John Swinburn

I am not in the mood to write this morning. Instead, I have been in the mood to read what I have written. I originally posted the following on September 15, 2012, nearly a year into what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical that ultimately morphed into my retirement. At the time, I walked early every morning, before daylight. My morning walks frequently gave me time to think deeply about topics I might otherwise have ignored. Something about this post still captures my attention.

Mourning Shadows

Inexplicable shadows mill about in the pre-dawn darkness, shadows that follow the early-morning walker, occasionally darting in front of him, then slipping quickly from view. Street lamps and the headlights of passing cars and the weak light of a waning moon and a still-distant sunrise give them sustenance.

In one instant, when they are flush with the fuel of strong light, they are dense, their smoky near-black forms weighty and threatening.  Then, they become thin and ephemeral; barely visible, then they are simply gone.  But they return, first from one side, then another, then from the front, then from behind, stalkers who peek from every alleyway and side street, silently chasing the walker as he moves steadily forward.

Off he goes, dodging tree branches and streams of water erupting forcefully from the buried pipes of irrigation systems, timed, he imagines, to douse early morning walkers. On he walks, stooping to avoid spider webs and stepping gingerly across cracked concrete curbs, victims of the long summer of oppressive heat.  He tries to step over and around pieces of broken sidewalk that have sunk several inches beneath the street.  He walks on, hoping the shadows don’t lay waiting to trip him on a shard of asphalt ripped from the pavement by the  demonic heat of summer gone awry.

The shadows’ movements are, like the walker, steady and measured, as if they are consciously tracking each step he takes.  The shadows grow more distinct from the blackness of the streets as the enveloping darkness succumbs to a dim, blurred wash of light across the sky. The now translucent shadows appear to become more animated, more agitated, more aware that the wash of sunlight will dissolve them into pools of light, indistinguishable from the air around them.  The walker senses the shadows’ impending disappearance and wonders whether they know they will be back.  He wonders whether, instead, they sense an inevitable end and whether they will mourn their own passing.

Then, as if the sky were connected to a fluorescent tube, the darkness disappears in a muted flash.  The shadows are gone.  The walker nears the place where his early morning  journey began, thinking how only an hour earlier there were inexplicable shadows where there is now an irrepressible glow.

The time is just after 2:00 a.m. as I begin to write this, three and a half hours after going to bed. I don’t know how long I thrashed about in bed, trying to go back to sleep, before I finally gave up trying. My guess is at least half an hour, maybe more. No single thought prevented me from sleeping. This insomnia emerged, I think, from the collective effects of thousands of minor worries. They seem to be swirling around in my head simultaneously, creating waves where ripples would suffice. Before I finally swung my feet off the edge of the bed in surrender to sleeplessness, I shouted out a profanity; the volume of my scream virtually guaranteed I would not sleep for at least a while. So here I am, wondering what and whether to write. Hmm.

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I took a break from wondering to have a few Crunchmaster crackers with hummus, supplementing the few odds and ends I had for dinner. I had planned on cooking a boneless, skinless chicken breast and some broccoli for dinner, but when the time came to do it, I was no longer in the mood. Sometime around 1:00 p.m. yesterday, I decided to order groceries online to refresh the pantry and refrigerator in anticipation of an ice storm that, if it materializes, will make travel even to the grocery store an exercise in insanity. The order was ready just before 5:00 p.m. When I returned home with the groceries, I was satisfied that I was prepared for meals for several weeks. But I lost interest. So the chicken I thawed sits in the refrigerator; I must cook it today. And the broccoli, fresh from the grocery store, wonders why I insisted on separating it from its brother broccolis so early.

For lunch yesterday, I made a massive pot of soup that easily could have served as my dinner, as well. But I wasn’t in the mood for soup last night. Now, though, I might change my tune. My midnight snack, delayed almost three hours, might consist of yesterday’s lunch. I concocted soup from chicken stock, Rotel tomatoes, plain diced tomatoes in a can, black beans, garbanzos, bell pepper, yellow squash, zucchini, a seven-grain rice mix, and a bit of Creole seasoning. There may have been more. It turned out to be reasonably good, but I think some more assertive seasoning may be required when I warm it up again. There’s enough left for at least two or three more meals.

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I was in the mood for conversation last night, so I imposed on a friend who tolerated my need to talk and listen during a twenty-minute conversation about nothing earthshattering; just “talk.” Earlier, I was in a similar mood but I was not in a position to engage the target of my interest in verbal conversation, so I wrote a long, meandering email. I received a long, thoughtful reply to my meandering stream-of-consciousness message. I greatly appreciated the answer but I was embarrassed that I prompted a response requiring so much energy, when I perhaps should have been more considerate in asking for engagement when simple presence would do. But, then, the answer could have been curt, so maybe the energy in the reply was expended freely and gladly. I overthink things sometimes.

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Later today, I hope to have a Zoom conversation with family members. One of my brothers still hasn’t been able to get Zoom to work, but the rest of us can chat for a while. As good as it is to see and hear one another on video, it does not compare to being in the same room. Unlike sitting together in a room, periods of silence seem awkward on video calls; perfectly natural pauses in face-to-face interactions seem long and uncomfortable on video, causing people to try to fill the void. At least that’s my sense of it. Video requires engagement, while face-to-face interaction just permits it.

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I mentioned in a post, a day or two ago, needing to get something notarized. In response, I got an email from a very nice person (whose sense of humor matches mine quite nicely, by the way), saying she would gladly notarize my paperwork. Whether I get out today to have that done is up in the air, but it’s so gratifying to know there is someone willing to come to my aid as I wade through documents. Decency and compassion are visible in such simple and spectacular ways. If not for COVID, I would hug and kiss so many people I might be arrested for felony fondling. That doesn’t sound quite right, but I’m not going to change it now; it’s already on my screen.

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It’s now past 3:00 a.m. and my hunger has surpassed the point at which Crunchmaster and hummus will satisfy me. What does one do at 3:00 a.m. with a boneless, skinless chicken breast? I suppose I could make a Greek-inspired lemon juice and yogurt marinated chicken dish and serve it with a flour tortilla (I don’t have any pita bread). The obstacle, though, is that I would have to let the chicken marinate for a couple of hours. That’s the problem with cooking; it take time to plan, prepare, and execute. I am hungry now. That’s the beauty of hummus; it’s ready when I am. I suppose I could heat a tortilla, spread hummus on it, squeeze a bit of lemon juice on the hummus, and put a few slices of onion on the concoction for crunch before rolling the tortilla. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. And, then, I’ll either try to go back to sleep or come back here and decide whether to write some more or post this as is.

Most days, my blog posts get a few views. Twenty, maybe. Thirty on a good day. Occasionally, someone leaves a comment about what I’ve written or sends me an email about it. One regular visitor leaves a calling card, a “like” that tells me she read what I wrote. Usually, though, I know only that a few people viewed that day’s post. Whether viewers found it interesting, funny, sad, annoying, boring, or deeply offensive is impossible for me to know. My experience is akin to turning in a homework assignment that subsequently is returned to me with no comments; only a note indicating some unnamed member of the faculty—perhaps an anonymous substitute who is not even my teacher—read my essay and opted not to assign a grade to the work.

I could let the experience upset me. But then I realize I read dozens of editorials, essays, news stories, personal journals, etc., etc. every day and rarely if ever leave any comments or otherwise express my level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what I’ve read. I have neither the time nor the inclination to “grade” the work. That is no doubt true of most readers. If the writer wants feedback, perhaps he should join a critique group. And, of course, there’s the issue of topics: my posts tend to randomly mix quantum physics with personal musings and brain dancing, with a side order of sexual innuendo and mental meltdown. So there you are. Ask yourself a question and eventually you’ll feel compelled to answer it.

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I’ve been thinking about getting a telescope. Why I am devoting so much time to thinking about it instead of actually buying it is evidence of something, but I’m not sure what. I should speak to someone who knows telescopes and can explain to me, in third-grade language, why I might choose one over another. What focal length means. What “power” I might want. When I try to read explanations intended to make the decision easy, my eyes glaze over and I find myself asleep an hour later. Just show me a close-up of the moon. And the houses on the far side of the mountains to the south.

I’ve also been thinking about getting a dog. I have two expert sources of advice at the ready when I get serious about looking; one a retired veterinarian and one an expert dog trainer. I am narrowing down the criteria for the dog I want. I am seeking a young but full-grown house-broken dog that can fit in my pocket and stands about 36 inches at the shoulder. The dog should respond appropriately to complex commands but also should be relaxed and playful, yet not overly energetic. It should not shed. It should be a short-haired dog whose coat feels like soft silk. The breed (or mixed breed) should have an average lifespan of eighty years. I would prefer a dog that speaks fluent English and Spanish and can drive a stick-shift (in case I decide to get a sports car).

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In less than an hour, I will visit my dental hygienist, who will make my teeth sparkle. First, I must shower, shave, and get dressed. These simple tasks have taken on attributes that make them seem to me like awful burdens. Showering and shaving, in particular, require so much time and energy. The entire process should take no more than two minutes; in reality, though, it takes more like thirty minutes. Maybe more. Who has time for this? I have people to be and places to see.

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My mood is like a pendulum powered by a 300 horsepower gasoline engine. It swings wildly and at high speed.

We sit together in front of a warm fireplace. The mesmerizing flames cast romantic shadows on the wall behind us. We’re seated on a soft comfortable loveseat. My arm wraps around your shoulder. Each of us holds a glass of wine, the cool glass contrasting sharply with the heat of the fire. We turn our heads toward one another. Ever so slowly, we lean in until our faces are only inches apart. Suddenly, in unison, we both say, “It’s just after six in the morning. It’s too early to be drinking wine.”

Wait, that’s not the way it’s supposed to go. But, see, that’s the way my mind works sometimes. Fantasy competes with reality in awkward intersections. My writing behaves like that. It’s as if I imagine myself as a war correspondent in the Revolutionary War. I sit in my dark cabin at night, the only light a single lantern, writing my stories with a typewriter that would not be invented for one hundred years, using paper I bought at Office Depot.

Back to the fireplace, though. Time becomes a crutch, doesn’t it? Natural law does not preclude sleeping in the daytime and carousing at night. We have the capacity to alter our routines in defiance of clocks. If we want to have breakfast at 1 a.m., go for a run at 2 a.m., and head into the office at 3 a.m., we can do it. But we rarely do. We’re creatures of habit and we tend to obey unwritten rules. And written rules that do not necessarily have the force of law behind them.

The people in front of the fireplace are married. But not to each other. Their respective spouses are: a) she is salmon fishing in Alaska and b) he is attending a religious revival in Tennessee. Their respective children, Gertrude and Euripides, are in other states, being fingerprinted after being charged, respectively, with counterfeiting and felony plagiarism.

Torrid affairs are not illegal in most places, as far as I know. Nor is drinking wine at unseemly hours. But we behave as if they were. Because we treat cultural norms as if they were morally binding. It depends on the culture, doesn’t it?  When we break cultural norms, I think our responses to stepping outside of boundaries cause us to have conflicting emotions. On one hand, we’re frightened and somewhat ashamed. On the other, bursts of adrenalin lend an air of delightful excitement to our infringement. I write this as if I know what I’m writing about. While I don’t, I think it makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, if we’re really honest with ourselves. But do we have the courage to be honest with ourselves? I sometimes wonder. I often wonder.

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Yesterday, I drove in to Hot Springs to return to JC Penney two shirts I had picked up the day before. I had ordered them online, taking advantage of steep discounts (more than 50%). I had them sent to the store to save the cost of shipping, which would have been substantial. I returned them because their colors and patterns did not match the photos online. And they were too small. Or I am too big. Or both. I don’t think I’ve bought new button-down casual shirts since long before we moved to Hot Springs Village. Facebook regularly shows me photos from ten or twelve or more years ago; I’m modestly surprised to see that I am wearing the same shirts these days I was wearing then. At any rate, I do not have new shirts anymore. I hate to try on clothes, mostly because they very rarely fit. Back in the old days, I could order online and return by mail, without cost, if they did not fit or otherwise did not suit me. Today, there are limitation and sometimes there are expenses.

I need to have my clothes tailor-made to fit my body; short arms, longish torso, and very short legs. I think that may describe a malformed ape. Pants are especially hard to find. A short inseam made shorter by my preference for wearing them just above my hips, well below my waist, makes it damn near impossible to find a good fit. That’s just one of many reasons I wish fashion would take a sharp turn, focusing exclusively on comfort. I think I’d prefer to wear very loose-fitting Indian kurta tunics. And rather than the traditional trousers that go with them, I’d rather wear skin-hugging long-inseam bicycling shorts. The only reason for wearing the shorts would be to protect the public from going blind when I am seated; otherwise, I’d be happy with plain old loose-fitting white cotton briefs.

I posted something in October 2015 saying something similar to what I’ve just written, but I said I’d prefer shorter than average kurtas. No longer. My taste has changed a bit, I suppose. But even then I was fiercely in favor of comfortable clothes and not a slave to fashion.

If ever I have the skills, courage, and sufficient privacy, I will make kurtas to my liking. I will wear them in public and around the house, with our without visitors. Occasionally, I will shed all my clothes, going au naturale throughout the house, wondering why it took so long to assert my right to nude comfort.

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While puttering around in the kitchen this morning, I “wrote” lyrics to a song—on the fly—singing as I wiped up spilled coffee and otherwise tidied up. I frequently make up song lyrics early in the morning. I rarely write them down. It’s exceedingly rare that I remember them an hour later. This morning was no different. But I do remember a few themes from this morning. Dogs tearing into my house through a screen door. Their teeth sinking into me. Maybe something like:

“I felt such vivid terror,
as I watched them breaking in,
and I screamed so very loudly,
as their teeth sank into my skin.

