John Swinburn

If my computer is telling me the truth, and I have no reason to believe it is lying to me, the outdoor temperature is 41 degrees. That’s brisk. I know that’s brisk because I went outdoors a few minutes ago. The purpose of my outdoor adventure was to retrieve three hummingbird feeders from the “sky room” off the master bedroom and hang the feeders outside. I take the feeders in each evening because raccoons will find them if I don’t. If the raccoons find the feeders, the beasts will spill sugar-water all over the deck in their efforts to drink the sugary juice contained in the feeders. Fortunately, there’s an entrance to the “sky room” from the deck as well as from the master bedroom. So I don’t have to carry hummingbird feeders through the bedroom. That’s a long way of explaining how I know it’s chilly outside, isn’t it? Yes, it is. That’s one my flaws; maximizing word counts to explain things that could have been explained with far fewer syllables and the words those syllables comprise.

My faults are on my mind because I watched a short video on Facebook a while ago. In the video, a guy recited a sing-song poem about how advertisers and the world at large try to convince us that we, as individuals, are not enough. We need products to make us attractive and/or lovable. We need to change the way we look or the way we project ourselves to the world if we expect to be accepted and embraced. The video’s intent was to convince the viewer that we, as individuals, are enough. We ought to love ourselves the way we are, absent products or perceptions designed to enhance us in the eyes of others. I’ve heard that message before. Many times. It resonates with me. But it’s a message that, for one reason or another, doesn’t work to change my self-perception.

I look in the mirror and see a thousand faults that I must correct if I can ever expect to be lovable. Let me be clear here. I’m referring both to a literal look into the mirror and a figurative look in the mirror. That is, flaws litter both the surface and what’s underneath. So many, in fact, that I wonder whether anything would be left if all the flaws were removed. Perhaps only a shadow would remain. Perhaps I would be visible only if a veil were draped over the remnants of a hollow form. An empty vessel.

That’s an interesting, if depressing, concept. The idea, I mean, that we are nothing more than a collection of our flaws. Without them, we are hollow; ready to be filled with and shaped by strengths to replace the faults. But strengths tend to grow into gnarled flaws. The attributes of strength morph into disfigurements, like muscles exercised too much.

All right. I’ve let this post simmer for the better part of three hours. Actually, I walked away from the computer and forgot that I hadn’t hit “post.” Only just now did I realize my blog was awaiting my care. In the interest of ensuring my little piece of internet real estate feels noticed, I’ll post this now. Yes, I will.

I’ve been invited to return as a feature poet to Wednesday Night Poetry, the event in downtown Hot Springs that began on February 1, 1989 and will mark on Wednesday this week 1575 consecutive Wednesdays with never a miss. My feature will be toward the end of October, giving me time to return to writing and reading poetry before my set.

It’s odd, or maybe not, that I tend not to share my poetry as fully or as frequently as I share my fiction and my nonfiction prose and my personal rants. Perhaps it’s because I think people tend to judge poetry and the people who write poetry (who may not call themselves poets), assuming the writers ascribe lofty qualities to themselves. I don’t know why that is, but it’s a sense I feel very keenly. One can call oneself a writer with impunity; calling oneself a poet invites implicit contempt and disdain, as if the poet uses the term to distance himself from the riff-raff beneath him. My perception may be utterly erroneous; but I feel it, not only when I am the “poet” but when I witness others’ judgment of those who write poetry.

Poetry once required conscious efforts to understand meter and rhyme and rhythm. Those requirements, coupled with the sometimes complex (convoluted, perhaps?) messages conveyed in poetry, made the form inaccessible to many. Maybe it was that inaccessibility, and the complexity that tested the intellect, that caused some people to consider poets and poetry haughty and imperious. Poetry today, though, tends not to be confined by incomprehensible rules; it more purely captures emotions and perceptions through unconstrained language. At least that’s the way I see it.  At the moment, anyway.

