half hours. As I attempt to write this post, I slip in and out of consciousness, as if my body and my mind are screaming for rest. That is what meditation may do for me; allow me to recharge my energy, normally done during sleep, by soothing the waves that carry me through the day as if I were in a dinghy on rough seas. But I slept awhile yesterday afternoon, so it’s not a lack of sleep that’s sapping my energy. It must be something else entirely. There I went, again; slipping into a twilight-like dream and  having a conversation with myself, a conversation that turns into an argument we both lose. Perhaps I’m just losing my mind. These lapses into a sleep-like state while I’m awake at the keyboard may be symptoms of dementia. I am not serious, of course. Just speaking to myself by exercising my arthritic fingers

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Keep calm and buy a house.

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The clock read four-twenty when I finally got out of bed this morning. Almost two hours have passed since I abandoned attempts at staying asleep. I had been half-awake for quite some time, thanks to the BIPAP mask slipping slightly. When that happens, the air leaking from the sides of the mask blows against my closed eyelids at the same time it creates an odd sound, almost like a howl. When I had enough of the wind in my eyes and the wolf in my ears, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and extricated myself from the mask.

The room felt cold. After I pulled on my casual morning pants and sweatshirt, then slipped into my decaying flip-flops, I padded out to the living room. The indoor/outdoor thermometer read 48°F outside, 65°F inside. I had forgotten to return the thermostat to its normal 69°F (normal used to be 68°F) after feeling to warm sometime yesterday. It’s amazing how a difference of 3°F can make a house feel frigid. That minor variation in room temperature can accelerate the cooling of a hot cup of coffee as well, I discovered.

My desk is uncluttered, relatively speaking. Yesterday and the day before, I shoved the clutter into boxes and moved them to the new house, where later I’ll have to spend weeks finding paperwork I need. I like an uncluttered desk. I like an  uncluttered house. I appreciate order in and around my home. Moving and the preparation for it involves taking temporary clutter and turning it into semi-permanent chaos by institutionalizing it in unmarked boxes.

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The glass shower enclosure was installed in the new house yesterday. We hauled more “stuff” over. There’s more to be done, of course, but we’re getting there. I’m beyond tired of this slow-motion re-housing event. In the end, though, I hope the new house will prove worth waiting for.

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My current house is not yet listed (no contract with Realtor yet). Yesterday’s showing was a kind of off-book event. I still have to sign the agent’s contract, have photos taken, write and/or okay the description, etc. And, ideally, I should have emptied enough from the garage so that cars can once again fit. Just last-minute straightening up. I hope the listing can be finalized today or tomorrow. And, then, we wait for a buyer.

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Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

~ Miguel de Cervantes ~

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A bone-jarring clap of thunder just awoke me from the state of semi-madness to which I aspire this morning. I do not recall whether the meteorologists and other atmospheric magicians predicted bone-jarring claps of thunder. Whether they did or not is immaterial. Reality tells me it is nearing 6:30 and I am alive and craving food I cannot find in the refrigerator. What the hell. I wish I had the discipline this morning to begin a thirty-day fast; nothing but water until my body rebels. It may not be healthy, but it would surely cause me to lose a few pounds and their attendant inches. I might fit into my clothes again. No. Probably not. No fasting today. Instead, I’ll double check to see whether Amazon has next-day delivery on “big and heavy man” shirts. Hah! I am a bundle of laughs today. Off to the races. And an early breakfast.

There is no poison worse than hatred, nor no medicine better than love.

I wrote those words more than eight years ago, a couple of months before I moved to Hot Springs Village. Though I do not recall exactly what was on my mind when I produced that very brief blog post, the posts I made in the days before and after provide context that I think explains, at least in part, what was on my mind at the time. I had grown bone-tired of negative thoughts; both mine and those of strangers I encountered every day. I wanted a place free of unnecessary turmoil and artificial bravado. Ever since then, I’ve sought a place in my mind where I could find refuge from the world. Probably long before then, though, I had been searching for that spectacular stillness that I dreamed might exist for me somewhere. It’s not a physical place; I realize that. It’s an inner calm that has eluded me my entire life. The words, “There is no poison worse than hatred, nor no medicine better than love,” somehow bring that imaginary place into focus for me. Some days, when the reality hits me that I will never find it, I think I want to give up on everything; just curl up and disappear. Other days, when I allow myself to believe in magic, I feel like reaching inside myself and drawing out the energy to do the impossible. As I look back, I see time behaving like a long, powerful whip, snaking its way in undulating cycles from one end to the other until—crack!—it explodes, as if the air it touches splits open with a bang.

Stillness. The absence of demands. Nothing pulling on me or pushing me or otherwise disturbing my supreme quiet. I remember a time, long ago, when I thought I needed action, energy, motion. I could not sit still. I could not be contained by a room with four walls; I needed to be free to explore the wider universe. That’s what I thought. What I really needed was a placid experience in which all the noise of living could be shut off; the volume adjusted down from a chaotic cacophony to absolute quiet. But that was never an option; at least I did not think quiet was an experience I could tolerate. Had I heard that nothingness, though, everything might have been different. I’m too old now to ever know. But I know with certainty there is no poison worse than hatred, nor no medicine better than love.

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Speaking of noise and chaos and the frenzy of living inside a pressure cooker…

My chest of drawers and my electric powered recliner sold in a flash, leading me to believe I might have priced them both too low. Or, perhaps, at precisely the right price. Whatever. I am satisfied that they are out of my house. After the sale, we gave  set of four outdoor glider/rockers that filled my screened-in porch to mi novia’s ex-husband, who had originally bought them when the two of them were married. And, then, he returned the favor by giving us a high-top, four-chair deck table for  the screened-in porch of the current house…as I prepare to sell it.

I got a text yesterday morning from the owner of the flooring company that installed our new flooring. He had said he would arrange to purchase my old fridge early this week; the text today, though, indicated he was attending to an ill relative. Consequently, one of his employees would contact me later in the day to arrange to pick up the refrigerator. Because I had not yet finished cleaning it, I immediately set about making the thing sparkle. But the employee never called. Perhaps there is a good reason. Maybe the  fridge will be picked up today.

A good friend came by with her behemoth of a pickup truck yesterday and helped us move some more “stuff” to the new house: a chair, an ottoman, and miscellaneous other things. Her truck and her labor, incidentally, were responsible for moving the high-top table and four chairs from the home of the ex to the home almost on the market.

Speaking of almost on the market, the Realtor called yesterday, informing me that she wants to show my house to someone today. To do that, I would need to complete the realty contract, which she said she would send to me. I have not yet received that contract, but I did receive the Seller’s Disclosure Notice, which I spent the better part of an hour in the wee hours (now coming to a close) completing. It should be in her hands when she wakes (which could be awhile, since she may sleep in today the form came through to my email just a few minutes before midnight last night). In a just world, she would show my house today to the potential buyer, who would then make an all-cash offer for a 15-day closing. I am a dreamer; always have been, always will be. 😉 I must convince myself to “chill” and let events unfold at their own pace, whether that pace be leisurely or frenetic.

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Movement versus stillness. I wonder whether it is possible to have both at the same time? Exhilaration and depression, hand-in-hand. I think not. I think that’s a little like simultaneous up and down, good and bad, true and false. Or is it “motion versus stillness?” It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same damn thing. Grasping at handfuls of air, only to find they escaped into the ether.

Our lives are like a chicken’s eggs, we are both brittle and viscous. We are anomalies of physics. Living, breathing examples of the impossible, in shades of black and white, surrounded by colors so intense our eyes cannot see them. Like so much else around us. We are blind to this incredibly brief existence. I think we do not even know how brief it is until it is about to end. We deny the inevitable until denial becomes more upsetting than facts.

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A busy day ahead. I must continue to clean and clear away daily clutter. The house must look pristine for the prospective buyer. Why do we not do for ourselves what we do for others? Why don’t we treat ourselves like prospective buyers, people deserving of clean, orderly, brilliantly attractive environments? Is it because we do not deem ourselves worthy? Is it laziness? What else could it be? Are we simply worn out?

Last night—as I sat skimming through an assortment of CreateTV programs—it occurred to me that I should spend less time being “entertained” by television. Instead, I should spend more time watching educational programs and learning about topics that capture my interests. During my time skimming the channel, I learned a bit about Western Australian pearl diving and I watched as an enormous oyster was harvested and its prized “meat” carved into tasty morsels, flavored with fresh lime juice. And I listened to an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, a serial entrepreneur who says he values empathy more than money. I heard Richard Bangs discuss the appeal of the Matterhorn and Zermatt, Switzerland. I viewed a brief promo piece for Ask This Old House, a program that once was one of my favorite ways to while away the hours in front of the television when harsh weather made venturing out a chore.

Public television is an extraordinary resource that I used to use with a passion. Lately, I seem to have abandoned PBS in favor of injections of entertainment from Netflix and Amazon Prime. While I enjoy being force-fed entertainment, those channels require nothing more from me than sitting in front of a television while having my mind manipulated by entertainment professionals. CreateTV, though staffed with paid professionals as well, requires more of me. It insists on engaging my senses and piquing my curiosity. It scratches at the scab that threatens to bury the itch to learn, to know more, to uncover aspects of my personality that, without prompts from curiosity factories like CreateTV, I might simply allow to wither.

I watched CreateTV last night in between reading and responding to inquiries about my offer  to sell my electrically-powered leather recliner. My late wife and I bought the recliner around the time of my lung cancer surgery in November 2018, assuming I would find a recliner more comfortable than a couch in the aftermath of surgery and chemo and radiation treatments. Our assumptions were correct; I am glad we bought the recliner. But it has always been too big for the space available for it. It has always crowded out other furniture. Now, more than ever, it is a comfortable annoyance. So I’m trying to sell it. And I’m trying to sell the big 8-drawer chest-of-drawers; I use only 2 drawers regularly and one more as a storage locker for old winter clothes that never fit well and are growing increasingly unflattering to my physique.  There’s lots more to dispose of. Would that I had the discipline and the wherewithal now to discard everything but necessities. Life could be so much simpler if I would prohibit “things” from commanding so much of my energy and attention.

