John Swinburn

Suddenly, nothing matters anymore. Not a damn thing. We tried to make it make a difference, but it didn’t. And so we drift off, knowing we failed.

That’s how he left it; a note written in dust on top of a bathroom vanity in an abandoned hotel on the bridge side of Kent Island, Maryland. The remnants of Hemingway’s Restaurant remained barely visible amidst the detritus left by hurricanes and the “domestic conflict,” as Eric once called the conflagration. It wasn’t a “domestic conflict” any more than World War II was a global skirmish; it was a hellish revelation of the soul of a nation built on hypocrisy and falsehoods. The fact that it took place in every hidden corner of the country, from the wheat fields of Kansas to the back alleys of New York City and the coastal tidewaters of Louisiana exposed just how deep the festering wounds had become.

Eric’s note hit me as hard as anything ever has. It forced me to accept that, of all people, he had given up on a country he once believed in so fervently I could see it in the set of his jaw. I never agreed with him, but I admired the strength of his convictions.

His note revealed how badly broken he had become. I had no idea where he was planning to go, but I knew one thing for certain; he would leave the United States and would never return. He accepted the country was a failed state. That acceptance must have been impossibly hard to reach for a staunch patriot.

I didn’t forget. I just wondered whether my practice of recognizing my mother’s birthday was unnecessary. Or maudlin. Or just odd. Ultimately, I decided it might be all of the above, but I opted to go on record to acknowledge it nonetheless. So, today would have been Mom’s birthday again. She was born in 1908. It seems like a million years ago. She never knew cell phones, Facebook, the horrors of Donald Trump, or garage doors that opened with the push of a button. Yet she didn’t complain that she never had access to a future that left her behind. Nor should any of us. We can’t know what we don’t know, nor can we know what we won’t know because aren’t there to know it. You know. Sort of ad infinitum. I’m not going to bother with spell check. At least not at this moment. At any rate, Happy Birthday, Mom. Were I a religious man, I’d wish you happiness in heaven. But as a heathen, I’ll say only that I still miss you and wish I could have told you all the things about which I later learned you were spot on; and I was wrong. But not everything, of course. You were not always right. But usually, you had reasons for the errors of your ways. Unlike me.

During the haze of sickness these last few days, I have taken to diversions that might distract me from the sensations one feels when one isn’t “well.” I find it impossible to adequately describe those sensations. I don’t feel pain, exactly; it’s more like a generally unpleasant sense that one’s body is not happy with the way it interacts with the world around it. A physical malaise of sorts; discomfort that’s instantly recognizable to me as I experience it, but impossible to describe in any way that accurately paints a picture of how I feel.  At any rate, while I’ve experienced this general physical disquiet, I’ve distracted myself with television and literature; the latter is a download I selected when I discovered the book I wanted was not available in physical form.

The television distraction is taking the form of a new made-for-Netflix series entitled “Unbelieveable.” The series is described as a “limited series,” which suggests to me I may not be given the satisfaction of knowing how the series ends; it may simply stop after the first eight episodes. I hope that’s not the case because I’ve become addicted. The series begins when a young woman reports being raped but later recants her statement, due in no small part to her inability to cope with suggestions from police and others that she might have manufactured the story. Two detectives, from different departments, follow similar rapes that seem extremely close in MO to the young girl’s case. The detectives, both women, team up to pursue what they believe is a serial rapist.  I’m only six episodes in, but feeling a sense of loss in the knowledge that only two episodes remain.

The literary distraction is a book on tape. The Cellist of Sarajevo, written by Steven Galloway and read by Gareth Armstrong. I’ve only listened to a fraction of the full recording, but already I’m hooked on the book. It is an extremely well-written novel (based in part on true stories and people) that grabbed me within the first few pages. The book tells the stories of four characters whose lives are threaded together for a time during the assault on Sarajevo by Serbian forces in the war of the nineties. I can tell already that it will become one of my favorite books. Listening to it being read is not only fascinating but educational; I am picking up ideas that I will use in my own writing. I recommend the book. I wish I could find a hard copy in the library, but I’m satisfied with hearing it read; actually, I might get addicted to having someone read so I can rest my eyes.