Reading one’s poetry to an audience is embarrassing in the sense that the act exposes emotions that one tends to hide behind a hard-surface façade. It doesn’t take bravery; it takes a willingness to be subject to unspoken ridicule. But the audience for Wednesday Night Poetry is gracious and welcoming, commending even bad poetry and encouraging the timid with raucous applause. That generosity of spirit contributes to the comfort and relative safety of the weekly event.

Since my last (my second) appearance as a feature poet, I’ve written quite a bit of poetry. But I’ve written very little during the past several months. Much to my surprise, though, I’ve posted six or seven short and obtuse poems on my blog during the past six months. I guess I’ve been more prolific than I thought. As I searched through poems I’ve written within the last two or three years, I was surprised at the volume of material. I was surprised, too, that many of the poems I wrote still tug sharply at my emotions. My poetry, it seems, captures more of my emotional life than my prose. Maybe that’s why I tend not to share it as freely as prose. But maybe the exposed nerves in poetry are what make it powerful.

I have to be in the “right” mood to write poetry in which I find any value, personally. I can write poetry any time, but it tends to be hollow and seems artificial if I’m not in a mood suited for it. During the past several months, in spite of having written more poems than I remembered writing, I think I tended to steer clear of poetry because my poems would have exposed fears and sadness that simply mirrored my reactions to having cancer. No one wants to read self-absorbed litanies of pity; not even me.

I’m looking forward to the end of October, despite trepidation and worries that I might be the exception to the rule of audience generosity and grace. I better get back in the “right” mood and produce more poetry.

It’s impossible to say with certainty whether my treatment for lung cancer is responsible, but I’m inclined to lay the blame squarely thereon. Had I not been subjected to 60 sessions during which radiation was directed at the remnants of my right lung, the X-ray beams would not have burned my esophagus. And if my esophagus hadn’t been scorched, it wouldn’t have caused pain while swallowing. Whether the subsequent pain, which seems to have evolved into a searching ember just below the base of my sternum, evolved from the searing esophageal pain is unclear. But I lay blame entirely on the events preceding the sense of a molten ember inside my torso. I suppose I could have an ulcer. I hope to learn the source of the pain on April 12, when I undergo an endoscopy. More importantly, I hope to learn that a fast-acting treatment to completely resolve the problem is readily available.

Fortunately, the pain I feel now whenever I eat is not excruciating. At least not all the time. But I’ve discovered that I can no longer indulge my passion for spicy foods. I can’t even eat jalapeños, for God’s sake! Much less habanero peppers or the joyous juices extracted therefrom. Chile powder hurts. Damn near everything hurts. Even the sesame seeds that encrusted the ahi tuna I had for lunch bothered my gut. I am not happy about this. I suppose it’s better than a piece of shrapnel ripping through my chest, but I can’t confirm that, either; I’ve never had a piece of shrapnel in my chest, if you don’t count the multiple incidents in which surgeons sliced and diced me with sharp scalpels. Fortunately, I was asleep during their explorations of the inner me.

I’m in a strange mood. Obviously, I’m drenched in dark humor, but not the kind of dark humor I enjoy. Instead, it’s the kind I’d rather avoid. But I’ve been unable to avoid it thus far. In addition to that, I’m feeling a bit depressed that I’m apparently not really close to having the entire cancer treatment regiment behind me. Well, maybe the treatment is done, but the aftermath to treatment seems to have just begun. At least I’m able to get out and about more frequently of late, in spite of the fatigue and lack of stamina. Just last night, we went to the latest World of Wine events, this time focused on Spanish wine and food. The wines were decent. The food was decent. The people at our table were enjoyable. But I wasn’t quite in the mood, I suppose.

This morning, we sent into Hot Springs to check into buying new frames for my eyeglasses (as well as new lenses). I was disappointed to find that very few options are available to me in the style I desire: metal frames designed to accommodate magnetic sunglass attachments. I’ve had such frames for years. Apparently they are going out of style, replaced I guess either by prescription sunglasses or the miserable clip-on style that I find ugly and offensive and hard to use. I’ve been exploring online options, but I’m a little concerned about ordering online, though I know I can return them, but at a substantial cost (due to my prescription). I don’t know. It’s too hard to decide. Maybe I’ll wait until my 85th birthday. That way I’ll never have to buy any.

