I've inherited a small, beat-up old brown cardboard mailing box, filled mostly with small black and white photos. Many of them are unlabeled and my father, who had the box before I did, is no longer around to fill in any details. Some are very old photos, with old people staring into the camera, or kids smiling or playing around, a few shots of dogs, and so on. They've been stored on a closet shelf for more nearly 20 years, and I got them down today. The vast majority are photos my father, or someone else using his camera, took during WWII, during his stay on the Aleutian Islands. A few have penciled inscriptions on the back, like "unloading supplies," "moving out with full packs," and so on. There's one of my father in full winter gear, with a pair skis on his shoulder -- I never thought of him as skier, he certainly never did anything like that in our lives together. There's another of him and some guy standing side-by-side, dad with a pistol holstered on his hip. I can't imagine dad with a sidearm. The guy has his arm on dad's shoulder, and the inscription says it's Harvey from the same tent. I'd never heard of Harvey. Once the war ended Dad never made contact with any of the men who shared his tent or shared the harsh endless winter winds of the Aleutians. And the idea of him letting someone else put their arm on his shoulder feels alien -- he never liked close physical contact with anyone in all our years together. This was not the dad I knew. Dad was an older enlistee, 26 or 27 when the photos were taken. And I believe that in many ways his sojourn in the Aleutians was the high point of his life, certainly the most exciting. He told a few stories but I didn't pay much attention as a kid, since none of them involved actual combat; the Japanese threatened to invade the island he was on, but never did. I remember bits and pieces, like a few photos in an unfinished scrapbook - or jumbled in an old cardboard box. When I was 29 I set out on what, at least in memory, was the most exciting time of my life, a sojourn to the "wilds" of western Nebraska. I remember, on the drive out, thinking I was doing what I sensed Dad wished he were doing, and I even sang Jim Croce's "I got a name" with the words: I've got a name, I've got a name And I carry it with me like my daddy did But I'm living the dream that he kept hid Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by. One thing I really enjoyed during my time "out west" was climbing the buttes and crags that fill the landscape. I especially liked a pair of isolated buttes, Courthouse and Jail Rocks, which had been landmarks on the Oregon Trail. Imagine my surprise when, while rooting through that old box of photos, I came across an old post card he sent home during his time at war, from the coast of Washington, where he'd been in training. Two large rocks are in the near distance, looking eerily like Courthouse and Jail would look if they were transported to the Pacific coast. On the back he had written, "Believe it or not, I climbed both of those rocks. Not as steep as it looks." I had smugly presumed I was setting out into uncharted territory in my late 20s, not realizing I was trying, not to live a dream he had hidden, but a past he largely kept to himself. That instead of setting out into uncharted territory, I was actually following in his steps. We were both young men trying to find themselves in one great adventure. Now I understand that we shared far more than I understood, and in these old photos I see prescient echoes of myself and my life amidst the black and white moments of his. I just wish he were here now, to explain more of the photos and to let me better appreciate the entire man he was, not simply the father role he played.