It’s interesting to me that I probably would not have had much interest in reading The Cellist of Sarajevo before visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina and walking the streets of Sarajevo. Seeing the city first-hand and learning about the siege from people who survived it changed my attitude about reading a book that describes wartime experiences. Even though much of the city has been rebuilt, Sarajevo still has many, many scars from the war. Some buildings destroyed by mortar rounds remain, crumbling and unusable. Bullet holes and damage done by shrapnel are everywhere. On the one hand, the city today seems vibrant and alive and truly delightful; on the other, everywhere you look you see evidence of the monstrosity of war and the atrocities committed in the name of fanatical nationalism and religious chauvinism. I think I would have taken many photographs of the city, had I gone there with the idea of documenting the remaining evidence of war; I would have looked at the city through different eyes had I thought about, before going there, the experiences its residents had gone through. I wish, now, I had delved into the fresh history of the city before I went. Though I knew something of the war before our visit, I know much more now. My new knowledge changed the way I see what I saw; if I had known then what I know now, I might have viewed it all differently.

I went to bed last night very early, before eight. I was up and down (only briefly each time) many times during the night. I finally got up and made coffee around 5:30; spending so much time in bed may have helped my malady but it has left my muscles and bones achy and unhappy that they have not been exercised more often. I hope the aches dissipate with a little time and another cup or two of coffee.

Yesterday, when I got up just before 1:00 p.m. (after arising, then going back to bed for several hours), we went to the bank to have our ATM cards reactivated. It seems my wife’s card had been inactivated; we assumed it had to do with her attempted use of the card in Croatia. We assumed mine, too, had been inactivated, inasmuch as I tried to use it in Croatia to get money and had been rejected. As it turns out, my wife’s card had been inactivated because it had not been used for twelve consecutive months. Mine, we learned, was still active. But we also learned that our cards cannot be used outside the U.S. without specific instructions being given to the bank as to countries we visit and the dates. We thought we’d informed the bank about our trip to Croatia; apparently, we informed our credit card companies, but not our bank. So, our ATM card would not work. Fortunately for us, though, we had another bank’s ATM card with us during our travels; it worked just fine. Different banks have different policies, it seems. Best to check on all of them before embarking on such journeys as ours.

Tonight, our neighbors (with whom we traveled to the Balkans) will treat us to dinner at a very nice local restaurant, the Blue Springs Grill. We haven’t seen them since we got home almost a week ago, but my wife has spoken to the female component of the pair and I have exchanged a few emails. They seem to think they “owe” us because we had agreed that we would pay for the limo to the airport and they would pay for the return trip; because of the airline screw-ups, they got home a day before we did, so we had to pay for our trip back home. While I appreciate their generosity, I wish they would not feel compelled to “pay us back” for our expenses for something they had no part in causing. Anyway, tonight we’ll go to dinner with them. Assuming, of course, I feel at least as well as I do now. I hope whatever it is that ails me is on its downhill slide; this business of being achy, feverish, and deeply tired is of no value to me and I want it gone.

The few regular readers of this blog might note I’ve said nothing about the latest Trump scandal. Okay, I’ll say it now: though I want him gone, I think the impeachment efforts will not result in the desired outcome. In fact, I think they will strengthen his position with his deeply stupid and self-absorbed base. I read a message yesterday, on a community-based online service, that suggested a group of rabid Republican-types have baseball caps made that have “Make HSV Great Again” imprinted on them. These people walk the streets. They drive cars. They own guns. They are a danger to society and to themselves. Let’s just hope their actions place “themselves” in danger before they destroy the society in which they wallow.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, all mixed-breed dogs pose an existential threat to humanity. Let’s say they carry a virus, readily transmittable to humans, that humans cannot survive. The fastest way to address the problem is to kill all the dogs. So, the president orders all cities and towns in which mixed-breed dogs live to be carpet-bombed. The people who wear MAGA caps would support the president’s actions; they would label anyone who objects, anyone who argues for a more targeted approach, un-American. And therewith I end my current stream-of-consciousness exercise; my fingers are now much stronger and more flexible.