According to Merriam-Webster, the primary definition of “outsider” is: “a person who does not belong to or is not accepted as part of a particular group or organization.” Another definition suggests an outsider is “a stranger—someone who doesn’t fit in.”  Neither definition addresses perspective. That is, by whose assessment is a person not accepted by a particular group? Who says someone doesn’t fit in? The matter of perspective may seem irrelevant but the perspective of one making the judgment of whether a person is an outsider is, perhaps, the most relevant of all. It doesn’t matter whether the people in Stanley’s sphere do not consciously consider him an outsider. What matters is whether Stanley perceives that he is not accepted or doesn’t fit in. And his perception relies, in part, on whether he perceives others’ “acceptance” to be a genuine invitation to be part of a group or, instead, as little more than mere tolerance. The difference, in his eyes, is akin to the way a child might either be actively sought as a member of a team in a children’s game or, when the “pickings are slim,” chosen as the least offensive available option.

The question of whether a person is, indeed, an outsider, can be answered only by examining both the individual’s perspective and the motives behind the behaviors of the group of which he either is, or is not, an accepted part. In most cases, though, neither matter is readily examined, so the answer is hard to find. Ultimately, the answer must come from the individual; if he feels like an outsider, he is one. That is true even if his perceptions of the group’s motives for behavior he misinterprets as exclusionary are misguided or categorically wrong.

Yesterday’s visit to the radiation oncologist was a bit of a surprise, inasmuch as the doctor I saw was a woman (whose name escapes me) with whom I was unfamiliar. The “regular” doctor was on vacation. I actually prefer the demeanor of the doctor I saw yesterday to the guy I normally see, though my regular doctor is not annoying in the least. But yesterday’s doctor seemed friendlier. I liked her. She suggested my trouble swallowing could be related to candida, a yeast infection that develops in the esophagus when the body’s immune system is weak. The endoscopy recommended by my primary care doctor, she said, would help determine the cause of my pain. She said candida can be easily treated. And she gave me assurances (though no guarantees) that my pain will eventually disappear and all will be well with the world again. Eventually.

Despite the doctor’s assurances, I am not in a particularly happy place, physically. The pains in my neck and shoulder, diagnosed as symptoms associated with bone spurs and shrinking nerve channels in my spine, have returned with a vengeance. I thought those pains were history. I’ve been taking massive doses of gabapentin for “nerve pain” for some time now and I thought/hoped the symptoms were long gone. And they were. But they are back. My neck hurts like hell. I have a hard time lifting my head to look upward. Pain. Pain. Damn pain. Just yesterday, I fantasized about returning to my deck, pain scraper and sandpaper in hand. But unless my neck and shoulder cooperate, that won’t happen. One’s body can retaliate against one’s youthful disregard; it can happen years after the misuse and abuse.

I intended to ask my primary care doctor, during my Monday morning visit, about the odd twisting/strangulation pain in my chest and gut. But I forgot. So, I suppose I won’t find out for quite some time whether it’s something treatable. I suspect it’s a hernia of some sort, perhaps a hiatal hernia. The pain associated with whatever it is can be excruciating, but it disappears as soon as I feel my guts slip back into place. At least that’s what I think I feel. I really should make a list of questions to ask the doctor when I go for a visit. Should. Maybe one day will.

***

In a short while, I will drive to Little Rock to have the Subaru coddled. Oil and filter change, tire rotation, and repair or replacement of the rear wiper blade or assembly. If I owned a car lift, the right tools, and had all the requisite skills, I might do these things myself. But my disinterest would factor in, even if I were the proprietor of a mechanic’s garage, so I don’t feel so bad about driving to the Subaru dealership to have the work done. Mi esposa desired to make the trip, too, as she planned to run errands in Little Rock. However, she awoke briefly a while ago to let me know she was dealing with a sinus headache and would rather not go. So, I will go alone. I realized not long ago that I received no confirmation of my appointment. Perhaps I’d better call the dealership to make sure I’m on the calendar before I drive to Little Rock. Hmm. They don’t open for a while yet. Hmm, indeed.