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Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

~ Mahatma Gandhi ~

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My niece and her husband left yesterday morning around 10. I wish they could have stayed longer, but Ignacio has to work today, so a brief trip was all the time they could afford. We will see them again before long, I hope. They are engaging, intelligent, fun people with whom to spend time.

After they left, we scurried to our computers to catch the morning service of our church via Zoom. Inasmuch as yesterday was Easter Sunday, our minister decided to offer what I consider to be an odd sort of “communion.” Though his message was interesting and powerful, I remain uncommitted to religious tradition—even progressive adaptations of tradition. I look forward to hearing others, who were actually present for the event, talk about their perceptions of the service.  Certain rituals and traditions seems right and proper to me, while others seem stilted and forced. It’s hard to articulate the differences between those with which I am comfortable and those that do not appeal to me. I should explore my thoughts on these matters; I might find I better understand myself if I do.

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Today, after my recliner sells (I hope), a friend has generously agreed to come over with her truck to move some furniture. The more we can do early this week, the better the house will look to prospective buyers. I hope. Somewhere along the line, I need to do a lot of cleaning and straightening. I’m not in the mood for it. I’d rather be in the garage, puttering with things that intrigue me. But the benefits of cleaning and straightening outweigh the benefits of puttering. So, my choice is made.

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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

~ Barack Obama ~

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I will get more done today if I begin now than if I wait until I feel like doing what must be done. I am now ready to force myself to behave like an adult, despite the fact that I have never felt like one.

I look in the mirror and see someone I do not recognize. He is an imposter. Someone far larger than I, attempting without success to fit into my body. Someone slack and pasty, a pretender who cannot possibly be the same man I remember seeing through the glass when I was younger and stronger and more powerful. This guy needs a body-lift and a face-lift. And, as I gaze into his soul, it’s obvious he needs some time in self-reflective repair. It might be time to exchange his ill-fitting parts for a complete replacement.

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Today is Easter Sunday. Not a big deal to me, of course. But many people in the wider world consider the day a sacred reminder of all manner of spiritual matters to which humankind pegs its value. There was a time I would mock what I considered an intellectually stunted attachment to magic; no longer. I have matured (to an extent) to the point that I recognize and acknowledge that all of us should be free to believe what we wish, provided that belief is not harmful across a broader spectrum. If only I had achieved that level of tolerance much earlier. And if only the remainder of people on the planet would do the same. I do not wish for all of us to actively embrace the peculiarities of everyone else; only for us to refrain from mockery and worse. Is that too much to ask? I do not know. But perhaps tolerance should not be our objective; perhaps understanding, which goes well beyond tolerance, should command our aims. It is important to acknowledge that understanding does not necessarily equate with acceptance or support. Understanding equates with knowledge. Tolerance can be based on knowledge, but it can just as easily be based on grudging ignorance. There’s a place for both tolerance and understanding. When the two go hand in hand—I think that’s the golden ring we should reach for in our efforts to be more human.

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It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.

   ~ Hermann Hesse ~

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Despite early torrential rain and periodic reminders during the day that water can come from the sky with little warning, yesterday turned out well. After dropping off a variety of last-minute add-on items for a garage sale whose organizer graciously allowed us to latch onto, we went to town. Drenching rain notwithstanding, tourists flooded Hot Springs yesterday. Our intended visits to the Gangster Museum and the Ohio Club were derailed by lack of available parking. So we went to Riley Art Glass Studio, where we were first among a handful of visitors. We watched Charles and Michael Riley work their magic with molten glass, as Charles maintained a constant banter about the process. After watching the glass blowing and molding process for quite a while, we headed out. Before leaving, though, my niece bought a few pieces of lovely glass art. We had lunch at Sqzbx, then drove up the steep road to the top of West Mountain, where the views of Hot Springs are stunning, even on a cloudy day. We saw several deer along the steep drive up (and down). After we drove onto Whittington Avenue, we saw a groundhog in the thick grass of a lot between two old houses; it raced for cover when we got too close.  After we got home, the rest of the crowd opted to take a nap; I moved a few more items to our new house and then stopped by my sister-in-law’s house for a glass of wine and a relaxing conversation on her back deck, overlooking her back “yard,” which would be more appropriately called a Zen forest. After a carry-out dinner of sushi and various hibachi grill treats, we called it a day and eased into the evening.

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In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

   ~ Dalai Lama ~

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Time to slog through the day. More coffee, please; something to set me aflame with passion.

When I rose from bed this morning, the aches and cramps that accompanied the launch of the day startled and surprised me, though they are not new. But they are more pronounced. “I used to be young,” I said to myself. “How did I come to be so old, so wrenched with the pains of an old man’s body? Is this just the start of an irreversible decline in comfort? Can I turn back the clock, even a few years, to regain the youth I so foolishly assumed would last as long as I do?” Arthritis. Adhesions in the gut, reminders of various past surgeries that patched my body together so it would last a while longer. Shortness of breath, an emphatic admonition about the excised and discarded lobe of my right lung. A chronic inability to clear my lungs and silence the whistle from deep in my throat. These are the keepsakes of advancing age, otherwise known as decay. Perhaps a return to morning walks on relatively flat surfaces, after the move, will reinvigorate the old muscles and calms the aches and pains. A better diet and more exercise would help reduce the baggage of weight accumulated during years of ignoring advice on taking care of the only body available to supply my brain with the nourishment it needs to keep going.

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Last night, after a nice dinner out with friends and my visiting niece and her husband, we returned home to relax and engage in conversation—though my part in the conversation was limited, as my eyes closed involuntarily and repeatedly. My niece and her husband had driven from Houston yesterday, so they were understandably tired, too. We made an early evening of it; in bed before 10. Not long thereafter, the NOAA Weather Radio screeched, loud enough to wake me even if I were deaf, to warn us of a severe thunderstorm watch. A few moments ago as I was taking my first sip of coffee, just before 5, the beast howled again. This time, it announced a severe thunderstorm warning. The automated voice sounded the alarm for fierce winds, golf-ball-sized hail, damage to roofs and cars, etc. Because the weather radio announcement was garbled, I checked the warning online on the National Weather Service website. It seemed even more dire:

HAZARD…Tennis ball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts.

IMPACT: People and animals outdoors will be injured. Expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees

Fortunately for us (so far), the announcement of locations expected to be impacted did/does not include Hot Springs Village.

This kind of weather does not bode well for the garage sale my late wife’s sister helped organize for today (she was with us at dinner last night, too).  I’m crossing my fingers and toes in the hope the weather blows over quickly, leaving perfect weather for garage sales.

As I return to the keyboard, I learn of a new weather statement, a tornado warning. Fortunately, this one, too, does not include the Village. But I hear loud cracks of thunder, followed by rolling growls that reverberate for many seconds. Whether tornadoes are near or not, this weather is not conducive to being outdoors. I am convinced the change in climate is accelerating. Mother Nature is intent on exacting her revenge on humankind for our cavalier mistreatment of the only planet we have ever known.

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Save a few touch-ups and some silicone caulk, I finished painting the “bonus room” behind the garage in the “current house” yesterday. I hope that room, along with the rest of the house and the outstanding view to the southeast, will lead to multiple offers to buy the house when it goes on the market late next week (assuming all goes according to plan). We still have plenty of stuff to move to the new house (to eliminate clutter) and lots of straightening up and cleaning up to do before the house is ready to show, but I hope we can get it done before Thursday or Friday. I am more than a little ready to have this four-month episode of housing conversion behind me.

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Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

~ John Ruskin ~

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If I were more courageous, I would dispense of most of my possessions. I would live a much leaner life, a life in which material things did not serve as stand-ins for what really matters. It takes courage to shed the trappings of modern-day contentment, I think. Modern-day contentment is a replacement for meaning, an artificial replacement for something most of us have long since lost. We do not needs belts or blouses or shirts or smart-phones or polished walnut picture frames or Volkswagon convertibles to make us complete. But discarding all those things puts one in danger of being labeled mad or worse. Yet is being labeled mad all that bad? I mean, if one is happy with fewer possessions, is that an unhealthy experience? No, of course no. But it does take courage. And the ability to shed criticism like water from a duck’s back. Most of us care too much what we believe strangers might think of us. Even though, as people wiser than I often have said, they don’t.

Wouldn’t we (Humanity, that is) be surprised to learn Nature is a sentient being and that she has finally decided to rid herself of a constant thorn in her side? How might we react if incontrovertible proof showed the monstrous hurricanes and the outbreaks of devastating tornadoes within the last five or ten years occurred not by accident but emerged from Nature’s blind rage? What if earthquakes and tsunamis, once caused by simple and natural geological adjustments had become conspiratorially militant strikes against humankind?

Well, if these things were spelled out to us in ways that made their validity and reality impossible to reject, we would reject them nonetheless. Because we are superior. To everything. We own all of the Milky Way galaxy and the universe beyond. Our reign will never end because we are the supreme masters of all creation. Yes, this is how we would react because this, apparently, is what we believe. We would never think that Nature, always under our control, would intentionally unleash a series of savage attacks on humankind in a deliberate effort to rid the world of us. We could not comprehend the idea that we might simply be parasites whose annoying properties had become to much for Nature to bear. And the idea of a sentient, thinking Nature capable of having motives for her madness? Rubbish!

Dinosaurs once believed in their superiority, too. I remember a conversation I had with a triceratops (I’ll call him Bruce). He asserted without a hint of irony that Nature had better watch herself or Bruce and his clan would bring her to her knees. Bruce and his family and friends perished in a volcanic firestorm just before a massive meteor reduced to a sullen, dank swamp the territory they previously ruled.

