John Swinburn

They stuck in my mind many, many years ago. I’m referring to the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song, Famous Blue Raincoat. I think of those lyrics every time I find myself awake at four in the morning, which unfortunately is not all that rare. I never stay
awake until four in the morning, but it is not uncommon for me to be awake at four in the morning. Like this morning.

It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening

The lyrics of the song have no bearing on anything in my life, other than the fact that I’m awake at four in the morning. It’s the middle of July, not the end of December. And I’m not in New York. And so forth. But, still, the lyrics speak to me for some odd reason. They speak of loneliness in the midst of noise and activity. They conjure a sense of ennui, but with a disjointed definition that embraces a range of emotions that do not belong together. That phrase so often defines my state of mind: “a range of emotions that do not belong together.”

Just after I began to write this post, my wife responded to a text message I sent to her last night. So I responded to her response. And I suggested she call me, if she was of a mind to. She was and she did. We chatted for a few minutes. I learned she was channel surfing, trying to find something of consequence instead of the paid-programming hawking make-up. The staff had been in her room to do cleaning (in the middle of the night!); since they were there and had awakened her, she asked for assistance getting to the bathroom (she is not permitted to get out of bed without assistance, because she is so weak and because she is at hazard for a fall). So, being awakened in the middle of the night happened to be good fortune. Our call ended with my reminder to her that I would be back in again later this morning to bring her clothes, her mechanical pencil (a companion she requires when playing Sudoku, which is a frequent endeavor for her).

I never remember how to spell Sudoku, so I looked it up. I found this sentence describing the game:

The name “sudoku” is abbreviated from the Japanese suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru, which means “the numbers (or digits) must remain single.”

Hmm. Who knew?

I am tired, but I am awake and I sense there’s little point in trying to get back to sleep. My mind is not especially sharp this morning, which probably is reflected in my writing. But that’s true of my writing, in general, as it skitters from one topic to another, never stopping long enough to delve deeply into any one subject. My thought processes are like the rock I sling horizontally along the surface of a pond. My thoughts skim the surface for a moment, jump in the air, and repeat the process until, at some point, they sink like the rock I’ve thrown.

My thoughts are like my interests: broad (or is it wide?) and shallow. If I could explore all the ideas that cross my mind, but examine them deeply, I would be a far more intelligent man. Instead, I know very little about many things. And my interests run in parallel; nothing interests me sufficiently to warrant becoming even remotely “expert” in anything. A jack of all trades, master of none, as the saying goes.

I am hungry. Now that the clock is telling me it’s closing in on five in the morning (only twenty minutes to go), I feel less embarrassment that food is on my mind. I’m thinking I’ll mix some of the beans I made the other day (pinto beans, chunks of ham, jalapeños, onions, chile powder, cumin) with the canned tomatoes I left in the refrigerator several days ago. That concoction will form a thick bean and tomato soup/stew of sorts; add some Yucateca Black Label salsa habanero and I’ll have a magical, tasty breakfast. Well, it will do, anyway.

Before I eat, though, I feel a need to write something consequential. That may take too long, though, so I’ll settle for whatever spills from my fingers.

It’s always too late to be the person you wish you had been when you should have been the person you wished you were.  In other words, regret will always follow you if you behave in ways that you will regret. You can never un-do the things you did; you can never un-say the things you said; you can never un-be, the person you wish you had not been. Put another way, all the water under the bridge eventually reaches a dam, creating a stagnant pool. The solution is to go forward, being the person you wanted to be and saying the things you will be happy to have said and doing the things of which you will always be proud. That will give you the strength you need to breach the dam. Even so, though, your past will cling to you until there’s no more you to which to cling.

None of the preceding paragraph makes particularly good sense in the absence of the thoughts that prompted it; that will remain the case, inasmuch as those thoughts will remain locked in my head, where they should stay.

Enough early morning drivel. I will make my odd breakfast, take a shower, and begin to attack the day. My wife wants me with her at the rehab hospital, so I will go there after visiting hours begin. Once there, I can leave and return only once; the policies prohibit multiple in-and-out visits. So, I will spend the vast majority of my day there, leaving only when visiting hours end at 5:00 p.m. I wish I knew the schedule of her physical therapy; that could impact plans for my visit. But she does not yet have the schedule, so I will have to wing it.  As I said, even early morning drivel.

