John Swinburn

If the universe treated me with the respect I deserve, it would permit me to return to a place I have never visited and again become a person I never was. The universe would allow me to escape to Abbotsford, British Columbia in the year 1977, where I would live comfortably as a forty-five year-old Canadian farmer using Dutch greenhouse technology to grow tomatoes in enormous hothouses not far from the Fraser River.

I picked 1977 for several reasons.  The same reasons caused me to choose to be forty-five years old. Those reasons revolve around nostalgia for an imaginary time when people in general, and Canadian farmers in particular, were gentle, compassionate, and intelligent. I was at my peak, physically, when I was that age, though that time would not come for me in this dimension until the year 1998. At least that’s what I choose to believe. Had I been a forty-five year old Canadian in 1977, I would have been slightly taller than I am now and considerably lighter. My waistline would have been roughly ten inches smaller and the muscles in my arms and legs would have been far stronger than they have ever been before (or since).

The rural farmland around Abbotsford in the mid-1970s was, in my mind’s eye, soft and sweet and loving. That farmland embraced farmers the way passionate lovers do, with a gentle fury that conveys both vulnerability and protective strength. That was a time before the stench of corruption in Washington, DC and all the U.S. state capitols made the air impossible to breathe south of the Canadian border. The miserable stench of Canada’s neighbour to the sound is what sparked Pierre Trudeau’s interest in building the Canadian Good Neighbour Wall. He started planning The Wall in May 1968, shortly after he took office as Canada’s Prime Minister and less than six months before Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States. Apparently, Trudeau had a premonition about the decay of the U.S.

Dedication ceremonies for that first portion of the Wall, built between Boundary Bay, British Columbia and Emerson, Manitoba, were held in May 1979, just before Trudeau completed his first sequence as Prime Minister and less than six months before Ronald Reagan won the White House. The main portion of the second half of the Wall—from Emerson to Saint Stephen, New Brunswick—was finished in April 1984 and was dedicated the next month near the end of Trudeau’s second slot as Prime Minister. And, coincidentally, less than six months after Reagan won a second term. A symbolic “End of the Wall” edifice, located on the shore of Lubec Narrows (the Canadian side, of course) was dedicated at the same time.

I would have watched the U.S. elections and the ugliness surrounding them with disgust and amusement. Canadian tomatoes were in exceptionally high demand in the United States in 1977, thanks to a crushing decline in California tomato crop yield for both processing tomatoes (by far the bulk of the market) and fresh market tomatoes. The vast majority of processing tomatoes that year would have come from Canada. Florida’s fresh market crop shifted to processors, so Canadian tomatoes took the mantle of top producer of consumer fresh market tomatoes that year, too.

By intertwining fiction with fact, my excursion into 1977 British Columbian life has taken me into the bowels of an extraordinarily successful tomato farming operation and beyond. Both of my key farm managers hailed originally from Portugal, where cork, wine, and sardines were the main commerce trade exports that year. Because the tomato operations were so lucrative, I could afford to explore other options, so I decided to give my managers freedom to imitate their home country’s successes. Growing cork in British Columbia seemed far-fetched at the time, so I focused on the wine. Though I am quite fond of sardines, I felt any attempt to replicate Portuguese success near the Pacific coast would be destined to fail. Wine, though! The reason British Columbian wines are so popular today can be traced to my 1977 investment in Grape Air, the air cargo company that outfits Boeing 747s for grape transport. The company began with just six jets in its fleet; today, the fleet numbers more than six hundred. Every plane leaves Lisbon full of grapes and arrives in Vancouver fifteen hours later; nine hours thereafter, following unloading and maintenance, it heads back for another load.

It was Grape Air that allowed me to retire into a life of stunning philanthropy. Thanks to generous donations made to Canadian medical research facilities, Canadian doctors have developed cures for virtually all diseases. And contributions to Médecins Sans Frontières led to the global elimination of malaria, measles, all forms of corona virus, and psoriasis. The Grape Air Foundation was the sole source of funds for creating and subsequent maintenance of the Trans-Canada Canal, about which I’ll write more in a moment.

Even though twenty-three years have passed since 1977, I remain forty-five years old and Canada remains largely bucolic and serene. The Canadian Good Neighbour Wall remains a protective shield against it hideous neighbour to the south; indeed, we no longer permit Canadian airwaves to be defiled with feculent lies broadcast by Fox News and its ilk.

Every year, I walk from Abbotsford to Boundary Bay, where I board the Trans-Canada Ferry, an impressive paddle wheeler that floats along the Trans-Canada Canal, a marine navigation channel dug as an additional discouragement to wanna-be Canadians from the land to the south who would love to escape their mundane existence by fleeing to Canada. The Trans-Canada Canal skirts the Canada-USA border just north of the Canadian Good Neighbour Wall. My trip from the Pacific to the Atlantic takes twenty-one days, including overnight stays at the ports of Sault Ste. Marie and Fort Frances, Ontario. The trip back to Abbotsford, by horse-drawn carriage, is a months-long affair. The horse’s tail, woven into a beautiful braid, is a glorious vision to behold, even when we’re among the rare desolate stretches of road. Every year, my trip home is the subject of articles in countless local newspapers in towns along the way and, on occasion, The Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star.

I think I’ve written quite enough about the ferry and about trailing the tail home. It’s time to return to reality, despite the fact that reality is an especially unattractive destination at the moment. Such is the life of a misfit.

Responsible members of any society have an obligation to pay attention to what is going on around them. They have an obligation to protest injustice and to warn others when they see or hear or otherwise learn about dangers that could, if left unchecked, damage the society of which they are a part. But sometimes the barrage of alarming information can overwhelm a person’s senses. At times, the ceaseless onslaught of signals grows so constant and so loud and shrill that the signals, themselves, present the most immediate danger. They imperil a person’s ability to shield himself against his own deafening demands to do something—anything—in an attempt to protect himself or those he loves from growing danger. That screaming urge to take action, I think, can be so overwhelming as to cause people to do irrational things.

Sometimes, though, irrational actions are precisely what society needs to right itself. Irrational actions can so “shock the system” that members of society seem to collectively take a deep breath and look at the madness that surrounds them. It is hard to predict which irrational acts might reach through the fog of confusion when society is utterly unbalanced and unhinged. Is it an individual suicidal protest on national television? Is it the detonation of a bomb in a crowded office building? Is it the threat of widespread destruction and murder by an unknown “defender of the American way?” There is no way to know. It is not just hard to predict; it is impossible to predict.

So, there are competing forces at play: protect oneself from dangerous internal demands to “do something” or; attempt to jolt society into taking collective corrective action by acting in ways that may be irrational.

