John Swinburn

With enormous thanks to JoAnn, who yesterday met me in a hospital parking lot to notarize a document, my to-do list became a tad shorter. Afterward, I did another couple of errands and, by the time I got home to make a copy of the document for my records, it was too late for the day’s mail pick-up, so I’ll drop it in the mail today. At the rate of progress I am making, I will complete my financial transactions checklist by my ninety-fifth birthday, when finally I will file my 2020 tax return. The world will be significantly different by then. The problem of global warming will have been solved and COVID-19 will be a distant memory. People born after the pandemic will be celebrating their 28th birthdays. Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies will have superseded old-style currencies in every corner of the globe. All but the most determined churches will have acknowledged the superior religious value of Spirituol, a once-a-week pill offering feelings of fulfillment, charity, completion, and other forms of mental and spiritual richness. Plastics, once a blight filling the planet’s oceans, will be a memory, thanks to human-guided mutations of bacteria that voraciously consume all forms of plastics. However, as the reserve of plastics declined, the bacteria mutated many times over, developing a hunger for coastlines. The resulting shrinkage of coasts will be among the most serious problems of the day. Hmmm. I think my reserve of mind-altering substances must be shrinking, as well, inasmuch as this little dance down the pathway toward madness appears to be winding down.

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I had to make a point of getting up especially early this morning, because my pre-CT scan instructions are to avoid anything by mouth for the two hours leading up to my 8:00 a.m. scan. Food is easy to bypass at this hour. Liquid is not. While I sometimes (but rarely) forego coffee, in those instances at I require, at a minimum, water. This morning, I’ll have had some of each by the time my cell phone alarm warns me to stop. And at 6:15, my alarm will encourage me to shower and shave. I’ve been doing that daily for the last few days. As much as I resist, I feel much better after acquiescing to my arguments in favor of expending the energy to do it.

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A woman came by yesterday afternoon to drive the Camry. Fortunately, I was able to jump-start it before she arrived (I told her over the phone it may have a dead battery). She seems to like it, but she wants a mechanic friend who lives in the Village but works in Little Rock to check it out. She asked whether I would allow her to drive it to Little Rock to have him check it out during daylight hours, if it becomes necessary. I agreed, but I am having second thoughts. I have only basic liability coverage on the car (it’s 19 years old). She made clear she is a hard bargainer. I told her I am somewhat flexible. I did not tell her I am not an easy mark, though. We’ll see. I’m in no particular rush, but I’d like it out of the driveway. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll take it to McCann’s Auto Mart.

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It’s about time for my shave and shower. Perhaps I’ll write something later. Perhaps not.

Apparently, lab work is required before my routine CT scans, which take place before my regular visits with my oncologist. I guess I vaguely recall that to be the case. But when I got a call to schedule my CT scan, lab work was not scheduled. Yesterday, I got a call to get the lab work done; today. Because the CT scan is tomorrow. And my visit with the oncologist is early next week. My plans for today thereby are interrupted and otherwise made irrelevant. But I still need to get some paperwork notarized, so perhaps I can do that while I’m out and about. Although I cannot get a Medallion Signature Guarantee stamp, which is required for one of the processes I’m trying to complete; because my bank stopped providing them. And because other banks and financial institutions provide them only for clients who have been customers for at least six months. It’s the little things that can cause otherwise normal people to snap, causing them to do bad things like setting off nuclear devices in crowded sports stadiums.

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I’ve actually never contemplated setting off nuclear devices in crowded sports stadiums. Not really. I mean, I’ve fabricated such ideas to make a point, but I’ve never given them any serious thought. Few of us have. Which is a good thing. Not that many of us have access to nuclear devices. But people have done equally sinister and horrible deeds. Like bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, or killings dozens of people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I could go on and name dozens, if not hundreds, of equally horrible incidents of mass murder. I can never hope to understand what goes through a person’s mind that allows them to do such horrific things. I would think that a thought of just one decent, innocent person dying as a result of such an act would dissuade a potential perpetrator from carrying out such an act. Apparently, though, either those thoughts do not enter the heads of the monsters who inflict the carnage or the thoughts do not have the effects I assume they would. Whatever good deed those beasts may have done is for naught; they make their marks with the blood of the innocent. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.

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The cupboards are beginning to look bare. I went shopping yesterday, online, and I continued this morning. I removed a few items from my order and added some to take their place. I will pick up the order (or at least some of it…I am told store shelves are bare) tomorrow afternoon. Online grocery shopping is convenient, but it is equally dangerous. I find it extremely easy to “click” on items I do not necessarily need but discover I want as I peruse the lists of products in front of me on the screen. The marketers and web designers who determine what and how to display products are brilliant in that they know the psychology of buying. If I search for “zucchini,” the screens they design show me zucchini, but also a host of “related” items that look extremely interesting. And I can “click” on those items so easily. I wrote about the documentary, Social Dilemma, recently; online grocery shopping perfectly illustrates the technology and psychology shown in the film.

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I’ve run out of steam. I have no interest in writing anything more at the moment. I should shower and shave to get ready for my trip to town to get lab work. I do not want to . I wonder if the technicians would notice my stubble and my day-old odor?

The rare recollections from my youth—mostly a lengthy period about which memories seem to be deeply hidden—sometimes occur with absolutely no “trigger.” That is, I cannot determine why I suddenly remember an incident or an emotional experience from my childhood. Such is the case with this morning’s memory of a secret desire to have my tonsils removed. Many of my classmates at Montclair Elementary were having their tonsils removed, generating compassion and gifts of ice cream, and keeping the children out of school for a few days. I wanted the sympathy and ice cream those kids were getting. Alas, my tonsils did not warrant removal. They were not subject to frequent tonsillitis, thus surgery was unnecessary. Though I think my desire to undergo a tonsillectomy was short-lived, it seared itself in my brain with sufficient depth to be dredge up many decades later. Tonsillectomies are not as common today as they once were, so I doubt many children these days long for the benefits of their removal.

Braces, on the other hand, could have done me some good. The diastema between my two front teeth, wide enough to get a glimpse of my tonsils through my closed-mouth smile, could have been closed. Braces, in those days, were expensive (are they still?). And my parents struggled to support six children. As the youngest, I was subject to the wisdom of five child-rearing experiences. Apparently, they had concluded that expenditures on braces did not supersede purchasing food for the family. I don’t think I ever asked for braces, because they looked painful and caused wearers to slur their words as if they were drunk.  Forty years later, a dentist suggested to me that she could give me a smile of which I would be proud if I would permit her to add bonding material, color-blended to match my teeth, to each of my front two teeth. I demurred on the basis that I thought the outcome would make my teeth look abnormally wide and artificial. These days, I vacillate between wishing my diastema would magically disappear and accepting the assurances from other people that it’s barely even noticeable. Sometimes, people lie out of charity.