Concerns. They’re also called burdens. Or worries. Or apprehensions. Uneasiness. Misgivings. Lots of synonyms for concerns. I allow myself to have more than my share. I admire people who can let those bothersome emotions slide off of them like water off oil-cloth. Envy may be the better word. I don’t know that I hold them in admiration.

I understand why people take drugs. It’s not always to relieve pain. It’s not pain they’re trying to mask, it’s a constant tightness that grips them with just enough force to make breathing difficult. It’s an ongoing sense of anxiety, a feeling that peril is just around the next bend. That life, itself, is a menace.  But then, in the blink of an eye, it can disappear. I think meditation might help, although I wonder if meditation might actually accentuate the feeling of danger. Maybe that’s why people something eschew meditation and opt for medication, instead. I’m afraid I would take far too much, far too soon.

+++

Solitude is not the same when the house is empty. Even though my solitude changed when my wife began waking much earlier than usual, that change was nothing compared to the solitude I have now that she’s in the hospital for physical rehabilitation. I much prefer solitude when I know she is in another room in the house. This solitude without her presence is stark and brittle. It would be different if she were simply away visiting friends.  I know that to be true, from experience. But the fact that she’s in the hospital changes the face of solitude. It’s an empty, aching, lonely solitude. I can’t wait until she’s back home.

+++

I spent time early this morning viewing the Sunday sermon by our church minister. It struck a nerve with me, one that has been exposed for a while. That is, what are we doing to live our expressed philosophies, outside our own heads? In other words, are we just talking a good game of liberal theology, or are we going to do something to change the world into the kind of place we believe it should be? His sermon did not answer the question, of course, but he put it squarely in front of us. Anyone who views the video will understand the challenge, I think. And it’s not just “us” as the collective; it’s “us” as individuals. What am I, personally, going to do? That question merits serious consideration. It forces me to look beyond the privilege of being happy that I am able to engage with like-minded people.  It’s a challenge I’ve felt for as long as I can remember; but for as long as I can remember, I haven’t done much with it. Will I do something with it now that it’s on my mind in a different way? Time will tell.

+++

Everyone is fragile in one way or another. Each one of us is like a piece of delicate crystal, laced with millions of invisible imperfections. That web of tiny blemishes—I hate to call them flaws—subjects us to all manner of damage, simply by exposure to the jarring events of everyday life. We live in constant danger of everything from minor cracking to explosive shattering.

I remember seeing a disturbing scene on television, in which someone on a subway platform accidentally jostled another passenger, who fell between an oncoming train and the platform. The passenger survived the incident seemingly intact, but he was stuck between the train and the platform. Eventually, viewers learned of the passenger’s mortal injuries. The pressure of the train on his body against the platform prevented him from bleeding out from his internal injuries, but when the train car was tilted away from his body, the man’s internal injuries cause massive hemorrhaging and he died. All that from an accidental jostle on a subway platform. It was fiction, but fiction is simply reality reordered to fit a story; it’s the bottle hurled into the ocean, the one in which the message is found on a distant shore.

Fiction can remind us how delicate and brittle we are. The world around us, too, can prompt us to remember that the crystalline perfection of our lives can crack or shatter in an instant. We may be crystal or we may be fabric; the fabric of our well-ordered lives can snag , rip, or tear, or come completely unraveled. Whether made of dense crytal or flexible cloth, our lives can transform from supremacy to chaos in an instant.

I remember a stanza from a poem I wrote several years ago; it makes me consider how the fabric of our lives, even when it tears, can become comfortably embracing:

We scuffed our emotions against sharp
sentimental objects so many times they
shredded into strings like worn cotton,
as soft and ephemeral as clouds.

+++

So many things cloud my mind this morning. They have turned what could have been a bright, sunny day into a cold, foggy, wet walk along a desolate pier. It will change. I will walk into the dry sunlight. But, in the interim, I will skirt the water’s edge, hoping I don’t slip on wet seaweed that clings to the wooden boardwalk, spilling into the choppy waters below. I can swim. But do I want to?

+++

Formica. It’s a brand name, but it has become a generic term for a laminate applied to a substrate. The process by which a trademarked product becomes generic is called genericization. Another brand name for the same type of product is Wilsonart. I suspect Wilsonart has invested energy and, perhaps, money into murdering the genericization of Formica. In that sense, I would say Wilsonart is not so much a competitor to Formica, but an ally. But I may be wrong.