I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the better part of half an hour, thinking about what to write this morning. Five days have passed since my last post, which suggests I’m running low on mental energy. I enjoy writing, but when I find I have nothing to say, I feel my mind wearing thin, like a delicate rag used too frequently to polish rough stones. That’s it. My mind is a delicate rag, a scrap of threadbare cloth so worn it can’t absorb even a drop of intellectual nourishment, must less share sustenance with the world.

My fingers, idle but ready for action, were until moments ago motionless in a way that suggested they may have been paralyzed. Yet here they are, finally, producing letters and syllables and words and sentences and paragraphs. Any other fingers could produce what mine create. These fingers attached to my hands have no unique ability to create especially pleasing or informative or compelling language. But they behave like faucets, words flooding from them when I muster the wherewithal to turn the valve harnessing the flow of ideas. Yet releasing ideas is insufficient to ensure wisdom.

Wisdom arises from sagacity and insightfulness, two states of intellectual acumen not necessarily assured by voluminous eruptions of incoherent ideas and incomprehensible syllables. I might as well be writing in Sanskrit for all the practical value my words have thus far exhibited. I want to express compelling ideas and provocative thoughts, but to do so requires, first, having them. At this moment, I don’t have them. Instead, my mind is drenched in recollections of visits with doctors, the muddy conversations therefrom  not in the least satisfying. My brain continues to wallow in chemotherapy-based mire, ideas unable to emerge from sticky muck that prevents coherent thought from escaping.

Do we try too hard to prolong our existence? Do we worship scalpels and chemicals in the hope they will transform aggressive decay into tolerable stasis? The medical establishment, or at least parts of it, encourage efforts to overcome the body’s tendency to yield to forces that would have us succumb to the natural order. We’re bombarded with televised instructions to inquire of our doctors whether Drug X might be appropriate to battle against our unique form of bodily deterioration. As if our doctors haven’t already been subjected to massive doses of pharmaceutical bribery. Despite the inarguable good done by the pharmaceutical industry, I’m absolutely certain the industry has been infected with terminal greed. Many, if not most, in its sales force and those occupying its executive suites are not satisfied to be in the top 1% of the population in terms of income and wealth. They want more, more, more, more, so they can occupy the stratospheric top 0.11111111% level. They want to have enough money and other forms of wealth so they can, if they wish, purchase entire hemispheres on Earth, along with other planets and entire galaxies. I don’t  know this, of course. But my suspicions are high. My hackles are raised.

I asked my doctor yesterday if an explosive temper can, indeed, suggest its owner may suffer from depression. He suggested it’s possible. He offered drugs. I opted not to take him up on them, at least not for now. Maybe the natural progression of an explosive temper and an unhappy mood is not correction in the form of pills but, instead, withering and disappearance. Not that I’m all that excited about withering. But there are days when disappearance has its appeal. Especially on days when the prospects of a long-term Trump presidency seem to have grown.

Though I don’t challenge Mueller’s conclusions, I wish they had been different. I wish he would have determined that the dangers posed by the temperamental child in the White House were sufficient to warrant arrest, imprisonment, and repeated beatings with heavy steel chains. I suppose the conclusions reached do not necessarily suggest otherwise.

My fingers are going places my brain shouldn’t go. I should sit at my desk, wincing at every sharp stab of pain in my chest and gut, and attempt to overcome my mental and physical pain with an approach that might be used by a Zen master. Yes, that’s it. That’s the approach I ought to take. But I’m afraid I won’t.

I spent some time in Lowe’s yesterday afternoon. My primary purpose in going was to buy some hummingbird feeder hangers laced with permethrin; ants seem to adore the sugar-water mixture I prepare for the tiny flying dinosaurs and the little hangers seem to keep the insects at bay.