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When the sun rises this morning, most of the snow on my driveway will have melted. Much of the snow on and around the Camry, though, will remain because the house shades the spot where it sits. Even if all the snow is gone, though, my street will remain icy because tall pine trees shade long stretches of the road. I know this from experience. After the last significant snow storm, the melting snow refroze during the night, creating areas of black ice. I made the mistake of driving down the hill toward a main road. When I reached the bottom, the main road was impassable, so I turned around. Even after multiple attempts, I could not get up the hill. The car slid sideways and backwards. Fortunately, I was able to maneuver it into a driveway, where I left it. I walked home, taking great care to avoid slipping and falling. Much later, I returned with a shovel and a box of Kosher salt. I walked the equivalent of a city block, breaking ice with the shovel in one hand and pouring salt in the wounds with the other. That enabled me to drive to an area where I could then get good traction and get back home. I’d rather not have that experience again.

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I’ve not ventured out of my house, except for attempting to shovel snow with a round-nosed shovel, for more than a week. Surprisingly, I am not going stir-crazy, though a drive to the grocery store would be a welcome respite from wandering around the house, putting off things that must be done. I could have been sorting paperwork I’ll need to file tax returns. Instead, I’ve blogged and read and watched television and cooked and washed clothes and paced and paced some more. My moods have spiraled upward and downward with surprising speed almost every day. I’ve felt elated when I’ve allowed myself to pretend something magical was beginning, only to nose-dive into a funk when reality sets in. In those ways, my experience probably is not much different from others who are experiencing the same thing. I am extremely fortunate to have reliable electricity (and, therefore, heat) and water. That’s not been the case for so very many people in Texas during this monstrous winter storm. So I have nothing legitimate to complain about.

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I explored, this morning, a place/concept/ideal/dream called Arcosanti, about seventy miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. I think I learned of it sometime before, as it seems quite familiar to me, but I cannot be sure. The idea was hatched by Italian architect Paolo Soleri in 1970. It was created/is being created as an experimental utopian town intended to combine architecture with ecology (arcology is the term Soleri used to integrate the two). So many large-scale architectural initiatives are designed to incorporate experiences for large populations that it is clear to me that architecture and sociology sprout from the same seed. In fact, the term for branch of architecture that explores new ways of living in community should merge the words architecture with sociology (perhaps there already is a term for that?). I have always sensed that the more expansive and grander explorative forms of architecture are as much social science as engineering endeavors.

While I might have chosen a more hospitable place than a water-starved, oven-hot place like Arizona to create my dream community, Arizona seems to lure architects with grand plans. I still haven’t been to Taliesin West, but I want to go. I’d like to go to Arcosanti, as well.

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Yesterday, I found the skeleton of a story I started writing about twenty years ago. It was science fiction, a genre I’ve not explored much in my own writing. The story deals with a massive earthquake, a medical manufacturing plant that makes artificial blood and blood plasma, and a foreign plot to “sink” the U.S.

In this distant future, blood banks have long been outmoded and unnecessary, thanks to technologies that create perfect duplicates of every type of human blood. The plant central to the story is one of only three such plants and is by far the largest in terms of size and capacity.

A massive earthquake in the central U.S. causes catastrophic damage, huge numbers of injuries, and a great deal of death from the Canadian border to the Gulf coast. The demand for blood, of course, is enormous and the subject manufacturing plant, located in southeastern Georgia, immediately is called on to deliver to its capacity and beyond. But just as the surge in its production begins to leave the plant, critical sections of the plant are leveled by explosions.

The investigation into the explosions quickly determine that sabotage was responsible. Further explorations link the plant explosions to what several highly-respected seismologists say was an earthquake created through human intervention. Brazil, which by that time has absorbed Venezuela and the other countries to its north, is the likely culprit.

That’s as far as the story goes. It’s too involved and has too many holes in the plot to warrant fixing it (actually, a lot of it hasn’t been written…only concept notes exist for much of it). Even though I don’t write much science fiction, I like writing it when I do. It allows my mind to be completely free of the limitations of facts, although I always seem to get bogged down with wanting my “facts” to be conceivable.  Another story is much more recent; less science fiction than political action thriller with some questionable science thrown in. It has to do with a cadre of elderly Japanese military men and their adherents who manage to steal nuclear materials and weapon-making capabilities from various nuclear powers, intending to blackmail the U.S. into issuing an apology for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—”either apologize or we will initiate our own Manhattan Project.” I did a significant amount of research on that one, even driving to Manhattan, Kansas and learning about its nuclear reactor on campus. It was fun until I lost interest for some reason.

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I’ve been going back and forth between the kitchen and my desk, writing for a bit and trying to decide what to do for breakfast. I’m tired of writing, so I’ll go back to the kitchen now. I think I’ve made my decision: warmed-over leftovers of yesterday’s okra and tomatoes. Yesterday’s lunch becomes today’s breakfast.

SORRY. I intended to save this, not to post it. It was to be a draft I might have posted later today. But by hitting the wrong button, I ruined it.  Please ignore.

The words of experience and pain and compassion that spill from the lips and fingers of people with whom I have even a tenuous connection can take my breath away. An experience yesterday triggered this reminder and recognition that unbridled honesty, while perhaps brutal, can be stunning in its raw beauty.

If, as we all wish we could believe, people are inherently “good,” why do all societies (at least all with which I am familiar) establish law enforcement authorities of one kind or another? Clearly, either deviance is a naturally-occurring phenomenon or societies’ efforts to inculcate in their members the morals and rules of the the society are insufficient and unsuccessful. But if society must resort to training its members to be “good,” then “goodness” must not necessarily be natural. In my view, societies’ rules typically are universally accepted by a limited universe of its members. The others, who do not naturally subscribe or acquiesce to the rules must be taught or bullied to comply. And punishment of some form must follow either repeated incidents or massive failures to follow the rules. So, it seems, we have two universes; one (the majority) that falls in line, the other that deviates from the path. We (the majority) claim laws and the consequences (punishment) for infringement are meant to protect all of society. But is that true? Do we not infringe on the minority by stripping them of their rights to deviance? If we could actually demonstrate potential harm to the majority for each act of infringement, prohibitions and punishment might be defensible as legitimate. But if we cannot demonstrate actual harm, we are punishing deviance only because it is deviant. I could go on about this and I probably will; just not right now. I’ve thought about this dilemma for more than fifty years. With coffee as fuel for the deep thought necessary to find a workable solution, I believe I could find a way to universal compromise in a matter of days. But who wants to go days without sleep? That’s the stumbling block.

Before I leave the subject, I want to argue that both deviance and normalcy in human behavior depend on perspective. But I won’t at least not for the  moment. I’m trying, with some difficulty, to resurrect my thoughts from dusty old sociology classes. While I’m able to wipe the dust away from some of them, I’m having a bit of a challenge comparing my long-buried thoughts to what I would read in newer sociology books and what I would hear from more recently hatched sociology professors. Some of what I might read and hear are simply old ideas clothed in new garments. But I might experience an occasional epiphany. Epiphanies are delightful, except when they shatter long-held convictions. Thinking of new clothes hiding the same, old tired bodies reminds me of the title of a Leonard Cohen album, “New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” And that leads me to a final thought this morning on normalcy and deviance: everything is normal when circumstances require it, just as everything is deviant when normalcy insists.