There was a time when Formica was the preferred countertop material. It is attracting (depending on one’s perspective), durable, and relatively easy to install. Plus, it’s far cheaper than many of its more upscale competitors. I used to view Formica as cheap crap. I much preferred granite. But, when I got granite, I realized how much more practical Formica is. Granite has been turned into status-stone. The same is true with quartz and stone substitutes like crushed quartz embedded in other materials. Pricey, attractive (perhaps), but less practical than Formica. If I were to build a house today, I suspect I would use Formica in some places; maybe I’d use quartz and quartz-like materials in others. But not granite. And I’d fee snobbish and overly-privileged to use quartz. Odd, the transformations we go through as we age. We ripen into wiser beings with slightly sour outlooks on even sweet vistas.

+++

So far today, I’ve taken care of the hummingbird feeder, watered the plants on the deck, showered, shaved, washed a load of towels, and written meandering stream-of-consciousness drivel. I’m listening to the “Spa” stream from Amazon Music; it is not doing what I hoped. It is not calming me, putting me in a state of serenity. In fact, it’s beginning to annoy me. Soon, I’ll either tell Alexa to play something else or to be quiet. Or I’ll pounce on her with a heavy rubber mallet and will pound her so she’ll never play another note from a flute again. Back to the towels. I think they’re almost ready for the dryer.

After the towels are done, I’ll head in to Hot Springs to visit my wife at the physical rehab center.

I’m going to reveal something personal that I would rather keep private, but circumstances argue I should not keep the situation to myself. If for no other reason, I need to let some people who might happen upon this post know why I may be “out of pocket” for a while.

My wife, who has had all manner of problems with weakness in her legs of late, has experienced more and more restrictions on her mobility lately. The doctors are not sharing much valuable information that might explain the causes, nor the cures (or treatments that might improve the situation). Today, at my insistence, my wife called and left a message with her cardiologist’s office, asking several questions. Late this afternoon, the cardiologist’s office called back. I picked up the phone and took it to my wife. As my wife was heading toward her office with the phone in hand, and before she had the chance to start speaking to the staffer, she tripped and fell face down onto the hardwood floor. In the process she split her lip. I quickly told the caller my wife had fallen and I needed to call for help. I hung up the phone.

I really could not get  her up off the floor without help, so I called 911. A couple of EMTs showed up ten or fifteen minutes after my call and helped my wife to her feet, then to a chair. They gave her a quick once-over and said she was okay.

A little later, though, my wife’s left knee swelled considerably. And it was bruised, badly. I had to help her move around the house; she could not get up from the toilet without assistance. She could not get up from the couch without help. We put ice packs on her knee and her leg. Maybe they’re helping. Maybe not.

The bottom line is this: I want to take my wife to the nearest clinic in the morning to have her injuries checked out. The questions for her cardiologist (and/or her primary care doctor) have not been answered. I want to know why my wife’s mobility is so poor; why she cannot get up out of a chair without help; why the edema in her legs and ankles is so pronounced and why lasix seems to do little to address the problem. And lots more questions.

I’m concerned that I may not be physically capable of looking out after her; if she were to fall again, I would not be able to get her off the floor, so I would have to call 911. It’s not just that, either. It’s mobility around the house. Everyday living that may require more physical capacity than I have. I wonder whether she needs to be treated in a rehab center, where she might be given therapy to regain the use of her leg muscles and where her badly bruised and swollen knee could be properly treated.

I probably am among the world’s least capable caregivers. And I recognize that at precisely the time I need to be among the most capable. I may be out of sight for a while. I may be learning, by necessity, how to be the person I should have been all along.

More when I know it and when I have both the time and the energy to record it. It’s just after midnight now. I feel inept and tired and frightened, all in the same breath. Goddamn it! I should be better equipped to deal with emergencies than I am. I’ve never been good at dealing with crises. It’s one of a myriad of flaws that I’m finally coming to recognize in my old age.

Perhaps I’ve been fooling myself into thinking the isolation and lifestyle changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have had little impact on me. Maybe this intrusion into my day-to-day life has actually had more of an impact on me than I thought. Or maybe something else is causing mood-storms so fierce that lightning bolts escape my eyes and mouth whenever I open those orifices. The way I’m writing about it seems that I’m making light of my moods, but I’m not. I’m distressed at my anger. It can be a raw, harsh, almost indescribable anger than bursts to the surface almost without provocation, responding like a cornered animal striking out against a deadly predator about to swoop in for the kill.