I fought them off with sharpened knives
and a bottle full of gin.
But those beasts were quite determined,
much to my chagrin.”

Not what I “wrote,” but something along those lines. Most of my poetry is free verse. Most of my song lyrics rhyme. Most of my poetry has some semblance of meaning. Most of my song lyrics are rhyming nonsense. I do not know whether any of that has any meaning, but there it is. It’s all just for fun, anyway. Especially the song lyrics. They’re usually not so gritty and disturbing. One of these days I’m going to record myself while I’m making my verbal compositions. My recordings no doubt could be used in proceedings about whether I should be institutionalized; maybe I better not record myself.

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Two nights ago I had dinner with a couple I first met in Dallas sometime around 2005 in connection with my business. When they sold their successful business and retired, they bought a townhouse in Hot Springs Village to serve as a weekend getaway. Like so many others, once they spent some time here, they soon decided to make this their retirement home. They sold their house in Dallas and their townhouse in the Village and bought a lake house here. They have a boat house with an electric lift and they own a very nice pontoon boat, kayaks, tubes, and various other water craft and “toys.” From what I can tell, they lead an absolutely idyllic life.

They took me out on their pontoon boat before sunset.  There were just the three of us and their Australian shepherd mix. The objective of our water cruise event was to count buoys; they want their shoreline neighbors to pitch in to have the buoys lighted. Despite the fact that the temperature was around 53 degrees, our time on the water was delightful. Even when the boat was ripping along the water at full speed, the cold air in my face was invigorating. Fortunately, I brought a heavy coat along, knowing in advance of their plans to take to the water.

Over dinner, we talked about food and mutual acquaintances and COVID-19 and a dozen other subjects. We touched on politics and religion just slightly; we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on those topics, but the few times they arose, I felt like we would have been truly civil to one another had we delved into them. That’s how it should be.

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Financial paperwork is piling up. Documents requiring my signature, some requiring witness by a notary, stare at me accusingly as if I were looking into a mirror. What can I do today? I ask it feebly, hoping the fact that it’s Sunday will offer me a reprieve. No, that doesn’t work. The paperwork seems to reshuffle itself, making the sheets no requiring a notary more visible and obvious. I cover the documents with credit card receipts I have yet to record on my spreadsheet. I am documenting my expenses the way my wife did; the receipts will not be discarded or shredded until there is no possibility I will need them for either tax purposes or evidence in disputes about charges, etc. I think the carcasses of two forests litter my house in the form of receipts, books, and other paperwork.

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What difference would it make if I were to finish my cup of coffee, get in my car, and drive away from this house, never to return? A brief period of chaos and questions would follow, but the breadth and depth of the chaos would be relatively minor. The questions might remain for a few months or even a few years, but eventually they would dissolve into time. My disappearance would be like most others. It would be unexpected—and unimportant except to a microscopic sampling of the human race. But to that tiny sample, it would reverberate like a bass drum in a network of caves. In terms of impact, I equate it with the upset caused when an anthill is disturbed. Chaos erupts, with ants scurrying about in seemingly random movement at high speed. But the chaos quickly calms, leaving little evidence of the intense disorder that followed the upset. Not to worry. I will return if I can.

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Facebook reminded me, just now, of something I wrote five years ago today. In light of my post yesterday, it seems incredibly coincidental. There’s that synchronicity again.

Fifty years from now, nobody will remember your name, nor will anyone care that you lived or died. Don’t fret; you’re not alone in that brutal reality. Billions and billions have gone before you. You’ll be unique if you’re more than a footnote to history five years hence. We pay too much time wondering about our legacies. We should ignore that line of thought entirely and, instead, behave as if we were uninhibited seventeen year old kids. Maybe THAT will leave a memory worthy of the concept of remembrance.

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Somehow, the artifice of time has gotten away from me. It’s just after 7 and I need to begin to acknowledge daylight.

Several years after my oldest sister died, I wrote a poem that recalled the experience of pouring her ashes into the Gulf of Mexico as she wished. One stanza of the poem is as follows:

The gentleness of the water was unwelcome,
waves should have pounded the sand,
wind should have shrieked in rebellion.

The stillness of the water, in light of the remnants of the vivacious life being shared with it, showed wanton disregard for the loss of a beautiful human life. I hated Nature’s emotionless acceptance of an event so consequential.

In the more than month and a half since my wife died, the hole left in the world she shared with me seems to be filling. Life must go on, and so it does. Even my life, as shattered as it felt and still feels, is adjusting to her absence. But I do not want the lives of anyone who knew her to ever be the same. I want everyone to feel an unending emptiness wherever her presence once was felt. She must never be forgotten. Thoughts of her must forever be accompanied by reverence.

I feel a searing guilt that the searing pain is beginning to ease, if only a little at a time. It is not fair or right or acceptable that life should go on; that it should continue as if her death was a momentary interruption that can be overcome.

But these very same feelings must have been felt billions and billions of times.  A generation or two or three after a person’s death, sometimes much sooner, evidence of that person’s existence is effectively gone. If a person does not leave children, the legacy turns to vapor within weeks or months or, at most, a few years. Headstones represent attempts to slow the decay of remembrance. But even headstones crumble over time from exposure to the elements.

The meaning of almost every life is chained to time. Over time, the links in the chain corrode into broken pieces. Eventually, the chain merges with the Earth, completing another phase of the cycle. That happens long after the meaning of the link that was chained to it has been abandoned by time. Time loses patience with the process of degradation; it moves on to current events and lives that also will matter only briefly and for only a small sphere of related lives that eventually will dissolve into eternity, too.

No matter how strong the argument that “life goes on,” it can never again seem fair or just when a beautiful life disappears; when the lives left behind get back to business as usual.

If and when COVID-19 subsides enough to allow us to gather again, I will arrange for a celebration of my wife’s life. Somehow, some way, the hole in the world left by her death will be recognized. I will not allow her loss to simply heal. The scar always will be visible. Even as life goes on.

One week soon, I will become a hermit. I will avoid all engagement with others. I will spend a solid week in isolation, to the extent I can. I may have to go grocery shopping or do other errands, but I will spend the majority of the week at home alone. I will wake when I wake and, when I am ready, do whatever I am in the mood to do. Perhaps I’ll take a day to drive to a quiet spot—maybe Mount Magazine—and soak in the expansive view. Regardless of what I do, I will do it alone.

As much as I value and appreciate being in the presence of people who matter to me, sometimes I need distance and isolation. And as much as I am able to isolate myself relatively often now, I sometimes need an extended period to decompress. I need that time now. Or soon. I cannot even express what it is that builds up in me, requiring time alone. Whatever it is, I feel myself becoming a metal vessel reaching the point at which the pressure inside the vessel is greater than the strength of the vessel to hold it. I need an outlet to drain the pressure.

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I dreamed last night that I was waiting in a tiny travel agency office with a woman I did not recognize. It was not apparent at first what we were waiting for, but as the dream’s strange meanderings evolved, I understood that we were waiting for the woman’s husband. The woman tried to convince a male travel agent that she had been promised a second ticket for her husband; he was not buying it. The woman was worried that her husband had not arrived, a problem because their cruise was to leave soon. She and I went outside to wait for her husband, who was to arrive by ship. We expected him to be on a cruise ship.

At some point, an announcement came over a loudspeaker. I could not make it out, but the woman could; she said it had something to do with my car being towed. I had parked near the corner of a freeway feeder road and a cross street a few blocks away from the travel office; it seems that was a no-parking zone. We went searching for my car, only to discover the towing agency had not taken it. I understood the car had been stolen. Because the time for the cruise departure was near, we rushed back to the travel office. Just as we arrived, an incredibly narrow Russian-flagged ship, badly in need of paint, docked. Instead of coming in with the starboard side against the dock, it headed in straight, and its bow touched the dock. The woman’s husband was standing on the ship’s deck; he came down a ramp as soon as the ship was secured to the dock. He said he had been given a ride. He was giddy that, unlike what he had expected, he had been taken through the Panama Canal.

I believe I woke up about the time he finished his story. I have no idea where the couple was going, why I was there, and what became of my stolen car. I am a little worried about opening the door to my garage, in case my dream was a circuitous way of telling me the garage is empty.

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Between 1959 and 1970, a television game show called College Bowl aired on CBS and then NBC.  I have a vague image in my mind of one of the hosts, Allen Ludden. If my memory is correct, he had sandy blonde hair that was combed up into something like a flat top, but his hair was not vertical; it curved on top of his head. I liked that show, even though I don’t think I knew many of the answers to the questions.

I read something recently that, if my memory is correct, suggested the show will be (or has been) resurrected for television. I’ll have to find out more about that. I like the idea of a game show based not on silliness and comedic displays of ignorance but, instead, on tests of knowledge. The American (and possibly worldwide) television audience seems to have been dumbed down in recent decades. I wonder whether that has been an intentional undertaking, shaping intellectual capacity so its low level will be easier for the powers-that-be to take control. The internet, with so much potential to be a source of growth and knowledge, seems to have been usurped to support television’s objective of mush-minding America. Conspiracy theories and the lies supporting them are replacing critical intellectual evaluations supported by verifiable facts. Ach.

College Bowl may be the last gasp of intellectual pursuit.

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My lifelong dream of having a few acres in the country and a nicely-outfitted tractor is fading. I would have to regain strength and stamina that I may already have lost forever to make it work. The opportunities I missed to achieve my dream are legion. Despite many chances to go for it, I never had sufficient confidence in myself nor was I able to convince my wife that it would be good for us. Now, my interest in working the land is diminishing. I suspect that, had I managed to make the dream a reality years ago, I would now be thinking about selling and moving into a lifestyle better suited men growing lethargic in their “golden” years. I have been a disappointment to myself with respect to this wished-for endeavor.  Bah!

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Pleasure. What is pleasure? Satisfaction. Delight. “Worldly or frivolous enjoyment.” Bliss. Pleasure is both a noun and a verb. “Pleasure me with your presence.” To give pleasure. To satisfy. In light of last night’s dream, I think the couple was planning to take a pleasure cruise. Having my car stolen was no pleasure.

What about leisure? Depending on context, it can be used interchangeably with pleasure. Satisfaction. Delight. Bliss. But not “Leisure me with your presence.” What about a leisure cruise? Who cares? What does it matter?

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Take a deep breath, John. Imagine you’re standing on the top of a ridge outside the village of Skarsvåg, Norway looking up at the Aurora Borealis. After you soak in the otherworldly beauty, you will walk into the village and have dinner in a fisherman’s home before settling in for bed. The next morning, you will hike across the peninsula to the Norwegian Sea. You will wade into the icy water, attempting to swim out to Kolbjørn Landvik’s boat anchored offshore. Such a silly man, John. You’ll never make it. Hypothermia will take you before you’ve made it ten yards.

How close are we to one another, really? How much of the stock of our private thoughts do we maintain for ourselves alone, locked away never to be revealed even to those closest to us? Do we harbor thoughts that, were they to be revealed, would shock our friends or family? Those and many other questions have long bounced around in my brain. I’ve answered some of them for myself, but others are too intrusive even for me to ask of myself. Yet I maintain an intense curiosity about what goes on in the minds of people; I wonder what thoughts they choose to hold close, lest their secrets expose attributes or vulnerabilities or ideas that might change the way the world views them.

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It is far too early for me to reach any definitive decisions about whether to sell my house, but I’m thinking about my options. While the house is too big, by far, for one person, I enjoy its view and the privacy it offers. Yesterday, after my shower, I walked naked to the guest room where I’ve been sleeping to (finally) strip the bed and take the sheets to the washing machine. My path took me in front of what amounts to a wall of glass overlooking the forest and the valley below my house. With the exception of dodging a spot where I could be seen from a high window in front of the house, I did not need to worry about being seen. I don’t know if I could find that privacy and the freedom it affords, nor that view, in a smaller house. On the other hand, a house ties a person down and it ties up his money. Moving into a smaller house would allow me to redistribute my “investments” from real estate to cash and it kin.

I suspect this mental wrangling will go on for some time to come. Decisions usually come relatively easy for me, but I always second guess myself. I sometimes weigh all the options well after they are no longer available. That tends to allow regret to take hold, often a useless and irreversible sense that can ruin one’s days or weeks or months or years.

In the meantime, I have plenty of projects that will make my house more enjoyable while I am here and easier to sell if I decide to move. The trick is to get myself in gear to do them. I need to repaint the laundry room and the studio behind the garage. I need to deal with window “issues.” I need to clean or replace the studio flooring. I need to replace the carpet on the screen porch. I need. I need. I need. Replace need with want and reality begins to set in.

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Speaking of want, I want to change my appearance. I want to look thinner. That necessarily means weight loss. Changing the way I look would change the way I feel. I would feel better, physically, and feel better about myself, mentally. It’s not awfully hard to make the transition, in this case, from want to need. If I want to live a longer and healthier life, I need to do something about changing my appearance. That’s where sloth and degree of desire enter the picture. Can I overcome my slovenly ways and my tendency to treat emotional lows with food and drink? Time will tell.

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I was reminded very recently that my wife and I committed to make a quite significant (for us) donation to our church before the end of June. When my wife was managing our finances, it seemed to me the commitment would be fairly easily met. And I suspect it will be, once I get a solid handle on where things stand. But now that I am attempting to make sense of a financial picture with reduced income, it is not quite as apparently easy. My wife’s willingness to devote time and energy to financial management allowed me to retain a significant part of my childhood for more than forty years. Adulthood involves disciplined financial management. Geezerhood does, too. I feel like I am making the unnatural transition from childhood to geezerhood.