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My dream last night was very, very long and convoluted. It began as I was driving—far too fast—on a crowded freeway when, as I was about to round a long, sweeping curve, I lost control of the steering. I could not make the curve, instead leaving the freeway onto a side road. The car was still operable, though the steering was very difficult. I wanted to re-enter the freeway, but I was at a point at which it was impossible. Instead, I followed a road that paralleled the freeway as it curved.

The street I was on ended as a cobblestone path in front of an old-fashioned motel, where I asked a man how to get to the freeway, heading north. He said his wife has to take a road that parallels the freeway to work, but she must walk several blocks and then catch a bus. He then turned his attention to some young children who were going in and out of two doors to motel rooms.

It was then I realized the problem with the steering. A small wheel, between two smaller ones, on the end of a metal fork (like a bicycle tire) was missing. I had been driving on just one of the smaller wheels, because the other one was broken. This made sense in the dream, though it is laughable now. Somehow, I managed to find another road I had been looking for and followed it, with very bad steering, for a while. I realized the street was awash in people walking, riding bicycles and scooters, and otherwise taking up every square inch of pavement. I had to just ride along at the same slow speed. The road entered a tunnel in which the walls and ceiling were elaborately decorated with tiles. The tunnel was well-lighted and on both sides of the street were shops of all kinds. The people around me were an incredibly diverse lot; I heard them speaking Spanish and German and all sorts of Arabic languages.

I awoke from the dream while listening to the unintelligible voices all around me and staring in wonder at the beautiful ceiling of the tunnel. The instant I awoke, I wanted to tell my wife about my dream, because she would know the freeway curve where I had to exit. Instead, I am doing a poor job of relating the imaginary experience here on the blog.

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While I was typing, the sky brightened. Unlike the little corner desk where I used to write, this desk hides me from the light. There are no windows from which I can see the sky and the forest floor beneath me. But if I turn my head, I can see the light through the shades. The light reminds me that it’s time to get out of my chair and make breakfast. Today, I will make congee. I will flavor it with ground pork (yet to be thawed) and grated ginger that I now store in the freezer to keep from going bad. It, too, must be thawed; first, I will cut off a finger or two of the stuff and peel that piece. I’ll cook the rice in either vegetable or chicken broth until the rice grains break down so I can crush them into a thick porridge. When it’s done, I’ll ladle some into a bowl and dress it with sliced green onion, soy sauce, and sambal oleek. And, then, I will moan with pleasure as I taste the first spoonful.

It’s 7:00 on the button. Time to do my thing.

I attempted to shovel the snow from my driveway yesterday. That effort is pointless and fruitless if the only shovel one has available is a standard round-point shovel, which is what I attempted to use. Shoveling snow with any degree of productivity requires a light-weight snow shovel, which I do not own. After about twenty minutes, I had moved fourteen inches of dry snow off of an area about five feet by five feet. At that rate, my twenty-two-feet wide and sixty- or eighty- foot long curving, steep driveway would take two heart attacks and several months to clear.  I think I’ll wait until higher temperatures eventually melt the snow. Or perhaps I’ll borrow a snow shovel from a neighbor; yesterday I watched him methodically clear a path from his garage all the way up to the street for his wife’s car. And his driveway is far steeper than mine. I can see my neighbors’ driveway and their house only during the winter months, when the trees are barren. And even with bare trees, I cannot see it all clearly; but I could see enough yesterday to know my neighbor was productive. I, on the other hand, was not. The Camry, sitting in the driveway instead of in the garage where it belongs, remains hidden under fourteen inches of snow. I suspect the battery is long since dead, given that temperatures during the last seven days were below freezing and dipped as low as 2°F. I’ve been stuck inside the house (except for an occasional foray outside to be blinded by snow) since last Sunday. I used to own boots suitable for trudging through the snow. No longer. I used to own outer-wear suitable for walking in frigid temperatures. No longer. It’s a bit late to relocate to Costa Rica, I suppose.

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Thanks to a friend who possesses both curiosity and investigative skills, I learned that I may be in love with the actress who plays a character on the second season of a rather strange Netflix series called “The Sinner.” Or I could be in love with the curious and intelligent detective. It all depends on how much stock I place in the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (she is an INTJ). Well, not “all,” but “some.” Though I’m not giving my full-throated endorsement of the series, I’m intrigued by the character of Vera, played by Carrie Coon. I doubt I’d ever heard of Carrie Coon before, though perhaps I should have. She plays in the series Fargo and in Gone Girl, among many other series and films. At any rate, I watched some interviews with Carrie Coon and was delighted to see that she is articulate, intelligent, and well-educated. I realize, of course, this paragraph will confuse most, if not all, who read it. Don’t worry; it confuses me, as well. What? What’s the back-story? What does the MBTI have to do with acting? Who is the guy writing this stuff? Where did John go?

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I think “temperamental” is a more appealing word, in most cases, than “moody.” In my mind, moody suggests grey gloom and perpetual sullenness, whereas temperamental has greater range. Moody calls forth a sense of depression, while temperamental portrays a manic-depressive experience. But as I think about it, the words belong in different contexts that need different descriptive expressions.

What is it, lately, that causes me to think of everything in relation to its context? Not that there is anything wrong with thinking about context, because context is so important in defining the relative degree of power that events or ideas have to influence our lives. But I wonder why, lately, do I think of everything in terms of its context? I seem to see everything in a framework of cause and effect, with the causes subject to external (or internal, depending on the situation) influences that have the capacity to change everything about the circumstance. Even my thoughts about those convoluted relationships are convoluted.

Why so some people find some words likeable and others not? Moist is one of those words that many people find offensive for some reason. Humid is not so troublesome. And wet is just wet; it does not trigger emotional distaste the way moist does.

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A few years ago, when I was in the midst of one of my weight-loss initiatives, I discovered that I enjoyed sugar-free popsicles. I bought scads of the frozen treats as my alternative to sipping a glass of wine while I sat in front of the television. Sipping wine in front of the television can be habit-forming. So can sucking on sugar-free popsicles. Popsicles are cheaper than drinkable wine, if memory serves me correctly. I wonder, though, whether sugar-free popsicles are readily available during the depths of winter? A quick look online suggests they are, but it seems I cannot get the flavors I prefer without accepting others of which I am not especially fond. I like orange and cherry flavors, but grape is just barely tolerable. I cannot find grape-less packages. If I have to have grape flavoring, I prefer wine. And the whole point of sugar-free popsicles is to eliminate the calories in wine. So, if I want to avoid the calories, I have to accept grape-flavored popsicles as the cost of dietary discipline. Why is the world such a brutal, inflexible place?

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If we chose not to worry about others’ opinions of our actions, would we behave in radically different ways? I suppose what I’m thinking about are inhibitions; how would we behave in the absence of inhibitions? I think it would be interesting if, for just a single day, we would all drop our inhibitions and say and do what we want to but which we don’t because our inhibitions tell us not to. That probably would create everlasting chaos and discord. I wonder about these things, though. Psychological experiments can tell us a great deal about such matters; if we’d only remember them and their lessons.