I don’t understand it. I am an introvert and I enjoy my time alone. Solitude sustains me. So why “enforced” solitude would trigger such visceral reactions is a mystery to me. Not that explosive outbursts are outside my realm of experience; I am more than capable of emotional flares. But lately it’s as though I’ve been actively on watch for something, anything, to set me off. Something to give me justification to attack.

But not this morning.

This morning I feel reasonably calm. The reason for the serenity may be that I’m just tired. Maybe I’m worn out by my own internal firestorm burning so intensely the flames doused themselves with water or sucked up so much oxygen the fuel could not burn. Whatever it is, I welcome it. My arms welcome it, though they and the other parts of my body feel weak as kittens. My muscles are sore from tensing, releasing, tensing again. This morning, when I feel my muscles begin to tense, I deliberately stop them; simply to avoid the pain, not to control my thoughts. But controlling my thoughts would be good, inasmuch as they are responsible, in large part, for the rages and the weakness. This morning, only the sorenesss and weakness remains. The rage is gone. Permanently, I hope. Forever banished from my mind and body.

I must realize, though, that if social isolation had any role to play in stoking the fires of anger, the fire is just playing dead. It can come alive at any moment, fueled by white-hot burning embers buried deep inside me. Maybe they always have been there, just waiting for the right moment to burst into full flame, consuming every scrap of fuel until all that’s left is ash and soot.

I’ve used the word “ash” too many times lately, referring to the residue of fierce fires. This morning, I awoke to find the fire extinguished. The ashes are buried in a muddy mess, a thick soup of formerly molten emotions awash in a slurry of the dry dust of anger mixed with a flood of tears. Perhaps a bit overly dramatic. I can be that way sometimes. I can carry emotions like a badge or a shield, depending on circumstances.

My chore now is to rinse away the mud and polish the pristine marble that’s left under my feet. Polished marble. Who knew that was what waited for me beneath a thousand layers of sediment, left there during the period of rebirth after the flood.

And, after a pause, the fire came alive. All it took to set the world ablaze was a tone of voice that suggested my stupidity knows no bounds. The volcano erupted, spewing clouds of pumice and sharp rocks into the stratosphere. The volcano exploded into my bloodstream; I could feel the molten rock throb at my temples and I could feel it course through my arteries and veins like pressurized hoses filled with blood heated to the boiling point. I’m sure they came close to rupturing.  I have to get out of this pressure-cooker, at least for a while. I have to give myself time and permission to release the steam and cool the vessel.

Part of the process necessarily involves looking inward to find the detonator, the fuse that catches fire easily. What amplifies a minor imbalance between positive and negative charges into a lightning bolt capable of knocking out power to the entire Midwest? Negative judgments normally do not spark forest fires, tsunamis, and nuclear force winds; something unnatural is at play here.

Suddenly, I feel incredibly tired again. I will try to get some more sleep. Maybe that will get the good vibes going again.

I woke up much later than normal this morning, just shy of 6:00 a.m., leaving me precious little free time to engage in my normal morning routines (at least in their normal order). One of the first orders of business was to put some bacon in a skillet on the stove and let it begin to fry, ever so slowly. While it was releasing an enormous volume of fat, I finished cleaning last night’s dishes after putting away the ones that had been drying overnight on the rack next to the sink. With a clear counter, I could then prepare the other ingredients for breakfast: sliced tomatoes, thinly-sliced jalapeños, and slivers of purple onion. All of those things, and more, would go between two pieces of toast, making a BLT without the L and with the addition of O. Had I added the L, I might have made a BOLJT for breakfast. Alas, it was only a BOJT. Regardless of the absence of lettuce, it was delightful.

After breakfast, which was enough to serve as lunch, too, I went to church to record the video introduction of the Insight speaker whose talk will be broadcast on the church website Sunday. That’s my new job with the church: Insight host. Every two weeks, I’ll be recorded introducing the speaker. Eventually, if we ever get back to in-person services, I’ll be doing it “live.” Today, my voice was a bit scratchy, as I am still recovering from anesthesia administered Monday morning in part through a breathing tube. More on the outcome of that procedure in a minute.