I need to create a title for this post. I think I’ll call it Confessions and Confetti. No particular reason; just want a label with which to identify this latest discharge of my mental messages.

I’m experiencing a struggle with the adjustment from travel to daily routine. We’ve been home since Sunday afternoon—approaching four days—and I still feel lethargic and distracted. I haven’t been able to focus on much of anything since returning home. Instead of scrutinizing what needs to be done, I’ve allowed myself to remain mostly befuddled and sluggish. It’s not that I’ve done nothing. I’ve done a lot, actually:

• scheduled the 60K maintenance for the Subaru;
• took Janine to Little Rock for a cardiologist visit;
• wrote scathing email to the Slovenian airline that screwed up our return flights and mislaid our luggage;
• switched a dental appointment from next week to this morning;
• picked up our held mail and restarted delivery;
• miscellaneous other things of equal disinterest.

But, really, my productivity slithers along the floor, barely overtopping bits of dust in its way. And I’ve been extremely tired since getting home, though my wife says I seemed extremely tired during most of our trip to the Balkans. And she’s probably right. I wonder what’s causing that? Maybe my persistent cough and my breathing issues contribute to my lack of energy. Well, I go in for my annual physical next Monday (with blood-work tomorrow), so perhaps I’ll find out that I need to eat more iron or steel or, perhaps, bronze. Yes, that’s it. I need to eat more bronze or brass. I’ll sneak out of the house at night in search of large brass or bronze statues and will consume them, leaving communities stunned to awaken the following day to find just remnants—with teeth marks. That’s not realistic, is it? Of course not. Why do I venture down such strange alleys? I don’t know. It’s just a psychosis, I guess.

It won’t be long before I write a long travelogue about our trip through the Balkans. Until then, I’ll attempt to overcome my lethargy. Good coffee might help. I had some coffee at a hotel in Dubrovnik that I thought was excellent—strong, full-bodied, flavorful—that a woman in our group found inadequate. She had moved to Maryland from Seattle and felt especially competent to judge coffee; the Croatian coffee was not “good” coffee, she said. I thought otherwise. Our difference of opinion was insufficient to start a global conflict, so we left it to fade away like most conflicts should.  But, wait, I’ve already started writing about my travel. I must stop. It’s not yet time. I must allow my experiences to deepen in my mind; but I mustn’t let them disappear into the fog of misty memories.

Somewhere, sometime, during the last few weeks, I decided I don’t really want a dog after all. I want a close neighbor who has a very nice dog, a dog that likes me and visits me often. Since I’m indulging my fantasy, I’d like the dog to be named Lorcan. Lorcan is a small but powerful dog with a growl that breeds fear and shivers. But he’s a sweet little guy around me. Lorcan’s sister, Sinead, spends time around me, too, but she is more reserved than Lorcan; I suppose I’d classify her as an introvert. Why the dogs were given Irish names I do not know. Though they’re both mutts, I doubt they have any Irish canine ancestry. I suppose my neighbor, Séamus O’Sullivan had his reasons for naming the beasts. Actually, I do not have a neighbor by the name of Séamus O’Sullivan but if I did I feel certain he would have two dogs as I’ve described. It’s just a sense, you know.

We finally got home from our European vacation late yesterday afternoon, a day later than originally planned and absent our luggage. We hope our luggage eventually finds its way home from Slovenia, by way of Amsterdam and either Atlanta or Houston (or some other detour). I’m not counting my chickens.

No thanks to the incompetence of Adria Airways, we were able to get flights home from Amsterdam and Atlanta, after Adria’s very late departure from Ljubljana made us miss our flight in Amsterdam. Upon arrival in Amsterdam, we discovered we had been mislead (a more appropriate term might be “lied to”) by Adria staff in Ljubljana; despite assurances, we had not been booked on KLM flights to Atlanta and Little Rock. Thanks in part (perhaps) to my explosive temper and definitely thanks to a very nice young woman from Swissport, we were booked home the following day and were given a voucher for a meal and a hotel room that night.