That’s a long, somewhat translucent (but almost opaque) explanation of what is going on in my head this morning. By ignoring my responsibility to “pay attention,” I have attempted to protect myself from going mad. I’ve made an effort to avoid the voice and the words of the wanna-be dictator in the White House. I’ve done the same with respect to the majority of Republican legislators in Washington (and many of their Democratic opponents). I have tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the thick stupidity of dimwits who equate wearing masks with secret support of the “deep state.” Yet “news” keeps slipping in, attempting to slit my wrists with its sharp edges and ugly realty. I watched, in horror, the videotape of the Minneapolis police officer killing an unarmed, non-threatening Black man. I heard about the idiot-in-chief taking action intended to silence his critics in and on social media. I learned about the on-camera arrest of a CNN reporter covering the protests and destruction in response to that murder of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department. I could not help but hear that protesters set a Minneapolis police precinct building on fire.

Obviously, though I have attempted to shield myself from the madness of watching civil society disintegrate before my eyes, I failed. I know too much. I cannot turn off that grisly movie reel playing in my head. The images cause my brain to howl at me to “do something!” The shrieks are loud and getting louder. But there’s nothing I can do. If I had access to a nuclear devise, I might be able to grab the world’s attention by detonating it in just the right place at just the right time. I have no such device, though. I don’t even have more conventional tools like dynamite and rocket-propelled grenades. And I would be hesitant to attempt to blow up oil refineries, even if I had the necessary equipment. I could record myself screaming, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” That might have worked in a 1975 movie, but it’s too tame and too subtle in today’s live-murder, video-driven world.

Even with my attempt to ratchet-down the flood of disturbing news, it continues to flow freely all around me. And simply closing my eyes and ears would do nothing more than keep me in a state of temporary blissful ignorance for a while. I have to acknowledge that I can either be a responsible member of society by paying attention and doing something, rational, to right the ship or I can quietly withdraw and let it sink along with me.

COVID-19 seems, now, like an inevitable, unstoppable scourge, in light of the fact that we’ve acknowledged that the economy is vastly more important than human life and that the right to assemble can be asserted only by refusing to wear masks. If a police officer puts his knee on your neck, your obligation is to accept his supremacy and your impending death. Any criticism of the president of the United States is hereby declared treason. The rich deserve every penny they steal from the college savings funds of parents trying to secure their children’s future. The minimum wage should be lowered. Corporate employers should be encouraged to engage employees as unpaid interns for the first six years of employment, after which the interns should be summarily dismissed without severance. Food should be supplied, first, to the wealthy and well-connected and only then, after sufficient spoilage, made available to the rest of us riff-raff.

Hope. Less. Weep. More.

I have watched videos of eels undulating, like living ribbons, through the water. Those movements are like my moods, oscillating between enthusiasm and despair. Or, perhaps, my moods more closely mimic the rhythm of EKG machine output; regular peaks and valleys with the occasional upward spike and sharp dive. Manic one minute, depressed the next. I think there’s a psychological term for that. How frequent must the upward and downward spikes be to meet the definition of  “abnormal?” At what precise increment in the measure of frequency does “normal” become “abnormal?” Is there a “borderline normal” frequency or a “borderline abnormal” frequency of those peaks and valleys? Do those mood swings mirror the ups and downs of the EKG chart? In other words, are the undulations of eels ever borderline…anything? Or do we only classify human behaviors as natural or deviant? So many questions. So little value in answering them.

I’ve been watching Carolina wrens that built a nest atop an awning that attaches just below the soffit. The birds are now, I think, feeding their young with worms and bugs and such. The birds do not spend their time worrying about their moods, nor about other birds murdering their young without reason. Those birds are not concerned about greedy capitalists cornering the market on worms.

We have the capacity to achieve the same degree of intelligence demonstrated by Carolina wrens. We do. All we have to do is feed our young bugs, break the knees of psychotic policemen, and regulate the market on worms so capitalists cannot control the supply. It’s just that easy.

Last night’s storms shredded leaves and tore branches from trees. Leaves and twigs and broken limbs litter the streets this morning. The forest floor outside my window, normally a sea of brown leaves, is speckled with green leaves and sprigs, casualties of the fierce winds and biting horizontal rain that accompanied a series of powerful squalls.

As I drove to the grocery store this morning not long after daybreak, I had to dodge pieces of trees along the way. When I got to the store, I was surprised how few people were in the aisles; but the flow of humanity continued after my arrival.

A couple of items on my list were from the area around the pharmacy. While looking for shampoo and a specific dosage of a vitamin, I heard a man at the pharmacy counter say to the pharmacist, “Let me go home and get it; I’ll be right back.”

As I turned to go up an aisle, the man approached me. “Excuse me, sir, would you have $12 you could give me to pick up my prescription? I left my wallet at home”

I was in a charitable mood, so I opened my wallet. I did not have $12 in bills, but I did have a twenty; I handed it to him. He thanked me and said he would bring me the change. I went about looking for the vitamins and glanced over at the pharmacy counter. He was there. I continued looking. No luck; they were out. I looked back at the pharmacy counter. The man was gone. I looked around the area a bit; no sign of him. Apparently he left with my change. I’m not absolutely certain he was actually at the counter to buy anything; I may have been scammed. Oh, well. My guess is that he needed either the prescription or the money or both more than I needed that $20 bill.

I thought about that man as I drove home with the groceries. I wondered whether his life had been shredded in some fashion. Perhaps the corona virus had put him out of work. He was dressed in what appeared to be the type of uniform an air conditioning service person might wear, so maybe he’s back at work. I could venture a million guesses about him and be wrong about every one. For whatever reason, I felt and still feel compassion for the guy, even though he took my money and left.

I feel a different kind of compassion for a neighbor, a woman for whom I picked up a few items at the store this morning. She is dealing with a husband whose health is in steep decline. She told my wife that a hospice worker is coming today to talk about next steps in putting her husband in hospice. I don’t know either of the two of them especially well, but I imagine the idea of hospice might be shredding their peace of mind, though she must feel a sense of relief that part of her difficult duties in tending to her husband will be reduced. Yet feeling relief can trigger a competing sense of guilt, even when the decision is in the best interests of everyone. Ach, reality can shred serenity into threads.

When I delivered the neighbor’s bread and milk and orange juice, she gave me $12 in cash for the $11+ I spent on those items. I felt guilty taking that money, knowing what she is going through and thinking that I gave $20 to a man who might well have been scamming me. My faith in humanity sometimes comes unraveled. That disbelief in the innate goodness of humankind stares at me as I look in the mirror, wondering whether I, too, am unworthy of the confidence that I am, at my core, good. Should I have refused the $12, looking at the expenditure as a payment for a lesson learned?

I don’t know. Morality seems to be laughable these days. Decency is evidence of weakness, a badge of powerlessness. Mother Nature’s storms last night are not the only forces tearing the world around me into shreds. Emotional storms are doing the same thing. They are not as visible, but they are just as destructive. The fabric of nature heals itself. I suppose the fabric that clothes a scarred psyche does the same; we just have to give the scars time to tie the shreds together.

I quote from a post I wrote five years ago; my opinions have not changed:

Memorial Day is dedicated to the men and women who lost their lives in defense of the USA, it is not a celebratory welcoming of summer.