Nature is not just the leaves and vines and forest creatures and fish in the sea. No, she is air and water and atmospheric dust. And she constitutes the clouds and the sun and every star in the sky and beyond. Nature controls anger and compassion and laughter and tears. Nature is far more complex than the brain of that most arrogant creature, the one who mistakenly believes Nature is simply a tool he can manipulate to do his bidding. And, finally, she has had enough. While she could simply snuff out the offensive bastards who attempted to subjugate her, she has chosen to torment and torture the imperious son of a bitch for a few decades—enough time to ensure that the progeny of the progeny of the progeny of the progeny of the ones who unleashed nuclear fear on the world pay for their ancestors’ misdeeds. Nature has decided to slowly and deliberately dissolve every shred of human DNA.

But, wait. When I say “deliberate,” I do not mean the word in the way we normally understand it. I mean that Nature has determined that the parasitic experiment that is humankind has caused unpleasant tears in the fabric of eternity. Therefore, Nature has determined, it must be excised so that the natural order of Everything can be returned to some semblance of normal. The process will take time, to ensure that the message gets through to every tiny slice of human DNA before it is returned to Universal Fuel. UF is everything between everything else. It is what is “there” when there’s nothing there.

I think I’ve mistakenly suggested Nature has anger in the same way humans do. No, Nature’s anger is simply a normal process of digesting and disposing of unwelcome intruders on her domain of everlasting acceptance. And I may have been mistaken in suggesting Nature torments and tortures in ways like humans engage in those activities. Nature’s torment is simply a way of accelerating engagement. And torture, while unpleasant to the tortured, is a natural prodding; a reminder of what is real and controllable versus what is unreal and chaotic.

Bruce finally understood the futility of control. Control is an illusion. Bruce and his successor creatures had and have no control. They react to stimuli over which they have no influence; a little like worms responding to heat by curling into little balls.

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In other news, my arthritis can be almost unbearably painful, but that extreme form of Natural torture last only a short time. Thereafter, the pain is tolerable but assertively present almost without interruption. The joints in my fingers feel like red-hot needles are piercing my flesh and bones; as if I know how that would feel…but I can imagine it.

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Enough of that. I have to save avocados from spoilage and I have to cook a pork tenderloin from Greenchef.com before the accompanying kale, etc. goes bad. Admittedly odd breakfast, but frankly that’s the sort of thing that makes me happy. I’m off to get happy.

I “hear” the beat of my heart. Or perhaps I feel the blood coursing through the vessels in my head, near my ears. The difference between the sensations of sound and touch is almost indistinguishable when both are so faint and distant. But another—much louder—sound disturbs my quiet at the moment. It’s the sound crickets make, but it’s not really a sound at all. At least I don’t think it’s really a sound. My body creates a sensation of sound; only I can hear it. According to the American Tinnitus Association, “tinnitus is the perception of sound when no actual external noise is present.” So both the “sound” that mimics my heartbeat and the crickets I hear are entirely in my head. In other words (mine, only…no one else would be so crude to say it…), I am unbalanced. “It’s all in your head,” I can imagine people saying to me, if I were to reveal the fact that I hear noise that isn’t there.

If I hadn’t given up on trying to sleep before 3:30, I might have been able to avoid these irritating noises. But the very real noises emerging from my mouth and nose when I breathe, coupled with the cramps on the outer side of my lower left leg, made sleep virtually impossible. So I got up. I made coffee. I ate some peach  yogurt. I took dishes out of the dishwasher and dried the ones that never dry of their own accord. And I became conscious of the damn crickets. And the blood coursing through my veins. And the noises a house makes while most people sleep.

If death weren’t so final and so complete, I might want to experience it, just to have the luxury of absolute silence. Every so often, I get these ideas in my head about the allure of complete silence. I’ve written about the subject before. I want to know how silence feels; how it must lull one into an ecstatic, trance-like state. Pure, uninterrupted silence. Like total darkness, but for the ears, not the eyes.

+++

I used to vacuum the house regularly between visits by the cleaning person, but I have gotten out of the habit. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been spending so much time either working on the other house (painting and so forth) or thinking about working on the other house. The reason for my failure to regularly vacuum and clean notwithstanding, the fact remains that I have been falling short on keeping the house clean and dust-free. Consequently, as the time nears to put the house on the market, there is more “clean up” work to do than may be possible in the time I’ve allowed myself. At the same time I should be cleaning house, I must be packing and moving things to the new place. And I should be putting the finishing touches on painting, etc. on both places. I’ve put myself into the almost impossible position of insisting that my current house be put on the market immediately, while not giving myself the time necessary to get the house ready to show to prospective buyers. This dilemma, one of my own making, arose because I am fed up with the slow-as-molasses pace of the process. It’s been four months since closing on the “new” house. But to look around the house where I live, one would find scant evidence of any significant preparations for a move—not even regular dusting and vacuuming and routine cleaning of the kitchen and baths. It’s not that the place needs a deep cleaning; it’s just that it needs the routine stuff that I’ve more or less ignored while I’ve spent my time on the other  house. I’m frustrated with myself for letting preparations for the move lag so badly. But I’m unwilling to allow that frustration once again inject even more delay into the process. I could scream. But I won’t. Because it’s 4:15 in the morning and my blood-curdling scream could cause the neighborhood to erupt in panic.  So I will continue to sit and stew and pace back and forth in a cage with a door that is closed, but not locked. I am experiencing a shock to my system in the present moment; it is caused by the transition from the past to the future. I am not handling that transition well. I have ignored too many day-to-day obligations. I must repair my rhythm.

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Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.

~ Alvin Toffler ~

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I had a routine once. When I woke up, I skimmed news websites, wrote my blog post, and then made a breakfast that usually consisted of a poached egg, a few radishes, a piece of Canadian bacon, and a glass of tomato juice.  Then, I’d putter for the rest of the morning; a trip to the post office or the grocery store, some more writing, and a few other mundane things. Then I had lunch, which often consisted of a tin of smoked herring, sliced tomatoes, a few slices of purple onion, a chunk of bell pepper, and cucumber spears. The afternoon may have included an aimless drive and general puttering, followed by a simple dinner. The rest of the day and into the evening were relaxed and simple. Sometimes I watched movies, sometimes I read, sometimes I cleaned house and did laundry. It was a simple routine. It wasn’t entirely satisfactory, but it wasn’t dreadful, either.

My routine has gone out the window. That’s what buying a house does to you; at least that’s what buying a house that needs much, much, much more work than you thought it did does to you. It upsets your routine. It inflicts a new reality on top of an old one. It tinkers with something that wasn’t entirely satisfactory by exposing it to something that sometimes feels dreadful.

+++

Enough. I slept briefly while sitting upright. Time to remedy that situation.

Today would have been the forty-second anniversary of my marriage to my late wife. We had been married for forty years and eight months when she died. Every milestone event in which she played a significant part—birthday, anniversary, major holiday, and on and on—triggers both grief at the fact that I lost her and precious memories of my good fortune at having her in my life for so long. That seesaw of emotions causes tears of joy and tears of pain to flow. It is natural to feel competing or conflicting emotions, I suppose. Despite expecting those emotional waves, the emotional ride they deliver can be bumpy and draining, both physically and mentally. Today, I would like nothing more than to indulge myself in comforting memories, but I have to stay focused on the tasks at hand: wrapping up some cosmetic work on the current house and preparing for the move to the next one.  I met with the Realtor yesterday; she offered suggestions as to what furniture we should move out to better “stage” the house for potential buyers. At the moment, there is simply too much furniture to allow viewers to easily imagine what the place would look like with their furnishings. Instead of spending the day with the luxury of remembering the past, I will spend it setting the stage for the future. But I will allow myself to smile at reflections of my good fortune. And I will accept tears as the natural response to enduring grief.

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True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island… to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

   ~ Baltasar Gracián ~

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The term “soul mate” often is either spoken in sarcastic jest or uttered with metaphysical fervor. But I think the term refers to a legitimate connection between people that is neither laughable nor otherworldly. I believe one can have a very few “soul mates” in one’s life; people to whom one feels a strong bond that blends intellect and emotion. If a person is married, ideally the spouses are soul mates for one another. Their fusion of romantic love with absolute trust, along with their innate desire to protect and one another and  help each other grow to their potential, is an expression of the bond that I think qualifies the pair as soul mates. A person can have other soul mates, in the form of very close friends with whom one shares most of those same attributes. Those are people with whom one feels quite close and comfortable and with whom one shares likes and dislikes; people who might almost be clones who do not look like one another. In every case, I think there is an intense affection between soul mates; not a romantic affection, but an affection of endearment and devotion. I suppose other people might call what I described as “best friends.” Maybe. But best friendships can splinter. The bond between soul mates is like a perfect weld that cannot be broken; the metal on either side of the merged metal might be torn, but the weld remains steadfast. Khalil Gibran advised not to make bond of love; I think his admonition is correct; our differences are matters, I think, of semantics. Obviously, not all marriages are between soul mates. Nor are all friendships sufficiently deep and the bond adequately strong to withstand pressures that might conspire to tear them apart. In thinking about soul mate relationships, I would say they are rare. But they are stunning in their beauty, even if invisible to the world around them.

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But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

   ~ Khalil Gibran ~

I have many things on my mind today, but I do not have the time nor the words to express what those things are. For now, I’ll return to my role as painter and mover.

Cornelius turns 78 years old today. Let’s look back 78 years to when he was born and then 78 years before the year of his birth. And let’s continue looking backward, 78 years at a time, in that fashion to some of his ancestors:

My point is this: each of us has an almost immediate history stretching back centuries. And most of us know virtually nothing about the people whose lives made ours possible. We may know bits and pieces about our parents’ lives and even our grandparents’ lives, but almost nothing about those before. How odd that we study the history of humankind so intently, but we rarely look deeply into our own past. What would we discover if we could travel back to the time of our great-great-great-great-great grandfathers? What lessons would we learn from their ability to live in an atmosphere absent the technologies we have come to take for granted?

+++

Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don’t even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.