I have plenty of things to write about our travel; some positive, some not so glowing. All of those other comments will wait. For now, we have to get back into our routine which, today, involves driving to Little Rock for a doctor’s appointment for my wife; she has several more trips to the big city this week…aarrgghh.

Finally, a post, but it will make sense only to me. On one of the last days of our trip to the Adriatic region, I am taking a few minutes to jot some notes. One day, I will explain them.

Somun

Cevapi

kajmak. Ajar. Codymcclainbrown.com

trivrste. Hmelja. Buregdzinca

the cellist of Sarajevo

the beginner’s Sarajevo

hot hand trembles on her shoulder as he whispers, “It will all be all right.” He never saw her again.

“I didn’t cry for them to leave here. I will regret for the rest of my life not saying anything.”

bourek

No Man’s Land (film)

the bridge over river drina

mesa selimovich

“I didn’t give them my smile.”

vegeta spice

auntun Augustinetich

Last night, an unhinged neighbor wrote an irrational rant on the Nextdoor.com community site, complaining bitterly about Walmart’s decision to stop selling ammunition and claiming the move would cause her to never again shop in Waliberal (to use her term). She went on a long, irrational tirade that literally made no sense. I suspect she might have been drinking heavily when she wrote it, as it was, indeed, an illiterate screed.

I don’t know just what the company decided to stop selling; if I heard about it on the news, I listened only with half an ear and let it slip out the other half. But the rant sparked a response from me. I expressed my appreciation that a company is doing SOMETHING about gun violence while politicians are doing NOTHING, thanks to their servitude to the NRA.

This morning, I read more comments. Almost all of them were rants in support of my unhinged neighbor. Most of them expressed reverential support for the Second Amendment; their interpretation of the Second Amendment. And, it appears, most of them are extremely paranoid of the government’s intent to take their guns and turn citizens into slaves. Come to think of it, they may be right. With regard to the current government. But I digress.

Those comments prompt thoughts of moving away from this insane country. Of course, I may change my mind when traveling in the coming weeks. I may not. But I hope, during my absence, there are no more mass killings. I hope guns don’t capture the headlines while I’m away on vacation. And I hope to be able to have a respite from the news, from the madman in the White House, and from the bitter divide that is shaping my home country.

Wouldn’t it be glorious if the energy devoted to arguments about guns were directed, instead, toward solving the problems of low wages and poverty, health care, and war? Ach, but that would remove the irrational joy from the argument, wouldn’t it? I’m just tired of all the BS. I want to direct my attention to beauty and ingenuity and gratitude and things that improve the lot of humanity, in general. And so I shall. Off we go, on an adventure!

Imagine my surprise this morning when, at 6:45 a.m., I awoke from a sound sleep. The sun had long since risen. The room was awash in light. I had been in bed for roughly eight and a quarter hours! That’s stunning. I’m never in bed that long. My smart phone, which has a close relationship with my Sleep Number bed, tells me I had six hours, forty-one minutes of restful sleep, one hour-four minutes of restless sleep, and was out of bed for twenty minutes during the night. That’s a very strange night for me. I guess it was the twenty minutes of stark wakefulness that messed with my mind and let me stay in bed for such an incredible amount of time.

What I found strange when I awoke was that I engaged with the sun. That is, I found it rather nice to open my eyes and actually see the things around me. I didn’t have to feel my way around the bed when I got up; I could actually see the dresser and the door knob. I could see my flip-flops next to the bed when I swung my legs over the side when I got up. Don’t get me wrong; this cannot be a regular thing. It was an unusual experience, but not one I’d want to have on a regular basis. I like my darkness. I like knowing I will have ample solitary time to contemplate the world and to record my thoughts about it. This morning, instead, I feel rushed to document this aberration in my sleep pattern. And I feel rushed to begin the long, arduous process of packing for our trip. But I won’t rush. Not just yet. Instead, I’ll stare at the sunlight and marvel at its ability to give me sight.