Talking to my daughter about coronavirus, and said something about not being too worried because it's essentially serious only to those with underlying health conditions or elderly. She said, "Dad, how old are you again?" Yikes. So even though I feel fine, work out regularly, and so on, I am in the at-risk group. I still don't believe it, but it did get me thinking about mortality. As the saying goes, I'm not at the end of the road but I can see it from here; not as much road ahead as I left behind. So, the idea of parting the curtains is no longer some distant abstraction or rare aberration, as it seemed when I was younger. That got me thinking more and more about religions. I've been interested in such things for most of my life, even took comparative religions and philosophy of religion while getting my BA in philosophy. And for many years I have felt a tug toward the Eastern religions, more or less settling primarily on Taoism. The more I thought about Taoism, the more uncomfortable I became with it as religion. Far as I can tell, there's no divine help in it to pull one along or to give hope when discouraged. It provides a path, and does seem to promise if you stay on that path in good faith, you'll get to the place . . . . but not sure what the place is, or how long it lasts, afterlife, etc. So my thought was, no, I want a religion that offers hope and answers to prayers. I suppose that would point me back toward the Christianity I was born into. In my sporadic church attendance the idea always seemed to be to be good and try hard, with the underlying premise that we can always trust in mostly hidden Hand pushing and pulling us along. I like that better. So I thought I'd head back in that direction, maybe. But then it occurred to me, the question is not "Which one do I like?" As though I'm standing in an existential cafeteria, choosing some of this and some of that. The question is, "What is true (if anything)?" If Taoism is the way, then it's a matter of hitching up my spiritual trousers and following the sign posts, in hopes of finding my way. If Christianity is the way, then it seems like it would be more hopeful and encouraging. (I know I'm oversimplifying both but I hope the general thought is clearly expressed.) At this point I have no way of knowing anything, except that what is, is, and my wishful thinking is not likely at all to make any difference, that, presuming I enter the afterlife in some form of self-awareness, my first though is likely to be, "It's not supposed to be like this." And there is the underlying issue of falling short. Both Lao Tsu and Jesus are purported to have said that not everyone will make it to the promised land. So I'd better get myself in gear. Except I still don't know at all where I'm going. All I know for sure is that the cafeteria is closed. Was never open, actually. Never existed except as a logical fallacy.
The February snows continued, until more than a foot lies on the ground. At the end of the drive, the piles reach above my head. Side streets are rutted iceways, the main streets lined with walls of white. I've shoveled paths to the birdfeeders, paths the squirrels use as superhighways for their pillaging, but as always I forgive them in this time of desperation. The birds find their share, as does my rabbit friend with the damaged leg. The ice-cold sunshine has made the days deceptively beautiful, it's been harsh, but the days of winter are relentlessly moving toward their ending. Today will be above freezing for the first time in a long time, and the pure whites will melt to brown and gray slush. Which is sad. It's been nice looking out at that plush carpet, thinking of the spring that lies beneath, but enjoying the postcard snowglobe beauty. Beautiful so long as I have my place of warm refuge. So winter wends its way to spring. All things change, relentlessly, without our consent or even consultation. The best we can do, what we should do, the only thing we can do, is accept and adapt, and remember that the world, the universe, moves at its own pace, in its own time and direction. We are but mere bubbles of sentience, momentary musings of an ever-changing mystical deep consciousness. To be alive is a blessing, what came before and what follows must always be a mystery. Tat Tvam Asi .
Seven plus inches of snow yesterday, no wind, a steady fall, sort of like being inside a snow globe once the shaking has stopped and everything is settling back into place. Today is sunny and just a bit on the cold side; the snow sparkles like flecks of mica, puffs of fall from trees as a squirrel passes by or a bird sets down. Even here in the city, quiet reigns, broken only by the occasional passing car or the distant drone of someone's snowblower. This is the time of winter at which I have mixed feelings about my snowbird friends, those with condos in the south, to which they can retreat when it all seems a cold drudgery. Sometimes I'd like to be one, and even consider moving to a place where snow is an event instead of an expectation. But then there are days like this, I don't think I'd trade it for anything. Clearing snow was a pleasant chore, even the heavier chunks thrown up by that damned snow plow. I even sort of envy my other friends, the ones with cabins up further north, where the snows are serious and longer lasting. Where winter mean snowshoes and skis, and ice adventure. But mostly I'm content. The soft hum of a working furnace, beams of sunlight through the kitchen windows, a cup of hot coffee, and my laptop. No aches or pains, family and friends all seem safe. I honestly can't ask for more at the moment.