Annie Lennox

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Watching and listening to a storm’s fury can have the same effect as staring into a clear night sky. Both can make a person feel tiny and insignificant. After sunrise this morning, I will determine whether last night’s ferocious hail storm did any damage to our cars. And when morning light permits, I will gaze southward, checking for signs of damage between my house and Brookhill Ranch, just over a mile and a half south of here. Frantic television meteorologists said last night that a tornado had been reported “on the ground” north of Brookhill. A short while before that news, the fierce hail and rain suddenly stopped; because I’ve been told such an abrupt halt to stormy weather can precede tornado strikes, I was quite concerned. A few minutes later, hail and rain began anew, but not as heavy as before. Television weather coverage a short while later indicated a large, potentially deadly tornado was on the ground north of Little Rock. The National Weather Service declared a tornado emergency for an area north of Little Rock while we watched weather coverage on television. A tornado emergency is “an enhanced version of a tornado warning, which is used by the National Weather Service in the United States during imminent, significant tornado occurrences in highly populated areas.” A chilling emergency message from the National Weather Service broadcast to cell phones in and around the area of violent weather spoke to the severity of the threat:

A large, extremely dangerous, and potentially deadly tornado is on the ground. To protect your life, TAKE COVER NOW!

While I do not know whether the severe weather did any damage elsewhere, I know nothing of catastrophic consequence took place in my immediate area. I suspect news reports will inform us of the impact of last night’s storms elsewhere. Based on the reports from last night’s news, I suspect a major tornado did considerable damage somewhere close to the Little Rock Air Force Base and the surrounding area.

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We drove to Little Rock yesterday afternoon for an  appointment with an ophthalmologist for mi novia. The appointment was to remedy a post-cataract surgery cloudiness of vision, a pretty common after-effect of implantation of artificial lenses. YAG laser treatment opens up a thickened area around the lens capsule and lets more light get through to the artificial lens. The procedure takes only a few minutes. The post-laser follow-up involves special eye drops, a prescription for which was sent by the ophthalmologist to a local pharmacy. Unfortunately, when we got back to town to pick up the prescription, it was not ready; the drops called for are unavailable. So, this morning will be devoted, in part, to checking with the doctor about alternatives. Ach!

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Eventually, we learn what we need to know. About the world, of course, but more importantly, about ourselves.

Yesterday’s guest speaker for my church’s “insight service,” the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys, was much more interesting than I had expected. The speaker, Steve Straessle, offered both a polished delivery and an engaging message. His topic, “Awakened Youth: Engaging the Generations,” offered some thought-provoking ideas about encouraging young people to be engaged with the world around them. A point he made repeatedly was that kids should be given opportunities to think and do for themselves, rather than having everything delivered to them. Parents (and teachers, etc.) who think and act for kids instead of expecting kids to think for themselves are doing the children a disservice. Straessle mentioned his school’s policy surrounding “stuff” left at home; parents are prohibited from bringing forgotten lunches, homework, etc. to school. Students are expected to figure out how to deal with such matters; Straessle stressed that kids need to be given the opportunity to develop their own problem-solving skills. I was surprised to learn that the Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys has a significant percentage of non-Catholic students. The more I learned about the school, the more convinced I became that the school’s curricula, even the religious curricula, are likely to be invaluable to students as they develop their own problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Hmm. Who knew?

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My used copy of Gretel Ehrlich’s The Solace of Open Spaces arrived in the mail a few days ago. I have not opened it yet and probably won’t for weeks to come. Many other books sit on my desk or on my shelves, unread or incompletely read, awaiting a sudden change in my outlook that will prompt me to voraciously consume books as greedily as I consume food. For reasons I attribute mostly to my imperfect eyesight, I haven’t been reading much of late; I stick to my computer screen, which is easier to read that the books that await me. I still haven’t made a happy and comfortable transition to Kindle-like devices in lieu of paper books. Another book I have picked up several times, only to put down when I get sidetracked by mundane stuff that interferes with more pleasurable pursuits, is a non-fiction book, Kings of Texas by Don Graham. A friend who knows my early years were spent in South Texas lent me the book; he rightfully assumed I would find the subject of the book (the King Ranch and its environs and the history thereof) intriguing. I need to focus my attention on reading. But almost all of my free time of late has been directed toward matters involving reading two houses for a move. I am so very, very ready for that process to come to a happy, relaxing end.

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I’ve had Last Tango in Halifax on my watch list for quite some time, but until recently it did not make it to the top. My sister-in-law—the one who lives in Mexico—recommended it to me ages ago. Only after a friend repeatedly urged me to give the series a try did we give it a go; we started watching it just a few nights ago. Last night, we finished watching episode 6 of the first season. I am hooked on the series. The fact that the series features one of my favorite British actresses (Nichola Walker) in a starring role had something to do with my interest in including it on my watch list. Once I started watching, critics’ rave reviews about the series’ acting, storyline, and various other attributes made sense; it’s a fine piece of work.

Other viewing experiences of late have not been as enjoyable. Wheelman, for example, was an absolute waste of time; I am embarrassed to have had the program on any screen in my house. And In the Dark, though not horrible, did not grab me; although we did watch five episodes of the program before veering into quality (Last Tango…).   It occurs to me that I could have been reading instead of watching television series and films; but, of course, it is easier to sit and be entertained than to sit and participate in the process by engaging one’s eyes and imagination. Consuming books require more creative energy that does consuming video entertainment. It is time I stretch my creative-energy-muscles more aggressively.

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Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

   ~ Leon Trotsky ~

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Several nights of  reasonably long and restful sleep came to an end last night; it was a dramatic departure from those nice, long periods of sleep. An unhappy return to insomnia. I woke just after 2, following a few hours of inadequate sleep and only moderate rest. After getting up for half an hour or so, I tried again to sleep, only to give up around 3:30. Some restless nights coincide with moderate levels of creativity; not so this night. I’ve tried, to no avail, to engage my mind in a way that would enable me to write creatively. My creativity seems buried under layers of anxiety and related emotional upheavals. However, I did have some (maybe one?) dreams before I woke. I remember only one with any level of precision; a friend came through a door into the room I occupied and asked me to help her put on her socks. She was full dressed, including a heavy coat, except her feet were bare. While I was pulling her socks over her feet, her husband came through the same door and stood nearby. He, too, was dressed in winter clothes but he wore no shoes nor socks. Though he did not say anything, it was obvious to me that he was in line for me to help with his socks, too. I remember nothing more; I do not remember whether I ever managed to help him with his socks.

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Wisdom follows loss.
Loss is the greatest teacher;
knowledge born of pain.

Dogwood blossoms fall.
Leaves replace their soft beauty
with rugged resolve.

Wishes tell stories,
many of them bald-faced lies.
But still, we listen.

Sleep escapes the night.
So many long, restless hours,
Waiting for the day.

Feel the scorching flames
of searing hot memories.
Tears, but no water.

Grief lives there alone
in delicate reflections.
Memories of then.

Irreversible.
What’s done is done forever.
Permanent, you see?

Asphalt street sizzles.
Another piece of pavement
covers Mother Earth.

Who owns this planet?
This verdant green paradise
recoils from our grasp.

Gazing into a crisp, cold, dark pre-dawn sky is a radically different experience from gazing into a crisp, cold, bright mid-day sky. All other aspects of the experience being the same, the daytime sky gives me more of a sense of control of my own destiny. Looking into the dark sky in the hours before dawn somehow accentuates my insignificance; my powerlessness. When I look into the darkness, I am subject to the whims of the universe or, at least, the randomness of time and place. This morning—as I stared into the cold sky and saw, perhaps, hundreds of twinkling stars and planets—I felt tiny; like a lone ant on a massive sphere surrounded by more distance than my miniscule mind can comprehend.

If I were to stand in the same spot and look at the same places in the cold midday sky today, I might still feel small and powerless, but the sensation would be different. The light of the sun would in some way give me a touch of solace; like a comforting embrace from a stranger, in the aftermath of something stunning.

I am trying to describe the differences in sensation between two experiences, one of which I felt moments ago. The phrase, “like night and day,” comes to mind. I might as well attempt to compare identical experiences that differ only in context; one takes place in the air and one in water. The simple act of breathing becomes central in that comparison. It’s a little like that; comparing the sensations I feel in looking up at the sky in darkness and in light.

I attempt to amplify simple existential experiences by focusing my attention on them. By doing that, I free myself from the more mundane pressures of day-to-day life. The stresses of living in the twenty-first century reality of Ukraine invasions and other traumas and dramas pale in comparison to the sensations of feeling tiny in an incomprehensibly large universe. But it’s only a temporary cure; a momentary escape, thanks to the anesthesia of philosophical contemplations.  When I emerge from the effects of the anesthetic, the same world and the same stresses confront me. I sometimes wonder, “what’s the point of staring into space?” But I quickly answer my own question: “you simply wanted a temporary reprieve; just a short rest before facing the reality of life.” Yet a temporary respite is never enough. I think one of the reasons people become monks is that monastic life offers lengthy temporal distance from what some Buddhists would classify as “worldly pleasures and whatever else binds us to suffering.”

This morning, as I contemplate matters both universal and hyper-local, I realize that I think religion is an outgrowth of humans’ need for comfort; a need for a reprieve from the pain and suffering and general stresses of everyday life. What I once mocked as a mindless adherence to beliefs I found stunning in their silliness, I now think I understand. Though I maintain my firm disbelief in the principle tenets of most religions, I think I understand why they exist; to provide refuge from the real world. I mentioned anesthetics a moment ago. That brings to mind something Karl Marx wrote, calling religion the “opiate of the masses.” Marx viewed religion in the same way I used to (and, in some ways, I still do), suggesting that religion dulled the pain of the impoverished masses and, at the same time, caused them to disengage from progressive politics. Marx saw that function as a distinct negative. This morning, at least, I think that “opiate” is exactly why people flock to religion; it can anesthetize them from the realities of day-by-day life.  I am wandering into strange territory here.  I need to extract myself from this conversation with myself and move on to the world outside the confines of my skin.