It doesn’t matter your politics, we owe a debt of gratitude to those people who did as they were asked. They may not have agreed with the politics of the wars they fought, but most did. Regardless, they followed orders and did their duty. Well over one million men and women have died while fighting, or supporting, wars in which the USA has been engaged. I offer my respect and admiration for them; I only hope their sacrifices lead, eventually, to peace and to an environment in which war is recognized as the ultimate insanity.

I still maintain my appreciation for the women and men who have died in service to their country. Many of them, in my opinion, died needlessly in unnecessary wars. Still, they responded to their country’s call to service, even when that call was misguided or utterly amoral. Their sacrifices remain awful reminders of the unholy costs of war.

Civil society cannot condone war. Decent human beings cannot condone war. If attacked, we legitimately can fight back, but we cannot provoke the attack simply to justify war. Leaders worth following acknowledge the idiocy of war and they do their best to avoid it. They do not glorify war, nor power, nor military might; those who do should be autopsied so we might learn what deviance might have caused their insanity.

Yesterday’s muted grey milieu proved the perfect atmosphere for working outside the confines of the walls of the house. The cloud cover remained for most of the morning and into mid-afternoon, sheltering me from the sun’s brutal rays while I power-washed the deck, the wrought-iron deck furniture, and the porch screen. The latter was the most challenging, as I had not given the screen a thorough cleaning since before my lung cancer diagnosis—so, November 2018. Well before that, I am sure; probably the Spring of that year. Oh, I’ve done some perfunctory cleaning since then, but nothing like the intensity a good cleaning demands. Finally, though, I tackled the beast. The effort involved moving very heavy tables and chairs, potted plants, grill, smoker, etc., etc. Quite the undertaking, I say.

I started after breakfast and finally, around 3:00 p.m., admitted I could do no more. I did not complete the job to my full satisfaction, but I am pleased with it, nonetheless. The view through the screen is clear, the pollen is gone from the screen, the chairs, the table tops, and the deck’s wooden planks. This morning, as I sat on the porch, sipping my coffee, the difference was stark; I am surprised I had been able to enjoy my time on the deck before the cleaning. Now, though, the experience is a delight. Oh, it could be better and it will be better as I continue the process of cleaning, repainting, and replacing a few more boards. Yet it is now sheer joy to sit there, listening to the birds and hearing the occasional lowing of cattle on the farm below us.

The process of a very late Spring cleaning continued this morning when I opened the kitchen windows and noticed that the screen were terribly dusty. So, I vacuumed the dust from them and was astonished at how much clearer a view I had to the outside world. I may have to go into full-scale cleaning mode.

The fierce winds and heavy rain that began around dusk yesterday afternoon continued the cleansing of the deck. After I had hauled all the cleaning gear out to the garage following my admission of exhaustion, I noticed a few places on the deck where I had failed to wash away dirty water that had accumulated when I washed the screen. Last night’s storms took care of them for me.

Mother Nature probably figured I did not need the aggravation of washing the deck again today, especially in light of how sore I am. Oh, yes, I am sore in places I had forgotten could be so unfriendly. My lower back, my shoulders, my wrists, and my neck are complaining loudly of the abuse I heaped upon them yesterday. A full-body massage, followed by soaking in a jetted soaking tub full of hot water until wine-time, would help with the aches, but I have neither a masseur nor a masseuse at my disposal, nor do I have access to a hot-tub. Ach, the awful injustice of first-world, middle-class poverty. I will survive even this affront to my comfort.

I’m in a philosophical mood at the moment, but not in the mood to write about my philosophies. So, I’ll stop writing and devote my time to thinking and, perhaps, reading about remedies for tired, aching, overworked muscles.

Even on this drab morning, when the sky is a muted, muddy grey, the sounds of birds singing lifts my spirits. When I awoke, much later than normal at around 6, darkness had already been washed from the sky, leaving in its wake a dim grey glow. I went out to hang the hummingbird feeder (I take it in at night to discourage raccoons from greedily drinking the nectar) and was immediately enchanted by the way the cool air enveloped me and asked me, ever so gently, to stay for a while. Though I wanted to sit outside and drink in the morning, I opted instead to return to the kitchen, make some coffee, and sit in front of my computer screen. Some mornings, I think I’ve lost my mind; my head would be clearer and my thoughts more precise and pleasant if I simply let myself relax and absorb what Mother Nature wants me to know.  But, in spite of my decision to come back indoors, the sounds of birds and the coolness of the morning fed me with a little more composure than I am used to. And I like that. (And, perhaps, the dim grey air helped.)

Having returned to the house and having sat in front of my computer, though, I have decided to make this a short-lived engagement with the keyboard. Maybe I’ll feel more inclined to blog later in the day. But for now, I need more coffee and the serenity of birdsongs and a cool, grey morning. Back to the deck.

It’s only 6:30, yet I am three hours into my Saturday. The gods of heaven and earth, at war earlier in the day, woke me from a troubled sleep during which I emptied a pistol into a substitute teacher who stole a child’s lunch money. The thief was somehow unharmed; that was even more troubling than the discharge of the weapon. The gods, by the way, remain engaged in periodic skirmishes at this hour.

I awoke to an electric sky, a thousand crooked fingers of lightning streaking across the darkness.  Echoes and rumbles that  trailed off into deep, angry growls followed claps of thunder that produced concussions that shook the floor and walls. The flash of lightning was a rapidly pulsing strobe light shining in my closed eyes, making sleep impossible. Not that sleep would have been possible with the chaotic noise that accompanies the collision of the firmament with the planet in its way. When such a story plays out, though, I do not want to sleep. I want to be a part of it. I want to be involved in some way, at least as a witness.

The power of the storm made me wish I could transport myself in time and space to the year  1800, into a deep indentation on the side of a cliff in what is now New Mexico. There, from a ledge on the side of the cliff, I will have a one-hundred-eighty degree view of the sky. From that vantage point, I will watch the lightning and hear the thunder and absorb the power of Mother Nature’s fury. With no artificial lights to intrude on the darkness, my view is pristine. I see only what Nature reveals to me. I hear only the language of the earth and sky in a battle to determine dominance. And, of course, I know Zeus will triumph. I just know. It’s interesting to me that I’m using future tense in a conversation with myself about going back in time to a place I’ve never been. A place I long to be. Fernweh, again, but taken a step further, longing to return to both a place and a time I’ve never been.

If desire took physical form, it would be wrapped around me like a thick ribbon; no one but I would know it was there, though, because in spite of its tactile qualities, it would be invisible. Unseen Fernweh with form.

Eine Reise tritt nur an, dessen Fernweh gegenüber der Angst vor Veränderung überwiegt.

This German sentence supposedly translates as “A journey occurs only when the desire for distant destinations is stronger than the fear of change.”  I have a different interpretation. To my way of thinking, here’s what the sentence means:

A journey begins only when the longing for a place one has never been outweighs the fear of staying mired in the present moment.