I had planned to stay at church and wander around while computers were being refurbished (more on that, too), but those plans changed. I’m heading in to Hot Springs with my wife shortly, so she can run errands. She claims she does not need me to go along, but her leg weakness and her extreme difficulty making it up and down even low steps convinces me otherwise.

I will return before 2:30, when I will go to the church to meet with a guy who will help me learn the first steps of refurbishing donated computers that, ultimately, will find their way to kids who need them but cannot afford to buy new computers. It’s the other, later, steps I was planning to watch earlier in the day.

The procedure I underwent on Monday, known in medical terms as a cystoscopy and bladder biopsy, was uneventful. I got a call Tuesday morning from the doctor’s nurse, telling me the results were negative: no cancer. Whee! That made me happy. Then, this morning, I received an automated message about a lab update, so I went online to view it. That result said I was diagnosed with chronic cystitis. Not a terrible thing, but I was surprised the nurse did not mention it. Oh, well. The symptoms are not awful. At least they haven’t been.

My wife is ready to go to Hot Springs. So, this constitutes my message to myself for the day.

We should forgive ourselves, and one another, for our occasional retreats from the news of the day. We should not judge ourselves for clinging to the safety of ignorance about current events, nor for tolerating a desire to stay “in the dark” about important social and political matters. The alternative to a periodic escape from a frenzied world might well be permanent imprisonment in its swirling chaos.

Yet the legitimacy of one’s withdrawal from the news cycle does not extend to withdrawal from the obligations of citizenship. No matter how frenzied, one must not disengage from the political process because to do so puts at risk the very institutions that grant the freedom to enjoy those occasional retreats from daily news. Voting is a privilege, but I believe it also should be an absolute obligation. To safeguard against obligatory voting spoiled by being ill-informed, though, voting should follow testing to measure knowledge of the political issues at hand. An “issues measurement index” should be developed to accompany every ballot measure (both issue-based and individual-based); failure to achieve a satisfactory level on the issues measurement index would automatically void the vote and subject the voter to mandatory non-partisan issues education, plus a “time fine,” which would require the ill-informed voter to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to civic matters (e.g., cleaning roadsides, removing graffiti from government structures, etc.).

I’m only half-kidding about the punitive measures for demonstrable voter ignorance. The other half is at least a quarter dead-serious.

How, though, can we stay informed and simultaneously retain our sanity? It is not easy, but the process is relatively straightforward. First, identify reliable, unbiased sources of news. In my opinion, a very good resource for finding such news outlets is https://mediabiasfactcheck.com, which rates news media on the basis of factual reporting and editorial/reporting bias. A search on the mediabiasfactcheck.com website reveals the following rating for the Associated Press:

LEAST BIASED
These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes). The reporting is factual and usually sourced. These are the most credible media sources.

Overall, we rate the Associated Press borderline Left-Center Biased due to left-leaning editorializing, but Least Biased on the whole due to balanced story selection. We also rate them Very-High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record.

Two factors play into media overload: 1) bias and 2) volume/frequency. Bias can rear its head even when facts are presented fairly; unnecessary frequency tends to exacerbate the perceived urgency and seriousness of subjects. So, fewer exposures to reliably factual sources can keep us informed, while dialing down the stress the 24/7 news cycle tends to bring on.

On the other hand, when the volume of reporting/analyses of issues one finds important shrinks, one’s own view of the importance of the issue can decline; so, even though I feel strongly about an issue, a reduction in the frequency of media reports about it might diminish my sense of urgency about it. Might I decide to skip going to the polls? So, it’s a double-edged sledge hammer, as it were. We can’t let frequency of media coverage influence us one way or another; we must focus on the issue, not the sound bites.

Does this sound remotely like I’m giving myself a pep talk and a warning? Really? I would never have guessed.

I read a letter to the editor in this morning’s local newspaper. The letter, in expressing appreciation for the Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding LGBTQ rights, referred to last week’s regular column by our church minister. The writer wrote:

“…it was very encouraging to read Rev. Walz’s column in the 6/23/2020 Voice, offering to welcome members of the LGBTQ community and to share his church’s resources with them.”

The person who wrote the letter has been deeply involved in Village political matters in recent years; I found some of his positions irritating, annoying, and offensive. Based on positions he took and what I considered the “trouble” he caused, I have made a number of assumptions about him, some unconsciously. One such unconscious assumption was that he was probably intolerant of people whose sexual orientation did not fit his definition of what is “right.” His letter brought me up sharply; it reminded me I should not be so quick to judge without having all the facts.