Walking to the bird feeder this morning, I sensed I was being watched. I turned around and saw my rabbit friend with the bad back leg staring at me. He’s set up residence under our porch, had heard me clunking to the screen door, and had followed me toward the feeder, with great interest in the birdseed I was putting in the feeders and spreading on the ground. As I walked back toward the porch, he turned around and kept pace in front of me on the narrow path through the snow, stopping and looking, keeping careful watch, finally darting under the porch, to emerge soon as I had gone inside. We have a relationship, but it’s tempered by his DNA, an overly large (and necessary) fear mechanism that keeps him constantly ready to flee; I doubt he will ever fully trust me. I don’t take it personally. He wasn’t the only watcher. Chickadees had sounded in the cherry tree above one feeder, and from what I understand they don’t just make random sounds, they communicate about possible danger. I’m pretty sure their message was, “he’s okay, he won’t be staying long, and he’s bringing food.” Because at the same time rabbit re-emerged, they flitted to the feeders. Soon the local pair of cardinals swooped down from the tops of far trees -- they’d been watching, too, waiting to be sure the chicadees had correctly assessed the situation. Before long the first squirrel began bounding across the crusted snow. They’d been watching me, too, and with good reason. They know I don’t approve of them raiding the feeders and hogging the seed, and they know I’m likely to hurl epithets, maybe even snowballs, in their direction. So they monitor my every move. As I stand at the window, watching the show, my attention is drawn to one of the several small holes in the snowbank under the nearest feeder. At first glance the holes seem nothing more than random patterns from the slow and intermittent snowmelt, but they are more deliberate. As I watch, a bit of black emerges and sinks back, as though a shadow had tried to escape and thought better of it. Soon the shadow emerges again, longer this time. Before long it’s out and stretched out against the white snow. A vole, a timid mouse-like creature (sometimes in fact called a “field mouse”). It’s out, then dashes back inside. However watchful the others are, these guys are far more cautious. As they should be, small and essentially helpless against predators, they rely solely on caution, which is kind of hard to find when you are black against white. Hence the quick darts to spilled birdseed, to stash it in the snow tunnels, then come back for more, to finally settle down inside the cold dark tunnels to eat. Safe inside until the spring snowmelt. But that’s another story. My lovebird flits to my shoulder, and he watches, too, especially the birds that drift or dart down. He sometimes yells at them and, knowing his personality, he’d try to take them on should I let him out there. But of course I won’t. He has no idea what cold means, and no interest in seed those birds eat with such enthusiasm. He might not know it, but he’s far better off inside with me, as one of the inside watchers. We settle at the kitchen table, the bird on my shoulder as I type this, knowing the show outside goes on whether we watch or not, but grateful to have seen at least one act.
One concept drilled into me when I was younger, was that the time will come to “grow up.” Meaning, I thought and think, to set aside ways of living that society deemed limited to those who hadn't yet learned better. As we grew older, we were supposed to “grow up”/ i.e. reach up, to the standards society set for adults. Even St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Took me awhile to come to terms with the idea that maybe good old Paul was a kind of pleasureless prig. As I look back on my life, I know the time when I had the most energy and enthusiasm was when I didn’t pay much attention to adult norms. But that’s not quite an accurate statement. I was haunted by those norms, and well aware that I didn’t much comport with them. I avoided growing up well into my young adult life Eventually that ghost of “grown-up” behavior overtook my natural intuitions and I decided, chose, to grow up. So I set aside my childish things, traded long hair and blue jeans for a three-piece suit, traded semi-casual labor for my own office with windows. Stopped playing games for the pure pleasure of them, stopped laughing childishly. Grew up into an alien world. Became somewhat of a prig myself. And so much of my natural life energy ebbed away. I tried to do the adult things, because they were and are adult things, but I was forcing myself into a mold that didn’t fit. I ended up in the midst of people who had “grown up” but never really liked it. The result was I rarely did well in that world. I tried, I understood what to do, but, to borrow an old expression, my heart wasn’t in it. Literally. My heart was in abeyance. My natural friends, I thought, had drifted away. But I know now that they didn’t leave me, I left them. I’ve come to believe that “growing up” is code for “fitting in,” and I’ve further come to believe that “childish things” ought not be put away. At least not permanently and, to give Paul some credit he may or may not deserve, I note that he didn’t say abandon those things, he said to put them away. Maybe he meant store them up for later. I’ll presume he did. And to go a bit further, I’m not sure he was convinced it was a good thing to be where he was, only a description of where he was in life. I’ll grant him that. I realize now the direction I must grow is down. Down to my roots. It’s one’s roots that make one strong, tendrils of spirit seeking out the sources of life itself. Finding purpose and purchase in the ground of being, to hold strong against the winds of conformity that sweep across society. I have little interest now in playing the roles I’ve been assigned, and I think I’m about ready to pay the price. To grow down. To quote e.e. Cummings: “To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.” I shall gird my loins and prepare to live the right life. By going back to my roots. By growing down.