I’ve taken extreme liberties with the translation; it’s more an interpretation than a translation, as I said. I could have embellished it even more by investing Fernweh with physicality, but that might be over-the-top, even for a free-wheeling translator.

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Yesterday, I facilitated a Zoom conversation in which interested people from my church revealed a bit about what matters to them and how they are spending their time (in these times of pandemic). It all went reasonably well until, at the end as I was attempting to wrap up the conversation, someone mentioned that I had not spoken about my own perspective. For some reason, when I began to say what matters to me, I almost was overcome with emotion completely inappropriate to the moment. I felt like a deer in headlights, unable to control myself as the oncoming car approached at full speed. I think I recovered fast enough that people might not have noticed, but I suspect not; these people are more perceptive than the average person on the street. I can write “what matters” dispassionately; for some reason, though, I cannot speak it without melting. That unflattering character flaw has accompanied me for as many years as I’ve been alive, as far as I recall. And it annoys me and embarrasses me. I think it’s one of the (many) reasons I tend to get close to an extremely small cadre of people; I’ve survived my embarrassment with them.

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One of the people on the Zoom conversation yesterday spoke reverently about a book she is reading. It sounded interesting, so this morning I began listening to the audio-book version of The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History (the physical copies of the book are not immediately available from the Garland County Library). I’ve only gotten through a very little bit of it, but that little bit is fascinating. The author is the one reading the book aloud, which is helpful in that he is able to speak in the Lakota language so that it sounds like it is spoken by a native speaker, not someone trying to sound like a native speaker. Duh, I wonder why that is? My difficulty with audio books checked out on Hoopla from the library is that I am confined to listening to them in front of my computer; I would much rather listen to an audio book while driving in my car. I can’t, now that I’ve downloaded it to my laptop. I may have to buy a physical copy of the book.

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I am going to attempt to form a Zoom-based interest group, though the church, to discuss spicy/fiery foods. Whether there will be sufficient participants remains to be seen. The group will not be announced until next week, at the earliest. While I’d much prefer to meet face-to-face with people who have an interest in spicy/fiery foods, this might get the ball rolling for a time in the future when I may not feel like I’m putting my life and my wife’s life in danger by exposing myself to people over whose engagements with others I have no control. That’s a long and laborious sentence. It should be sliced in half and surgically reconstructed into two or more sentences. Like much of what I write.

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Aimless writing spills scraps of disconnected thoughts onto the keyboard, thereby polluting the screen with shreds of unrelated ideas. Those ideas blend with concepts unbecoming even a note scribbled hastily on an electronic napkin. The napkin, wet with the perspiration of the writer, gets stuck to the pages of an unfinished novel. The book tears the napkin the book is moved to make room for a mug of cold coffee and long-buried memories.  And it all comes down to this. This. What is this? This is an exercise in futility, causing me to decide to exorcise the demons that forced my fingers to strike the keys. And so it ends.

Indistinct shapes in almost total darkness. That’s what I saw last night as I watched episode number two of the second season of Ozark.  One of the main characters, Wendy, was driving a car with another character, Buddy, as a passenger. They appeared to be on a highway. Wendy asked Buddy questions. He responded. The scene annoyed me because I could not see the characters well enough to make out any facial expressions. Just voices in the dark. Indistinct shapes. Their voices were not sufficiently clear, either. Indistinct shapes and indistinct voices. A winning combination.

As I sat there, watching and listening, it occurred to me that the writers and directors might have conspired to irritate the audience, just for fun. “Let’s make them strain to see and hear the action, but let’s make sure their efforts are to no avail.” I wonder whether my television is equipped with a camera that records my reactions and pipes the information to the originators of television programming? That’s probably it. I’m a subject in an experiment designed for the entertainment of bored television production staff. They push my buttons to see how I will react. When I perform as they expect I will, they double over in laughter, thrilled at my Pavlovian responses to their deviant stimuli.

Despite my low-level fury at the offending scene, I am impressed with and enjoy Ozark. The writing is good, the acting is generally first-rate, and the story lines interest me and keep me engaged. I may have said all of this before. If so, forgive me the tendency toward repetition that comes with human ripening.

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If your life is equipped with Alexa, I suggest you ask her to define the word “stem.” She will offer a few definitions of the word as a noun and another one or two as a verb (I don’t recall the precise numbers). Then, she will mention that there are 31 more definitions and will ask if the listener wishes to have her speak them. When this experience occurred with Alexa this morning, I asked her to continue. She began speaking, but after a few more definitions, I said, “Alexa, stop.” And she did.

The reason I asked Alexa to define stem was that I was suddenly and inexplicably intrigued that I could see a stem on a blueberry and could hope we will find a way to stem the tide of COVID-19. Stem is such a short and simple little word, but its applications as noun and verb are so utterly different.

It is interesting to me that the word, stem, seems so simple but is, in fact, a remarkably complex combination of ideas that vary markedly depending on context. And the stem of a plant may look very simple, but beneath a relatively smooth exterior exists an incredibly sophisticated and intricate system that allows for the bidirectional flow of nutrients and products of photosynthesis.

Beneath the surface of each of us, labyrinthine webs of complexity hide from view; our eyes and our faces and our mouths offer glimpses, but they cannot expose the convoluted obscure framework within. Just like the bark of a tree obscures layer upon layer of experience that appear as rings when felled by a saw.

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Several years ago, I bought a book entitled When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, written by Pema Chödrön, an American Tibetan Buddhist monk. Chödrön says many things that give me reason to pause and think. This quotation, which I used in a post more than a year ago when I wrote about her, is one of them:

When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up, this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself… In the midst of loneliness, in the midst of fear, in the middle of feeling misunderstood and rejected is the heartbeat of all things.

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there’s anywhere to hide.

Wise words. Is there any place to hide from oneself? She answers the question.

What makes maitri [the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness toward oneself] such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart. This starts with realizing that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor the end. It is just the same kind of normal human experience that’s been happening to everyday people from the beginning of time. Thoughts, emotions, moods, and memories come and they go, and basic nowness is always here.

I must still own the book; I quoted from it in the post I mentioned, so it must be here, hidden among all the other books. I will find it.

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I wondered whether minds tend to wander more extensively, with more elaborate, winding bends, as they get older. You know, like a river. So I asked Father Google. His partner, Mother Google, answered by saying a “…river erodes soil from the outer curve and deposits on the inner curve. This causes the meanders to grow larger and larger over time. The bend gets more and more pronounced with time. The slower side of the river will continue to get slower and the faster side gets faster.”

I decided that response was a parable. The challenge, now, is to figure out how it applies to the aging human brain. I think I’m getting there.

I remember seeing Leon Redbone perform at a little club/venue in Houston, Texas many years ago. Though I’ve not been to a lot of concerts (and this was a very, very small venue, not really a concert hall), this one was among my favorites (after Leonard Cohen, of course, and Leo Kottke). This tune, in particular, has always struck a chord with me. I guess I’ve always wished I was a desirable kind of guy. Hah! It’s a little late for that, methinks.