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I know an American blogger who now lives in Sweden with her Swedish husband. Her blog is far more engaging than mine. Actually, I don’t really know her; but we’ve read one another’s blogs and we both comment on them from time to time. Neither of us are regular readers of the other’s blog, nor do we comment every time we read, but we pay attention on occasion.

The reason her blog is more engaging than mine, aside from her writing style and the content of her posts, is its frequency. Unlike me, this American-Swedish blogger apparently does not feel pathologically compelled to write blog posts almost every damn day. I checked this morning; her last post was made on June 14. She has gone roughly two weeks without posting. I pride myself on missing a day or two at a time. And I have, on many occasions, posted several times within a single twenty-four-hour period. Pathology.

The difference between us, then, is that she posts only when she actually has something to say. I other the other hand, feel obliged to write every time I feel words clogging my fingers, backing up from my fingers to my elbows to my upper arms, continuing on to my shoulders. When that happens—almost every day—I have to turn the spigot, releasing the linguistic pressure, lest my brain explode, flinging letters and shattered words and shredded syllables all over my desk. That would be an ugly sight, indeed.

I think the reason I write so often is to remind the few brave regular readers that I am still here. Were I to write less often, I fear those brave few would forget I exist; and, then, when I were to write, no one would remember to read. There’s a psychological connection between what I’m suggesting and my blogger friend’s point in her most recent blog post: that we all need to focus on being better at listening. She points out that, too often, rather than truly listening, we hear only enough to trigger a response about our own experiences. A response to really hearing someone validates the speaker’s experiences, not one’s own. More engaging, yes. And more thoughtful.

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Yesterday’s pounding rains flooded many local roadways, though only a few Village roads. I saw photos of Hot Springs that stunned me, cars submerged in several feet of water and rushing water that could have carried away houses in the current. We are fortunate to live on the side of a mountain, with natural drainage offering considerable protection from rushing water; no dams of any kind, either, to cause water to back up and inundate our house.

It was during some of the heaviest rains that I drove my wife to the dentist’s office to have  a permanent crown installed to replace a temporary one. After an hour, she called me to pick her up; the permanent crown was not made properly, so they reinstalled the temporary one. They will call to schedule a return appointment, once a new permanent crown is made and ready. By the time I picked her up to take her home, the rain had subsided.

We can’t control the weather and we can’t control the quality of dental crown manufacture. Lessons that, one day, will make sense as part of a pair of insights about life.

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How much of the time we invest in “making a difference” really makes a difference? How much makes a difference only insofar as our investment of time gives us a sense of value, accomplishment, relevance?  I ask the questions because I sometimes feel that “helping” organizations like churches are simply applying feel-good band-aids to problems; they feed the poor and destitute, for example, rather than enable the poor and destitute to buy and prepare their own meals. A food pantry, as vital as it often is, does not address the underlying problem of hunger. But it addresses an immediate need and gives donors of food, money, and time a sense they are contributing to helping the needy. Yes, food pantries are needed. But, at the same time, more permanent solutions that take far longer to create and even longer to implement are needed.  How do we balance meeting immediate needs with creating lasting solutions?

Structural change in society could be of so much more lasting value than temporarily filling a crying need. But if the choices are to allow some people today to starve or to enable many more people tomorrow to feed themselves, how do we justify choosing structural change over urgent care? That’s one of those questions whose answers prove how incredibly difficult life is.

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I think about a few people several times a day; people who are in my life only tangentially. If they knew how often they are on my mind, they probably would think it strange. Maybe it is. But I don’t think so. But I wonder why these people seem to matter to me more than others whose roles in my life are equally tangential? It’s not that any one of them “matters” more or less; it’s that something about them sparks my attention and ongoing interest.

As I consider this matter, though, if the shoe were on the other foot, as it were, I would find it more than a little strange. I might find that it borders on stalking…not behavior, but…what?  Why am I on that person’s mind? Is it physical? Mental? Pathological? What? So I would understand someone thinking it strange. I wonder whether I am alone in this odd sense that I cannot justify in my own mind why some people, some of whom truly are on the periphery of my life, are on my mind with some regularity?