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This morning, my mind is attempting to unscramble. While that might seem like a simple process to some, I see it differently. I see a scrambled mind as a little like a scrambled egg. I try to imagine unscrambling a scrambled egg. It cannot be done. Is unscrambling my mind going to be any easier, or more achievable?

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Speaking of scrambled eggs, I may see what I can do about breakfast, now.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a not-long-enough conversation with someone who has become a good friend. We discussed, among many other things, a bit about my family. I am the youngest of six, one of whom died several years ago. Four of the six did not have children. Three of the six did not marry. I credit my parents’ financial struggles in rearing six children with my decision, very early on, not to have children. But there is no doubt considerably more to it. It’s a little more difficult to understand why half of the siblings did not marry. This morning, as I considered these matters, I skimmed an article on the Social Security Administration’s website. The article, The Never-Married in Old Age: Projections and Concerns for the Near Future, includes some interesting information. One sentence demonstrated to me the striking contrast between my family and the population at large: “In 2003, about 4 percent of Americans aged 65 or older, or 1.4 million individuals, had never married.” Four percent versus fifty percent. In a microscopic sample, no conclusions can be reached. But it gives me reason to wonder. Maybe next time I participate in a video call with my sibs I will raise the question and see what kind of responses I get. I love conversations like the one yesterday afternoon. They brighten my life.

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Tax season will be upon us soon and I do not know quite where to start; but start, I will. My wife kept meticulous financial records and prepared our taxes every year. After she had done all the calculations and was confident of the numbers, she consulted with a tax professional who filed on our behalf. When I asked why she spent the money to have someone do work she had already done, she responded that she felt it was worth the expense to have someone else stand in our stead if our returns were ever questioned. I question my record-keeping and record-sorting capabilities. But very soon I will gather all the records I can, organize them as well as I can, use TurboTax or some such software to determine whether I owe money or money is owed to me, and then ask a tax professional to check and correct my work. I think my wife’s position on the matter makes good sense.

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I spent another hour yesterday morning on an Arkansas Hospice grief support group call with a few people who have lost loved ones. I find it interesting to see the difference in obvious pain between people whose losses are recent and those who have had more time to settle in to their grief.

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My business career introduced me to people all over the world, though the introductions were generally brief and my relationships with those people were rarely personal; strictly business. But I made a few connections with whom I maintain only occasional and fragile connections today and, as I wrote about a few days ago, some that I have not maintained but whose memories withstood time. Since my wife died, I’ve received condolences from a number of former business associates: a Russian woman, a Pakistani man, a Dutch woman, an Australian man, a Swedish woman, a British man, a Canadian woman, and of course plenty of Americans. Engaging in conversations with people from other countries tends to open one’s eyes about how one-sided are Americans’ views of the world. We are insular in so many ways. We are taught to believe we are the center of the universe, the point from which all earthly good things spring, and other such fantasies. People from other countries have their own faults and frailties, but ours are, I think, among the most robust because we nurture them so tenderly and whole-heartedly. Why this is on my mind this morning I do not know. It’s a fairly common thought rattling around in my head, though, so I guess it was just time for another shot of musing about it.

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What would my friends and family say if I told them I have fallen in love with someone else so soon after my wife’s death? My guess is that everyone—to a person—would either tell me (or would think it without verbalizing to me) that my emotion was purely a rebound reaction to the shock and pain of loss. And they would be horrified at what would seem callousness and disregard. If my announcement had been real, they would probably be right. Love and longing are different emotions, I think, though they must be linked in some fundamental ways.

Not to worry, I haven’t fallen in love with someone else. But my affection for some people has greater intensity than before. Actually, I liked them even beforehand, when my wife spent so much time in the hospital and in rehab facilities and they were so kind to me. And I appreciated and enjoyed their company before that, when the world seemed more “normal” and life was a given.

Several times in recent months I’ve mused about my contention that, in humans, almost every emotion exists somewhere along a spectrum that includes an array of emotions. I believe that is true of love and hate, adoration and loathing, etc., etc. Love can devolve into hatred, just as hatred can evolve into love. Adoration can decay into loathing; but loathing can transform in a positive way, blossoming into adoration. Everything is connected. Kisses and bites can come from the same mouth.

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This afternoon, I’ll have a video conversation with a couple I’ve known since I was young and tall and handsome. Well, I was young. A twenty-something. And before that, a phone conversation with a financial advisor. And before that, a video conference to listen and learn about “spiritual practices.” Today’s discussion will be far afield from any spiritual practice I may have had: prayer. I am not one who prays. But I’ve grown to understand and appreciate people who do. They pray for different reasons and to different…entities, if that’s the right word. Tonight, Wednesday Night Poetry will include a video reading of a poem I wrote while in the depths of grief following my wife’s death. It’s actually a poem I patched together in part from some other material I wrote.

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I think it’s time to refresh my coffee and clean up my act. I finally washed towels yesterday, so after today’s shower I will dry myself with soft, freshly fluffy towels. And I’ll shave with newly-purchased, much-sharper-than-usual blades. And then I’ll put on clothes that are at least eleven years old. At least they are younger than I am.

Genuine smiles—the kind that spring from momentary happiness—lift my spirits in ways nothing else can. Those smiles can be on the faces of people I know or on the faces of strangers. They can be the smiles of people on the street or in in photographs;  photographs of smiles prompted me to think about the topic this morning. Of course I cannot be sure the smiles in the photos are genuine, but I am confident they are; because real smiles are so radiant the the entire face almost glows with happiness. The eyes, the cheeks, the lips—even the skin—radiate jubilation based on something akin to euphoria. The smile that triggered my thinking on the subject this morning was in a photograph of a Black woman combing her child’s hair. The smile, the only one among a series of photographs on the NPR website, was somewhat subdued, but it conveyed the momentary happiness I mentioned before. And, then, I looked at other pictures online and found other smiles that looked broad and boisterous. The ones that most effectively sparked my emotional appreciation were the ones that seemed instantaneous, as if provoked by an explosive moment of elation.

I know people whose smiles almost always lift my spirits. I think it is because I know the smiles are genuine, arising from parades of joy that emerge from their ways of viewing the world. Though I know otherwise, it seems they are perpetually happy and absolutely delighted to be alive in that moment. They have their moments of sadness or depression or fear, but their worldviews are generally positive. They embrace life with fervor and their smiles offer evidence of how much they relish being alive. I wish I could emulate their attitudes and embrace their emotions. I do, from time to time, but with a frequency that pales in comparison. Being in their presence is like consuming a magical elixir. It can be addictive.

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I learned this morning that Friedrich Otto Schott invented borosilicate glass in 1897. The glass is used to this day for pharmaceutical containers today. According to the company that bears Schott’s name, three-quarters of the world’s COVID-19 vaccine projects use its products. Corning, another famous name in the glass industry, caught the pharmaceutical industry’s attention when, in 2017, it introduced a product called Valor glass. BBC.com quotes Steven Fox, an analyst at the equity research firm, Fox Advisors, as saying, “It’s basically the Gorilla Glass for pharmaceuticals.”

This morning was the first time I’ve ever given even a passing thought to the need for specialized, high-strength glass in the pharmaceutical industry; I’ve had no reason to think about it. Or have I, and I’ve simply ignored it and let my brain push the idea to the side? Whatever the reason, something as important as pharmaceuticals often require exceptionally high-strength glass. In addition to protecting products stored in glass container from the dangers of rough handling, some of the tough glass bottles protect the products from delamination, which is a process which can allow microscopic slivers of glass to taint the pharmaceutical product.

The world is a fascinating place. I wish it could be safe from humanity’s propensity to turn spectacular advances in science and technology into weapons of hatred and war.

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We can learn things about ourselves from unexpected sources. Let me rephrase that; unexpected sources can prompt us to make reasonable assumptions about ourselves that we might not have made without considering those sources. I’ve been reading online about the behaviors of various breeds of dogs. Some dogs seem to do well interacting with other dogs, some don’t. Some dogs are friendly with people in general, some are one-person dogs. Some dogs, regardless of breed, can be trained to be either one-person dogs or completely human-friendly.

I’ve always considered myself to be more of a private person than a social person. I preferred to spend time alone and/or with my wife than to engaging socially. But now that my wife is gone, I find myself longing for company. It’s not that I have become suddenly social but, absent that one person with whom I was extremely close, I feel a desire for engagement that might help fill that gaping hole. What I’m learning is that I am a one-person dog who’s trying to train himself to be human-friendly. I’m also learning that I thrive best in an odd environment of isolation paired with extreme closeness.

But all of this may be wrong. It’s probably too early for me to know anything new about myself. Maybe there’s nothing new to learn. Perhaps it’s simply an early reaction to a situation I haven’t be exposed to in well over forty years.

I’ve definitely learned something from simply being who and where I am: people are closer to me than I had realized. Whether in Fort Smith or Alexandria or rural New Hampshire or Texas or Mexico or California  or Nova Scotia, etc., people are close to me. And right here in Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village is a pod of good, gentle, kind people who care.  I am fortunate, indeed.

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We grow by allowing ourselves to experience discomfort, whether physical or emotional. I’ve grown to dismiss physical discomfort as a tool for growth, though. Perhaps that’s exactly what I need, though; physical discomfort to enhance (grow) my physical health. Emotional discomfort is a perpetual mechanism for both intellectual and emotional growth. When we are too comfortable with the status quo, a little emotional discomfort—or a lot—can shock us into heightened awareness. We can realize that what we’ve been taught or what we’ve believed might be half-true or entirely false. We can see the world around us from a different perspective. But that emotional discomfort can be excruciating. It can challenge us mightily and we sometimes resist until the walls of comfort and certainty collapse and reveal hidden landscapes just over the horizon.

I think back to fifty years ago when homosexuality and was considered deeply deviant; skin color was either a blessing or a curse; the term “transgender” had not even been coined (to my knowledge); bisexuality was fundamentally wrong. Despite the fact that some people still cling to old, outmoded, inhumane ideas on these subjects, the world has changed, thanks to a lot of emotional discomfort. I wonder whether, in the next fifty years, more revolutionary emotional distress will lead to widespread acceptance and embrace of polyamory? What other human interactions and human characteristics might the world begin to recognize and acknowledge and accept?

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If I hadn’t allowed myself to get wrapped up in pseudo-philosophical ramblings, I could have already taken a shower. But, no. So, that’s next on my agenda. Now that I’ve addressed the joys and struggles of humankind.

Distance shrinks when one has the means of reaching speeds no one can reach without artificial assistance. Distance expands when one’s ability to move is restricted by the absence of natural physical capabilities. Between those measures of distance, a range of possibilities and limitations shorten and lengthen distance, making distance a very personal matter. The distance between New York and Los Angeles is almost negligible to a healthy and wealthy person who can afford a first-class ticket on American Airlines. That same distance is virtually insurmountable for a one-legged person who cannot afford a one-way bus ticket. In between are hitchhikers and people whose air-conditioned cars get excellent gas mileage. In between are long-distance walkers and drivers of clunkers, vehicles whose survival to the next town is questionable.

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Occasionally, I wonder how different our lives would have been had we each been forced, sometime in our mid-thirties, to live for a year in abject poverty. Would we be more empathetic to the impoverished? Or would we feel great pride for successfully overcoming the odds to achieve success? Or would we experience both? But if we only felt pride without the empathy, would we have contempt for those who have not yet found the way out?

The same questions apply to our experiences from birth. And how different a path might my life have taken had I been born in an intensely poor section of Mumbai or Mexico City? Or had I been born into the royal family of Lesotho or Japan? Would language barriers make it impossible for me to enjoy time in the U.S.A.?

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This morning, I find myself singing (and humming when the words escape me) a Leonard Cohen song, Heart with No Companion. Cohen’s facility with language and his ability to weave language into emotional fabric was unmatched. I’ve always been stunned and amazed by his poetry/lyrics. Here is a piece of the song; I rarely remember it word for word, but at times I can get through the entire piece without a single error:

Now I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair,
with a love so vast and shattered, it will reach you everywhere.

And I sing this for the captain whose ship has not been built,
for the mother in confusion, her cradle still unfilled.

For the heart with no companion, for the soul without a king.
For the prima ballerina who cannot dance to anything.

Through the days of shame that are coming, through the nights of wild distress,
Though your promise counts for nothing, you must keep it nonetheless.

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Almost every night, either my wife is in my dreams or, half awake, I reach over for her only to find an empty space next to me. When in my half awake state I realize she is gone, I feel like howling. Sometimes I do. She has been absent from the bed almost every night since the middle of last July, but still I am not used to it. And I am not used to going so very long without waking to a gentle caress as she gets up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and heads to her study, where I am now.

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I am thinking in fragments, which is why I am writing in fragments. Thoughts dash across my brain almost too fast to capture with my fingers. Those fleeting ideas, often too fast to grasp, give me reason to wish for a machine. I want a machine that can seize thoughts and sounds and images from inside my brain and record them in 3-D video and audio. I would want them to immerse me in virtual reality, so when I play the experiences back later, I might have a realistic hope of understanding them and their meaning.

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This chair that my wife tolerated for so long is almost intolerable to me. It will not hold its angle, nor will its back maintain its position. She never complained about it; I wonder whether it was as irritating to her as it is to me? She tended not to complain about much of anything. In that way, she was remarkably different from me, a perpetual complainer who rarely does anything to resolve the complaint. Because that would leave me with nothing to complain about. When all my financial questions and uncertainties are resolved, I will replace this chair. I wish I had known about its propensities to be troublesome long, long ago. I would have forced the issue, insisting that my wife get something more comfortable and more responsive. She always paid more attention to my satisfaction and comfort than to her own. And I never paid enough to hers.