Today is Labor Day, a day of tribute to workers that owes its creation to labor unions. I wonder whether the people who oppose labor unions and consider them anathema to the American spirit of bootstrap independence insist on working today? I wonder whether those same people find weekends off work, an eight-hour workday, paid vacations, and Social Security equally as offensive?

I doubt many of us spend much time contemplating the value of workers’ collectivism in years past. Workers rebelled against inhumane conditions and otherwise asserted their rights to decent treatment. We owe many of our workplace standards to labor unions. Labor unions changed over time and, in my opinion, they overstepped the bounds of reason from time to time. Those mistakes led to public reactions against them and, taking advantage of those public responses, employers taking advantage. It’s a cycle, I hope, that will eventually smooth into a straight line of respect and honor. In the meantime, I think it’s best to remember why Labor Day exists. Enough of that maudlin stuff; I have preparations to make for our adventure.

English is a crude, harsh, insensitive language. We ask ,”How old are you?” How crass is that? Let’s put some emphasis on certain words to show just how crude it is. “How old ARE you?” As in, “Are you older than dirt?” Or, “How old are YOU?” That suggests a challenge to the target’s legitimacy or competence.

The language would be gentler and more compassionate if our question were presented from a different perspective: “How young are you?” But that way of putting the question is biased in the other direction. It might be interpreted to mean, “How inexperienced are you?” So, is there no way of inquiring about a person’s age without seeming judgmental and cruel? Of course there is. We could ask, simply, “What is your age?”

In Spanish, though, the question is this: “Cuantos años tienes?” Translated into English, it asks, “How many years do you have?” But German has the same crassness that sullies the English language. Google translates the English “How old are you into the German “Wie alt bist?” But remove the “wie” from the sentence and the translation becomes, “Are you old?” The core question seems geared toward that judgmental query. “Are you old?” That’s the question underlying the curiosity, isn’t it? Yet, when we make an age-related inquiry of a person who obviously has collected considerable experience living, the question can be interpreted to mean, “How long until you die?”

Italian, like Spanish, is a gentler inquiry: “Quanti anni hai?” Again, the literal translation is “How many years do you have?” Bosnian presented the question as follows: “Koliko imaš godina?” The literal translation: “How many years do you have?” Some languages are more polite and less intrusive, even though they are getting at the same thing: “Are you old?”

What if we shift gears and ask “What is your IQ?” Implicit in the question is the underlying curiosity about the target person’s degree of simple-mindedness, isn’t it? We may attempt to imply admiration for the person’s intellect, but the question is really attempting to discern the extent to which we are correct in our estimation that her IQ hovers somewhere around the mid sixties.  Why does IQ matter, by the way? Well, it depends. IQ (AKA intelligence quotient) is said to measure the extent to which a person can acquire and apply knowledge. IQ doesn’t measure a person’s general knowledge of facts; instead, it measures intelligence functions like problem-solving skills, pattern recognition, mathematical logic, and identifying relationships between verbal concepts. IQ matters only to the extent that we need to be able to accurately estimate whether a person can acquire and apply knowledge in those areas. But we tend to treat it like it measures a person’s intrinsic worth. Sort of like we treat age. Young is good if we need strength and agility, whereas old is bad if those are our needs. Young is a bad predictor of capability if we need experience with cunning and treachery, whereas old is a good predictor of those capabilities. [I am smiling as I write this, so please do not have me arrested for age-related libel.]

People with high IQs can join an organization like American Mensa, Mensa International, and (for EXTREMELY intelligent people) the Prometheus Society. Membership labels their members as having above-average intelligence (far above average for the Prometheus Society). The organizations’ members are assumed to be extremely curious. Is there a like organization for those whose IQs are below-average? A fictional organization called Densa, intended to parody Mensa, was dreamed up sometime before the early 1980s. Reliable information about Densa is hard to find. I suspect membership in Densa would be based on achieving extremely low scores on a test that measures general knowledge. A sample question might be, “What is the opposite of up?” The multiple choice options for the answer to the question could be: a) pretty; b) seven; c) elastic; and d) down.