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It’s almost 7:00 a.m. I’m out of milk and bacon and most “typical” breakfast foods. I’m thinking of thawing a filet of tilapia and cooking it in a greased pan on the stovetop, putting just a dusting of flour and cayenne on the fish before cooking it. Tilapia and radishes may be just the perfect breakfast this morning. Or I may find something else.

It’s becoming a habit I need to overcome. I sit on the reclining loveseat, watching the only television series in which I’m particularly interested at the moment. After a while, I decide I need to take a break, so I hit the pause button. As I sit, motionless, I slowly slip into a trance; conscious but consumed with thoughts that gradually erase my consciousness. Sleep, or something like it, replaces my reflective thoughts. I sometimes awaken a few hours later, in the middle of the night. I make my way to bed, my back aching from too much time in the recliner in a position not suited to good back health. Watching television has become a tactic for emptying my head of intrusive thoughts. Television and wine, in combination, temporarily erase concerns. Things like taxes and paying bills and repairing dangerous walkways and fourteen inches of snow blocking my driveway and empty rooms and actions not taken and decisions I wish I could reverse. The pairing of mindless entertainment and alcohol frees me of things that tug at me as if I were a just-roped calf and the world around me a cowboy intent on taking me down and tying my legs together.

My back hurts this morning, though I did not fall asleep in front of the television last night. I think it’s a carryover from a night or two ago. When I stand up from a seated position, pain erupts at the same point on both sides of my back and, a little higher, in the middle. It’s not debilitating pain, but I sense it could get worse if I don’t take some sort of corrective action, though I’m not sure what that might be, except for avoiding the loveseat and falling asleep in front of the television. Or maybe a masseuse who makes home visits.

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Grateful. Some people follow the word with “to” and some follow it with “for.” Some follow it with both, depending on circumstances and context. Recently, I participated in a conversation about prayer. It seems the difference between “believers” and “nonbelievers” can be identified by which of those two prepositions are used in conjunction with “grateful” in prayer. Believers tend to be grateful to some being or entity or nameless power; nonbelievers tend to be grateful for some experience or emotion, without regard to its source. But the latter part of that statement is not true. For example, a nonbeliever might be grateful to farmers for providing the food for a meal.

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One of these days, maybe I’ll move the monstrously-heavy wooden bed frame and solid wood headboard and posts, etc., back into the master bedroom. I’ll reassemble the bed and reclaim the master bedroom for my sleeping quarters. But I don’t know how I’ll react to sleeping in that bed again. It may be hard to do, emotionally. My wife owned that bed before we met. We replaced mattresses and box springs several times over the course of 40-plus years, but the big hardwood bed was our steadfast companion the entire time we knew one another. It doesn’t seem right that it should survive our time together. But my feelings are most definitely mixed. I do not know whether I could part with it, yet I do not know whether having it in the house will forever prevent an open wound from healing. Some circumstances force one to decide from unacceptable options.

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Who the hell am I fooling with my silliness and sarcasm and deflection? I’m not sure whether I’m trying to convince myself that “this, too, shall pass” or I’m attempting to convince everyone else that I’m fine so they will leave me alone. As much as I appreciate loving care, I don’t deserve it. So, when it is given so freely, it’s almost like punishment, a reminder that I’m allowing people to feel like I warrant their time and attention, when I think otherwise. On the one hand, I need—or at least want—closeness and care and an arm around my shoulder, but on the other it seems so self-serving and empty to even hope for it, much less strive for it.

This morning, despite a thousand other thing racing through my mind, the majority of my thoughts are on my wife. I cannot rid myself of the feelings of guilt that, if only she had come home instead going into a rehab facility, she might have had an easier time of it; she might even still be with me. People and publications tell me I can’t dwell on “what if.” But it’s impossible not to. Not when I wake up to an empty house and see, by the fireplace, the urn with her ashes. Some days, I think I will be unable to continue living with the guilt and the sorrow and the unending pain. When I notice that I’ve had a day or two of relative serenity, another wave of guilt washes over me, chiding me for having the audacity to “forget” for awhile. It takes more strength than I have in me to go on in a world that promises unending reminders that everything is different now, everything has lost its purpose. The idea that losing weight, exercising, or changing my diet might actually matter becomes laughable and pathetic. I try to overcome those grim recognitions with sarcasm or silly comments or other attempts at humor. It doesn’t work. It might hold the demons at bay for a while, but they circle back and come at me from another angle. I probably should recognize the futility of it all and just acknowledge the inevitable.

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These eruptions of depressive thoughts always subside, but when they do they’re always just beneath the surface, waiting for something to release them into the air. The “something” that releases them can be obvious or absolutely unknowable. Today, I don’t know what brought them up from the moment I got out of bed; even before that. They may dissipate before my second cup of coffee this morning or they may last beyond the weekend.  Regardless, it is best for me to just wade through them alone. Well-meaning attempts to drag me out of the muck would not work and might well unleash evidence of why I don’t deserve loving care.

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This long and laborious post is just full of cheer. I think I’ll go bury myself in a snow bank and emerge in the Spring, happy and carefree.

David Legan’s comment on my post earlier today entitled “Unmet Friend” brought back a memory of an experience I had in late 2009 and the blog post I wrote (on another of my blogs, long since dormant) about it. The strength of the memory is in a YouTube video I posted in connection with an online friend who I later learned had died. Here is the video and the saddest song I’ve ever heard, performed by Liam Clancy of the Clancy Brothers:

Roughly seven years ago, Target Stores‘ house brand, Archer Farms, apparently stopped selling a vindaloo meal kit (everything but the meat). It was about that time my wife and I came upon one of their vindaloo meal kits in a “marked down, must go” bin. I think it was $1 or less per box [EDIT: a post I made at the time said $1.98]. Contrary to the instructions on the box, we used lamb instead of pork  when we prepared the meal, because we have always enjoyed lamb vindaloo. We were surprised when the kit produced an excellent meal; very, very spicy and wonderfully flavorful.  Based on that experience, we went back to Target and bought all the remaining boxes of marked-down vindaloo kits. We’ve been slowly making our way through them since. I don’t recall just how many boxes we bought, but I’d guess we picked up a dozen; probably many more [EDIT: No, my post at the time said 6]. To say I like lamb vindaloo would be a gross understatement. I hunger for lamb vindaloo the way a hormone-crazed teenager craves his first…adult experience.

I prepared the last of those marked-down Archer Farms box meals last night. Printed on the box are these words: “Best by October 8, 2014.” So, six-plus years after the “expiration.” Big deal. I banked on the stuff being quite edible and not poisonous. We’ll see. Check with me later today. So far, so good. I can say emphatically that the meal tasted absolutely wonderful. I last had lamb vindaloo just over a month ago, but that meal was prepared from scratch, not from a box. I’m almost ashamed to say last night’s dinner was at least as good. Or maybe I was just ravenously hungry for Indian food.

The lamb I used was a slice of lamb-leg, boneless, purchased on October 19, 2019. That lamb was one of three remaining packages purchased and wrapped in freezer wrap on that date, four days before the “use or freeze by” date.