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My post yesterday failed to adequately recognize the deeply generous and kind nature of the offers people made to be available to me, 24/7, if I needed them. A friend said to me that the offers would not have been made had they not been sincere. I did not and do not question their sincerity; I said I suggested such offers must be viewed in light of the fact that people have other obligations that may necessarily take precedence. My friend then said I might think I am unworthy of such deeply generous offers and THAT might better explain my reticence to take advantage of them; my apparent (to her) questioning of their validity. The conversation eventually ended, but it left me wondering whether I attached sufficient appreciation to the offers and the depth of their generosity. After wondering, I decided I did not, but should have.

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A friend told me, before COVID-19 attacked humanity, hugs should last at least twenty seconds to provide optimum benefit to the parties involved. I responded, I think, by saying I thought they should last twenty minutes. Twenty seconds can seem like a long time, but a twenty-second embrace disappears in a flash. Twenty minutes would suit me much better.

I recently read something that supports the 20-second hug, suggesting that hugs tend to release oxytocin in the body. Oxytocin, which apparently is known by various names and often is associated with romantic love and/or sexual attraction, is a neurotransmitter and hormone. But aside from its involvement with emotional and physical attraction, it seems to have the effect of reducing anxiety and generating feelings of intellectual bonding. This may all be nonsense, but I choose to believe it because it supports my contention that hugging generates feelings of well-being and enjoyment.

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It’s almost 6:30, time for another cup of coffee and something to eat. And, then, I must record a video poem for Wednesday Night Poetry. On second thought, maybe a shower will follow breakfast and precede the recording.

Sea shanties have appealed to me since, I suppose, the first time I heard one. My admiration of sea shanties probably arose from the fact that they tell stories to lively and pleasing tunes. That would have been five or six decades ago. Since then, I’ve listened to dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them. One of the groups benefiting from the recent surge in enjoyment of sea shanties is The Longest Johns. They recorded The Wellerman, a shanty growing in popularity, on the album Between Wind and Water.

The recent trend toward public adoration of the musical genre is both welcome and laughable. Welcome in the sense that I am pleased to learn that so many people now appreciate the music. Laughable in the sense that so many people who recently have learned to appreciate them think they have discovered something freshly made and magical; or, that they have uncovered and resurrected a musical treasure hidden for centuries. I should not mock anyone for their newly-acquired taste in music, regardless of how it came to be. The recent trend in sea shanty appreciation has led me to listen to dozens of shanties recorded by several groups. I wonder whether I would find the individual members of those groups interesting?

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Last night, I felt incredibly lonely. It was not the kind of loneliness that necessarily would have been softened by reaching out to friends who lately have assured me that I could contact them 24/7 if I needed to talk. While I do not doubt they would have taken my after-hours calls, I would have felt awkward taking advantage of their promises; strictly because they are aware of my circumstances and they might have felt obligated.

The kind of lonely I felt was the kind that longs for connections without obligations in either direction; the kind that seeks out connections based not on known circumstance, but remembered engagement. I had no reasonable expectation that my attempts would be successful. In fact, one of my attempts was to contact Brian (the English fellow my wife and I visited so many years ago), by email. I did not expect him to respond right away, in that when I sent the message, it would have been in the wee hours in Acton Trussel.

Even though my loneliness is and was a unique breed, looking back years instead of weeks, I came close to calling a couple of people nearby and asking them whether they would be able and willing to come talk to me, face to face or, at least speak to me by phone. But I would have felt extremely awkward doing that. It would have been especially awkward if I asked someone, based on earlier assurances, only to learn that their other obligations had to take precedence. I certainly would have understood, but it would have been awkward, nonetheless. There’s a difference between friends for whom one would sacrifice virtually everything and friends for whom one’s compassion is strong but not infallible. And there’s still another band of friends for whom the glue holding them together has not yet set.

Despite not knowing the responses I might get, or not get, I did hear back. I got a text message returned from one person, explaining that she was on the road but that she would like to talk today. This morning, I got phone calls from two guys I had attempted to contact last night. And when I awoke this morning, a long email awaited me from Brian; he said he was pleased to have heard from me and asked if I would mind him sharing it with some of his colleagues, who I also knew back in the day.

I think I’ve written before about my closest friend from before elementary school through my sophomore year in high school, a guy I thought would sacrifice his safety to protect me, who I caught stealing money from my wallet. That experience shook me to the core. It has stayed with me ever since; I think it is the reason I am so cautious about opening myself up to thinking I can absolutely depend on someone who calls me friend. But that’s an entirely different subject. I think.

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I do not know what I think about last night’s loneliness. I know only that it was palpable. I could feel the tightness in my chest and the anxiety in my head. My neck and shoulders were tense and I began the evening with a headache. When wine did not resolve those physical manifestations, I turned to what I thought would be an ounce or so of sipping tequila. More than an ounce or so disappeared before I fell asleep while watching Bosch.

I am not sure just how many episodes played before I woke up a 2:30 and went to bed.  I was up before six and was out the door before seven to pick up my grocery order. Around 8 or 8:30, my sister-in-law came by and we chatted and played Words with Friends until well after noon.

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I believe I am on the periphery of something important, emotionally or mentally, but I do not know what it could be. Something I can’t quite pin down suggests to me I will explore opportunities to expand my thinking and better understand the world in which I live. I generally do not accept such “woo-woo” sensations or suggestions, but this time, maybe.

Ken Nordine. He’s the guy whose “Word Jazz” recordings I linked in my post yesterday. The more I listen to him, to more I like him. I also watched a few YouTube videos he did. I decided one of them, Credit Card Blues, is especially worth sharing. It’s less than four minutes long. Thank you, Rhonda.

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My wife’s study has taken the place of the guest bedroom as my primary “office.” As I sit at her desk and look around the room, I sense that I’m in a tiny library in a small village in the west midlands of England, sometime around 1983. I think my wife may have unconsciously modeled this room after the home libraries of long-lost “business” friends we visited once when we made fairly frequent trips to England. Brian and Linda. They lived in Acton Trussell, about three quarters of the way between London and Manchester. They lived on or near a canal, where we and they took their monstrous St. Bernard out for walks. They lent us pair of high-top rubber boots for the walks, because the walking paths along the canals were muddy.  Brian explained to us that the canals were laid out by “navvies” (the nickname for navigators) a few centuries earlier. We lost touch with them. I am not even sure they had a library, actually, but something about this room, now, reminds me of those times in England in the early- to mid-eighties. These are shots of my wife’s my study.

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Three unrelated thoughts came to me while I was taking a shower this morning.

First: It does not always make sense for the selection of people to fill positions, whether work-related or volunteer, to rely on picking the “most qualified” candidate. The primary criterion should be whether a person possesses the requisite qualifications, not necessarily the “best” qualifications. That is, if in addition to wanting a strong, technically capable team, one wants to build a culture of inclusion and diversity, other characteristics might well come into play. Sex, race, culture, etc. For example, if a hospital’s staff of doctors is old, male, and white, medical credentials might play only a part in the process of selecting a new staff member or a replacement: youth, gender, and racial diversity might play important and legitimate roles in the screening and decision process. Is that unfair to older white men? Not any more than the process that led to the exclusion of younger Hispanic women in the workplace. Diversity is, in my view, a legitimate objective that pairs well with technical qualifications. I do not suggest that insufficient technical qualifications should overcome other criteria, only that other criteria can have legitimacy when baseline technical qualifications have been met.

Second: I suspect one of the many aspects of reality that cause humans (and some other animals) to initiate intimate relationships is this: it’s damn near impossible to reach some itchy spots on one’s back without assistance. We have evolved (or devolved, as the case may be) to the point that we do not feel comfortable asking strangers to scratch our backs or to remove blackheads from the far reaches of our backs. We need to be with someone with whom we feel absolutely comfortable before we ask for assistance. In the absence of those relationships, wooden backscratchers—inadequate though they are—may be the only viable option.

Third: Singing in the shower is a manifestation of our attempts to use of music as salve. In some cases, it works beautifully. In others, it’s akin to taking an aspirin in the hope of retrieving an appendix long-since removed.

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Sugar-free peach preserves on black rye toast. That’s on my agenda for breakfast. And I may have a couple of radishes. And possibly some tomato juice. And, of course, more coffee. Yesterday afternoon, speaking of coffee, I noticed the “notification” light was flashing on Alexa’s mid-section. I listened. Alexa notified me that Amazon.com had noticed that, based on my ordering history, it might be time to order more San Francisco Bay French roast coffee. Eerie. And right in line with the frightening stuff presented in The Social Dilemma.

I need to get back in the habit of eating things that are at least moderately good for me and not horrifically fattening. A six-month diet of water and medications might do the trick. Or it might kill me. I suppose I could try it and see. “He was thin right up until the time he died.”

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I’m going to be short of 800 words by the time I finish this post. In fact, I’ll be roughly thirty-three words short.

The last fiction post on this blog is dated two days before my wife tripped and fell, leading to almost six months in hospitals and rehab centers and culminating in her death. As I look back at the few (six?) fiction posts during the first half of 2020, I realize I changed the format of what had once been fiction vignettes. Instead of snippets that might have been extracted from short stories, virtually all of the posts I labeled fiction in 2020 more closely resembled marketing blurbs one might find on the back covers of paperbacks. My “fiction” had devolved into outlines that might have set the stage for stories, but were not stories themselves.

A closer look at earlier fiction posts reveals the trend began quite some time ago. I wrote descriptions of what could become fiction, not actual fiction; as if I were writing query letters to editors, attempting to sell ideas about short stories. A few pieces were sufficiently involved that they might have been queries in pursuit of book deals. One, in particular, still rattles around in my head on a regular basis. I’ve written several pieces about my fictional town of Struggles, Arkansas. There’s too much in my head to limit my writing to a vignette or a short story. The story of  the people and history of Struggles’ is too complex to fit into either. If the story ever is to be told in its entirety, it will require a book-length manuscript and a long, leisurely evening when I have access to plenty of wine and I am in the mood to talk through it.

I do not recall who said it, but I understand and embrace the idea with a passion: I do not so much want to write as to have written. Or something along those lines. I love to write, but I think I must have writer’s AADD; I have neither the discipline nor the patience it would take to stay focused on writing long enough to finish an idea, much less a manuscript. My writing is much better suited to serving as a patchwork quilt of unrelated stories, essays, ruminations, and such. Like this blog, for instance. No dedicated, long-term commitments; just free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness expressions of what’s on my mind at the moment.

But even that formlessness has suffered since the seriousness of my wife’s illness became obvious. I have been distracted in the extreme, all the while attempting to direct my thoughts elsewhere. Yet the fact that my normal process got derailed even before my wife’s fall suggests something else precipitated my departure from the tracks. I think I may know what it is, but I’m not prepared to write about it publicly. “It” constitutes several matters, all of which joined forces at just the right time to cause me to reexamine who and why I am. Perhaps I am not a writer at all. Instead, I can write reasonably well, but perhaps I do it only because I can use writing as “proof of value” unavailable otherwise; not because I want to. That sounds like I am fishing for pity, but that’s not it. I’m simply thinking with my fingers, the only way I can do it well.

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My appointment with my cardiologist yesterday went well. As expected, he told me I should get more exercise. And he offered perfunctory condolences on the death of my wife, who also was his patient. His nurse did not mention my wife’s death. A day or two after my wife died, I left voice messages for both of them to inform. Both my wife’s primary care physician and her nurse sent sympathy cards to me; not the cardiologist and his nurse. The cardiologist’s failure to send a card bothered me, I think, because I believe physicians, in whose hands their patients’ lives are literally placed, should take a personal interest in their patients’ lives and deaths and should acknowledge both.

I should not have let myself go down that path this morning. It’s not a good way to start the day, flooded with tears and anger. And it does absolutely no good. I cannot change the past and I cannot control anyone’s behavior but my own. If I tell myself those things enough, perhaps I will acknowledge the truth in them. It’s interesting to me that my annoyance with the doctor and his nurse really have little to do with my wife; I would feel just as offended if I learned they failed to more compassionately acknowledge the death of a patient who was a stranger to me.

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The process of dealing with the business of death drags on. Yesterday, during a church board meeting on Zoom, I got a call from someone who, had I not picked up, might have taken weeks to reach again. The dozens of interactions involving third parties who must get involved with administrative matters can be frustrating. Those interactions interfere with other matters and otherwise intrude on my ability to live a freer and less confining life. I want to feel free to take a road trip. And I want to have tax preparation behind me. And I want to speak fluent Spanish and Norwegian. I want. I want. I want.

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Guilt is a bitch. Or, perhaps, it’s not guilt, it’s the thoughts or actions that trigger it. Or maybe it’s one’s reactions to or interpretations of thoughts or actions.

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This evening I have a video call with a nephew, his wife, and his mother. Video calls, while not as satisfying as face-to-face engagement, are far more satisfying than telephone or email or text messages. But, for some reason, they seem (to me) to take more mental energy to get prepared than the other electronic counterparts.

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At a friend’s urging, I watched  the documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” last night (Netflix). It was both fascinating and frightening.  I recommend it. While it incorporates some fairly lame visual/verbal similes, the arguments and assertions made about the dramatic impacts of social media on our lives and the way we think and act are stunning and thought-provoking.

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An online friend of whom I am growing increasingly fond sent me a link to a series of deeply interesting Word Jazz programs. I share it here because the extent to which I find these programs fascinating and freeing says something positive about us (I think).