Why is it, I wonder, that people seem to feel so constrained from revealing what’s on their minds? I suspect they fear how others will perceive their thought processes; that “they’ll think I’m crazy, or worse.” Maybe. I’ll probably never know. Because people are uncomfortable talking about matters that make them, or others, uncomfortable. And, so, we go on living in the dark.

+++

I cannot conceal,
how fragile I feel.
But I will reveal
what’s under seal,
what’s false
and what’s real,
if you will treat me tender.

~The Caretaker’s Son~

It’s normal, I guess, to simply run out of creative energy from time to time. No one can sustain creativity every waking moment; not even half the time. Creativity burns a mysterious fuel that is most definitely not limitless. When the fuel runs low, when the flames turn to embers and the embers turn to ashes, it’s time to let the blaze die for a time. One must give the ashes time to cool before attempting to replenish the fuel and strike a match. I wonder whether the dissipation of the fuel is a conscious decision made by the fuel itself, in the knowledge that the inferno is capable of consuming itself if allowed to burn unchecked. Odd that I anthropomorphize a mysteriously combustible fuel that, I claim, sustains creativity. That’s what people do, though. We attribute human characteristics to animals and inanimate objects and atmospheric events. Thunder and lightning are expressions of the displeasure of angry gods; that sort of thing.

If I could remember the details of a dream I had last night, and could relate them here on this screen, readers who stumble upon this post might be shocked at what my mind is capable of creating. Nothing horrible like wholesale butchery. Just base human desires and behaviors that run contrary to the morality defined by our puritanical roots; libido unchecked by social convention and personal moral code. But my recall of the dream is fuzzy, at best, and subject to “inventive recollection.” That is, when I cannot clearly remember what took place or what I was thinking during the course of the dream, I think my memory manufacturers fantasies to fill in the gaps.

In my conceit, I thought I had coined the term “inventive recollection;” a quick gaze at the results of a Google search proved otherwise. I was intrigued as I read a few paragraphs from Narrating Desire: Moral Consolation and Sentimental Fiction in Fifteenth-Century Spain, by Sol Miguel-Prendes, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and available at the discounted price of $110.65:

…I must stress that the act of writing depicted in penitential fictions is the meditation on, and moral interpretation of, an author’s own past or poetry, either read or composed. Tears, moans, and laments gesture toward the agitated mood that precedes inventive recollection. The initial mental disposition—their affectio—is identified with erotic desire and curiositas, which drive the protagonists to the darkest recesses of their minds—the memorial hells of Ovidian myths, passionate feelings and love poems—in search of subject matter.

As I read that paragraph from an academic treatise, I became enamored of the term “penitential fictions.” My interest in the phrase led me to a University of Texas doctoral dissertation by Catherine Marie Meyer, entitled “Producing the Middle English Corpus: Confession and Medieval Bodies.” Though I did not read Dr. Meyer’s work (I assume she was awarded her Ph.D.), I read enough of the acknowledgement section to learn that Dr. Meyer considers herself a medievalist. It is that sort of laser-focused interest that appeals to me most about academia; reaching the pinnacle of academic achievement (well, I suppose post-grad work represents an ongoing, moving-target pinnacle) gives one an expertise in a narrowly-defined subject that few others can claim. Non-academics and those who envy what they perceive as the impossible-to-attain knowledge of academics, laugh at academic precision and depth. I’ve gone off course again; my mind is sometimes incapable of even moderate focus, which explains in part the fact that my academic achievement ended when I withdrew from a graduate program, never to return to academia. Oh, well. “Penitential fictions.” I love the term because it can be interpreted in so many ways. I choose to view it as a reference to fictions produced by authors seeking penitence. I suppose I see it that way because I see my writing as a means by which I seek something like penitence (“like” but not really the same thing) for something (but not really sure what).

Like many mornings, my quick check of Google turned into a untargeted hunt undertaken for no other reason than to feed my curiosity. I learned, during my unintentional foray into Spanish literature, that the author of Narrating Desire, Sol Miguel-Prendes, is Associate Professor of Spanish at Wake Forest University. And, as I was wandering the internet in search of curiosities about Cathryn Marie Meyer, I came across Guy P. Raffa, whose latest book, Dante’s Bones: How a Poet Invented Italy, was released last month by Harvard University Press.