The meat remaining in my refrigerator and freezer may be among the last meat in the house for quite some time. Of course, what’s there now will last quite a while; there’s plenty of it. But after it’s gone, I intend to alter my eating habits, geared toward a mostly plant-based diet. Whether that change lasts forever is yet to be seen. But I like the idea, despite my lust for flesh. My reason for considering it has little to do with the questionable morality of butchering animals; it rests primarily with the health benefits of a plant-based diet. But I do feel more than a little guilt for consuming animal flesh when it’s not necessary.

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It’s very easy to tell someone “I’m available for you anytime, 24/7. Whatever you need, I’ll be there.” Fortunately, I rarely have found myself in a position of really needing someone to “be there.” But it’s disheartening, in one sense, to know that the promise made is sometimes more reliable from people who are not especially close, emotionally, than one made by a friend.  On the other hand, it’s gratifying to hear of a promise made by a casual acquaintance turning into an unbreakable bond. The validity of such promises depends entirely on the value a person places on them when making them. It is a matter of integrity. I hope when I offer such a promise it is always absolutely dependable, reliable, and unbreakable.

+++

As I sat trapped by snow in my house yesterday, it occurred to me that my imprisonment offers evidence of my dependence on luxury. A car. A weather-sealed house. Safe and reliable running water. Dependable electricity. Good lighting. Sources of warmth, from a heat pump to layers of clothing to help me retain my body heat. A refrigerator and pantry filled with food. These are luxuries. They give me comfort, but comfort does not require luxury. If I were not spoiled, like the majority of people in first-world countries today, I could live in comfort with much less. And I might not feel like a caged animal, pacing hardwood floors and peering out large picture windows. I might, instead, trek through the snow in search of something to eat to bring back to my warm tent. I might carefully compare how my feet feel as I shuffle through the snow to the way they feel as I warm them in front of burning scraps of wood that take the place of a hearth. My luxury is further magnified by the fact that I do not have to leave to go to work. But even those who have to leave to go to work live in luxury compared to the person I just described, by proxy. Comfort and luxury, like all aspects of life, exist on a pair of spectra. I think it can pay, at least occasionally, to try to imagine living at the “wrong” end of those spectra. Thinking about it triggers thoughts of what little things I might be able to do to help move at least a few people further along toward comfort and even luxury.

+++

Alexa claimed the temperature at 5:04 a.m. this morning was 0°F. My computer, disagreed, saying it was -2°F. And the indoor/outdoor thermometer claimed the temperature on the screen porch is 5°F. Regardless of the thermometric discord, it’s bloody cold. Before I went to bed last night, I set the thermostat at 66°F, hoping threatened rolling electrical blackouts would not occur overnight. So far, so good. Maybe I will drop it down to 62°F tonight before I climb in bed.

I learned of the threat of blackouts earlier in the evening when, after three incoming telephone calls from Entergy that did not connect, I called the offending telephone number. I got a recording threatening blackouts and urging me to turn down the thermostat, turn off unnecessary lights, avoid washing dishes and clothes, keep refrigerator doors closed, set my refrigerator and freezer on the lowest possible temperature setting, and one or two others. I turned faucets on to a pencil-lead-sized stream in accordance with advice I got elsewhere. I was all set.

Until about 12:30 a.m.

I awoke to an odd, high-pitched humming noise, like a motor straining. I got up and went in search of what might be causing it. It seemed to be coming from the area of the master bathroom, but I could not pinpoint it. While in the bathroom, I took the opportunity to pee. The moment I flushed the toilet, the noise stopped. But when the water stopped running, it started again. I flushed again. The sound stopped. When the tank was filled, it started. I turned to the faucets. When I increased or stopped the flow, the sound stopped. I found the source of the maddening sound! A little adjustment to the size of the pencil-lead drip took care of the noise. I went back to bed. I thrashed about for a good hour and a half before finally falling asleep. I got three more moderately restful hours of sleep before I arose for the day.

+++

I still am learning to be vulnerable. It is a long and hard lesson for me, but I suspect it is a much harder one for men who have accepted society’s assertion that “strong” men never admit to or show weakness or display the softer emotions. My lesson is hard because, in spite of my ostensible lifelong rejection of machismo and its kin, fragments of the fiber of society’s assertions still cling to me. Those threads of the social fabric cannot easily be torn away completely after they are woven into the heart and mind at a very early age.

While learning vulnerability now remains hard, I have been working on it for many years. It’s only just now that I’m finding it a tad easier to acknowledge its place in me. One of the reasons, I think, is now see that the artificial strength required to mask vulnerability is, in fact, a weakness. The bravado I sense in so many men, whether visible or not, is simply an unspoken admission of the inability to summon adequate strength to admit one is vulnerable. A paradox.

+++

Last night, I sent an email to a woman I haven’t seen or heard from in several years. I wasn’t sure the email address I had for her was still valid. And I’m still not quite sure why I sent the message; I suppose it was primarily to let her know about my wife’s death. But I’ve promised myself in months past that I would reach out to people from my past to try to reconnect, so maybe that’s why I wrote. And possibly I wanted to try to keep a connection from yesteryear from disappearing entirely. I was surprised to find a lengthy, thoughtful, thought-provoking response from her this morning. Similarly, this morning I found a reply to a much earlier email I sent to my erstwhile British colleague.

I long for connections, even tenuous connections from the distant past. That’s an odd sensation for an avowed introvert to feel. It’s not that I want close, binding connections (though a few of those would be fulfilling). I just want the past to have mattered in some way. If the past mattered, then maybe the present does, too.

+++

Recently, two woman from my church dropped by to deliver a monthly goodie package that’s being delivered to all members as a means of keeping in touch during the pandemic. I invited them in (everyone was appropriately masked) and we sat and talked for a while. At some point, when it somehow made sense to say it, I told them I find being in the company of women much more interesting and comfortable than being around men.

Days later, I had occasion to be in the virtual company of several women. I discovered I was somewhat uncomfortable in that setting as the only male. And on another occasion, I was in the company of several men and I felt the same way. But on yet another occasion, when I was one of only three (or four?) men, I did not feel that same discomfort. So, perhaps, it’s not that I feel more comfortable with women than with me. Perhaps it’s that I am more comfortable in very small groups than in “packs.” (That’s not the right word, but I’m drawing a blank.) I still believe I generally prefer to be in conversation with women than with  men, but maybe numbers and composition have something to do with it.

+++

As much as I want bacon this morning, I will try to choose another options. I want to do my part to minimize the likelihood of rolling electric power blackouts. Unfortunately, I have no milk for cereal. And virtually anything I might eat for breakfast would require cooking. I am vulnerable to breaking my own rules and cooking breakfast. But not yet. Not until the sky is awake.