I checked to see whether I’ve mentioned Leon Redbone before. I have. Once, the mention was among a list of music I found especially appealing on a certain night toward the end of October 2016. The music still resonates, though I’ve added a few since then. Maybe I will return to post those newer ones on my blog, one day. My musical taste is so much more eclectic than this list suggests. Where is the classical, the Flamenco, the cooler smooth jazz, the bit of rap, the opera, the acid rock, the electrica, the evocative Arabian stuff, the Indian chants? And on and on.  My taste in seduction, though, remains constant. 😉

By the way, Leon Redbone died just shy of a year ago. He’s already missed.

• Stranger in a Strange Land, Leon Russell
• Seduced, Leon Redbone
• Lazy Bones, Leon Redbone
• Ojo, Leo Kottke
• Malaguena, Juan Poco
• Zorba the Greek, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
• Come Healing, Leonard Cohen
• Cancao do Mar, Dulce Pontes
• I Will Follow You into the Dark, Death Cab for Cutie
• Dentro la tasca di un qualunque mattino, Gianmaria Testa
• Come Away with Me, Norah Jones
• The Story, Brandi Carlile
• If 6 was 9, Jimi Hendrix
• She Came in through the Bathroom Window, Joe Cocker
• Down on Me, Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin)
• Sunshine of Your Love, Cream
• Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed, Kinky Friedman
• Turning Japanese, The Vapors
• Mexican Radio, Wall of Voodoo
• Down Under, Men at Work
• Lighthouse, Antje Duvekot
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel
• Hang on Little Tomato, Pink Martini
• Castles Made of Sand, Jimi Hendrix
• Memphis in the Meantime, John Hiatt
• This Life, Curtis Stigers, The Forest Rangers (theme from Sons of Anarchy)
• My Uncle Used to Love Me (But She Died), Roger Miller
• Adeste Fidelis, The Roches
• God Bless the Child, Billie Holiday
• What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong

I thought you might be interested. Yes, you, my lovely friend. 😉 [Okay, doesn’t that make a reader wonder? It’s a writer’s tactic for attracting followers who look for clues about the next item in the series.]

An odd mixture of resolve and surrender seems to have taken hold of my psyche this morning. This unusual alloy, I suspect, has the potential of lasting for an eternity, acquiescing to the force of every hot wind in its face; cracking and bending but never melting, never abandoning its struggle against an undefinable adversary.

I think I’ve described a state of perpetual capitulation and infinite will. Two competing forces, neither of which has the capacity to win in their struggle against the other, yet neither willing to yield. An ever-lasting impasse. That’s the sort of struggle that leads authors to write thousand-page novels so unsatisfying that the very thought of a sequel is offensive in the extreme. No winners, no losers. Unresolved tension that drags on for all time, drowning all its dozens of characters in a quagmire of slow-acting quicksand.

Perhaps it’s the fog that’s doing this to my state of mind. A seemingly endless ground-level cloud that shows no signs of lifting or blowing away. It will linger here forever, taunting me with a dull grey film that dims the world before my eyes with hazy translucence. But I cannot admit defeat against an enemy that, under certain circumstances, might be a friend sheltering me from a white-hot spotlight. Do I fight? Do I give in? Do I stand in defiant martyrdom, knowing my defiance is a meaningless act of rebellion? Crucifixion without a cross, perhaps. A martyr without a message. Drama without the dram.

+++

Alliteration seems to be on the morning menu, doesn’t it? Perhaps that bit of shallow silliness will wash away the gloom? No, I’ll need wind or rain for that. Or a sun so bright that the haze will burn into a fiercely blue sky that will be unwilling to tolerate even a smudge of grey cloud or a puff of fog. Something, surely, will come along and wash the sky, leaving a pristine, vapor-less atmosphere suitable for deep breathing and infinite vision. Surely. Certainly, Undoubtedly. Assuredly. A thesaurus will open wide, cleansing the language—and, therefore, the mind—of all uncertainty. And all will be right with the world.

+++

The stream of one’s consciousness flows in all directions. Unlike rivers, the stream of consciousness is capable of ignoring gravity and barometric pressure. Indeed, the stream of consciousness is unbound by physics; the laws of nature do not bind the stream to the physical world, at all. The banks that bind rivers to their channels have no power over the stream of consciousness. And, unlike water, the contents of the stream of consciousness can flow even as they change from liquid to solid to gas…even to vacuums, empty of everything but ideas or emotions. Rivers of fire can fill the imaginary channels attempting to constrain the stream of consciousness. Molten rocks, too, can join air and water rushing past the banks of  the stream.

+++

I have succeeded, in part, in my effort to clear away the brush and logs and lumber and all the other detritus from past floods; my stream of consciousness is now open to barge traffic. Barges filled with tins of smoked fillet of cyclops and cans of mermaid stew flow smoothly through the locks. Big tarps covering pickled giant bananas, as big as ten-person canoes, are strewn all over the decks of some of the barges as they float past. Mushrooms as big as houses arise from massive boxes filled with growing media created especially for their cultivation; those barges barely stay afloat, thanks to the weight of their cargo. Some of the largest barges are stacked fifty stories high with pallets of a hybrid delicacy, seahorse carpaccio. This stream of consciousness must be near the sea; some of the holds of the largest barges are filled with ice that keeps seventy-ton squids fresh during the trip to market.

+++

We hide so much behind masks that portray us as happy, goofy, irreverent characters. Torment goes unnoticed when concealed beneath carefully-crafted disguises. The wells of sadness, so deep we’re always in danger of drowning, beckon us to dive in and search for the drain plug at the bottom, in a hopeless attempt to find comfort in emptiness.

+++

Happiness is just a neuron away. It resides on the other side of hopelessness. It is accessible from any portal, coming from any direction. It’s as easily accessed as flipping a switch. Presto! Darkness is gone, replaced by brilliance and joy so dazzling it makes your head swim. The memory of despair is then akin to recollections in the mind of a very old man of the first moments outside the womb. Memory of pain is never as sharp as the experience itself. But memory of joy is like reliving the moment. Strange, isn’t it, that we teach ourselves to belief the reverse if true.

+++

This exercise in mental gymnastics brought to you by misfiring synapses, too much sleep in too little time, and members of the human race. Time to go grocery shopping on a Sunday morning.

Today is Saturday, a day promising warmth, extreme humidity, and the likelihood of rain and, quite possibly, thunderstorms. Not a day for sunbathing.

This day began, for me, a couple of hours ago while I was in that semi-conscious state in which one is capable of both dreaming and deciding whether to get out of bed. I remained in that hazy in-between condition, midway betwixt sleep and wakefulness for at least two hours. Finally, long after the light of day had penetrated the morning fog, I got up. Before I got up, though, a dream convinced me that my niece by marriage, who had just received her private pilot’s license, offered to fly me to my job interview. To the best of my knowledge, my niece has never taken flying lessons. And I have no interest in being interviewed for a job. If the employer wants to hire me, fine; but I will not subject myself to the humiliation of being sized up, judged, evaluated, and otherwise assessed. I already know I am perfectly capable of performing admirably in the position, whatever it is, so just put forward an extremely lucrative offer and wait for my decision.