Writing fiction vignettes and stream-of-consciousness drivel, along with conducting aimless, pointless internet research, is escapism. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. The question is whether those endeavors are attempts to escape from the world for a while—efforts to find peace and serenity in a chaotic world—or represent attempts to escape from myself (and my chaotic mind). Perhaps both. Perhaps that dual escapism is akin to burning the candle on both ends. Eventually, the creativity represented by the wax, melts away in response to the flame. Okay, which is it? The mysterious fuel that runs low and leaves ashes or the wax that melts? Maybe dual escapism leads to depleting two kinds of fuel. I doubt I’ll ever have an answer. Not just to these questions, but to any others. No question has just one satisfactory answer.

Last night, I read an intriguing essay, entitled, “Let It Fall: Collapse and Ecological Metanoia,” by Rev. Matthew Syrdal. These words, early on in his essay, struck me:

Anger at my own complicity and the church’s complicity in a system that is designed to suppress our connection with these deepest energies in the soul and Earth, as we turn a blind eye to the ravishing of ecosystems and poisoning of the soils and biosphere.

Complicity. That’s what I think I’m finding in myself. I am complicit in the same way Syrdal is, but in the context of what I’ve written this morning, my complicity is in participating for most of my life in a culture that eschews uncertainty and rejects interests and desires and ideas that fall outside a narrow framework we define as “normal” or acceptable. I have been complicit by failing to take an active part in protestation against both mindless individualism and the collective idiocy of group-think.

I could go on forever. But I won’t. One day I’ll just stop. We all do. When it all becomes too much, we simply reject the breath that follows the last one.  But until then, I will keep blathering on about things over which I have little or no control. I can do that, at least. I can shout into the wind, during a hurricane, after everyone else has evacuated. It’s what we do. It’s what I do. My fingers are experts at screaming in the wee hours, when no one is listening.

It’s almost seven o’clock, though, so I’ve been at this for a very long time. I got up at four and have spent the majority of those three hours right here at the keyboard; not always typing, of course. A good chunk of time has been devoted to reading abstruse literature intended for people more intelligent than I; that’s why it took me so long to wade through it.

My coffee mug has a quarter of a cup of cold French roast coffee, complete with thick sediment. I think a fresh mug is in order.

The usual Saharan Air Layer is said to be between two and three miles thick, its base about a mile above the surface of the Earth. The size of this year’s phenomenon is, according to atmospheric scientists, considerably larger than usual; I don’t know if that means it is deeper or broader or both. I know it is not a sandy-colored layer of dust; it is more like grey putty, concealing every bit of sky. There’s not a trace of blue above. I question the distance from the ground, too; it seems to have filled the atmosphere all the way to the Earth’s surface. The fact that very high air quality indices (meaning very low quality air) are reported all along the southern/Gulf tier of states reinforces that perspective, I think. People with breathing difficulties are experiencing more distress than usual, according to what I’ve read. I would have thought the cloud would have moved on by now; no, but when?

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Last year, on my wife’s birthday, we went to dinner at kBird, a northern Thai restaurant in Little Rock. This year, we are avoiding restaurants entirely for the time being, so I will prepare her birthday dinner: sea scallops with a chipotle glaze (or something like that), along with boiled potatoes with butter (and loaded with chives from the chive farm on our deck) and steamed green beans. I may sneak out today and get some ice cream for dessert.

The only celebrations we ever have for one another’s birthdays are dinner out. Usually, it’s a more upscale, expensive dinner than normal “dinners out,” but rarely anything earth-shaking. We’ve been married forty years; even special occasions have taken on an aura of “routine” about them. We’ve even stopped buying cards for one another. I wonder, are we unique in the abandonment of that age-old ceremonial acknowledgement of such events?

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Spikes and valleys. That describes my intellectual activity of late. I go from excited enthusiasm about ideas that challenge my thought processes to a dull lethargy in which thinking is equivalent to mind-numbing factory work. Maybe it has always been that way. Probably.

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The sound of wind chimes, loud and intrusive, is interrupting my ability to think (or to work effectively on the assembly line). So, I will go in the kitchen and see what damage I can do. Pour a little wine in my half-empty coffee cup, perhaps, or have a bowl of cereal doused with tomato juice and dressed with salt and cinnamon. No, that won’t do. I’ll just engage in robotic actions that result in something moderately edible. More coffee, though; hot, strong coffee. That might get my head out of the Saharan Air Layer.