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Unless the weather is too cool and/or the winds are too strong, our neighbors will take us out on Lake Balboa this afternoon, after which we’ll have an early dinner with them. That will take place after we spent more time at the new house this morning, working on what I hope are the final touches before moving in—in stages. Our Realtor will come by on Monday morning to offer suggestions on what we should move out of my current house to best stage it for presentation as I offer the house for sale. We need to move some, but not all, of the furniture out of the house. Even though it is a rather large house, it seems a bit crowded with two of so many things: two loveseats, two sets of dining chairs, two dining tables, two sets of living room chairs, etc.

Even though we are nearing “move-in” for the new house, there are plenty of items I will need to complete after we move: staining new trim on some doors and some baseboards; buying and installing a new faucets on the laundry room sink; “shoring up” the master bath counter top…and the list goes on. But at least we should be able to move in before long. Just getting out from under responsibility for two houses…two sets of insurance, two sets of property assessments, etc…will be an enormous relief.

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My car’s gas tank is less than a quarter full; or, if you’re looking at it from a different perspective, the tank is more than three-quarters empty. So, I need to buy gas sometime today. I have to check to see if payment has been made for my homeowner’s insurance for my current house; I switched from annual payment (a hefty $1600+) to monthly payments…I hope. Assuming the switch was successful, I will be pleased; otherwise, I will be late on my annual payment. So many “little” things that I need to do or have done, many of which are governed by the calendar. Right now, I think I would enjoy a ten-day vacation on a tropical island, where my only concerns would be “what shall we eat today” and “where can I be most comfortable as I relax and read a book on the beach?” That, and a full-body stress-unwinding massage would be emphatically welcomed.

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It’s nearing 6:00 and I feel the need for another cup of coffee and a little something to eat; peach yoghurt, perhaps. I hope anyone reading this blog post has a happy, stress-free day today.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

   ~ Bertrand Russell ~

Acknowledging one’s own secrets can feel as though lightning bolts are coursing through one’s veins, setting nerve endings ablaze in tiny, but palpable explosions. The idea of divulging those personal secrets can augment the explosions with the sensation of shredding, like a million miniscule scalpels are slicing one’s nerves into long, thin fibers. And then dipping the shredded filaments in a mercurochrome bath. Oh, it might extinguish the blazes, but it may be like dousing the burn of a ghost pepper on the tongue with a swig of hydrochloric acid. At some point, the idea of severing one’s own head seems a reasonable option, thereby eliminating the source of the problem. That’s a crazy idea, of course, but keeping a single-use guillotine in the back of the closet—just in case—doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The world can, at times, seem too burdensome to tolerate. But, as we all know, the world can change in an instant. Peacefulness can become chaos in the blink of an eye. Yet the reverse is true, as well. Calamity can dissolve into serenity, too. Anxiety can be transformed into tranquility just as quickly. In those seconds beforehand, though, the metamorphosis from negative to positive can feel like light years, multiplied by themselves. If only we have enough composure and patience to wait, the universe eventually sorts itself out into a rather ordered, calm, placid place. Usually. If we cannot muster enough restraint, though, we risk severing our head just before witnessing an impossibly beautiful sunrise. That’s the problem with certainty. When one is certain the end of the world is seconds away, it is. But when one is willing to wait it out, just to see, seconds can turn into decades. Our lives are studies in risk. When we can prevent others from stumbling into an abyss, we should. And we can prevent others from that stumble—always .

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Both the Right and the Left whine about the other side’s intransigence while exhibiting extraordinarily intransigent behavior. That is true of Washington politicos, of course, but it’s equally true of damn near everyone who identifies as either Republican or Democrat. Or, for that matter, Independent. Or Green. Or Tea Party. Or Libertarian. If every person absolutely certain of his or her rectitude suddenly vaporized into a pleasant, vanilla-scented mist, the air would have an overwhelming, cloying odor of vanilla beans and the world would be a far more peaceful, agreeable, and enjoyable place.

Although I find almost every Republican in Congress as disgusting as I’ve ever found a person to be, I cannot say many positive things about Democrats in the same institution. They are, with rare exceptions, partisan scum. Their philosophies are not their own. Their beliefs are fed intravenously to them by monied power-mongers, whose ideas they greedily consume. They regurgitate those philosophies as their own in return for the trappings of power and the illegitimate pecuniary rewards they “earn” through their unwavering allegiance to hateful ideas and their promises of support to the endeavors of their masters.

I feel rage inside me for the people “we” elect to Congress and to various and sundry other institutions we vest with the power to control our lives. But, that rage notwithstanding, I will harness my ill-will and place it in a paddock with the other animal-like ideas trotting around in my brain.

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The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

   ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. ~

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I wonder whether any of what we call “morality” is innate? Without being taught that killing another human being is wrong, would we be more likely to kill people? Are any parts of our internal “moral” codes part of us when we emerge from the womb? Without the constraints imposed by artificial limits, would the survivors among us be killers? Would we engage in child-making behaviors with random strangers on a regular basis? Would we take others’ belongings without any sense of guilt or concern? Would we cheat on tests, or lie about income to avoid taxes? Conversely, would we come to the aid of a person injured in an auto accident, without the guidance of a social moral code? Would fidelity be automatic? Would we avoid taking things that do not belong to us?

So many questions. And the answers are colored by what we are taught.

When I woke this morning, I remembered everything—the whole dream. I should have transcribed it then, because now I remember only fleeting scenes. I remember the woman’s friend, Max Sabrrir, finding me after we got separated while he was inquiring about my lost overcoat. I remember her exiting a magnificent building where her friend lived, when she told me not to worry about the coat; “we will find it.” She led me through a building that had once been the setting for Homicide: Life on the Street. When we left that place, we went out into a dense, frenzied cityscape, where she stopped to buy enormous avocados from a street vendor. I remember another woman, a massage therapist, with whom I had an appointment. I arrived at her place of business, a former mattress store inside a mall, on time. But she came in late. Then, as she asked me to get onto an odd table outfitted with pulleys and weights, several members of her family came into the store and made quite a fuss. They knelt at a large table, like a big rectangular dining table, and prayed aloud in a language I did not understand. I think it was Arabic. Max Sabrrir (odd that I saw his name on the side of a building, which is why I remember it and its strange spelling) had been prepared to spend thousands of dollars on some sort of reception in his effort to find my lost coat; it was worth no more than $300. I was embarrassed by how seriously Max and the woman took the loss of my coat.  I remembered it all when I awoke. But now, even the parts I remembered—when I wrote about them moments ago—are disappearing into a mist; grey vapors enshroud the scenes as if they are taking place in a room filled with operating theatrical fog machines.

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Last night was my first using a bilevel positive airway pressure (BPAP) machine. The device, similar to a CPAP machine, pumps air into the lungs through the mouth (by way of a mask connected to an electrical device). The mask, attached to the machine with a hose, is worn during the night to facilitate breathing and to reduce sleep apnea and/or episodes of arrested breathing. The reason I am experiencing this oddity is that mi novia asked me, months ago, to participate in a sleep study to explore the reasons for the odd noises I make while sleeping (or trying to sleep). The study determined that my breathing stopped for brief periods about seventeen times per night, enough to warrant prescribing a machine to improve my breathing during sleep. For a variety of reasons, the device was not available until this week. I went in yesterday morning to get it and to sign my name multiple times to documents attesting to my promise to deliver my soul and many thousands of dollars if I fail to use the device at least 70% of the time I sleep for the next thousand years. Or something like that. Thanks to the mask, I woke this morning with two permanent marks on my face, marks I believe are signs announcing to the world that I am now possessed by a demon who controls my breathing. Eventually, if I survive a certain number of months, I will no longer be under a financial obligation should I stop wearing the mask. Based on last night’s experience, I cannot wait until that certain number of months have passed. There is some suggestion that I could get out from under the obligation earlier if I were to lose a considerable amount of weight, whereupon a doctor might say I no longer need the instrument of torture to accompany me to bed. I may adopt a water and radish diet to test that suggestion.

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I used primer to cover the dark walls of the room in our new house that will become our guest room/TV room. I hope to finish priming those walls, as well as the walls in the master bath, today. And I hope to take care of many other tasks associated with finishing the preparation of the house for move-in. And I hope to finish some work in the current house, too; some cosmetic stuff that will make it “show” even better than it does without the special attention. Soon, I hope, the Realtor will announce that she is ready to list it. I fantasize that she will say, even before then, that she has a cash buyer ready to buy before it is listed on MLS. I have to restrain my fantasies, though. They could get me in trouble, if I let them convince me it’s all peaches and cream and everlasting wealth.

+++

Even though I am very happy with mi novia, I find myself missing my late wife enormously. This morning, I read several blog posts I wrote about her just before and after her death. They brought back memories, both so painful and so beautiful, I could not control my sobs and my tears. The universe is immensely unfair and uncaring in shattering bonds so strong they could last more than forty years. And it is even more heartless and unsympathetic in allowing such memories to erupt with such power and with such frequency.

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Life changes a little every day. It is crazy to let fleeting moments pass without taking advantage of them. We should stop, often, and observe the beauty of the world around us. Steal the kiss. Smell the flower. Drink in the nectar or the pure water or the distilled spirits. Eat the most flavorful food, regardless of how fattening or how laden with cholesterol it is. In every case, do not go overboard; be brave and take risks—just be prudent and cognizant of their eventual consequences.  Worship the ground upon which we walk; this Earth is covered with the only ground we will ever know.  I feel especially grateful this morning, yet I have an unquenchable longing to experience everything outside of what I have experienced thus far. I wonder why that is?

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Time to rein in the fantasies and the dreams of riding on the backs of dragons. It’s time for breakfast.

A few days ago, in a conversation with a friend, I revealed that I often had been extremely demanding and hard on my staff during my work life. She said she, too, had high expectations of her employees—when those expectations were not met, she reacted harshly. Like me, she did nice things for her staff, too; gave them “goodies” on a regular basis, gave them discounted prices on products the business sold, etc. In both our cases, those niceties did not seem to overcome the exacting expectations and the consequences of failing to meet them.  In hindsight, both of us see the errors of our ways with painful clarity.