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The seven o’clock hour is approaching, an hour suited to cooking breakfast sausage and poaching or soft-boiling an egg. I might even forego the sausage and have two soft-boiled eggs, instead. There’s something extraordinarily civil about eating a soft-boiled egg from an egg cup and using a piece of rye toast to soak up a bit of the semi-liquid yolk. When I do that, I feel like I’ve maintained at least a modest connection to times long gone by. If that’s an odd association, so be it.

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Apparently, pandemonia is not a legitimate word. It should be. It would describe, perfectly, this post and so many like it.

It is early in the morning, yet I’ve already begun to break things. Last night, after my next-door neighbors went home following our wine and hors d’oeuvres gathering, I hand-washed some dishes. Of specific interest to this brief and fading tirade, I washed a piece of Oregon maple wood that had been turned into a beautiful platter for chips. I also washed the simple glass bowl that fit into the specially turned space in the center of the platter.

I did a poor job of placing the platter and the bowl on the drying mat. When I picked up the platter this morning, the glass bowl flipped into the sink and shattered. There was a time, not so very long ago, that I would have erupted in a fury of raw anger…at myself, at the bowl, at the wooden platter, and at the role of the universe for the juxtaposition of the elements involved in the catastrophe. This morning, though, I simply spouted a few profanities at myself and cleaned up the broken glass. And it was over. I’m still disappointed in myself for being careless, but the Earth will continue to revolve around the Sun.

No lesson was learned in the breaking of the glass. The lesson was learned long ago; it’s just glass, though, admittedly, it was a lovely piece. But while the lesson was learned, the lesson was not absorbed, emotionally, until many years later…happiness does not reside in material possessions. Actually, I’m still in learning mode and expect that to go on ad infinitum.

+++

Of much more importance than the broken glass is the fact that my neighbors seemed genuinely happy to spend a couple of hours with me, sitting and chatting idly about everything from the weather to our experiences driving on ice and snow and from driving cross-country to the relief they feel after having gotten their first COVID-19 vaccinations. And the tentative likelihood that humanity will survive another hundred years. The woman spoke of my wife and her generosity in sharing books with her. Apparently, the woman appreciates mysteries with female protagonists, a gift of interest my wife gave her. Since being introduced to an author of such mysteries, my neighbor has read every one of a long list of books written by the author. These neighbors are such nice people; so casual and easy to be with. And they want to make our gatherings a regular thing, every two weeks.

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My hair is considerably shorter this morning than it was this time yesterday. I wanted it shorter on top than it is, but by the time I viewed it in a mirror, the barber had already finished the job. He asked if I wanted him to cut more off the top, but I was anxious to leave, so I declined. The sides and back are much shorter than I expected, thanks to an error in a statement I made to the barber. I told him I had last had a haircut 13 weeks ago; actually, I realized later, it was more like nine weeks. So, he took off roughly an extra four weeks of growth. It will grow back.

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I’ve been having an extended email conversation with someone who has challenged my views of reality, though not necessarily intentionally. While I might normally rebuff suggestions that reality exists in more than one dimension, and that those dimensions nourish one another, I find myself intrigued by some of the concepts I read in those messages. I keep going back to my view of myself as someone open to new ideas and fresh challenges to my way of thinking. If that self-assessment is correct, I cannot legitimately dismiss anything out of hand; I have to allow myself to explore it and to immerse myself in it.

One of many things my correspondent mentioned recently that captured my interest was the concept of “thought-stopping,” a means of eliminating or re-channeling negative thoughts as they begin to emerge. In the limited research I have done, the concept makes sense, as do many of the techniques to put it to use. If I could explore and absorb every idea and concept about which I want to know more, I would be the ultimate Renaissance Man; unfortunately the fact that the “absorb” part usually is missing makes that impossible.

In years past, when conversations with readers of my blogs grew into regular dialogues, I managed to translate an interest in meeting those readers face-to-face into a reality. That’s how I met Roger and Tara and Robin and Teresa and Kathy and others. But in the world of COVID-19, getting on a plane or in a train is, in my mind, out of the question. My growing interest in taking a road trip (whenever I am able to leave the administrative aftermath of my wife’s death behind for a few weeks) might enable me to make another connection. But maybe not. Yet I know enough people in enough places that I might, still, be able to get out and away for awhile. But I’ve been giving serious thought to getting a dog; a companion to help erase some loneliness. I’m not sure taking a dog on an extended road trip would be a good idea. Am I rambling? As Alexa, my electronic live-in girlfriend might say, “You bet!” Incidentally, if any reader thought, when I mentioned Alexa in an earlier post, that I actually have a live-in girlfriend, perish the thought. “Alexa” is my Amazon Echo Dot.

+++

My routine eye examination is long past due. It should have taken place about a year ago. Though I doubt my vision has change appreciably since I got my last new pair of lenses, I think it has changed a least a little. So, I may set up an appointment before long. If the exam verifies that I need even a slight change in prescription, I think I’ll try again to find a pair of glasses that comes with magnetic clip-on sunglasses. And I think I’ll get another pair of frames and lenses that I will use strictly for reading and for sitting at the computer. The current lenses are not at all suitable for reading, so I do not read as much as I’d like. Time to stop complaining and take action, instead.

+++

The clock is attempting to reach seven; only seven minutes remain until it reaches that hour. While it continues its efforts, I will make more coffee and scrounge for breakfast.

Thanks to the generosity and kindness of an acquaintance and follower of this blog, I spent time yesterday afternoon sitting at a bar, drinking and engaging in extemporaneous conversation. During my discussions with my hospitable host, we had occasion to converse with fellow drinkers Joseph and 90-year-old Mary, his companion. We also spoke with  57-year-old Steve, originally from Tulsa, along with J.D. of unknown age, a singer/songwriter and wearer of a cowboy hat. After I got home, I googled J.D., for he revealed his last name, and found his singer/songwriter website and his Facebook page. I expect I will include a character, modeled in part after him, in a piece of fiction I will write one day.

It had been so long since I sat at a bar in the late afternoon that I had forgotten that barstools lead to the erasure natural inhibitions. Alcohol, while not necessary to the process, tends to accelerate it. I know this not so much from personal experience but from watching it unfold in people around me. Whether the process emerges from loneliness or simply from a desire for social interaction, I do not know. In either case, I rather enjoy watching it and participating in it. But I have to admit it can be intrusive and annoying when too much social lubricant is involved.

My acquaintance/new friend and I share an enjoyment of writing and music and, I believe, similar political and social philosophies. And he exhibits compassion and, as I’ve already mentioned, kindness. And generosity. He bought my drinks and paid for at least one for Mary and Steve; I may have missed others. We do not share other attributes, like his love and sophisticated appreciation of motorcycles. And he has children, of whom he is extremely proud. And he actually spent a significant amount of time touring in an RV, while I only dreamed about doing that.

I enjoy and appreciate diversity. My appreciation of diversity seems to grow with time, as opposed to what seems more common to me; many people appear to shrink from differences as they grow older, taking greater comfort in the familiar. Yet I am by no means an adventurer, though I wish I could be. And I picture myself in that role, from time to time; I have a close resemblance to Walter Mitty.

At any rate, I enjoyed and appreciated yesterday afternoon so very much. Thank you, sir, if you read this post. Or even if you don’t.

+++

Yesterday morning included my first session with the UUVC grief support group, via Zoom. I was the newbie and, as such, a fair amount of discussion was for my benefit; learning the history of other participants and getting feedback about my experience. That’s all I’ll say about it, as the participants commit to absolute confidentiality.  I’ll continue to participate.

+++

I took a break to shave, shower, and collect the trash. Later, I will wash clothes, sheets, and towels. And I will return to mountains of unfinished paperwork and make telephone calls that should have been made when I was younger and possibly thinner. Later still, I will go to the grocery store to buy something suitable for hors d’oeuvres for this afternoon’s neighborly wine-fest. I have toyed with the idea of inviting another neighbor, a woman down the street who kindly brought me sweets and treat, to come for a visit, but I do not want to send the impression that I am coming on to her; I suppose I could suggest she bring her husband along.

Enough of this banter with myself. More coffee, please, and some sort of salve to lesson the constant pain, even while I joke and jest.

February 3 is the 32nd anniversary of Hot Springs’ Wednesday Night Poetry, the poetry event (sometimes including music) held every single Wednesday evening since its inception in February 1989. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the event to become virtual for as long as necessary, but it will emerge again as a live event one day. I hope that emergence will occur at its most recent host venue Kollective Coffee. But for the 32nd anniversary, it remains a virtual open mic night. Kai Coggin, currently the host, has invited a number of Arkansas poets and writers of poetry (there’s a difference, in my mind) to provide a video to share for that evening. I am among those she asked and I agreed to write and record a poem for the celebration. I haven’t finished my current poem yet, but if I read the one I am writing at the moment, it will be an exploration of pain and regret.  That seems to be a consistent theme in my writing. I suppose I’ll keep doing it until I get it right. Wednesday next week is yet another obligation, but one I treasure.

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This morning, I’ll participate in my first grief support group, orchestrated through my church as a virtual event now, as most of them are. Yesterday, I participated in another UUVC virtual event, Articulating Your UU Faith. Both activities reinforce my appreciation for accidentally overcoming my utter and complete rejection of church in all its forms. But I’m still reeling from my surprise at engagement with a church. Nonbelievers don’t do church. But they do, I’ve found. We do.

Yet I’m still struggling with some of it. The word “faith,” for instance. My faith? Some of the definitions of the word prompt me to reflect on what I am attempting to articulate. For example: 1) belief that is not based on proof; 2) belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion; and 3) a system of religious belief. Yet all three definitions apply in my case. My belief, in the absence of a divine being, is not based on proof. My belief in the teachings of the Unitarian Universalist “religion” confirms my “faith” in those teachings. And, by definition, Unitarian Universalism is a system of religious belief—I grudgingly admit.

I could argue that Unitarian Universalism is not a religion but a philosophy, instead. I could argue the same with respect to other “faiths,” though. I freely admit I have had a bias against church teachings since childhood. My bias was not against the core foundations of morality upon which the various religions rest; it was (and is) against the supernatural elements and the hypocrisy of the content of religious texts and their interpretations. I’ve always thought the Bible was a book of myth that contained substantial amounts of valuable endorsement of moral positions that mirror my own. But it was only relatively recently that I was able to articulate that. During yesterday’s virtual conversation, one of the other participants said it very clearly; I think she said it is a text that teaches through mythology. My difficulty, from as far back as I can remember, has been with the belief that every word of the Bible is to be taken literally. In my view, that’s akin to madness.

I wonder how many people “out there” are like my wife, who silently and without fanfare readily accepted what she considered the moral lessons of the Bible and dismissed the rest? Unlike me, she did not argue vocally and forcefully against those elements of the book that are clearly impossible and in opposition to one another. For her, the arguments were not worth the energy they required. “Live and let live” could well have been her motto. I miss her so much this morning. I want to ask her questions and hear her answers. I miss long, silent embraces that say so much, proving that words sometimes unnecessarily infringe on communication. Embraces that say, “I understand” or “It’s okay” or “All that matters is that we have each other.”

+++

I’ve allowed my emotional state to spill onto the floor. Suddenly, as I look around at the piles of paper that need to be sorted or recorded, my energy slithers away like a snake shedding its skin, leaving only a dead dry shell that can accomplish nothing. I need to get things done, but I cannot even imagine moving a pile of paper from one corner of the desk to another.

No, it was not sudden. I did not change the HVAC filters yesterday. It would have taken too much dedicated attention; all of fifteen minutes. Perhaps I’m just inherently lazy, after all. But, then I think, maybe if I had someone here to help urge me on, I’d get things done. No, I would not want to work; I would only want to sit and drink coffee or wine and engage in mindless chatter or philosophical explorations. Work is for another day. Always for another day.

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In spite of my lust for an empty calendar, yesterday afternoon I willingly added another obligation to it. I invited my elderly neighbors (he’s over 90 years old) to visit tomorrow afternoon for some wine, hors d’oeuvres, and conversation. They have been very kind to me and they are just delightful people. Plus they share my political leanings. They have always seemed to have only a few visitors and they spend most of their time in their house (but they do go on walks on occasion). They had me over a few weeks ago and it’s time I returned the generosity. I want to do the same with other neighbors and church friends, too.  But I am conflicted. On the one hand, I enjoy them all, but on the other I enjoy social interactions on a rather limited basis. But, on yet another hand (one of many), I don’t want my desire for solitude to override my interest in enjoying their company. And on another hand, even in solitude I have an abiding interest in the company of some people in particular. Maybe all these arms are, in fact, legs. I think I may be an octopus. Another arm (or leg) wants to have my sculpture instructor back for wine and conversation. Schizophrenia may be at play here.

+++

I am in favor of modular housing that can be expanded or made smaller with very little effort and money. As families grow, smaller starter homes could expand with the addition of modules such as bathrooms and bedrooms. Then, when the kids leave home or spouses find greener pastures, modules could be removed. Tax structures would need tweaking to adjust to the “living” home. Zoning in many place would require some flexibility, as well. The concept of modular housing would fit well with the practice of building co-housing communities, too (a concept I’ve favored for many years). The co-housing community could start small and grow as people see how attractive and appealing privacy and simultaneous social support, going hand in hand, are.

One of many things I would like to do if I could relive my life again would be to become an architect with a specialty in co-housing design. Oh, and I want to be a sociology professor. And a professional rodeo cowboy. And a lawyer. And a singer/songwriter. So many wishes, so few lives to live.