The other purpose was to investigate screen and spline. The screen on our back porch is laden with pollen that, despite power-washing and soap, I cannot get off. In addition, the fiberglass screen has been stretched beyond recovery. So, I need to replace the screen and spline. But as I looked at the options on aisle 18 in Lowe’s, I noticed pieces of metal and plastic that seem intended to replace parts on screens and post columns. None of them would be useful to me, but seeing them made me think: should I clean and paint the columns and cross-pieces on the porch? The white paint on the aluminum porch superstructure is chalky and badly marred. It needs something. Cleaning and paint, I say. And so I explored my options.

First, I need to clean the superstructure. Really clean it. As in, get all the chalk off the aluminum. Then, I need to sand the cleaned superstructure, clean it again, and then apply a self-etching primer, followed by at least one coat of paint. I’m thinking a nice light charcoal paint would improve the appearance dramatically and would coordinate well with the dark charcoal screen I intend to buy. My guess is that I would need to spend about $200 on paint and supplies just to get the superstructure in good shape. Then, I’ll need to spend another $200 (maximum) on screen and spline and related tools and supplies. So, for about $400 I should be able to make the porch look decent again. But then there’s the labor. My labor. A lot of it. In an ideal world, I’d be able to call a friend or two or three to help me out, in return for my eternal appreciation and plenty of beer or Maker’s Mark or some such liquid bribery. But I don’t have such friends to call, so it will be me. I’m sure I can do it, but probably not until I recover from my chemo, etc. So, it will be at least a month or two, maybe three.

And then there’s the deck that still desperately needs sanding and painting. Before the screened porch is addressed. Damn! I have too much to do and too little energy and health to do it. Paying someone to do all of what I want/need to have done is out of the question. First, I don’t know any handy people in whom I would feel comfortable putting my trust. Second, if I could find someone I could trust, the cost would be prohibitive. Ach! I guess I’ll just go slow. Get it done as my health and stamina permit.

And there’s the other stuff I need to do/have done around the house. I guess I’ll just have to engage a handy person and put the rest of the stuff off until I’m able. I’m coming around to the conclusion that this house is just too damn big for the two of us. My wife is not a handy person in the sense that she could help me do such stuff; plus, her health suggests she ought not to try. We just need a smaller place. But I don’t know whether to suggest that to her at this stage. Maybe later.

I received some difficult and painful news yesterday morning. A woman who worked for me years ago, and became a good friend in the process, died yesterday. Joyce and I stayed in touch over the years, occasionally getting together for lunch and keeping in contact via email and my blog and Facebook. She had been getting progressively frail as she aged, battling brittle bones and dealing with pain that I’m sure must have been excruciating. But she toughed it out. I learned yesterday that a bout of pneumonia put her in the hospital; she simply wasn’t able to recover from it. Her last days were spent in hospice, where she was finally pain-free until the end.

As I think of her, two things stand out in my mind. First, she had an acerbic wit matched to an acute and sometimes caustic sense of humor. Second, in contrast to those sharp-edged characteristics, she was kind and gentle and had a good, good heart. She hid (but not terribly well) the kindness of a “softie” beneath a sometimes rough demeanor.  This evening, as I reflect on how our friendship grew over the years, something I’d never really considered popped into my mind. She demonstrated, perfectly, how a person can be impatient and demanding while simultaneously imperturbable and exceedingly tolerant. She knew how to balance those traits in a way that manifested strength, on the one hand, and compassion, on the other.

I remember the day, in February 1997, that I witnessed her grace and compassion and humanity in full flower. She and a few other members of my staff attended a board of directors meeting at which I outlined to the board my plans for guiding the association (for which we all worked) into the future. After my presentation, the board went into executive session for what seemed like a long, long time. During our wait, Joyce commented that she thought my presentation was strong. She said she expected the board would accept my plan because it was clear and responsive to the business climate in which the association found itself, despite the fact that she didn’t think many of the board members were sufficiently intelligent enough to know it. She didn’t hide her disdain for certain members of the board who, in her view (and mine), were grandstanding when they challenged my plans. But when I was finally called back in to the board room after most of the members of the board had left, the remaining members of the executive committee told me the board had reached a decision not to renew my employment contract. I was surprised and crushed. When I left the meeting, I informed Joyce and the other staff members. She was especially surprised, I think. She was supportive. They all suggested we get away from the Long Beach hotel for a private dinner that evening, but I was not in the mood for company, so they went out later on their own.