After our conversation, I gave the  matter considerably more thought. And I explored how, and whether, I could make amends for years of being the kind of employer I would never tolerate as an employee. There are dozens of resources, online and otherwise, about how to deal with an overly demanding boss. It is easy to find suggestions for successfully navigating a workplace with a boss whose expectations are unrealistic and who readily demonstrates his or her displeasure with performance that does not meet his expectations. But it’s not so easy to find out how to seek absolution for what, in hindsight, seems unforgiveable. Perhaps a letter to people one has “wronged” would suffice.  But the task of finding people is almost insurmountable. And, it occurs to me, letters would be written as a means of making me feel better; not to lighten the load of people who undeservedly incurred my wrath. Perhaps I do not deserve absolution; perhaps I deserve to live with the realization that I once was (and may still be?) an inconsiderate bastard who does not merit forgiveness.

Those are issues I am afraid will not be resolved for some time to come, if ever. They have been on my mind for a long time and they will remain there, gnawing at my sense of self-worth like a dog chews on a bone.  Perhaps that is the price one pays for allowing oneself to let unreasonably high expectations of performance overwhelm one’s sense of compassion. You live with who you are until you no longer can.

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Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others.

   ~ Omar Khayyam ~

When I awoke this morning, I heard what sounded like torrential rain on the roof. But I did not attempt to look outside, to see whether it was, in fact, raining. A few minutes ago, I looked outside but could not see whether the deck was wet. It was not raining then, but it might have been raining earlier. I just do not know. Sometimes, it pays to verify one’s perceptions of the world in which we live; otherwise, we might as well be living in a dream. Or a nightmare.

I dreamed last night I was in a long line of people waiting to board a cruise ship. I worried that I had no ticket; nothing that would prove I had paid for the cruise. But when I made it to the ship, I was allowed on and, at the reception desk, my name was found on a passenger list. I was given a questionnaire to complete. From there, I suddenly found myself in a swimming pool full of people; everyone in the pool was completing their questionnaires. Someone asked about a drink of water. “Don’t drink from the pool water, it’s very dirty,” came the reply. My recollection of the dream ends there. There may have been more; maybe not.  In the dream, I thought it odd that I would be in a swimming pool, trying to complete a passenger questionnaire; but I did not inquire about the oddity of that strange circumstance. I thought asking the question might reveal that I did not buy my ticket; and, because whoever did was not there, I might be thrown off the ship. So I simply went along with the weirdness. I wonder whether, in the real world, I would behave like a sheep that way?

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We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden.”

   ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

“Sleeping in” is, for some people, a luxury. For me, it plunders my sense of serenity—when I sleep late, the day loses its footing even before it begins. And it doesn’t take much to lay waste to what might be an otherwise productive day. Yesterday was such a day. I slept in until “only” almost 6:30. Consequently, I did not write a legitimate blog post. I did not get to Lowe’s to investigate utility sinks and faucets. I did not finish painting the “bonus room” in my current home. My list of to-do items grew longer, not shorter. But I almost finished painting the laundry room (which I’ve intended to paint for the entire eight years I’ve lived in this house)—although an uncooperative dryer vent hose slowed progress to a crawl. And I moved quite a few tools to the new house. And I returned a long-ago borrowed item to a friend, which led to a lengthy visit and, therefore, away from productivity. However, as is often the case, I realized I needed that break from “productivity.” As the day began to dim, I called it a day and I took a much-needed shower. Then, I sat in my recliner to relax. Mi novia made me a drink. A little later, she made me another. I let that one sit, untouched, while I “rested” for awhile. Until it was time to discard the untouched drink and go to bed early. I think I may have needed to get up late and go to sleep very early.

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Profundity refuses to spill from my fingers this morning, so I will rest them for awhile. Perhaps tomorrow I will have recovered a tiny bit of my sense of self; enough to write something that matters.

Today’s blog post has been detained for questioning. In the event the answers do not lead to criminal charges, the post will be released on its own recognizance and will be free to muddy the internet with random thoughts and grandiose ideas.

How do people become corrupt? How do people fail to embrace ethics and consequently engage in unethical behavior? Or, after accepting and internalizing an ethos of integrity that translates into moral behavior, why do they abandon integrity in favor of deceit or corruption? And how does corruption blossom into something as terrible as full-scale war?

Those questions rattle around in my head this morning as I think about Vladamir Putin and his deadly catastrophic misadventures in Ukraine.  And I wonder why good people seem unwilling to stop the bad people, the latter of whom are far fewer in number? Why can’t good prevail, when there is so much more good than bad in the world? Or is that a Pollyanna attitude? Some days, I want to beat my head against a stone until I am no longer able to experience the madness this planet brings to my doorstep and into my mind.

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There is just so much hurt, disappointment, and oppression one can take… The line between reason and madness grows thinner.

~ Rosa Parks ~

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“Leaning into pain.” That phrase never meant much to me until I had such intense pain I thought I would rather die than allow it to continue. Somehow, though, I managed to understand the concept of leaning into pain. I approached it from the perspective of learning what pain is to me. I visualized pain as a part of me from which I could take away knowledge by attempting to understand it. I measured its intensity and its duration, focusing more on measurement than the experience itself. That helped me get through that awful experience. Several times, in fact. Later, I read something that I keep trying to internalize, but haven’t always done successfully: The Buddha said, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere.” I suppose the problem with internalizing something so profound is that it is very difficult to actually believe it. Maybe impossible. But even in disbelief, it can help measure pain and may contribute to the ability to tolerate it.

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The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

Mi novia and I got our second COVID vaccine boosters on Friday. Mine had no effect on how I felt yesterday, but mi novia felt achy and very tired. In fact, she spent much of the day either sleeping or in a recliner, resting. She also had a fever and there was a large, red, raised area on her arm around the injection site. I have never had any appreciable after-effect of any vaccinations (knock on wood). I hope mi novia feels better today.

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I spent a good part of the day yesterday painting the “bonus area behind the garage;” a white primer over the rather dark brownish-beige paint. Like the laundry room, the finished room will be a light grey. I wish I had painted both rooms this way eight years ago; they look absolutely spectacular! I know, how can a laundry room look spectacular? Well, maybe the laundry room simply looks very good; clean, fresh, inviting. The bonus area, which has its own HVAC system, separate from the main house, consists of two distinct rooms, separated by a door between them. Several windows bathe both rooms in sunlight, but light-blocking roll-down shades can block virtually all external light. When I finish painting the bonus area, it will be gorgeous. I used the rooms both as storage (they have enormous numbers of cabinets and drawers) and as a “getaway,” where I could burn my incense and write and simply “chill.” I’ll miss that area (especially now that it will be so beautiful) almost as much as the room I call the “sky room,” the room off the master bedroom that has three walls made mostly of windows. But the new house will have its own superb attributes, as well. Life goes on.

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Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break.

   ~ St. Frances de Sales ~

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I have written so much for so long. Writing is both therapeutic for me and  presents an opportunity for me to express my appreciation to the universe for being here with me as I travel the roads of life or sit in the sun and watch life go by. If the Pareto Principle represents reality—and I think it does—twenty percent of my writing represents eighty percent of whatever value I might have created with my words. My problem with that reality is the difficulty of separating the wheat from the chaff. As an aside, that phrase, “separate the wheat from the chaff,” has biblical roots; depending on which version of the Bible one consults, its origin is from Luke 3:17—but so many versions of the Bible have been produced and so many different translations have been made that the real origin and the real meaning of the phrase always will be suspect. But, back to my thoughts: I hope there is, in my writing, at least a kernel of value to be found. Otherwise, pounding my keyboard for umpteen years has been a monumental waste of time.  This blog, the third or fourth I have produced, has been around since 2012. It contains more than 3900 posts. Somewhere in that collection of moderately organized characters of the alphabet, there must be something meaningful. Something thought-provoking. Something worth keeping. Ah, but everyone thinks they have produced something of value in their lives; whether a lasting thought or an ability to make people laugh or a legacy, like a farm or a business. Oh, well. Whether it’s valuable or not, I’ll keep pounding out characters from the keyboard. Maybe one day I will return to writing fiction or philosophical essays or even poetry. For now, though, the “value” is probably all mine. I’m the only one who gets value from using this platform as a daily journal of sorts. I know that and I am okay with that. Life goes on.

I want to be remembered as a poet, a peacemaker, and a philosopher who played.

   ~ Mattie Stepanek ~

Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek died of dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy at the age of 13. Before he died, he wrote seven books of poetry and peace essays.

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I spoke to a Realtor yesterday about selling my house. Now that our new  house is nearly ready for move-in, we can begin moving “stuff” out of the “old” house so it does not look over-stuffed with furniture, etc. I want the current house to look as inviting and charming and lovely as possible; that cannot happen until we get some furniture out of here. That, of course, suggests we’ll have to pare down “stuff” before we move into the new house, lest it, too, look over-furnished. And that is what we will do. I suspect we’ll discard (either give to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore or sell or…) a lot of stuff before we move. Between now and then, though, I want to make this house just as appealing as it was to my late wife and me eight years ago. I remember walking in and instantly falling in love with the place—the view, the modern style (more or less) with clean, simple lines and beautiful wood floors throughout. When we entered the house, my wife’s face told me she felt the same way I did: this was the place! We had looked at around 40 houses and I think our real estate agent was about to drop us because we were too time-consuming. But, finally, we found this one. It will be a fond memory. The Realtor said it should sell quickly and should be priced to maximize profit; if she is right about the value and her suggested listing price is correct, I will be thrilled to sell it. Bring on the buyers. Yeah, but I have mixed feelings. It’s a mixture of excitement and nostalgia; not only for where I have been, but for who I was when I was there. The quotation that follows hits home with me; I will never again be the man I was when I was who I was before now.

You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place… like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.

~ Azar Nafisi ~

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Breakfast, then church, then painting. The day holds promise. And here I go.