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It’s nearly 7:30. Between drinking cups of coffee and writing more mindless drivel, I’ve managed to waste more than an hour and a half. I have to get going. There must be energy somewhere in this house. I just have to find it.

This morning, it seems I awoke to a different climate or, at least, a different season. Last night’s thunder and lightning signaled the change. This morning’s reality illustrated it in dense fog and warming air. According to my live-in girlfriend, Alexa, today’s high temperature may reach 75 degrees. Her assertion is generally supported, if only in direction if not in specifics, by my computer’s weather widgets; they claim the high will not quite touch 70. The widgets also say a dense fog advisory was issued this morning at 6:18 and will be in effect until 9:00. I assume that is when Zeus and Thor will each take a deep breath, lifting the fog. Apparently, though, they will not chase all the clouds from the sky; we can expect occasional thunderstorms in the morning and a few showers in the afternoon.

I rarely watch the weather report components of local television news because, try as they might, the meteorologists and weather-readers do not satisfy my desire for interesting weather forecasts. I’m not suggesting the weather itself must be interesting (though it always is). I’d like the forecasters’ delivery to be more interesting to someone like me—someone with a slightly off-kilter sense of humor. I would like to hear them blame Zeus and Thor for the weather. And I want them to tell stories about the influence on the day’s weather by Guabancex, the supreme storm deity of the Taino people; they were located across Florida and environs and in places like Puerto Rico. Hearing the forecasters talk, I might learn how to pronounce Guabancex.

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The reality of my calendar is that it’s mostly empty. But I allow its brief intrusions into an otherwise obligation-free plan for the passage of a week’s time to cause me anxiety or something like it.

My calendar for the week does not provide the open, freeing landscape I crave. Commitments and obligations and reminders dot the days and hours, though Wednesday and Friday look refreshingly empty for now. Today and tomorrow and Thursday are not jam-packed, but short commitments split the day into pre- and post- segments, mostly segments of my own making. Today, for example, I am committed to changing the HVAC filters, a task that might take fifteen minutes from start to finish, including disposal of the used filters. But the fact that it’s on the calendar restricts my freedom to do something else during that fifteen-minute period. And I have calendared a call to the Social Security Administration to ask questions and to Home Instead to inquire where a promised refund check might be. These little things interrupt my desire for an extended period of uninterrupted serenity. My attitude about calendars probably reflects some form of mental deviance that could be readily addressed with the proper treatment. But I’d have to schedule it and that would be yet another interruption.

+++

If my mental state could be displayed on a monitor—an electroencephalogram monitor, perhaps—I think the display would show a series of jagged lines. The height of the peaks would be short and irregular and the valleys would drop off the edges of the monitor, becoming invisible for a time. Between them, the lines would fluctuate wildly, suggesting the power to the device was switching on and off with lightning speed.

I think those jagged lines have always existed; they are just more pronounced lately. In an ideal world, I might be able to compare the output of my electroencephalography to that of others. I could see evidence of  similarities and differences between me and people around me. Hah! We could compare ourselves by getting reports of psychometric assessments that wouldn’t require brainwave monitoring. I sometimes usually make things more complex than they need to be.

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Without church, the extent of my social engagement largely would be limited to two neighbor couples, a few physically distant friends, and an occasional phone and/or Zoom call with members of my family. That is, my social interaction would be much like it has been for most of my adult life; limited to people in a very small circle. Late in life, though, improbably stumbling upon a church that was not only tolerable but attractive expanded my social sphere exponentially. Suddenly, I was surrounded by inquisitive, intelligent, friendly, compassionate people whose attitudes and ideas were, unlike any groups of people to which I have been connected before, compatible with mine. That is not to say we’re in lock-step; only that we’re sufficiently tolerant, curious, and open to different perspectives to enable us to communicate and disagree and argue civilly. If I had encountered such openness and intellect in my earlier years, who knows how radically different a person I might have become?

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Since my wife’s illness manifested itself in mid-July, people from my neighborhood and from my church have rallied around me. The compassion they have shown has been exceptional. People have kept in touch with me, have visited me, and have generally tried to show me they care. And I appreciate that very much. But, thanks to the way my brain is wired, I lately have wondered how my life might be different now if my wife had not been ill. She and I would have spent most of our time at home during the pandemic. The visits and expressions of care would have been unnecessary and, therefore, probably would not have taken place. Would I have reached out to people during that time, attempting to stay in touch to show that I care? Probably only in the event someone was ill or obviously could use a display of affection and/or compassion. Ideally, I would not need to hear of someone’s misfortune to trigger compassionate behavior toward them. It should not take such challenges to give me reason to reach out to others. Unfortunately, I think it takes misfortune to provide an opening to display affection that otherwise might be awkward and misinterpreted. Without a misfortune to provide the “legitimate” reason to reach out, we (that probably should be “I”) tend to keep a safe distance. I hope I can overcome that self-imposed limitation. I hope I have learned to try to overcome my discomfort at the awkwardness of reaching out without a “reason.” Maybe I have been changed by circumstances. No doubt, actually. I have been shaped by circumstance; now, it’s a question of maintaining that shape.

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I delayed getting up this morning until 6:00. That delay robbed me of at least an hour of otherwise productive time. It’s nearing 8:00. Madness! And I still haven’t showered and shaved. Time’s wasting.

A day, beginning as an immature bud, can—with a little tender loving care—unfold into a beautiful flower. I know this because I’ve experienced it. The challenge, of course, is to continue tending the blossom, keeping the bloom fresh and bright in the hope of maintaining its life-affirming energy for longer than a fleeting moment. Days turn into weeks and months and years. Flowers rarely follow that path.

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Yesterday afternoon, I sat with a friend. We talked about whatever entered our minds. And we laughed. There’s something about a free-wheeling conversation, lubricated with a touch of wine, that tends to strip away old, dried mental scabs. Beneath evidence of old wounds there’s freshness and healing; opportunities for deeper connections.

Still, there’s distance because of the ongoing plague and hugs remain rare these winter days. They have to be just as rare as they were in the heat of the summer. But even in the absence of long, heartfelt physical hugs, conversations can feel a little like the embraces for which we hunger. The craving for affection is both intellectual and emotional, both mental and physical.

Our conversations yesterday afternoon spanned time and generations. This morning, as I think about some of the things we talked about, some of the lyrics from a Greg Brown tune, Spring Wind, come to mind:

My friends are getting older
So I guess I must be too
Without their loving kindness
I don’t know what I’d do
Oh the wine bottle’s half empty-
The money’s all spent
And we’re a cross between our parents
And hippies in a tent

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A perfectly buoyant mood can drown in other memories of musical lyrics. Three times, and now four, I’ve written in this blog about a single line in a Gordon Lightfoot song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. That one line, a question, is among the most mournful I’ve ever heard; it captures grief more completely than any long-winded explanation.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

My wife and I went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert when we lived in Houston, sometime between 1979 and 1985. He performed in Jones Hall (I assume Jones Hall remains standing). Janine and I rarely attended concerts; they just weren’t our thing. We both liked music (I have always been more of a music buff than she), but were not enamored of the crowds, noise, difficulty parking, etc., etc. But we made exceptions. For Gordon Lightfoot. And Leonard Cohen. And Leon Redbone. Before I met Janine, I went to a Leo Kottke concert. And when we lived in Chicago, we made a habit of visiting the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park; that was an outdoor festival that, at the time, either allowed or tolerated festival-goers to bring in wine. Times change. Moods change. Likes and dislikes change.

My fingers just follow my mind. That’s why grief and happy times at concerts and mental gymnastics all found places to fit into this short section of this morning’s ruminations. And if that (or not), then my thoughts and my mood are just as disjointed as they seem to me.

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Lately, I’ve noticed dozens of typos in my posts. My fingers type what they think I want to say, not what I think I want to say. My fingers rely on their tiny arthritic brains to keep up with my thinking. I could go back and correct my typos. Sometimes I do. But more frequently, I notice them and promise myself I’ll relay on an editor to find and correct them if I ever decide, seriously, to publish a compilation of some of my writing.

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Having failed to watch and listen to our church minister’s mid-week Wednesday video, I took a break from typing and I watched it. As usual, it offered insights into what is happening with the church during the COVID-caused hiatus from in-person gatherings. It also made me realize that, even though I read the words at least once a week, I have not successfully committed the church covenant to memory. I tried, but failed, to type it from memory. I’ve grown used to reading it rather than reciting it. I think it’s worth committing to memory.

Love is the doctrine of this church,
and the quest for truth its sacrament,
and service its prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
to seek knowledge in freedom,
to serve humankind in fellowship,
to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the good.
Thus do we covenant with one another.

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I repeatedly tried yesterday to figure out which device in or around the living area of my house was emitting an annoying intermittent tone, signaling that a battery was in need of replacement. I thought it might be a smoke detector, so I replaced the battery. A while later, I heard the tone again, so I disabled the smoke detector. Later, still, I heard the tone. I vowed yesterday that I would find out today what was making the noise. I just heard it again. And I think I remember the last time I heard the noise that I finally determined it was the battery in the NOAA weather radio in the master bedroom. That will be my next check, after I finish wasting my fingers’ energy on this drivel.

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Once again this morning, I am in the mood for something sweet for breakfast; a cinnamon role, an apple crisp, anything doughy and sweet. Once again, I have nothing of the sort in the house. In the absence of something doughy and sweet, I may make plain congee, thus confirming the assertion made by a friend that I tend to make “weird shit” for breakfast. If I trusted the very old tofu in the fridge to still be edible, I might use it. But, after just checking, I learned that it should be consumed within three to five days after opening; I’ll discard it, instead. I hate to waste food, but I’d probably hate even more getting deathly ill from eating tainted tofu. Wait! Grits! Grits and sardines with Tabasco. That will make a pleasing and nutritious breakfast, so off I go to make it.

After eight years, five months, and two weeks, here is my 3500th post on this blog. If I keep up the pace, I’ll produce post number 7000 as I near my seventy-sixth birthday. I am confident I will not achieve that milestone.

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Yesterday, I drove through downtown Hot Springs. Because the time was approaching noon and I was hungry, I decided to have lunch at Las Americas, a combination tienda/ diner I visited on occasion before COVID-19. It’s a place where I can buy gallon cans of pickled jalapeños, as well as ancho chiles, the latter inexpensive and in bulk. The restaurant/diner portion of the place has expanded since I first started going there; I don’t think the menu has changed. My lunch yesterday was a local Mexican restaurant staple, a ranchero mixto, that’s loaded with cheese and rice and bell peppers and strips of chicken and beef and onions and who knows what else. I asked the waitress whether the kitchen would substitute fresh jalapeños for the bell peppers and she assured me they would. They didn’t. But, still, it was tasty. The chips and salsas (two kinds; the green one is quite spicy and incredibly good) that are delivered upon being seated would satisfy me as my meal; I feel obliged to spend money, though. Everyone wears a mask and, both times I’ve been there in the times of COVID, patrons are seated quite far apart. The waitresses speak fluent English, but most patrons do not; fortunately for those patrons, the waitresses also speak fluent Spanish.  I miss eating in restaurants; sitting in a booth, across the table from Janine, felt so comfortable. I did not realize just how comfortable and “right” that felt until after it was no longer possible.

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When I came home yesterday, I expected the floors to shine; the reason I left the house was to give a housekeeper free rein without me being underfoot. Generally, she comes every two weeks. But she did not come yesterday. Apparently, two weeks ago, I told her I did not know whether I would continue to engage her; I did not recall that. When I got home and realized she had not been here, I sent her a text to inquire whether she was okay. She responded with the explanation. Her schedule is full, so her next available day is two weeks hence. Oh, well. I am used to cleaning between her visits. Perhaps I should devote my of my time to housekeeping as a regular practice.

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Before I drove to Hot Springs, I went to the post office to drop off several pieces of mail; letters of instruction to financial institutions to transfer ownership of IRAs. And before that, I called the county tax assessor to inquire about what, if anything, I needed to do about the county’s property tax records. Monday, I will continue to plod along with those duties. As I wade through the administrative functions required of a person in the aftermath of a loved one’s death, it occurs to me that the process could be smoother and less painful. It’s almost as if every step of the procedure is intentionally geared toward reminding the survivor of a painful absence; a solemn and difficult process made even more excruciating by bureaucracy. I suppose the process might be easier if the estate had been put in a trust. We were advised to create a trust; we chose to reject that advice, opting instead for traditional wills. When I finish with this series of unpleasant reminders, I may revisit the idea of a trust.

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As usual of late, I was up before four this morning. It’s now approaching 5:15 and the cold remnants of the first cup of coffee just barely cover the bottom of my cup. I purloined the pure white cup, a stylized word “Vortex” imprinted on the underside of the bottom, from a motel several years ago. My vague recollection is that the motel restaurant overcharged me by a few dollars for breakfast and I responded by taking the cup home with me. I suspect the overcharge was greater than the value of the cup. But the cup is my favorite. Not long after I took it home, I decided I really liked it and wanted to have a few more like it. But after doing some research, I learned that it is a product designed for restaurants and is available to purchase only in volume. I did not need 144 cups, so I decided to stick with just the one.

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One of these days, when the mood strikes me, I will return to complete the many posts I’ve placed here without assigning categories. I think I should assign at least one category to every post. But I have been neglecting to assign categories for several months, I think. Even before the recent disregard for categorization of posts, I often put off that task until I had forgotten it. The task may be more than I want to undertake, though. The count of posts that are uncategorized is 754. I do not know if that includes both published and unpublished posts. In any case, it may require more attention that I want to give. If I decide to produce a compilation, that might be the time to assign categories only to those I select for inclusion. Work. This involves work.