The next morning, Joyce gave me a jar of habanero salsa she bought for me the night before. It was a simple thing, but it was her way of saying, “This is the sort of stuff that excites you, not the political bullshit of association boards, so don’t let this surprise setback get you down.” She knew my passion for fiery foods. She knew I was far more interested in culinary adventures than in board politics. Her little gift was meant to encourage me to focus on the things that really matter, not on the things that keep you from them.

Even now, I know that a little gift of habanero salsa might seem an odd way to help me get centered, but it did exactly that. And she knew it would. We spoke later about how that gift meant so much to me then and continued to mean a great deal from then on.  Later, her stubborn insistence on speaking her mind, consequences be damned, got her fired from the job for which I hired her. But she bounced back, as she always did. I will miss our occasional exchanges. She was hard-nosed and gentle, a beautiful friend I will always miss.

I’ve still not gotten my bearings with respect to when, after my chemo treatments, I will crash. Perhaps every post-treatment regimen follows the same pattern, but my chemo-brain can’t seem to discern and remember the pattern. This time, it seems that I was pretty beat on Wednesday after the Monday treatment. Or was it Thursday? Or Friday? Or all the above. Yesterday, Friday, I felt pretty decent for at least part of the day. I got out and about a little. A trip to the grocery store and the post office and Walgreen’s (the latter to get a passport photo made). But was that an “up” day after a “down” day? I don’t know. I just don’t remember. Today, though, I started the day decidedly “down.” And I ended yesterday the same way. By 9:00 p.m., I was absolutely wiped out; I went to be and went to sleep quickly, awakening only around midnight and 4:00 a.m. to pee. Then, I was awake around 7:00 a.m., but only enough to crawl out of bed and into my recliner, where I stayed in a state of semi-consciousness until 10:00 a.m. I’m awake and up now, but not entirely alert and conscious. If I continue to feel halfway decent, we’ll go to our church’s St. Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage, starting around 5:00 p.m. If I’m still feeling worn to a frazzle, my wife will go with her sister, instead. And I will vegetate. We’ll see. We still have five hours left before I have to decide whether I can remain upright and alert during dinner.

Once again, my oncologist apparently failed to post the results of my most recent blood work on her company’s health portal. So, I have no idea what the blood work from a week ago last Thursday revealed. I wonder whether the doctor looked at it. Oddly, when I had my chemo treatment on Monday, the nurses didn’t take blood. Normally (the three times before), the did. Oh, well. I’m just placing my life in her hands and I’m sure she would not neglect to do her work. Hmm.

“My life in her hands” seems so utterly meaningless this morning, as I think of yesterday’s monstrous mass killings in Christchurch, New Zealand. The idea that a madman, a racist xenophobe, could decide he had the right to take the lives of dozens of people he didn’t even know, simply because of their religion or their culture or his perception that they were “taking over” his culture is nothing short of mind-numbing. I have no trouble this morning thinking people like him should be sought out, put in chains, and beat until their brains spill onto the ground next to their lifeless bodies. That’s not the solution, obviously, but it might quell the likelihood of such attacks. If “decent” society were to simply rebel against this madness with an equal or greater degree of madness, it might put a stop to such killings. If nothing else, it might satisfy the thirst for revenge I know I should not feel but, nonetheless, do. I cannot even imagine the horrible agony going through the minds of the families and friends of the people who were killed and injured in yesterday’s attacks. Ach! I have no sympathy, no empathy, no compassion for the guy responsible for the attacks. I don’t care how he felt, I don’t care whether he felt his precious white culture was under attack. He deserves to be stabbed repeatedly with a pitch fork, the person doing the stabbing taking great care only to injure him badly, not to kill him. Rage bubbles up like a fountain.