Yesterday, I painted the laundry room in my current home. Today, I will finish that job with some touch-ups and will tackle the big “bonus area” behind the garage. I should have painted both rooms years ago; I intended to do just that, but time got away from me. Now that I am about to put my house on the market, I want it to be as fresh and inviting as it was to me when I first saw it. The “bonus area” has already been refreshed with a new LVP floor. New—lighter—paint, along with removing the “junk” from the room will complete the task. That room, with its own separate HVAC system and a half-bath, is like a private retreat. I used it as my retreat from the world many times. I sat at one of the big counters overlooking the forest and valley below, watching clouds and the world go by and soaking in the scent of burning patchouli incense. Perhaps I’ll burn some incense today while I paint. I expect to hear from a real estate agent today. I expect to put my house on the market within a week or two. The “new” house will get a thorough cleaning today, now that the flooring and door work is complete; mi novia found a couple who does top-to-bottom house cleaning. Listening to these women talk, it is apparent they understand what we want and they know how to address our expectations. Once the house is clean, we can begin moving “stuff” over there. We’ll find a way take some of our furniture over there so the current house will not look cluttered with the contents of two complete households when I put it on the market. The end of this much-longer-than-I-ever-dreamed odyssey is in sight.

The tension in my arms and legs and back has reached the point of physical pain. I need this process to end so I can relax and regain my ability to “chill.” Once the current house sells and we’re settled in our new place, I may treat myself to a full-body massage by a professional; something that might drain the tightness and tenseness from my body. Even before that, I want to chew a gummy or inhale the vapors of burning medical marijuana, and sit out on my deck with a friend. We will unwind with a glass of wine. We’ll discuss our philosophies of life and living and we’ll laugh as the effects of the experience overtake us. I hope that will make the next phases of this transition more palatable; more tolerable.

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Almost seven years ago, I wrote a semi-autobiographical piece of fiction that approached the idea of shaving my head. I have never shaved my head, but I’ve thought about it. If not for the possibility that my hair hides a hideous set of bumps, ridges, scars, etc., I might have done the deed by now. Actually, it’s not the possibility that my appearance could be made worse by denuding my scalp; it’s the likelihood of others’ reactions to my cranial nudity. Even though they may not say it aloud, at least not within earshot, people around me might find my naked head an affront to their visual senses. I know; I’ve said a thousand times that others’ opinions about me should not guide my actions. And I’ve repeated many times the fundamental truth espoused by Eleanor Roosevelt, who said: You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. But, still, I worry. It’s either vanity or something like it; maybe a type of fear that erupts on occasion from narcissism. I should recognize that, even if I were shave my head and it revealed a hideous appearance underneath, hair grows back; it recovers from even the most egregious treatment. Except when it doesn’t.

My late wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. She had a total mastectomy of her right breast; no reconstructive surgery. The follow-up treatment for her cancer included massive doses of chemotherapy. She was told she would lose her hair, but that it would grow back just as thick as it had been; perhaps it would initially look different, but it would return to “normal” after a relatively short while. It grew back, but much, much thinner. It never returned to “normal.” Her scalp was always visible beneath the wisps of fine hair that returned. And her delicate head of hair continued to gradually thin for he next seventeen years. At first, she wore a wig. But after just a few months, she courageously abandoned it. She decided the stares of strangers and the forced disregard of her appearance by friends was more tolerable than the discomfort of wearing a wig. In so many ways, she was much stronger than I have ever been.

With that departure from my train of thought behind me, I return to the idea of intentionally becoming bald. As I consider the possibility, I wonder why I keep thinking of shaving my head. What possesses me to consider taking a razor to my scalp? Is it curiosity about what I would look like? Is it a matter of comfort? Ease of care? I answer in the affirmative; each question addresses part of the motive I have for thinking about attacking my scalp with a sharp razor. But I think there’s something else; something I cannot quite identify and articulate. Maybe it’s a reaction to the fact that I did not shave my head when my wife first realized her hair was not growing back as “normal.” Maybe my failure to even think about it then finally began to catch up with me. And it’s still attempting to measure my lack of bravery against her courage. The idea of shaving my head in solidarity with my wife did not occur to me until years after her mastectomy surgery. And then, when it did, I did nothing about it. And, still, I do nothing but think about it. Maybe that’s the “something I cannot quite identify and articulate.”

The sense that one is inadequate as a human being is a painful possibility to have rattling around in one’s head. It slams against all corners the brain, tearing at the diaphanous fibers that define one’s worth, Those thin fibers grow like hair, but much more slowly. They are nourished by behaviors and by thoughts. They feed on acts of compassion and kindness. They strengthen when fed a diet of ideas that surround them with the stuff of human decency. But they can be twisted and torn. They can burn in the flames of anger and they can smolder in the heat of mindless reactions to life’s little disappointments.  When those fibers are damaged or burned away, it takes a lifetime to repair or replace them. Unlike hair, that usually grows back, damage to one’s sense of worth can be slow to heal. That kind of damage can be irreparable. Even when repaired, the scars remain. They may not be visible, but they are there; thick and distorted like physical scars on the flesh.

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My complaints amount to nothing. I have nothing of substance to complain about. My life is easy compared to the lives of billions of others on this planet. I live a life that is filled with largess. My every need is met. I have more than enough to eat. I have a roof over my head. I am not the intended prey of wild animals, nor am I the target of assassins. Where do any of us get off complaining about slow service or excessive costs for luxury items? We might have legitimate complaints if people with guns were invading our homes. Or if all the shelves in grocery stores were empty. Or if all farmers’ fields were fallow. Etc., etc. But at the moment, we live in undeserved luxury, our every need and want easily met. Appreciation and gratitude should be our watchwords. Should be. Should be. Yes.

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Enough of this. Time to explore what the day offers. And offer the day my best efforts.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

   ~ Alan Watts ~

Scraggly. The dictionary definition of the word is: “irregular; uneven; jagged” or “shaggy; ragged; unkempt.” The word and its associated definitions describe my mustache and beard rather well. But even after three weeks of evidence that my facial follicles are insufficiently dense to form an attractive mat of hair, I continue to shun shaving those portions of my face. Shaving only my neck and the sides of my face is much faster than shaving also including the now-bearded portions in the process. But as my whiskers get longer, they tend to cause me to notice aspects of my face that I never noticed before. By “notice,” I mean “feel” or “be conscious of” or “pay attention to.” Before the presence of whiskers, I paid no heed to my upper lip; it was there, but it did not regularly announce itself and ask me to direct my attention there. Ditto my chin. They were present, but they required nothing of me. Now, though, both pieces of facial real estate regularly say, in effect, “hey, I’m here…can you feel me?” For some men, growing a mustache and/or beard is a way of making a fashion statement; their facial hair is adequately thick and the hair’s color is sufficiently different from the skin that its noticeable. In my case (so far), growing my facial hair is simply a way to avoid part of one of the time-consuming elements of daily life: shaving. My beard is too thin and its color, salt & sand, to close to my skin tone to be noticeable. It is NOT a fashion statement. My beard does not scream, “This here male person beneath the testosterone mat is one bad-ass macho mother!”  It sort of whispers, “S’up? I’ve given up shaving, for the most part, ’cause, like, I’m too lazy to shave much and I don’t really care whether I look like I take shelter in cardboard boxes when it rains.” I may keep the beard going for a while. I may shave it off. Who knows? I’m not especially decisive right now.

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We have no idea what goes on in the lives of many of the people with whom we associate on a regular basis. Most of us tend to segment our lives: work, home, friends…some kinds of boundaries that might blend a bit at the edges, but that otherwise are distinct and intentionally separate.

A young married woman who worked for me many years ago had a brief affair with a foreign guy who lived in his home country but visited the U.S. at least once or twice a year. I think the affair lasted a little more than a year, but it was brief in that the two of them were physically together only twice, as far as I know. But it is my understanding that they communicated with one another by mail rather regularly during that roughly one year period (this was before email, etc.). Though the young woman was “happily” married, more or less, I got the impression she had gotten married without having much romantic experience; that lack of experience left her wondering what she missed by making such a commitment at a rather young age. (This is supposition, by the way; she and I never talked about what prompted her exploration.) At any rate, the extra-marital relationship eventually dissolved; by mutual consent, I think. And the woman remains married to her one and only husband, today. They have two adult children who have children of their own. As far as I know, my employee’s husband never knew about his wife’s venture into infidelity. I learned about it only by accident, when I came across a letter she had written but had not yet mailed. The letter mentioned “our long-distance love affair.” There’s considerably more to this tale, but most of it is irrelevant (as has been what I’ve written so far). I do not know why this is on my mind this morning. Yet it is and it causes me to think that such stuff probably goes on far more frequently than most of us know.

This situation involved a “normal” person whose behavior would never have suggested she would have been involved in an affair outside marriage. How many people in our lives carry secrets about themselves or their lives that we would find astonishing, if we only knew? Is the bank clerk with whom you interact regularly involved in a custody battle over her children? Does the grocery store manager have a second wife, one about whom you were unaware, in another town? Has the restaurant owner filed charges of domestic violence against her wife? Is the little old lady down the street required to register as a sex offender? Has your next-door neighbor successfully avoided detection and capture for twenty-five years following her robbery of an armored car service? What about you? Do you have secrets? Can you keep a secret for twenty or thirty or forty years? And what if the secret got out? Would your family and friends reject you? Would you suddenly find yourself isolated and shunned by the people in your support network?

Mi novia and I occasionally comment to one another that people can never really know other people. I think that’s a true statement. We think we know people when, suddenly, we learn something so out of character—so completely surprising—that we realize we know only as much as others are willing to share. And we have to then wonder about ourselves. Are there parts of ourselves that we intentionally or subconsciously hide because we think those secrets would put us in a different and utterly unfavorable light? And do we sometimes hide those secrets even from ourselves? Am I capable of robbing an armored car? Could I be embroiled in a long-distance love affair? Does the persona I present to the world represent the real person who lives behind my mask?

The idea that we cannot ever really know people—including ourselves—is jarring. How can we be certain of anything when we cannot even be certain of who we are?