The humor in labeling people “dumb,” whether using a fictitious test or a comparison with people of superior intelligence, equates to the harshness of language. We might as well join the concepts of age and intellect together and ask, “Are you old and stupid?”

I have better ways of asking a person’s age. “How many times have you experienced New Year’s Day?” Or, “How many years ago did your mother give birth to you?” You might be able to get away with, “How old was your mother when you were born?” followed by “How old is she/would she be now?” Those will work only if the person to whom you are talking is not the sharpest knife in life’s drawer. I once asked a woman how old she was when her son was born, after hearing her say her son was eight years old. She caught on right away and embarrassed me by calling me on it.

It’s later than I thought it was. I got up after six, so I’m out of sync with the day. I have to stop attempting to write and be satisfied in the knowledge that I tried and failed.

Inner peace.

Where does one go to find it? I’m not someone with experience in the elusive object of our aspiration, but I’ve read quite a lot about it. After reading and thinking about how people embrace tranquility so fully it becomes part of them, I have some ideas.

First, a person must be open to serenity. Not necessarily engaged in an active search for it, mind you, but willing to allow it to slip into one’s consciousness. I suspect the energy spent in an active search for inner peace would generate so much mental “heat” that tranquility would burn to ashes during the hunt. So, one must be willing to gently embrace a state of mental calm if and when it comes.

Next, one must be willing to abandon thoughts and activities that intrude on quietude. I do not know what thoughts and activities interfere with calmness; perhaps all thoughts have the capacity to derail our efforts to achieve inner peace. Maybe that’s why meditation seems to be an almost requisite endeavor for people seeking serenity. Meditation can, I am told, empty one’s mind of thoughts, replacing them with images or sounds that act almost like anesthetics; but they don’t dull the senses.

Another aspect of finding serenity, I’ve read, is accepting oneself without judgement. The idea is that we are not who we were, but who we are at this moment, having shed all the blemishes of history. Depending on who is writing about this element of finding inner peace, it requires either forgiveness of oneself or abandonment of the person we once were in favor of the person we wish to be. For me, that seems to be the most overwhelming stumbling block. I find it virtually impossible to forgive who I was and who I am. I would have to abandon my old self; that would require amnesia, because otherwise the memories would haunt me. I remember, when I was in junior high school, bullying a younger kid. I don’t even recall his name; that failure of memory means I can’t even find him to apologize. That flaw is by no means my only one and not my worst one. But, collectively, they paint a picture of someone I’d rather not be. But, still, maybe abandonment really is an option. Maybe.

Finally (maybe), finding inner peace necessarily involves engaging with others in ways that don’t interfere with their path in the march toward finding it. I think that must require active efforts to avoid reacting to one’s environment and, instead, responding to it. The difference between reacting and responding is a bit hard to explain, but I think it’s essential. Reacting is automatic and unthinking; it allows one’s reptilian brain to control our actions. Responding is analytical and measured; it requires us to process inputs and allows us to behave in ways that enhance communication. This non-intrusive engagement requires both empathy and compassion, two internal traits that I think most (but not all) people have but that can be trained (or beat) out of them.

So, where does one go to find inner peace? It’s in one’s head. It’s there, but it must be taken out of it cage, groomed, fed appropriately, and allowed to grow. I make it sound easy; it’s not. The cage is surrounded by by a thick webs of steel chains padlocked to one another and to the cage. Depending on how much rust must be removed from the locks, they may be very difficult to unlock. The chains are heavy and cumbersome. The hinges of the door to the cage are old and corroded; the door must be forced. But, wait, didn’t I say “I suspect the energy spent in an active search for inner peace would generate so much mental “heat” that tranquility would burn to ashes during the hunt.”? Yes, indeed. I said that. And that means one must first attempt to unlock the cage, doing everything in one’s power to remove the chains and the locks. Only then, when the one’s energy is spent and the cage is open, can one be open to allowing serenity to slip in.

I am like the consultant who offers expert advice on matters with which he has no experience. The advice may be good, but the consultant cannot point to examples in his own experience to prove it. And so it is with me and inner peace. I wish us all luck in finding it.