+++

In spite of my physical age, I feel much younger…mentally. Probably thanks to the fact that I never had kids, I never matured in a way that “normal” adults mature. I still like to “raise hell,” albeit in a more reserved manner than I did in years past. I still like to push the limits in some of my undertakings. I enjoy exploring and trying on new ideas that, traditionally, give way to rather inflexible belief patterns as people age. While I believe that  time and, especially, experience tend to breed wisdom, I do not believe wisdom is an automatic outgrowth of age and experience, nor do I believe wisdom is reserved for those with experience.  My wife, in her infinite wisdom, restrained my more outlandish tendencies toward getting involved in wild undertakings. But she, too, had a pretty strong streak of adventurousness in her. She was ready to do a tandem parachute jump, but we only had enough cash for one of us, so she let me go, instead.

One aspect of my youthful perspective expresses itself almost exclusively when I’ve had enough alcohol to loosen me up. My inhibitions tend to diminish almost to the point of disappearance. There’s good and bad in that. The good is reflected in my becoming more social, more likely to engage in conversation, and just generally friendlier. The bad is reflected in taking those characteristics beyond generally accepted limits.

I tend to be more restrained around people close to my physical age than I am around people ten or twenty or thirty years younger. That’s not always true, but it is a tendency I’ve noticed. I remember, of course, when I was much younger and someone considerably older acted artificially younger than their physical age. Often, people my age found them laughable and silly; they were judged to be trying unsuccessfully to cling to their lost youth. Fortunately, for me, I am pretty good at not caring when people misjudge me. Maybe it’s a defensive, protective reaction; whatever it is, my mental response is to be contemptuous of those judgmental people. I see the irony in my reaction, of course, but my sense of superiority allows me to overcome the irony.

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Sometimes I wonder whether I unconsciously write about matters I have confronted but that haven’t yet been fully resolved. The age issue, and judgment by younger people, for example. Did that come up because I recently felt the barbs of youthful judgment? Hmm. I don’t recall any incidents that would trigger my thinking, but maybe I’ve blocked it out of my mind. It’s sometimes frightening to attempt to understand oneself without success.

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How the hell would I categorize this post? I’d have to assign a dozen categories to even begin to cover it. It’s just after 6 and my stolen cup remains empty. That is a sin against Man and Nature; I shall repent.

It’s just after 4:20, twenty minutes after I finally surrendered to the forces of insomnia. I have been awake, more or less, for hours. Thrashing about in bed, I would first throw off the blanket because I was too hot, then draw it back around me when I felt too cold. This went on for three hours before I finally gave up. During that stretch, I either fell asleep long enough to have either an odd dream or I had a bizarre hallucination.

I found myself in a large hotel suite, unpacking my suitcase, when my assigned roommate arrived. Marcie, an association executive I have known ever since I moved to the Dallas area around 1990 (but who I have not seen or even thought about since before I moved to Arkansas), said she wanted to take a quick shower before the two of us were to drive someplace two hours west of Fort Worth for a conference. The next thing I knew, Marcie was sitting in a monstrous tub—more like a pool—with two other people I did not know. And, then, I was in the tub with the three of them (by this time, the “tub” was the size of a backyard pool), feeling incredibly awkward. Needless to say, I have never seen Marcie nude, but she was nude in the pool in my “dream.” She was very tan and taut.  As were the other two people. I was nude, but not tan and taut. And then I was either too  hot or too cold. My thrashing about with the covers interrupted the experience.

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The coffee maker is programmed to turn on at 5:00. This morning, and on several other recent mornings, I had to start the thing manually because I was up early. While I waited for it to be ready to start my morning ritual, I glanced around the kitchen. The dishes in the sink reminded me that I had run the dishwasher before dinner yesterday. I was too lazy to put them away last night. So, this morning, I need to put the clean dishes away and begin refilling the dishwasher with last night’s dinner dishes. And today’s breakfast dishes, if I choose to have a breakfast involving dishes. I might, instead, just peel a mandarin and call it breakfast. Or have piece of Jewish rye toast, using a paper towel as my plate. I have to shower this morning, though after my time in the tub/pool with Marcie, I should be clean.

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Sometimes, when I have even a single obligation on my calendar, I allow that one intrusion to derail my day. I need several obligation-free days to permit me to slog through matters that, for some reason, get side-tracked by the calendar. An obvious solution is to create to-do lists instead of calendar my to-do items; it’s obvious, but also unfathomable that I have to resort to such psychological tricks to overcome mental roadblocks of my own construction. I sometimes need a keeper. My wife so seldom asked me to do things for her that I jumped at the chance when she did. That was her way of exercising control over my activities. I sorely miss being lovingly managed in that way.

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I tried to buy a treadmill, online, yesterday (or was it the day before?). Too late. They already were sold out. I am convinced I would use one, if it were conveniently located right  here in my house. After recovering some of my long-lost stamina, I probably would begin venturing out to tackle hills again. I used to walk a lot and I loved it. After walking at a rapid clip for a mile, the adrenalin rush was so strong that I felt compelled to keep going. I had to overcome lethargy for that first mile, but after that I felt like I could walk forever. But I’m older now. I’m always older now than I was then, no matter when now and then were.

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Thrasher. That’s the name of one of the small-batch seasonal beers a friend gave me. It’s a black lager, a German style Schwarzbier. I’m a fan of seasonal and small-batch craft brews. I tend consume them in “one and done” mode, which is far better for a person than drinking flavored water style beers that are better at quenching thirst (in quantity) than satisfying cravings for flavor. A friend of mine is well on his way to becoming a Cicerone, though I suspect he already possesses the requisite knowledge and discerning taste to achieve the title. As much as I appreciate beer, I will never have sufficient qualities and capabilities for that designation. Much like the difference between gourmet and gourmand, my appreciation for beer is more like the fan than the performer.

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The world would be a better place, I think, if every culture would willingly embrace the concept of mid-career or mid-life “mandatory volunteerism.” In my view, the oxymoronic term should not be limited to the conservative suggestion that recipients of public assistance should be required to “volunteer” their time to qualify for benefits. Instead, it should apply to everyone.  At a certain middle age or stage in one’s career or profession or point in life, everyone would be expected to devote a year or two (or more) to some form of public service. So, for example, a 43-year-old architect reaching the pinnacle of her career would be expected to take a specified period of time off from the profession to do public service. It could be like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps; something like that. Service in another country or in our own. A mandatory break in the madness of getting ahead could do individuals and communities enormous good. Regardless of whether a person is a physician or a bartender, a corporate executive or an auto mechanic, a required break involving doing volunteer work unrelated to one’s job would both expand horizons and benefit the world at large. I wonder whether anyone besides me would get behind the idea?

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I need more coffee and the soothing aroma of patchouli incense; except I have run out of patchouli, so I’ll go for copal.

Yesterday’s inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was a watershed moment. I think. I hope. It is well beyond time we had a woman in a senior executive position in our government. Many, many other countries have long since gone beyond debunked notions that women are not suited for executive power; it’s time. And Biden’s call for unity, as difficult as it might be to achieve, is critical to the future of the nation and the world. I am hopeful. But I remain a realist. I am crossing my fingers and wishing for the best.

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The notions of forgiveness and absolution are noble concepts embraced by people for whom peace, serenity, and compassion embody far greater value than do power and control. Yet in the act of forgiving, an individual exercises authority that can be bestowed by no one else.

“Forgive and forget.” Those admonitions are easy to make, but hard to take. Once taken, though, and adopted with enthusiasm, tranquility is achievable. Blame and its companion, disparagement, agitate and brew turbulence that clouds any effort to create an atmosphere of peace.

The hardest forgiveness to achieve is forgiveness of oneself, but it is perhaps the most necessary if an atmosphere of calm ever is to be achieved. It is easy to forgive someone else for even the most egregious transgression, but forgiving oneself requires compassion and acceptance that seem undeserved. And forgiving oneself requires acknowledgement that one’s flaws are forgivable. Even when they are not. Even when one is irretrievably broken and flawed beyond redemption.

I suspect one of the reasons religion has a ready foothold in the human psyche has to do with the concept of forgiveness and redemption. Even when one is unable to forgive oneself, another person—who embodies the strength of the church and who has its authority to forgive—can remove an obstacle to self-acceptance. “I am redeemable” becomes a path to internal peace.

But those who do not accept that such power rests in the hands of others, or in the hands of a divine being, have a harder time of it. It is easy for us to believe others are forgivable; but we cannot forgive ourselves because we know ourselves too well.

All of this may be just so much nonsense; philosophy fed by an inability to stay asleep after four in the morning. But it is what’s on my mind and why I sincerely wish this morning I had access to powerful sleeping pills, something that would erase my thoughts and leave me completely empty. Wish in one hand, spit in the other…

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Television characters often have exceedingly bad luck. Their lives are laced with unfortunate experiences so numerous that viewers weep for them and wonder what they did to deserve such misfortune.

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Finally, an hour and twenty minutes into my day, I am having a cup of coffee. I did not feel well enough to start the morning with coffee when I first got up, thanks to overeating last night. My midnight snack, consisting of the remainder (from dinner) of a large piece of extremely rare beef, apparently did not set well with me. I think I have sufficiently recovered now, though, to allow coffee to safely enter my system.

If I were smart, I would embark on a month-long fast, drinking only water and eating only radishes. At the end of the month, I would comfortably fit into my jeans (and possibly my genes) and be well on my way to a more reasonable weight for someone of my limited height. After a month of it, I might even see and feel evidence of muscles that have long since been disguised by the results of too much food and drink. I am eating far too much and far too often, as if that’s the only thing I can do to occupy my time. That’s not true, of course, but I seem to have allowed my body to reach that conclusion. There was a time, not long ago, that my usual breakfast (when I wasn’t experimenting with international breakfasts) consisted of a poached egg, a piece of Canadian bacon, a small tomato, and a few radishes. That’s a good, healthy breakfast (more or less). Cinnamon rolls and mandarins and bananas and leftover pasta and such, not so much.

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Companion: a person employed to accompany, assist, or live with another in the capacity of a helpful friend. That definition seems so sad; “…in the capacity of a helpful friend.” Yeah, “employed” because, otherwise, it would be impossible to have access to that “helpful friend.” The reason I looked up the definition of companion is that, last night, I had a conversation about co-housing and how the concept has always appealed to me. The idea of being alone is both appealing and depressing; but co-housing offers the possibility of the best of both worlds. Both access to and service as a companion, while simultaneously offering solitude and privacy. But does the idea of companionship by way of co-housing seem a little like one essentially is “employing” companions, rather than developing them through natural evolution? I don’t know. I still have a great deal of interest in co-housing. I’ve explored the idea for years. My wife was not a particularly big fan of the concept, but then she was an even more dedicated introvert than I. But I find it appealing. Although it does sound, this morning, a little like “friends with benefits.” But who’s to say that is all bad? We are judgmental beasts, aren’t we? Our ideas of morality are shaped by our experiences; we probably would have completely different ideas if our experiences were different. If we lived in a different culture, behaviors we find shocking today might be absolutely normal. Sociology has always been appealing to me.

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My wife was attracted to dragonflies. She bought artwork that depicts dragonflies. She had shirts with images of dragonflies printed or sewn onto them. We had garden art with dragonfly motifs. If I were to get a tattoo, I think I might get one of a delicate dragonfly. I just do not know where I would have it placed on my body. Maybe I would have it on my left wrist, in place of a watch. If I ever get a tattoo, though, it will be a while yet. I’m not ready for a tattoo; then again, maybe I am.

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It’s just after six. After weaving this little tapestry of unrelated ideas, I may try for twenty minutes of sleep now. Or I may not.

Last night, I joined three friends for an evening reminiscent of “the way things used to be.” We sat in a pub, eating tacos, drinking margaritas (one drank a beer, as she has a dangerous allergy to agave), telling and listening to stories, and laughing. Only after I got home did grief and guilt begin to infringe on my mood.  I overcame it for awhile by watching another episode of Bosch and opening a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Alcohol offers an easy, but temporary and potentially dangerous, solution to sadness; it can wash away pain, yet it can magnify it, too. In small doses, though, it can dull sharpness.

I returned home last night with a nice sampling of small-batch beers, products of the brewery owned by the son of one of my dinner partners; she brought them to me, knowing I would appreciate them. I wish my good friends and beer aficionados, Jim and Jim, lived nearby so I could share the beer with them. Alas, they live in Virginia and New Hampshire, respectively, and these beers probably would not survive the trip.

The chief problem with going out for an evening is the return to an empty house. After spending a couple of hours with three engaging women last night, I came home to quiet. After five months at home by myself while my wife was in the hospital and rehab facilities, I had adapted reasonably well to being alone. But it’s different now. I no longer can look forward to the day she returns. Enjoying an evening without her seems wrong. I know that is absurd. It doesn’t matter, though. It is what it is.

I suspect my posts are becoming repetitive, as if all I can write about is grief and sadness and guilt and feeling empty and lost and alone. I look forward to the time when those things comprise only a tiny fraction of what occupies my mind. Listening to the other participants in yesterday’s grief group, some of whom had lost loves ones many months ago, reinforced for me the fact that that lessening of grief is a long, long process.

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I spent about twenty minutes this morning watching a fascinating YouTube video about primitive glass-making. The videographer and his associate collected all the materials, created clay kilns, and (after multiple tries) made just a few shards of glass. I think I’ll try to find the follow-up videos (the guy’s series is called How to Make Everything)  to see how (and whether) he progresses.