+++

Every morning, when I sit at my tiny corner desk to write, I see squirrels on the ground and in the trees near the house. Frequently, they chase one another. Occasionally, the speed of the chases escalate dramatically. Often, those high-speed chases spiral up and down the trunks of very tall trees. I’ve always assumed the chases were simply for fun. Finally, investigated by doing some online searches. The high-speed chases involving up and down spirals probably are territorial disputes. Even though squirrels are not, by nature, territorial, when the density of the squirrel population reaches a point at which the food supply cannot keep up with the demand, squirrels begin to stake their turf to protect their food supply. So says a website that, I assume, has no reason to lie. I witnessed such a chase (or six) this morning, hence the exploration and explanation. That’s why this paragraph exists; for no other reason.

+++

I have a Zoom meeting this morning to discuss updates to the long range plan for the church. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended many activities of the church, so many elements of the plan either are stalled or are plodding ahead in slow motion. The purpose of the meeting this morning is to conduct a quick review of status and to discuss whether the committee should plan to focus attention in the near-term on revising the plan. Plus, I have an obligation to give an update report to the board. At this very moment, I wonder whether I lost my mind when I agreed to chair the long range planning committee and to sit for election to the church board and to get involved in other administrative (or, if you like, administrivia) activities. I think I’d rather carve wooden figures, make windchimes, and cook and sell tamales. Those things are more rewarding to me than “office work,” which is what caused me to retire seven years before my scheduled departure from the work force.

+++

Humans, by and large, do not understand the animal kingdom outside our own limited piece of it. We seem to think we are the only creatures with critical thinking skills. We seem to believe we, alone, can feel empathy, anger, compassion, grief, and a thousand shades of related emotions that mix and merge with one another to weave an intricately complex emotional fabric. Maybe we are the intellectual and emotional giants; but I think we’re deceiving ourselves. I think we simply do not have the capacity to understand how the minds of other animals work. We assume that, because they do not work like ours, their minds are incapable of “thought” in the same way as ours. We assume, for the same reason, other animals are not sophisticated beings, at least not as sophisticated as we are. We assume other animals’ behaviors are driven more by instinct than intent; more by automatic, pre-programmed responses to their environments than by complex decision-making. Perhaps. But I think it is equally as likely that we simply do not understand an entirely different way of thinking and making decisions. We assume bats that navigate by sonar engage in a purely mechanical reaction to sound; but what if bats’ brains consciously and deliberately process sonic data in ways that are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than our brains could ever accomplish? No, some say, their brains are far too small! We equate size with capacity; do we not understand that today’s microchip has thousands of times more computing power than a room-sized computer of a generation or two in the past? Humans possess enormous, voluminous knowledge; but the volume of knowledge that still eludes us is an ocean, compared to the thimble full of knowledge we possess.

+++

I am frustrated by the increasingly loud voices of people who want us to “reopen the economy.” What they’re asking is to return to the way things were. That will not happen. And it should not happen. We should have learned, from the novel coronavirus, that we were woefully unprepared to confront such a calamity. Instead of trying to “beat” it, we should examine how we live and work and, in the process, develop better ways of being in the world today. We know, now, that physical distance dramatically reduces the contagion. In my view, the appropriate response as we plan for the future is to determine how best to reconfigure our lives to enable us to quickly and painlessly increase physical distance. At work, at home, in leisure settings. Everywhere. How can work be re-tooled so that workers can be physically separate, yet still get the job done? How can we change our housing so that people no longer are forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in elevators in apartment buildings? The challenges are enormous and will (would?) require vast sums of money, time, and creative thought to overcome, but I am convinced that is the right approach. Not simply “get back to work!” Sure, we need vaccines and cures, but we need to anticipate the future, as well. This pandemic should be teaching us that meat processing plants should be reconfigured. It should be teaching us that stadium seating should provide more space between patrons. It should be teaching us that production lines should more readily be adaptable to producing different products when they are needed…right now! Instead, we are learning that loud-mouthed idiots carrying rifles can take over the airwaves. We are learning that self-sacrifice is only for the people who can serve ME, not something I should undertake for  the common good. Frustration. Anger. It’s all there, bubbling up from just beneath the surface of my brain.

+++

Scam telephone calls. This may seem unduly harsh, but I’m of the opinion that people involved in telephone scams should be subject to public disemboweling. Their vivisection should be broadcast live on all television channels, simultaneously; and, then, rebroadcast during normal viewing hours in areas where the live broadcast took place during regular sleeping hours. That is all.

Yesterday, I read the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the State’s “Safer at Home” order. I read both the majority opinion and the concurring and dissenting opinions made by individual justices. Among the dissenting comments (which, by the way, I found far more persuasive than the majority opinion and the concurring comments from supporting justices), I encountered a word I have never (as far as I can recall) seen before: “surplusage.” The meaning of the word is exactly what I thought it would be: something that is surplus, an excess amount. A second definition stung me like a wasp: an excess of words. Ach! My flaws have been written into the dictionary!

The word was used by Rebecca Dallet, whose dissenting opinion included the following sentence: It is a basic tenet of statutory interpretation that we must read statutory language “to give reasonable effect to every word, in order to avoid surplusage.” That phrase, I learned by conducting a quick search of Google, followed by a search of the results yielded by it, is rather common in legal opinions given in cases before Wisconsin courts. I feel confident that, were I willing to invest the time and energy, it would not take much of either to uncover the origin of the term and the statement from which the quote “to give reasonable effect to every word, in order to avoid surplusage,” was taken. But I am willing to invest neither. So I will go on with my life, unencumbered by that crucial knowledge. I think I can survive without knowing.

Back to the definition. It’s not just an excess of words. It’s an excess amount. Of anything.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision will, I feel confident, result in a surplusage of COVID-19 infections and deaths. It will result, too, in a surplusage of shortages of: personal protective equipment, ventilators, masks for the general public, and any number of other recently-emerged necessities. “A surplusage of shortages.” Now THAT shines a spotlight on prolix language, does it not?

+++

Some moderately good news: my PET scan did not show any “hot spots” on my lungs that would warrant a biopsy. The nodule of concern to my oncologist is too small, she said, for a PET scan to “light up,” she said, so we just need to keep an eye on it. So, another CT scan in three months to determine whether it’s getting larger. If so, a more aggressive follow-up is in order. But, for now, there’s no need for “immediate concern.” That’s not a surplusage of good news, but I’ll take what I can get.

+++

I returned to Facebook yesterday, after a short vacation from social media. I fear I returned too soon. While it was nice to read some idle chatter of some FB friends, it is a bit hard to find, simply because there’s so much other “stuff” to wade through. I wonder whether there’s a way to adjust setting so that, for example, the posts of people whose volume of posts is excessive can be minimized but not ignored altogether? I’ll have to check. It’s not that I do not want to know what they think; it’s the sheer magnitude of the surplusage of their posts. It’s exhausting.