As I read a friend’s blog yesterday afternoon, his words triggered in my mind an epiphany of sorts. Though he wrote about feeling stressed at the unusual degree of obligations he is under at the moment, his words made me realize that my experience of late is at the opposite end of the spectrum of responsibility. I have very little on my plate at the moment and, for that matter, haven’t been overburdened in any way for quite some time. Oh, I’ve had to go to doctor appointments and meetings involving commitments for which I’ve volunteered, but none of these things really demand my time. I can skip doctor appointments. I can opt not to attend meetings, an option I have lately exercised on more than one occasion. I don’t have to do much of anything. I’m free to sit on my hands if I wish and I won’t be punished for it. In fact, generally speaking, I won’t even be missed.

Here’s where my friend’s blog post really triggered my thoughts. He mentioned yesterday’s Facebook outage. He suggested, according to my reading, that people realized that the lack of Facebook did not coincide with the end of the world. They noticed, but they didn’t panic. For some, the absence of Facebook was a welcome relief.  People noticed it wasn’t available and then went about their lives, engaging in something else that captured their attention, probably in something more interesting and more productive.  It occurred to me that it’s the same with me. Except my absence isn’t as noticeable as the absence of Facebook. In fact, my absence is probably not noticed at all, except by a tiny number of people. Even for them, my absence isn’t likely to be as disruptive to their routines as would be the absence of Facebook. That is, my presence in their lives takes up less time and attention than the presence of Facebook. Or whatever. It could be Twitter. Or CNN. Or, as much as it pains me to think it, Fox News. The absences of other distractions would be far more noticeable than my absence.

Part of the reason other distractions would be (and are) more noticeable, of course, is that I tend to stay out of the way. I behave like a hermit. I stay at home and don’t reach out to people except through my writing. And my writing isn’t sufficiently engaging to merit much attention because, let’s face it, my writing is for the most part the epitome of self-absorption.  The thing is, frequently I feel like interacting with other people, but I’ve not developed a relationship with them that is conducive to reaching out to them. It would be awkward, for example, to call one of several people with whom I might want to chat and suggest we get together for coffee or lunch or whatever. Such an overture would be met, I think, with suspicion or some other emotion that’s not conducive to conversation. I can imagine what might go through their minds if I were to approach them about meeting for coffee: “What the hell is this about?” “Hmm, I wonder what’s wrong?” “Is he experiencing an emotional emergency of some kind and is reaching out to me for help?” Something like that.

Oddly, though, I don’t respond that way on those rare occasions when someone reaches out to me. Just yesterday, I got a text message from a woman who asked if I might want to get together for coffee. It was not the first time she has suggested we get together and, in fact, we used to meet fairly often just to chat about writing. We got together a week or so ago, in fact. I had the sense that she contacted me just to see how I was doing with my cancer treatments. Yesterday morning, I suggested we try another time. I didn’t sleep well the night before and spent most of the morning, almost comatose, in my recliner. My last chemo treatment was four days ago, so fatigue began kicking in yesterday morning. I did not feel sufficiently strong to get dressed, much less go out and chat. I did suggest another time, though. My suggestion conflicted with a dental appointment on her schedule. We left it that we would get together sometime “in the future.” I’ve gotten slightly off track, though. My conversations with her are not the kind of conversations I  would seek with people who might consider my overture a suspicious endeavor. I suppose the conversations that don’t take place would be more about learning who the people are, what they think, and exploring whether our thought processes might run in sufficient parallel that we could become friends or closer acquaintances or whatever else might fit the communication. Who knows? I don’t.

I’m 65 years old and still don’t know how to initiate or sustain conversations that could lead to friendship. That’s odd. And it suggests that there comes a time when it is, indeed, impossible to teach an old dog new tricks. At any rate, reading about the Facebook outage and the way people readily dealt with it led me to think about my own value in the eyes of people with whom I have little contact. I’d not be missed, at least not by many and not by much. Facebook is, indeed, a more important fixture in their lives than I am. And that’s because I haven’t tried, or don’t know how, to become more valuable. Hmm. Hmm.