My expectation when I awoke yesterday was that I would write a post about morality. I did, in a way, but it was not the post I anticipated writing. I got derailed by my own thinking. Today, I will write what I considered writing yesterday. My words will be different than they might have been twenty-four hours ago, but the concepts will be the same. Except they won’t. Not really. Twenty-four hours affords plenty of time to think and re-think and, perhaps, over-think ideas and beliefs and positions on matters both vital and irrelevant. I can’t know, today, what might have been, yesterday, if I had done yesterday what I will attempt to do today. I am different today than I was yesterday. Time and context have altered me in ways I cannot quite understand unless and until I explore my thoughts today and compare them to the ones I had yesterday. But that’s not entirely realistic, is it? Without reliving every moment and recording every thought, I would have no realistic hope of reconstructing, in my mind, yesterday’s experience as John Swinburn. Fortunately or not, I have no such recording to which I might refer and compare. If I did, I might constantly attempt to re-create yesterday in my thoughts, and mimic it today, so I would not have to acknowledge that I change every day, depending on circumstance. I am who I am, not who I was, nor who I will be. But this moment—and my identity—is in constant flux, so I can never be anyone for more than a nanosecond, if that long. These ideas are both enlightening and frightening to me. They suggest I can never know myself as I am, only as I was. And even then, my knowledge of who I was has been irrevocably transformed by my experiences between then and now. So, finally, I know no one, including myself. When I try to understand myself, or anyone else, I am chasing knowledge that is impossible to find.

When I awoke today, I discovered that snow continued to fall last night. My uneducated guess is that about two inches fell. Unless swept away by the wind or sucked into the atmosphere through evaporation, it will stay on the ground. I’ll rephrase that; it won’t melt, at least for quite awhile. The temperature is hovering around 7°F and may fall a degree or two just before daybreak, which is not far off. The predicted high, as of this morning’s up-to-the-minute forecast is 13°F. Brisk!  But my intent is not to write about the weather. It’s to write about morality as a flexible measure of acceptable behavior based on culture and circumstance. Morality probably plays no part in weather.

Because morals cover such a wide range of thoughts and behaviors, I will limit my comments to just three: adultery, murder, and theft. I prefer adultery to infidelity because, in my mind at least, adultery does not so clearly convey judgement as does infidelity. Murder and theft are simply murder and theft; but as I’ll suggest  in a moment, there’s more to them than those simple concepts. Let me start by saying I base all of my comments that follow almost solely on opinions, not necessarily (though possibly) on scientific evidence.

Some cultures (I’m not willing, at this hour, to explore which ones, but I know they exist, so bear with me) permit adultery without judgment. Sex between consenting adults is, in the view of those societies (and my my view, as well), no one’s business but the consenting adults. It’s not that simple, of course. Our society has inculcated in most of us a belief that sex and the behaviors leading up to it should take place between only two people to the exclusion of anyone else, for both partners. We have been taught, as well, to embrace exclusivity as an absolute requirement for a joint commitment between partners. Absent that exclusivity, we have been taught that feelings of betrayal, distrust, and a deep sense of being wounded are natural to be expected from the “harmed” party in a relationship.

But I contend that humans are no more naturally monogamous (as defined in zoology) than they are naturally polyamorous. We shape our behaviors through societal pressure. For reasons that may or may not retain validity today, our society encourages monogamy and we use guilt, stigma, and other emotional and legal tools to enforce it. Not all societies do that. And even those that do use varying degrees of “enforcement,” suggesting the importance of monogamy to society depends on factors unique to a given society.

My point in all this is to suggest that adultery is not inherently wrong. We may not like it, we may not approve, but it’s really none of our business. To the extent that its practice may wound an uninvolved partner emotionally, we can bemoan that fact, but we really have no legitimate stake in the matter. In my opinion, we’d all be better off if we accepted the fact that people can be attracted to more than one partner while possibly being simultaneously more seriously committed to just one of them. I’m speaking hypothetically. Whether I would take that laissez faire attitude if my wife or lover were involved in an illicit affair is an untested unknown.

We have more important matters that should concern us. Like murder.

I mentioned yesterday the idea of accepting or supporting the death penalty while simultaneously believing murder is fundamentally wrong. How can those two beliefs exist in the same head? In my view, it’s not necessarily an example of opposite beliefs. More likely, I think, it’s an example of assigning complex values to the lives of multiple individuals and even to society as a whole. A person can be deeply opposed to murder, as most of us are, but can support the death penalty because the person sentenced to death has presumably taken a life and, importantly, has therefore affected the lives of multiple others. In the death penalty supporter’s mind, the damage done not only to the murder victim, but to the other victims impacted by the murder must be “undone” in some fashion. Repairing the damage done to the friends and family and other supporters of the murder victim may require (in our individual’s mind) taking the murderer’s life. Taking that life outweighs moral opposition to murder by the state. But even more likely, I think, is a sense of revenge.

Consider a situation in which a criminal is about to slash the throat of an innocent three-year-old baby but is stopped by a person who shoots and kills the criminal. Who would consider the shooter’s act immoral? If the situation were different and the shooter saves the baby by wounding but not killing the criminal, how would we want to treat the criminal?

Revenge obliterates moral opposition to murder by “painting over it” in certain circumstances. State-sanctioned murder is, in such cases, not murder; it is an eye for an eye.

Context, then, is critical.

I used to support the death penalty. Fervently. I haven’t, though, in many years. My primary reason is not so much my belief that the state should not be a party to murder (though there is that), but that the likelihood of sending a wrongly-convicted person to die is much, much too high.

Now, for theft.

Society teaches us that theft is wrong. Period. And I agree; not only because society tells me it’s wrong, but because I view the victims of theft as undeserving of the consequences of having their “stuff” stolen. But there are exceptions. And, again, the exceptions depend on what sometimes are extremely complex circumstances.

If someone steals to support his drug habit, I favor forced rehabilitation, using a model shown to have actually worked (assuming there is such a model). That forced rehabilitation should be adequate to satisfy those who call for retribution, revenge, and what have you. But the consequences should be increasingly severe for subsequent offenses. At what point, though, do we say, “enough!” and decide he is not worth the money and effort to rehabilitate him? Do we ever just give up? What part of our moral code allows us to do that without deep feelings of guilt and regret?

If a person steals food to feed themselves or to feed their family, I favor putting the person to work by the state and paying them enough to compensate the victims of the theft and to feed the thief’s family.  Simultaneously, some form of public assistance to find work should be part of the thief’s “punishment.” But, wait. What if the person steals from a bank so he can buy food? Is that different in any way?

But what of a person who, barely scraping by but who does not have the money to buy food for an unrelated starving family, steals food to help that family survive? How should we treat her? Does it depend on who she steals from? If she steals food from a major grocer, is that different than stealing from a mom and pop grocery that is barely getting by?

I’m getting away—far away—from what I intended to write. That’s what happens when I start writing and thinking along the way. My fingers do the thinking for me, sometimes surprising me with their wisdom and sometimes embarrassing me with their gross ignorance.

My points, if they haven’t been clear, are that morality depends in large part on context and that situational ethics are sometimes simply rigid morality made flexible through compassion.

What if I shoot and kill a man attempting to slash the throat of a starving married woman, then steal food to give to her, successfully luring her into an adulterous relationship with me?

Never mind. I start getting giddy around 8:00 a.m., engaging in circular thinking in a square bowl; more coffee should calm me down.

