I have long been enamored of many of the quotes attributed to Kahlil Gibran. It’s a bit of an embarrassment that I personally have read little of his writings; only quotes attributed to him. That oversight or laziness or inadequacy or whatever it is should be corrected. I shall make that a point sometime in the coming months. In the interim, I will continue to ponder the words contained in his quotes. Those words seem to me so imbued with wisdom that I think the man must have devoted every waking moment to deep and productive thought. I’ve dabbled in The Prophet, but I don’t think I’ve ever read it all the way through. That should have been an easy read, though, because the book is so short. So maybe I have read it. But I tend to forget books (and movies) within hours after I finish them. That’s a bit odd. It corresponds to my experience of childhood, though. I remember only paragraphs and an occasional page from my youth; never a full chapter. What is it, I wonder, that causes me to quickly erase even the most valuable or most moving experiences from my memory? I suppose I’ll never answer that question, no matter how many times I ask it.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
~ Kahlil Gibran ~
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Another night of sleeping in front of the television, going to bed early, and then struggling to get to sleep and stay asleep. But at least I slept more than the night before. A marked improvement, in my book. I woke just before 5 this morning. Almost like “sleeping in.” My arthritis is in full bloom, though. Wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, ankles, hips, etc. But those pains and others notwithstanding, yesterday’s trek to my doctor for my annual “Medicare visit” was generally uneventful and lacking in unwelcome surprise. As expected, he advised me to exercise and lose weight. And he told me about his childhood, riding go-carts and bicycles to the post office and avoiding confrontations with law enforcement…because there was no law enforcement to speak of in the tiny town of 450. He told me he has sworn off visits to San Francisco and New York because of those cities’ high levels of crime. Nice enough guy—an inveterate talker—but I suspect our politics do not mesh well. He spent well over an hour with me, though, so either he’s thorough in his investigation of his patients’ medical and mental circumstances or he’s remarkably slow.
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Yesterday, during one of two trips to examine the new house, I repaired a nearby street sign. Ever since we first drove over to look at the house, we’ve noticed the sign at the intersection of Alvero Way and Viscara Way dangling from its post. Though the repair is temporary (the post is in need of replacement, which I will not do), the sign is properly hung for the moment. I took a cordless drill/driver and a lag bolt with me on one of my trips to the house and stopped to repair the sign. As I was leaving, I noticed a neighbor (at the corner of Viscara Way and Hidalgo) standing in front of his house with an HVAC repairman; both were looking in my direction. I waved. The repairman waved back. The neighbor stared. One day I will have to meet the unfriendly neighbor. I realize, of course, that he may not be unfriendly. He may have vision problems. He could be slow to respond to waves. There may be any number of reasons he did not wave. I should not categorize him as an unfriendly person. And I don’t. Anymore, anyway. I also arranged yesterday for both monthly assessments and utility bills to be paid automatically from our checking account. But I have yet to arrange for automatic withdrawal of mortgage payments from the account. Let that sentence be a reminder.
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Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
~ Kahlil Gibran ~
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Part of my time yesterday was devoted to searching online for adhesive mesh, the stuff used to repair holes in sheetrock. I recently took down a hideously laughable “secret gun compartment” from the master bathroom wall in our new house, revealing four monstrous holes through which the previous owner had plunged large toggle bolts. It appeared to me the guy did not even try to find any studs behind the sheetrock; instead, he rammed toggle bolts through holes he drilled. At any rate, I need to patch the holes before we paint. And I need spackling compound and various other “stuff” from the hardware store. Today, if I’m feeling energetic, I’ll go buy the necessary materials to enable me to patch the holes. And I’ll fill nail holes left behind when the previous owners hung artwork of various stripes. I’ve thought about this before. I’ve just not done it. I have to start it, eventually. My IC says we should finish this week in slothful bliss before we launch into serious work on the new house. But I’m sort of in the mood, more or less, so I say strike while the iron is hot. Maybe.
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How many people in my small sphere know that Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer and poet and visual artist? Or that he died in 1931? I vaguely remember thinking, when I first was introduced to his work, that I thought he was a Muslim mystic from the twelfth century (or thereabouts). I’m sure that identity did not just pop into my mind; someone, though I have no idea who, must have planted it there. My mind is fertile; seeds left there tend to grow. But I rarely plant seeds of my own. Whenever I think I’ve had an original idea or an original thought, I learn that my pride at my own originality is misplaced. That’s when I remember Herman Melville’s words: It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. I wish I failed in originality more often; instead, I succeed in flattering imitation at times. My originality is either not my own, after all, or it is not worthy of acknowledgement. Such is life.
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I sometimes daydream about you, the person reading these words, and wonder what you’re thinking. You may be someone I’ve never met, or met only briefly, or someone I know quite well. You may be an old man or a young woman or someone in between; in age or gender or both. Why, I wonder, do you come here to this blog? I’ve heard from one or two people who surprise and honor me with their frequent presence here. But I don’t know what the people from Sacramento or Peoria or Lubbock or Oklahoma City or Fayetteville or Pittsburgh think. So I imagine them and what they think. I’m probably wrong about who they are and what they think about the words I write. I’m not so curious about the people who stumble on the blog, read part of post, and then move, never to return. It’s the returning visitors who, for whatever reason, find what I say of interest. They are the ones who interest me.
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I need time to think. Unencumbered time to sort through a million thoughts and discard the ones that no longer belong in my head. It could take weeks. Or months. Or years. I might need half a century to categorize and classify and judge the validity of all the ideas in my head. I think I try to do it during the night, when I’m sleeping. Or trying to sleep. When I dream about sitting in front of a wood fire in a tiny cabin. That’s when I gaze out the window at the snow-covered landscape and see miles upon miles of lovely desolation. Or when I relax in an aluminum folding lawn chair, its seat and back made of interwoven strips of plastic. From that chair, I can look out over the water and see the shore birds scurry along the empty beach. Ahh! That’s it. That’s the place!