I wonder whether my chemo-brain is responsible for any of this long, convoluted thought process? I wonder whether, two weeks hence, I will read this post and wonder what the hell was wrong with me when I wrote it? That’s true of many things I write. It could be true of this. Or maybe not. Time will tell.

Most of the multiple posts I’ve written over the past several days will remain drafts for the foreseeable future. None of them have so far captured what’s been on my mind, at least not in a way that I’m willing to share with that tiny sliver of the world that might happen by my blog. I suppose part of the problem is that I don’t quite know what’s been on my mind. I know only that it combines darkness with fear. Perhaps I’m uneasy about the status of my health; whether cancer and/or its subsequent treatment are the only things causing my pains. I’ve been uneasy about that for months. I questioned my surgeon, during my post-surgery follow-up, about feeling bloated on my right side. He dismissed it as nothing of concern. Three-plus months later, though, it’s still a concern, meritorious of concern or not. And my esophagitis, still problematic more than three weeks after my last radiation treatment, makes swallowing hard. Maybe it’s all hypochondria. I’d rather think my mental state is out of kilter than to think my physical condition is precarious.

But none of that stuff explains the other stuff. The stuff surrounding a vague sense that I’m ready to abandon this place I live and try someplace new. It’s not so vague, actually. It’s becoming more acute with each passing day. But I’ve had those acute sensations before, thoughts about wanting to leave and try on a new life. They pass. But not always. And not completely. Maybe those lingering wishes to “move on” explain why, even after affirmatively abandoning the idea of living out of an RV, I’m still envious of people who have the option of waking up one day and simply leaving.

What keeps us tied to a place? For me, it’s the financial shackles: home ownership, vehicle registrations, etc. All the legal entanglements that trap us into setting up webs that make it hard to escape. We do it to ourselves. We set down roots that are hard to cut. On the one hand, that may make us feel like we’ve found “home.” On the other, the roots are like manacles, tying us to a prison of of our own making. It’s self-incarceration.

These thoughts flood my mind the day after I finally unwrapped and hung on our mug rack, newly-affixed to the wall, a bunch of mugs we’ve been carting around with us during our moves since 1997. Maybe that act triggered the most recent sense of being chained to a place to which I do not want to be chained. It’s not just this place. It’s any place. I don’t want to feel trapped in a place. Even this place, where I’ve come closer than other places, to establishing friendships. Coming closer, though, is not the same as actually reaching that point. I don’t think my personality can take me to that point. It’s either my personality or the personalities of dozens of other people. The mug rack, though, is now a commitment. Putting it up requires me to acknowledge greater permanence than I want to have to acknowledge.

I’m in the mood this morning to feel the sense of isolation I think I’d feel if I were to wake up in a tiny adobe shelter in the hinterlands of New Mexico. I wonder why that distance from other human beings is so appealing sometimes? I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know about my self and my moods. I know, this morning, that I prefer solitude to engagement.

Somehow, I remained blissfully unaware that misogyny and blatant discrimination against women were routinely and officially practiced long after I assumed “things were changing quickly.” The year I graduated from high school, 1972, was the first year women were permitted, legitimately, to run in the Boston Marathon. It was only five years earlier that Kathy Switzer ran, incognito and against the rules, and finished. Learning that stunned me. I know that women, even today, have to fight hard just to be treated with some semblance of equality. But I did not know that blatant sexual discrimination was practiced while I was still in high school. I did not see it. I am sure it was all around me, but I didn’t see it. Why would I? I wasn’t the object of discrimination.  So it must have been easy to dismiss it or to assume it did not exist. For as long as I can remember, I have believed women are equal to men and deserve the same treatment, the same opportunities, and the same respect as men. I knew my beliefs weren’t necessarily completely mainstream, but neither did I realize how fragile women’s “rights” were and, today, remain.

I thought we lived in a civilized society. I should have known better. All I need to do is to look at the White House and know better.