+++

Exhaustion. Mental exhaustion. What is causing this sensation of being crushed under the overwhelming weight of simply thinking? I don’t want to think. I want to simply exist; to be sustained without needing to decide or even consider what I need for sustenance. I do not want to make decisions, nor to complain about decisions made on my behalf. I just want to be left alone. I want the world to leave me alone; to stop making demands of me and to stop having expectations that I will engage with the world or anyone in it. I am perfectly (or, perhaps, reasonably) happy to live inside my head, with extremely limited interaction with the outside world. I don’t know what causes this feeling. I doubt it’s the isolation; I’m not really that isolated, after all. And I’m not sure it’s real. While I want to be left alone, I simultaneously want to be embraced and wanted and needed in the wider world. It’s impossible to meet those diametrically opposed desires. Can I want to be consumed by fire and immersed in icy water at the same time? Impossible. I don’t think I really want either. I do not know much. And I know less with each passing minute.

+++

As I sometimes do, I read a post I wrote one year ago today. It was full of worry and gloom; maybe it’s May 15 that does it. But, then, I read what I wrote five years ago today. I prefer it to what I am writing now. I will try to remember it. Here is what I wrote; unfinished, but as complete as it will ever be:

I watched his hammer slam, over and over and over again, against the white-hot piece of iron. The metal seemed to resist the brutality. Its shape did not change; only sparks. Yet the smithy continued beating the strap of metal without mercy, as if it had done unspeakable things to his daughter. The rhythm of his abusive attack never varied. I discerned no deviation in the constancy of his abuse; the unwavering rage of his hammer was breathtaking.

Finally, he stopped. He looked hard at the piece of dirty iron, as if searching it for answers to unanswerable questions. After a pause, he grasped the piece with heavy pincers and thrust the throbbing molten beast into a barrel of coal-black water. An explosive hiss erupted from the bowels of the cask, followed by the popping and cracking of hot iron reducing itself to something hard and cold.

The smithy drew the defeated piece of iron from the water and set it next to four identical strips resting on a tree-stump near the furnace, each of them perfect silver bands, curved into arcs, almost circles. He pulled his elbow-length heavy leather gloves from his hands and placed them next to his creations, then wiped the sweat from his brow with a grey rag, stained with smoke and rust. “Just twenty more and you’ll have the makings of five fine oak barrels, provided you’ve done your part in hewing the oak.”

The letter Z was removed from the Icelandic alphabet in 1974. What the…?!  No, really, the Icelandic alphabet no longer includes the letter Z. People who learned to read and write before 1974 still use it, according to the Guide to Iceland. The Guide further says the country has about twenty men named Zophonías, the most popular of the few names in Iceland that begin with Z.

For information, and because I am relatively certain anyone who happens upon this page wants to know, here is the Icelandic alphabet (32 letters):

UPPER CASE:  A Á B D Ð E É F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P R S T U Ú V Y Ý X Þ Æ Ö

LOWER CASE: а  á  b d  ð  e  é f  g  h  i í  j k  l  m  n  o  ó  p r  s  t u  ú  v y  ý  x þ  æ  ö

The letters C, Q, and W are missing, you might note, in addition to the letter Z, which was jettisoned forty-six years ago. But those other missing letters are used in foreign words and the Z is used in a few names, as mentioned earlier.

In spite of learning some moderately troubling aspects of Icelandic law and tradition (like removing letters from the alphabet and forbidding the use of unapproved names for newborn babies), I am fascinated by aspects of the culture about which, normally, I would pay no heed. Burials and cremation appear to be highly regulated. The vast majority (roughly 80%) of Icelanders belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. Why on earth would I find such trivia of even passing interest? I cannot answer that with truth because I do not know the truth.

Truth. Is ‘truth’ a synonym for ‘fact’? If so, would Kellyanne Conway have us believe there is an alternative truth? There I go again. Off track. I blame Kellyanne; there is so much blame for which she can be held responsible.

Back to Icelandic church membership. I had hoped such an advanced civilization would have evolved spiritually, as well, becoming at least agnostics if not atheists. Hmm. My bias and judgmental nature is showing again. I thought I had evolve beyond such snide remarks. Yesterday’s post suggested I had. Yet here I am again. My flaws are beyond measure.

Speaking of Iceland (as I often will), I read an article that said a former First Lady of Iceland, Dorrit Moussaieff, revealed that she had COVID-19. Thanks to my narrow but quite shallow knowledge of Icelandic culture, I knew immediately from seeing her name that she was very likely not a native Icelander; had she been a native, her last name would have been her father’s given name, followed by “dóttir,” which translates as “daughter.” So, for example, if her father’s name had been Magnús Einarson, her last name would have been some approximation of Magnúsdóttir. Kind of cool, yes? Her first name probably would not have been approved by the Mannanafnanefnd, the Icelandic Naming Committee, either, by the way.

Though I find Iceland extremely interesting, I do not have much interest in visiting the country, at least not as a tourist. If I were invited to visit an English-speaking individual or a small family in Iceland, someone willing to help me learn to converse comfortably in Icelandic, I might go. But I have no interest in ogling the sites of the country as a tourist. My interest is much the same as I have in other countries; I would like to become a native, as if I were born there and grew up learning the language, the customs, and absorbing the culture and social structure. I realize I’ve visited plenty of places as a tourist. And, yes, I’ve enjoyed myself. But despite my enjoyment, I have always felt like a slightly boorish (and that’s being overly kind to myself) voyeur; a hopeless rube. I have always hoped that I would feel like, and be perceived as, an intelligent, curious foreigner who values and respects the culture to which I am being expose; but those hopes were the delusional dreams of a hick.

I realize, of course, I cannot become a native or even approach the knowledge of and familiarity with a country and its culture a native-born person probably has. But I want it, nonetheless. I don’t want to be an outsider, at least not in the cultures I find interesting and appealing. But I am an outsider. And an outsider can never feel comfortable in the knowledge that he is viewed with distrust, even if that perspective is subsurface and unintended.  As an outsider, I make too many social mistakes. I embarrass myself and others simply by being who I am. It’s all a matter of context, of course. I don’t often embarrass myself here in the USA simply by being myself; well, the frequency of embarrassment, at least, is lower.