A chance online encounter with the history of The Serenity Prayer led me to read a bit about Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr, the author of the prayer. Niebuhr wrote the prayer in 1951, long after he began his career as a noted theologian. Based on what I read about the man, his religious philosophies and corresponding social and political philosophies transformed over the years from an intensely progressive, left-leaning position to a much more moderate one. In some cases, the transformation was essentially an about-face, rejecting beliefs he had once held in favor of embracing ones he had once rejected. This may be an over-simplification; I did not read a biography, I read only a brief biographical sketch. At any rate, his mind changed in response to both thought and experience. And that’s where my mind is going on this brutally cold morning (15° now, aiming for a high of 18°).

We can change our minds. Our philosophies can morph into almost unrecognizable twins, their common genealogy recognizable only through meticulous study. Given enough thought and consideration of other approaches to thought and analysis, we can become different people: same bodies, same faces, same histories, but different minds. Yesterday’s expected but deeply disappointing acquittal of Trump notwithstanding, there was evidence that some people who had supported him in the past had changed their minds. Presented with enough evidence and analysis, their perspectives on the man and his actions changed. Those perspectives could not have changed without changes in their own philosophies. While I cannot know their minds, I can reasonably surmise they examined their past support, the evidence presented against the man, and weighed their own morality against the actions of the past President. They changed their minds. Seven Republican Senators, some of whom had already crossed the threshold from support of party to support of country, voted to convict him.

Even Mitch McConnell appeared to have changed his mind, in spite of his vote to acquit. He claimed the trial was contrary to the Constitution, so he had to follow the Constitution. He suggested (almost emphatically), had it taken place while Trump was still in office, he would have voted to convict. Yet the Senate had already voted to acknowledge the legitimacy of convicting a person who was not longer in office, contrary to McConnell’s claim. And McConnell, himself, had effectively refused to consider holding the trial before January 20, thus assuring the trial would take place after Trump left office.  I think McConnell recognized the changes taking place in people’s minds with respect to Trump’s actions; McConnel did not change his mind, he simply changed his tactics, paying close attention to which way the wind blows.

So, some people change their minds, some people change their modi operandi in an effort to appear to have changed their minds. So, what does all this have to do with the changes that took place in Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr’s philosophies? The connections are tenuous, at best, threaded together only in my mind. I contend, without evidence, that Niebuhr might have written The Serenity Prayer whether or not his religious philosophies had changed. The changes that took place in the seven Republican senators did not necessarily alter their fundamentally conservative outlooks; while they changed, they did not change completely. And that, I suppose, is where my convoluted thinking is going this morning. The first verse of The Serenity Prayer (which is the one most often quoted) is, in my opinion, a brilliant summation of practical realism. Whether God represents an all-powerful deity or the universe in which we live, it’s the encouragement to accept both our abilities and our limits that’s attractive about the words, I think. Here’s the first stanza:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

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Well, that wasn’t what I expected to write when I got up this morning. I anticipated writing about morality and how people see the concept differently, depending on perspective and context. Specifically, I anticipated exploring the conflicts between morality as “taught” in homes and schools and churches and morality as internalized in individuals. For example, a person who has learned that marital infidelity is immoral, and who believes it, can still engage in that “immoral” act. How can he or she resolve that conflict? I contend that people convince themselves that extenuating circumstances both explain and permit stepping beyond what otherwise would be considered absolute boundaries. It’s not just marital fidelity. It’s breaking the “Golden Rule.” It’s accepting the death penalty, even in the face of a deep-seated belief that murder is fundamentally wrong. It’s stealing, in spite of taking the moral position that stealing is absolutely wrong.

Yeah, I had those things on my mind. But I’m not going to write any more about them this morning. I may, instead, leave this blog and return to my Word documents that house short stories and vignettes and other “creative” stuff that might get my creative juices flowing. Even though the temperature is not conducive to writing. Perhaps I would feel warmer if I would trade my flip-flops for something warmer. I’ve noticed that, even though I am wearing sweat pants and a sweat shirt, I am cold; especially my feet. I’ve transformed from being warm and comfortable in my bed to being warm and comfortably down to my feet. The transformation is never complete until I put something warm over my toes. I wish I could be comfortable this morning in flip-flops; they make me happy. But I’ll bow to pressure from the atmosphere and cover my feet with something a tad warmer. And drink more coffee.

Until yesterday, I had never heard of Marcel and Betty Lamothe, nor did I know a thing about E. Rendle Bowness. But after writing a snippet in which Marcel and Betty were mentioned, I stumbled upon some material that introduced me to Dr. Bowness (who graduated from the Ontario Veterinary College in 1932). Before entering veterinary school, though, he was employed by Dr. J. R. Cunningham, who operated Canada’s only veterinary practice devoted exclusively to foxes. Later, Dr. Bowness was one of the founders of the Canada Mink Breeders Association. Later still, after his retirement, the Association published a book Dr. Bowness wrote, entitled History of the Early Mink People in Canada.

Yesterday’s early morning accident that led me to the Lamothes also led me to Bodmin, Saskatchewan and my imaginary outpost one hundred kilometers to the west. And later, the intersections of accidental and intentional knowledge gave birth to a passing interest in the people of the area. It was that interest that led me to Dr. Bowness and fox ranches and mink people. Most of what I’ve read about these topics describes a history that may now be only a memory and not a foundation. But I do not know that to be the case. I know only that there is far more to know about Bodmin and the mink people and raising foxes.  It goes without saying that I had never before heard of Dr. J.R. Cunningham, nor of the existence of a fox-focused veterinary practice. I wonder, now, whether the proliferation of mink might have prompted someone to specialize in mink animal husbandry and veterinary practice? I do not know.

Who would have thought, just two days ago, I might develop a passing interest in Canadian mink and fox ranches? The idea of raising animals for their pelts is anathema to me, but intriguing, nonetheless.

While wandering through the rabbit warrens that introduced me to Bodmin and the Lamothes and Dr. Cunningham and mink people, I took a turn and came upon a First Nation name that, when I first read it, seemed very familiar. Noel Starblanket became one of the youngest reserve chiefs in Canada and was elected twice as president of the National Indian Brotherhood, later called the Assembly of First Nations. Starblanket was a name I had encountered before, but I could not recall the circumstances. I searched my blog and, sure enough, there it was. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s son is named Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild; his middle name was another relative’s surname. Starblanket, besides being a surname, is a Cree Indian band and a Cree Reserve in Saskatchewan. When I wrote the piece about Buff Sainte-Marie, I wrote about strange coincidences and spiritual connections. Here it is again. Perhaps I simply stumbled upon Bodmin and that made me stumble upon Starblanket. I am attracted to that name for some reason. It described to me what I was thinking before I wrote about Buffy.

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While I was getting enmeshed in Starblanket and Bodmin and mink people and fox ranches, the tasks that should have commanded my attention went undone. I could have begun the day today by jumping on them. But I did not. This is the weekend, after all. I deserve my rest. I try to wipe the sarcastic smile from my face.

An article on the BBC website, How to Escape Your Motivational Trough When You’re Flagging, might be just what I need to overcome my motivation-deficit. But I don’t know, because I haven’t read it yet. But I did make note of it and will get around to taking a look before long. Maybe.

Something else came to my attention this morning when I opened an email from a friend, whose message called my attention to a book entitled Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting : the Astonishing Power of Feelings. Despite my inherently skeptical nature, I started skimming the book online and I’ve decided I will spend more time reading it; whether that’s before or after the tasks I’ve been ignoring have been completed remains to be seen.