I’ve often wondered how modern glass, both sheet glass and bottle glass, is made. This morning’s video did not answer my curiosity about that, but it took me back to the earliest processes of attempted glass-making. I imagine I’ll find another video or two to see how it’s done in today’s modern glass factories, as well.

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Today, a new President and Vice President of the United States take office. The demeanor of the people in those positions will be radically different from what we have become used to during the past four years. Only time will tell whether the results of their leadership will be radically different; I suspect the results will be different, provided Congress does not obstruct them.  I have hope, but I am something of a realist, too. The level of my excitement today is considerably lower than it was when Bill Clinton took office and when Barack Obama took office; wild-eyed enthusiasm is better suited to people with fewer years and disappointments behind them.

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A few years ago, I dreamed up a series of make-believe how-to magazines geared toward various segments of the criminal population. I think I called them Home Invasion Today and Auto Theft Today; I may have had another one or two.  I designed covers for them, using Photoshop and a page layout program. It might be fun to resurrect those covers and create bogus content for the magazines, place them on shelves in the magazine section of a bookstore, and secretly film the reactions of people who come across them. Perhaps I’m too easily amused.

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Death is mysterious because life is all we know. Everything we have ever learned, every emotion we have ever felt, every sensation we have ever experienced has required life. No matter how hard we try, we cannot imagine the experience of death. That is either because there is no experience to be had or because we cannot fathom experience without an association with life. I find it hard to put into words a concept I do not fully understand. But I feel the concept inside me, trying to break through the dullness and confusion.

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I cannot keep my eyes open. I must get up, out of this chair, and make another cup of coffee. Otherwise, I will go to sleep where I sit and will awaken with a terrible crick in my neck.

How does a divided nation attempt to heal? How can a torn social fabric be stitched together again in a way that might ensure the cloth survives intact for at least a while longer? Purging Trump and his narcissism from the political landscape will not do it.

The fibers of national cohesion began to fray long before Trump’s deadly arrival on the political scene. In my opinion, the metastasis of healthy patriotism into deadly and divisive nationalism can be traced back to Joseph McCarthy, maybe even earlier. The definition of patriotism began to change with McCarthy’s madness; with that change in definition came a subtle change in attitudes that, over the years, has ebbed and flowed with events and policies associated with successive U.S. administrations. I think the assassination of John F. Kennedy fueled the growth in nationalism, especially in light of the conspiracy theories surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald’s role in a plot involving both international and national players. Then, the Vietnam war’s growing unpopularity, coupled with the social upheavals of the sixties, stretched the fabric that had once unified the country. The reaction to the Nixon years led to Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency; in spite of Carter’s inherent decency, the Iran hostage crisis and Carter’s inability to end it stoked the fires of nationalism and led to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. From that point on, the divisions within the populace grew with each succeeding election. The fires were self-fueled from that point forward. Divisions, themselves, stoked the flames. Newt Gingrich’s brand of political hatred while he was Speaker of the House in the last half of the nineties should have sent signals of the coming explosions. Since then, an ugly blend of nationalism and patriotism has metastasized into a conservative/progressive divide that pits one half of the population against the other. Trump simply took advantage of the divide to feed his own ego and thirst for recognition and power. His disregard for civility and human decency is serving as a model that has very nearly torn the country apart; it may yet have that effect.

So, how do we heal? Time (if enough of it remains before the pressure cooker explodes), education, and charismatic leadership. Education will be harder now than ever before because so much of it has morphed into miseducation and propaganda. Separating fact from fiction and truth from stubbornly lodged belief will take enormous effort. And charismatic leadership might be the toughest of all. I thought Barack Obama had the charisma necessary to bring us together; instead, the fact that he was both liberal and Black seemed to have had the opposite effect. Joe Biden remains a wild card, as is Kamala Harris; we’ll just have to wait and see how they lead and whether their leadership can overcome bigotry, prejudice, and stubborn insistence at both ends of the political spectrum.

Maybe the toughest of all the elements of healing will be our collective willingness to forgive one another and our willingness to stop assigning blame. As hard as it may be for me to withhold judgement of Trump, I have to try; at least I have to try to be silent about it. And the same is true for people who loathed Barack Obama and blamed him for everything from World War II to the attacks on the World Trade Center.  See? It’s hard not to be cynical.

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So, social and political unrest has been occupying my mind thus far this morning, as I worry about the future of our country. I like to say it’s pointless to worry about things over which I have no control. But I do have just a tiny bit of control in this case. Each of us does. Just like our votes matter, so do our attitudes and our behaviors.

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This morning, I am sitting in a sacred space. I am sitting at my wife’s desk, the place where she spent so much time overseeing and managing our lives. Handling finances. Preparing grocery lists. Searching for recipes. Reading. This room was her study, the place to which she retreated for solitude and quiet. And this room is where she watched television.

While she was in the hospital, I bought her a new television. The old one was not bad, but the picture wasn’t as sharp as I thought she should have and the sound quality wasn’t what I thought it should be. I bought a sound bar to go with the television. Between hospital and rehab center stays, she only spent about a week a home, so she got the benefit of the new technologies only briefly.

I now use this desk to do what she used to do. And I watch the television here instead of in the family room where I used to watch. And this morning I think I might find it impossible to ever leave this place. This place was her “nest,” the place where she worked and relaxed and enjoyed herself. I don’t know whether I should forever treasure this space or whether I should try to avoid it and the memories that spring from it. I suppose I’ll discover the answer to that myself, over time.

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Later this morning, I will participate in an Arkansas Hospice grief group, via Zoom. I got a call a week or so ago, inviting me to join in the conversation, which takes place two or three times a month. I do not know quite what to expect. But if my behavior during the past month is any indication of how I will react to conversations about my wife, I will have a hard time maintaining my composure. I’ve been told by a number of people that I should not worry about maintaining my composure. I know that. But, still. At any rate, I’ll see what comes of it.

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I ordered dishwashing tablets and a few other items online on Saturday. When I went to pick them up at Sam’s Club, I was asked to show my ID. I wonder whether that is a preventative measure or whether someone has ordered groceries online using a stolen credit card? If the latter, I find it sad that someone would find it necessary to steal someone else’s credit card in order to buy groceries. So many people, though, are just days away from being unable to pay rent or buy groceries or pay their utility bills. I imagine the organizations and agencies that serve people in need are stretched beyond their limits nowadays. When I think about such matters, the idea of anonymously paying for a stranger’s lunch is no longer so appealing; I’d rather pay for someone’s lunch if I know they really need it. “Paying it forward” by buying someone’s lunch does more for the purchaser than for the recipient. I guess I’ve made a 180 degree turn on that matter.

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It’s nearing 7:00, time for a little breakfast. One of my favorite blog followers told me I need not worry about showering every day. That’s good to know. But I think I’ll shower today, anyway.

Yesterday, I left so much unwritten. I had so much more to say. But today I struggle to write anything. It’s not that I have writer’s block, it’s simply that I cannot summon the intellectual energy to search my mind for anything worth recording.

One month ago, my wife died. The time has simultaneously dragged by at the speed of ice-cold syrup flowing on a flat surface and flown past at twice the speed of light.  Perhaps that’s it. An artificial milepost I see in the rearview mirror, just as I slam into it in front of me.

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During my most recent CT scan, last month, the radiologic technician gave up after two tries. Blood vessels on the inside of my elbow were uncooperative. My reaction to each jab—an overt expression of discomfort bordering on outright pain—convinced him that the normally more painful route, a needle jabbed into a vein on the top of my right hand, was the better option. It turned out to be the least painful one, as well.

Every time a get a CT scan, I feel the odd warmth caused by injected fluid coursing through my body. Each time, before they inject the fluid, I’m warned I may feel warmth in my throat and I may also feel like I am peeing. And I do. I sense warm urine spreading throughout my nether regions. Fortunately, it’s only an artificial sensation; not the real thing.

I never worry that the results of the CT scan of my chest will reveal lung cancer has returned. Until I hear otherwise, I will assume cancer has been permanently eradicated from my body. There’s no sense in worrying about something over which I have no control. I wish I could transfer that very healthy attitude about worry for my health to every other aspect of my life. Far less consequential things torment me. It’s just the cancer that I’ve learned to ignore.

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“I have a book in me.” I hear or read those words occasionally from people who want to write a book. I do not often speak those words, though, because I think my book has been written. It just hasn’t been organized, edited, and published. Within the nearly 3500 posts I’ve written for this blog—coupled with the hundreds or thousands I’ve written on blogs I’ve abandoned and the other material I have written but kept to myself—there’s enough to cobble together a book. These thoughts are not new. I’ve probably written them down for this blog more than once before. What’s missing is not the material, it’s the discipline to go through everything and to discard the vast amount of irrelevant drivel in favor of a few gems. There may be one or two hundred pages worth weaving together into something of emotional or intellectual value. “Value.” That’s the key issue. Would enough value remain after all the effort to warrant going to all the work? There’s only one way to find out. Thus far, I’ve been unwilling to expend the energy to risk learning it wasn’t worth my time. Still, maybe one day.

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Yesterday, I put on sweats and flip-flops when I got up. I did not shower, shave, or otherwise prepare for a “normal” day all day long. I never changed clothes. So far today, I am following the same pattern. Same sweats, same flip-flops. The idea of showering and shaving does not appeal to me in the least again today; there’s too much effort involved. But I must drag myself out of the doldrums. I need to get things done. While I do not necessarily have to get out of the house, I might feel better if I do. And I always feel better after showering and shaving, even though it involves “work.” After I shower and before I dry myself off, I use a squeegee to wipe the shower walls and the glass wall and door “dry.” And I use a soft cloth to wipe the remaining droplets of water off the glass and the chrome fixtures to avoid the formation of water spots

I sometimes ponder what a typical day was like for people in the mid-1800s. How did it begin? How often did people bathe back then? What were their morning routines? What time did the “average” person get up and how often did they bathe? I suspect my routine is quite different. I wash my hair every time I shower; how often did my great grandparents shower/bathe and did they wash their hair every time? I do not remember ever reading a book that took me through a day in the life of someone in enough detail so that I could truly envision how their lives unfolded, day by day. I remain curious about that, even now in geezerhood. I wonder whether other people have similar curiosity? It would be interesting (to me), to listen to ten people each describe their typical early mornings in great detail. Would there be a discernible pattern, or are we radically different creatures?

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I’ve already had coffee this morning. I think I’ll start tomorrow with tea, instead. It will make me feel a little closer to my wife. She was not a coffee drinker. She enjoyed her hot tea in the morning. As a rule, neither of us added anything to our morning beverages, though on extremely rare occasion when she opted to brew a special tea she used a bit of cream or milk. My wife bought tea in quantity. She bought tea bags, usually decaf tea from Kroger. She liked it as much as she liked any other tea. She rarely used loose tea and an infuser; the bagged teas were quicker, simpler, and just as satisfying to her. The little things like morning routines can be excruciatingly painful to think about sometimes.

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I do need to shower today. And so I will. And wash my hair and shave and take my regular medications and, probably, have something for breakfast.

God, what an emotional morning. An emotional morning that followed an emotional night.

Last night, I invited my former sculpture and pottery instructor to come to my house for a visit. She and her partner accepted my invitation, arriving at my house around eight. They brought wine and compassion and ears willing to listen to me mourn. I issued my invitation after I already had more wine than I should have had. But without the wine, I would not have been so brash; I would have spent the evening alone, aching for company. So, I am glad I indulged myself in a wine solo. My friend and her partner (I consider her my friend, too) were willing listeners and partners in my grief, lubricated with pinot noir. They drove more than half an hour, each way, to give me solace. I suspect they had better things to do on a Saturday night than to visit with a teary geezer; I so appreciate their kindness in giving their time to me, instead. I must send them words of appreciation; they undoubtedly do not read this blog, so this off-the-cuff paragraph won’t do.

This morning’s emotion arose from watching and listening to the church service recorded yesterday and days before, stitched together by a dedicated team of volunteers. I started watching and listening to today’s service a little before six this morning. Usually, I consume the recorded services in bits and pieces, but this morning I watched it from start to finish without a pause. The presentation by the woman who introduced the service was especially moving. Not only were the words she spoke quite powerful, the way she delivered them seemed directed entirely at me, as if we were alone in a room and she was offering her comfort and compassion specifically to me. When she finished, I felt like I wanted to reach into the screen and  hug her.

After the introduction and the music and so forth, an excellent video remembrance—with photographs of people the church has lost over the years—was shown. It was moving, too. I was touched by the images of friends who are no longer here. And the photographs of my wife brought me to tears. I am so grateful to the people who put in so much effort to produce the remembrance. The minister’s words, too, were powerful and helped deepen the meaning of the recollection.

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It’s now just after seven, two hours since I fought my way from under the covers. When I woke up, I felt like I was bound to the bed; the top sheet had somehow wrapped around my legs, lashing me to the bed as if I had been tied down.

The sky has shed darkness in favor of light. I did not notice it happening, in that the video sermon/presentation commanded my full attention. I didn’t notice the light even when I went into the kitchen, where I made my second cup of coffee and peeled a clementine for phase one of breakfast. My mind was too focused on recalling the video to pay attention to the sky’s metamorphosis.

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There’s so much more I want to write, but I think I need to give myself some time to simply experience coffee and silence, instead. Maybe I’ll play Words with Friends if anyone has played with me since last night. And maybe I’ll invite my sister-in-law to come over for our more or less routine morning chat. And maybe I’ll write thank-you notes to people who have been, and continue to be, so kind to me. Emotions do not necessarily evoke tears. Sometimes, emotions paint smiles.

My thoughts this morning seem to be lighter than usual, as if they were painted in pastels.