No one in Iceland has ever given even a moment’s thought to me. Why should I, then, find myself absorbed by Icelanders? I mean in the aggregate; I know very little about individual Icelanders, with the exception of Jón Gunnar Kristinsson. You may know him as Jón Gnarr (he changed his middle name and apparently adopted it as his last name), a comedian who became mayor of Reykjavík. His wife’s name, by the way, is Jóhanna Jóhannsdóttir. See how that naming convention works? Her father was Jóhan; no clue what her father’s last name was, though. Anyway, Jón was a runaway favorite in Iceland, both as a comedian and as a politician. He is, by the way, a vocal opponent of Iceland’s naming conventions (and their accompanying laws), thus a critic of Icelandic culture, in a sense. Despite my ambivalence about the naming laws, I find his opposition to that bedrock of Icelandic culture more than a little disturbing.  Again, I’ve slipped off course; I was asking why I should find myself absorbed by Icelanders. I haven’t a clue. I think, perhaps, it’s because I have to find something unusual to cling to; something that might set me apart from the multitudes. Otherwise, I’m just another gathering of flesh; a piece of living, breathing meat of no more consequence than any other assemblage of fat and muscle. But aren’t we all vital and valuable? Did I not say, just yesterday, that I fervently believe in the principle that recognizes “the inherent worth and dignity of every person?” I did, indeed. But I vacillate with unwavering predictability.

Damn. I have wasted another forty minutes, more or less, writing about matters that don’t. Matter, I mean. I could have been productive. Instead, I’ve successfully kept my mind occupied by forcing it to steer clear of gravitas. There will be time for gravitas. That’s what we always say. “There will be time for that.” Even when that’s not necessarily true. We keep telling ourselves it is.

And so I’ll leave it with this: the Icelandic alphabet, thirty-three letters long until 1974, is now in ruins, having lost its Z. And voids exist where C, Q, and W should be.

Yesterday afternoon, I was standing on the back deck, taking in the spectacular sky, the glorious sounds of song birds, and the sheer magnificence of the afternoon, when I heard a rustling in the leaves behind the house. I walked to the deck railing and looked down; a large white-tailed deer plodded slowly through the leaves, her neck stretched up so she could reach the low-hanging leaves of the trees at the edge of the clearing. Suddenly, she became conscious of my presence, turning her head and locking me in a frozen gaze. We looked at one another for a full minute, at least, before her statue-like stance changed just slightly. She looked away from me, then back toward me. Finally, she lifted her left front leg and held it up for a good ten seconds. Then, she stamped it, forcefully, onto the ground. This stamping continued, every few seconds, for a minute or two. She turned away from me and reached up for more leaves, but the stamping continued. And, then, she snorted or, as I’ve learned through Google, “blew.” The sound from her mouth was surprisingly loud. Accompanied by the forceful stamping of her hoof into the ground, the noise suggested to me she was fiercely angry, ready to charge (she would have been unsuccessful in reaching me, of course, as I was a good seventeen feet above ground and she was at least forty feet away from the deck). Ultimately, with no warning, she turned and raced off through the woods. I think our encounter must have lasted at least three or four minutes, perhaps longer.

During my “interaction” with the deer, I could hear the new neighbors, two doors down, engaging in a rather loud conversation among themselves and with their dog. “C’mon, now, little girl, come over here. C’mon! C’mon!” The deer seemed to pay them no heed; I was the one upon whom her attention was focused. The sound of neighbors was underway before she saw me; she must have been aware they were distant. I, on the other hand, was a visible “threat.”

+++

Earlier in the day, I had been out with my electric blower, ridding the deck of leaves and twigs and other residue of a couple of days of occasionally high winds. Pollen continues to coat all exposed surfaces with its dirty yellow dust, making any thoughts of attempting to deep-clean, and then paint, the deck exercises in futility. The endeavor will just have to wait. In the meantime, the heavy wrought-iron furniture clogging the enclosed porch will remain in the way and it, too, will remain coated with pollen. And the porch screen will remain hideously clotted with gritty yellow and black evidence that we live in the forest.

Too much maintenance work is required on our house for me to do it all (or much of it, for that matter) myself. I would begrudgingly pay to have it done, to a point, if I could find a reliable, dependable team of maintenance people whose work I find acceptable. But such people are rare and in high demand. Even the ones recommended as “excellent,” I often have found, do work I consider inadequate and completely unacceptable. I need a place that requires less maintenance. I won’t be getting such a place soon, I’m afraid. I’ll have to deal with what I have. I cannot seem to marshal the stamina, or the discipline, of late to do even the simple stuff. Months ago, I bought two new switches to control ceiling fans in a couple of rooms; I cannot seem to get myself sufficiently motivated even to install them. Sometimes, I’m completely and utterly useless; even when I know how to do something and am completely capable of doing it, I just let it slide. I bitch and moan about not doing the work, yet I stay on course, not doing the work. If I were that deer behind the house, I would starve or be slain. I would not have sufficient motivation to reach for food in the trees nor to flee in the presence of danger (like hunters carrying crossbows).

+++

Arkansas restaurants are permitted to re-open today for dine-in service, albeit with restrictions such as distance between tables, requirements for masks of restaurant staff, requirements for masks for guests until their food and beverage is served, etc. I think it’s a mistake to open early. I expect we will see a significant spike in reported cases of COVID-19 within two or three weeks, thanks to the loosening of restrictions. I plan on maintaining our isolation to the extent possible until I have very good reasons (and healthcare professionals’ advice) to do otherwise.

+++

Isolation in the absence of Facebook and Nextdoor takes on an entirely new dimension. Until I deactivated the former and cancelled the latter accounts a couple of days ago, I must have been engaged in commenting or reacting to comments and photos and the like with incredible frequency. Since I cut off those channels, my interactions with the outside world have radically diminished. For some reason, even my email in-box, normally the recipient of a constant flood of messages (mostly marketing, I acknowledge), has all but dried up. It’s almost as if most of the rest of the world assumes I died and, therefore, am no longer capable of receiving communication.

+++

Speaking of dying, I think most of us assume our deaths, when they come, will cause massive ripples in the fabric of life on Earth. We know, of course, those ripples will be limited to a relatively small sphere of people, but we assume the results of our demise will be traumatic, cataclysmic, earth-shattering, upending, etc. In reality, most of that little sphere will quickly return to a slightly different but perfectly comfortable routine. Perhaps a few people will feel the impact with greater consequence, but the likelihood is high that they, too, will adjust, given a little time. The death of people who have a large circle of close friends and family, or who have a significant impact on the larger world of business or art (for example) may be felt more widely. But the departure of those of us who have very small circles of influence or consequence will have brief, insignificant effects. None of this is new; none of this is news; all of it, though, is emotionally challenging. It acknowledges that we are far more important in our own heads than we are in the heads of those around us. Just something on my mind this morning. This mourning. Mourning Becomes Electra. What an awfully depressing play. Lavinia becomes Electra. Mourning Becomes her. A modern Greek tragedy. Really. Oresteia. I would have to read some Greek tragedies before attempting to write a modern-day version. I vaguely remember Agamemnon from high school. I forget which O’Neill character was Agamemnon; Ezra? I’ll have to read it again, but I remember thinking at the time it was terribly long and boring, although intriguing once I got through it. There it is again. Wandering through a rabbit warren, but somehow ending up collecting seashells along the banks of a drying riverbed in Nebraska.

I heard this and read the words this morning. It is incredibly moving. The words were written by Herman Hesse. They are read here by Natascha McElhone.

I encountered this when reading a recent post from Brainpickings and I owe Maria Popova, its creator, a debt of gratitude for it.