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This morning’s temperature was 21 degrees when I awoke, according to Alexa. When I said aloud (to myself, I thought), “That’s chilly,” she responded with a lengthy explanation about the location, size, and demographics of Chile, the country. And, after she finished, I said, “Gracias,” she responded with a couple of sentences in Spanish. Some mornings, with no apparent trigger, she speaks Spanish and plays lively Spanish-language music until I say “Alexa, be quiet!” I wonder whether Sebastian Piñera has had my house bugged and is playing mind games with me. Why he would do that I do not know. Perhaps it’s because I prefer Michelle Bachelet’s philosophies.

I scampered down another frigid rabid warren in the Chilean countryside. Cold weather. And the weather gurus expect the temperatures to get significantly colder. Today’s high is predicted to be 36 degrees; that will be that last time the thermometer registers above freezing until Thursday, when 34 is the expected high. Nighttime lows will be 10° or colder, with an expected low of 1° on Monday night. The high on Monday will reach only 16°, they say.

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Last night’s salmon was okay, except for being seriously undercooked. I broiled it, placing it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper as the recipe instructed. The parchment paper smoked and turned black; I was afraid it would catch fire, so I took it out of the oven. It looked reasonably cooked, so I plated it and took it to the table. The top half-inch was cooked to my liking. The remainder, beneath that layer, was essentially raw; so raw that I could not remove it from the skin. I like rare salmon; I am not sure I’m partial to raw salmon.

Speaking of salmon, I still haven’t made my breakfast. And I’m feeling exceptionally lazy again. So, I’ll probably forego the miso soup and stick to the remaining little piece of salmon, which I’ll pan-fry until it’s cooked to my liking. A little lemon juice mixed with miso drizzled over the cooked fish should be the perfect accompaniment. Maybe I’ll have an avocado, as well. And a mandarin orange. I think I’m ready to eat, so I’ll stop writing. I write, I eat, I think, I write, I eat, I eat. I need to change my habits a little.

Overcast skies, icy roads, and an empty Friday morning join forces. They cause me to imagine what life might be like in a frigid, desolate outpost one hundred kilometers west of Bodmin, Saskatchewan, a place where RE/MAX has no listings. Tonight’s low temperature in Bodmin is forecast to reach -33F; I do not know what the low will be one hundred kilometers west of Bodmin, but odds are it will be brutally cold. I suspect the frigid little outpost is lacking in high speed internet. Whether it’s possible to get radio or television signals is an unknown for me, as well, but as I have no urgent need for them in my fantasy, it matters not. I’ve discovered, outside my fantasy, that it is not easy to uncover much information about Bodmin, even with high speed internet. However I was able to learn that Marcel and Betty Lamothe once operated a store—as well as a post office and a hand gas pump with a choice of red or amber gasoline—in Bodmin. When that was, I do not know, but based on the context of how I learned about Marcel and Betty, I would say it was sometime in the very early 1950s. My knowledge of Bodmin, weak and unreliable at best, slips into virtual nothingness after that time. It’s entirely possible I could learn more about it by reading more about the Lamothes and their neighbors, but reading about them would serve no particularly useful purpose; I doubt that endeavor would give me much more of an understanding of Bodmin as it is today. Anyway, my interest is in the outpost one hundred kilometers to the west. My imagination tells me the place has a wood-burning stove that serves both for cooking and heat. I can feel the ancestors of the people who built the place. They came from Scotland and Norway and who knows where else. At least that’s what my imagination tells me. But cracks are appearing around the edges of my imagination, so I’ll shove it into a corner of my brain where it can either regenerate itself or shrivel and depart this dimension.

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I thawed a piece of skin-on salmon in the refrigerator last night. If I am sufficiently motivated late today, I will broil miso salmon for dinner. Even though miso salmon requires virtually no effort, recent experience has taught me even effortless meals sometimes require more motivation than I possess when it’s time to make dinner. For that reason, I’ve tended to either munch on whatever is readily available in the refrigerator or I’ve “cooked” pre-fab frozen dinners in the microwave. Usually, I enjoy cooking, but for some reason that enjoyment has taken a respite of late.  I really need to cook the salmon tonight, though, and I need to save a piece of raw salmon for breakfast tomorrow morning. Tomorrow’s breakfast is to be a little piece of broiled salmon with a lime, vinegar, and sugar sauce. I’ll serve it with some radishes, a small scoop of white rice, and a cup of miso soup. I bought tofu and mushrooms and green onions the other day specifically for miso soup. When I make miso soup, I always make enough for at least two meals. Whether any of these plans come to fruition remains to be seen. It would be easier to get motivated if I were making these meals for more than just myself.

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According to a survey conducted by ABC News in 2004, sixty-two percent of American men, split evenly in two, reported wearing either nothing or underwear to bed. Only thirteen percent of American men reported wearing pajamas. I’ve never understood the appeal of pajamas. On those rare occasions that I’ve worn them, they’ve tended to get bound up with sheets or otherwise cause restrictive discomfort.

The origins of pajamas (pyjamas in other parts of the world) can be traced to places like Iran, India, and Turkey, where they were/are worn for the day-to-day comfort they afford the wearer in hot climates. Pyjamas have evolved, in some places at least, into loungewear that replace formal business or work wear after going home at the end of the day. Loose-fitting loungewear with either elastic or fabric ties at the waist and a separate pull-over top should be perfectly acceptable clothing, regardless of whether it is worn at home or doing errands. It’s not uncommon to hear people mocking “Walmart shoppers” who wear pajamas to the grocery store; that’s unnecessary mockery, in my book. I admire people who reject unwritten rules of fashion in favor of comfort. While I’d personally rather not see PJs with comic-book duck patterns on them, if that’s what a person wants to wear, more power to them. I’d prefer something a little more muted; perhaps a pair of loose-fitting, soft, grey trousers and a loose-fitting, soft colorful pull-over tunic in a herringbone pattern. Flip flops would go nicely with the outfit; if a little more formality were desirable, then a pair of woven leather huaraches might be just the ticket.

Somehow, I drifted away from sleepwear. I’m in favor of small, soft, white, and simple. But that’s just me. I remember, as a kid, having button-fronted pajama tops that I only wore when I wasn’t feeling well. I have no idea if that memory is real or not, but it’s the only one I have at the moment that involves pajamas. Buttons! I might as well sleep in a dress shirt.

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Not too long ago, I wrote about black objects absorbing light. Recently, I’ve seen some videos on Facebook promoting the almost magical qualities of a blacker-than-black paint that absorbs light better than any other black paint. If I painted a sponge with that black paint that absorbs light, I should be able to retrieve the light by wringing out the sponge. I wonder what happens to light that’s absorbed by black material. It only sounds like a stupid question. It’s not.

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Rye toast with peach jam and a few strips of bacon. Followed an hour or two later with a tomato juice chaser. That’s breakfast today. It’s not yet 10 a.m. and I’m already hungry.

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Absent a better title, I’ll label this post Starfish.

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.