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God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

   ~ William Shakespeare ~

Several months ago, on a whim, I explored housing availability and prices in various places along the Texas coast. Later, I looked into houses on acreage in places as far-flung as Dripping Springs, Oklahoma and El Paso, Texas and Grant Park, Illinois…among many others. I am not new to this. This fantasy I cannot quite define, but that I know owes its existence to either fear or disappointment, has been with me for as long as I can remember. It comes to the surface with some regularity, usually when I feel overwhelmed with all of life’s options or stuck in a tiny cage of my own making. When I reach the point of deep disappointment with myself or fear that I am locked into inadequacy, I want out. I want to go away. Start over. Eventually, though, I allow my rational self to take control. I realize that starting over by tying myself to a place, whether on the coast or on isolated acreage, would be simply trading one prison for another. And, as I allow myself enough time and freedom to think, I realize it’s not just tying myself to a place. I would be living in a prison cell even if I sold everything, bought an RV, and hit the road. Always, always, there would be something dictating how I live, day by day. Whether that something is a mortgage, the need to appease neighbors in one way or another, or the need to stick to a route with accommodations for RVs, something would always force me to mold myself to the world around me; not vice versa. So, there’s no such thing as freedom. Freedom is a myth created by people who want desperately to escape from prisons that have no bars, no locks, and no guards. No one is unafraid; no one ever will be unafraid. Life itself is a prison.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

    ~ Aung San Suu Kyi ~

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A friend made me aware of a piece of good news. According to NPR, “Terminally ill patients seeking physician-assisted death in Oregon, where it is legal, are no longer required to be residents of the state, under a settlement reached in a federal lawsuit this week.” It’s about bloody time. And it’s time to remove the geographic barriers to that fundamental human right of deciding whether to live or to die. And, while I’m ranting on the topic, the State should have no say, whatsoever, in an individual’s life-or-death decision. It matters not whether a person is terminally ill or not, in my view; a person should have the right to decide, at any time and for any reason, whether to go on living. I would of course discourage making the decision without giving the matter adequate time and external input; but, ultimately, it is the individual’s decision. Not the State’s. Not even the family’s. The decision belongs, in the end, to the individual. We’re all “terminal,”  so the decision is one that should be made on the basis of one’s level of comfort with different amounts of temporal distance. I am aware of many arguments against my position; none of them sway me. And none ever will.

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In less than three hours, I will visit my primary care doctor’s office. He will review the results of my blood tests with me. He will admonish me to eat better, exercise more, and visit my cardiologist. He may prescribe medications for me. He will not tell me I am terminally ill. I am relative sure of that. Even if I were, I doubt he would tell me.

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Today is a friend’s birthday. She agreed to let me take her to lunch in celebration of reaching her 59th birthday. There is no reason to stop celebrating the attainment of 59 years of life on this planet, even years after that point has been reached. So, we will celebrate the fact that she reached that milestone a while ago. Happy Birthday, D! Here’s to many more!

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There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

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The tip of my proboscis is red and slightly swollen, thanks to a biopsy of a slow-to-heal “bump” on my nose, taken a couple of days ago. I will return on April 11 to visit with the dermatology APN. She will give me the results of the biopsy and discuss what, if anything, I need to do about the underlying cause of the bump; now more accurately described as a wound.

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Two days after my dermatology appointment, on April 13, we will attend a reception hosted by a group of local artists. One or more of the artists, one of whom is my next-door neighbor, will be honored with various accolades for their artistic talents and skills. That day, April 13, would have been my 42nd wedding anniversary. The reception, an annual event that my late wife and I used to attend at my neighbor’s invitation, will be an emotional event for the artists, I am sure. And for me.

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It is easy to recognize love. It is the state of mind in which one is willing to sacrifice one’s own happiness for someone else’s. It is the state of mind in which another person’s happiness is more important than one’s own. Absent that willingness, the emotion that masquerades as love is simply infatuation. Infatuation does not last. Love can, but it doesn’t always. Nothing is rock-solid reliable; not even life itself.

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I suppose it’s time to stop letting my fingers have free rein over the keyboard. Instead, they must make breakfast and such.

Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen.

~ Karl Marx ~

We know the concept, in English, as “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” The concept suggests a philosophy in support of free access to—and distribution of—goods, capital and services. Despite the association of the concept with a failed social movement (communism), it is far more complex than many of us might imagine. In a quick brush-up on my knowledge of Karl Marx and the development of his ideas, I was surprised to re-learn of his earlier intense interest in Christianity. I re-learned, as well, of his initial rejection of the philosophies espoused by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to an embrace of Hegel’s ideas; and then a repeat of the cycle. My very brief and superficial refresher today on Karl Marx, his development, and the philosophies we associate with him led me back to where I started with respect to Karl Marx: I think he was a brilliant, if flawed, idealist whose ideas still have enormous merit as potential springboards for “a more perfect” society some time in the future. If, indeed, humanity has a future where opportunities to advance await us.

I had forgotten (if, indeed, I had ever known) that Marx had advocated for a somewhat gradual transformation from capitalism (and other economic frameworks) to communism. Marx seems, to me, to have been skeptical that members of the proletariat had the ability to make the transition without a significant period of  intellectual development. With the exception of the occasional sociology course, I learned little concrete detail in school about Marx and his evolution. Though the philosophies of Marx and Friedrich Engels were flawed in numerous ways, what I know of the concepts that prompted the development of their philosophies makes me believe both men were devoted humanists. They were idealists, as every philosopher is in his or her own way; as far as I can see, their motives generally were pure. They wanted a better society across all humankind. They recognized the fact that achieving such an ideal was not an overnight endeavor, but would be the results of a long-term struggle. While I think the significant flaws in Marx’s philosophies are apparent as I view them from my role as an armchair quarterback with the gift of hindsight, I think Marx’s utopian visions were well-intended. But we tend to demonize people who oppose our world view; even people whose opposition to our world view might have been based on compassion and hope. And a better understanding of our world view than we, ourselves, possess.

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I do not have the discipline to do more than skate across the surface of ideas I find appealing. I could have delved far deeper into Marx this morning. I could have chosen to begin a week-long or month-long exploration into his philosophies and his experiences leading to their development. But I got tired; sidetracked. I lost a little interest; I still have an interest, but not enough to prolong my investigation. I think I have ADD. And I have something else. I have a much higher than “normal” level of Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) in my blood. I learned this just this morning, when I opened my patient portal to view the results of some blood work I had done yesterday. My triglycerides were high, as well, as they usually are. But my Brain Natriuretic Peptide level was more than double the highest “normal” level. That was a shocker. Although the only other time I had a measure of my Brain Natriuretic Peptide taken, last October, the level was considerably higher than it was yesterday. I did not even pay heed to it last time. But this time I did. And I searched to find the meaning of my higher-than-normal level. What I found was rather scary. According to medicineplus.gov, “BNP levels go up when the heart cannot pump the way it should. A result greater than 100 pg/mL is abnormal. The higher the number, the more likely heart failure is present and the more severe it is.” And, according to an article by the National Institutes for Health, in reporting a BNP study, “The survival rate for 7 years was 89.43% for the group with BNP>100 ng/L while it was only 23.53% for the group with BNP>1000 ng/L.” Self-diagnosis on the basis of articles found in a Google search probably is not especially wise. I have an appointment with my primary care doctor tomorrow; I will wait to make “final arrangements” until I hear his take on the matter. Though I’m willing to bet he will refer me to my cardiologist for further  assessment.

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I just got a call from the guy who we have hired to fix some oddities in doors and door openings at our new house. I had come concerns about what he had in mind for modifications, but he convinced me that his work will actually improve the appearance of the doors/openings, rather than exacerbate the strange appearance of some of them. I told him to go ahead and do his thing. You have to put your trust in people who know what they are doing; if I were to attempt to do what I have asked him to do, I would almost certainly do irreparable damage to the doorways.

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After a bit, I’ll head over to the new house to see what mischief I can get into. I’ll wait to do any additional painting until the dust has cleared, which may be a few days. But there’s more to do. Lots. More. To. Do.

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Off to tackle another day. Or, perhaps I should embrace it. Days react better when embraced than when tackled.

The Road Not Taken is among that relatively small cluster of narrative poems that deliver a summary of every lifetime ever lived. Robert Frost, in writing that masterpiece, might have felt the overwhelming emotions hidden just beneath the surface of the 144 words that follow the poem’s title. Yet Frost wrote the poem as a joke for an indecisive poet friend; so perhaps the flood of emotions I feel when reading the poem arise not from the poem, but from what I want to see in it. But, still, I suspect everyone who reads The Road Not Taken feels at least a tinge of displaced nostalgia or regret for a lifetime that would have been different, had decisions or circumstances been different. I know I do. Though it’s said to be pointless to ask questions that can never be answered, I wonder how my life might have been different…if…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

   ~ Robert Frost ~

Of course there’s never a single situation or circumstance in which a decision sets the course for every single future experiences in one’s life. Every decision, every random occurrence—every situation in which choices are made—triggers more and more and more alterations in the course of one’s life. But if a person tends toward sentimentality or if he is apt to ask “what if” on an ongoing basis, he wonders how “everything” would be different. He wonders how each decision one makes influences every other decision. He wonders how a choice made twenty years ago, or yesterday, spurred a flurry of decisions that, taken together, are responsible for how his life has unfolded to this very moment. And he wonders how every decision made henceforth will impact the unfolding of his life as the future is unveiled by the passage of time.

“Little” decisions can be just as transformative as “big” ones. Yet the impact of “big” decisions sometimes carries no more weight than a tiny piece of down feather in a bag full of lead balls. We cannot predict, with any degree of consistent accuracy, how a decision will change one’s life. But we can wonder, looking back, how impactful all the “big” and the “little” decisions have been. Decisions involving such life-altering events as marriage or employment or housing are not necessarily any more impactful than decisions about taking vacation trips or even going to the grocery store. Random event surrounding living one’s life day-to-day can have just as much, or more, as those monumental decisions. The trip to the grocery store could lead to purchasing the winning lottery ticket; or it could result in one’s involvement in a terrible automobile accident.

The unasked question, the hug not given (or taken), the delayed choice—all of them represent “the road not taken.” And they may make all the difference.