The copy of the Tao te Ching I have carried around with me for more than 50 years has disappeared. Or, more likely, I left it on some hotel room floor. The question I ask myself is, have I unlearned enough to let it go, or do I need to replace it? Certainly it serves (served) as a reminder, but at some point sometime I'll need to venture out on my own. I remember when I came across the book, and the concept of Taoism, long ago, when I was a college student working part-time in the university library. I worked in the new books area, and one of my jobs was to remove the dust covers from books as they came in, the thinking being, I guess, that those covers are going to get torn and dirty anyway, so why not remove them. Anyway, this version of the Tao te Ching, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, with an introduction by (and my first introduction to) Alan Watts, was a coffee table type, with beautiful black-and-white photos, was my entrance into that whole world of what was then known as "the counter-culture." I was entranced and somewhat intellectually transformed by it. This whole new way (old way) of looking at the world, at least partly in terms of contradictory concepts. I can truthfully say that, for better or for worse, I became a different person. I also ended up dropping out of school, but then that's a whole different story. If I haven't found my truth as it relates to the Tao, one wonders if I ever will do so in this lifetime. But perhaps that's part of it, the realization that the words will vanish into the ether, as will the reader, but that truth will likely remain (or perhaps not-be) in its own way. It certainly doesn't need me, the question is how much I need it. I think I need it a lot.
I just saw a brief news story about two New Jersey boys who drowned in farm ponds during the last week. Sad, but not stupid. Adolescent bravado, a sense of daring, and the misplaced certainty that bad things cannot happen to them. I know, because I was there once. I was probably 13, wandering nearby farm fields on a cold winter day. Eventually I ended up on the shore of a pond not far from some farm buildings -- this was on land then=owned by a convent who had a small cow herd. It was a gray weekend day, no one around anywhere, not in obvious sight of anyone. Windy, flakes of snow, good day to be wandering. It had been below freezing for several days, and the pond seemed frozen over. I tested it carefully, one foot at a time, no creaking. I walked onto the ice, just because it was there, because I wanted to. I ventured further, toward the center. I heard a sudden cracking sound, and felt the ice give beneath my feet. I dropped into icy cold water, holding onto the sides with my arms. I wasn’t especially worried, we’d waded in that pond in the summer and it had been only waist deep at most. I lowered myself down to find bottom, to push push myself upward. But I found no bottom. My boots, filling with icy water, touched nothing. I began, in my adolescent way, to sense that this could be serious. Still, and fortunately for me, I didn’t panic. I spread my arms on the surface and pushed myself onto the surrounding ice which, for a reason I don’t understand, did not crack under my weight. I crawled out onto the ice, walked to the shoreline, and ran home, about half a mile away, my clothes becoming stiff with ice. I got home, shed my wet clothes, gave some half-true explanation to my mother, and crawled into a hot bath. While I was in the tub, a man came to the door of the house. He worked at the convent farm, and had seen me fall into the ice, but by the time he got near I was gone. He went from house to house looking for the boy. Two things motivated him. One, he had lost a brother to a pond-drowning, so he was very upset by this, and two, the pond had been dredged and deepened over the summer, so that it was no longer the safe play surface we had presumed it to be. So, for no better reason than fate I suppose, I sit here typing this story, while two families in New Jersey are mourning the loss of their sons. Life is like that, and sometimes I forget to feel the gratitude I should feel, for the simple fact of still being alive.
Or perhaps I was, in a past life. I spent the better part of this morning clearing a heavy wet snow from my driveway and sidewalks, then walked through deep snow to the backyard, where I cleared a path to the birdfeeders. And I must say that I felt comfortably absorbed in it. I came into the dim garage, hung the snowshovel on a hook, peeled off my insulated coveralls, came inside for a warm cup of coffee. Ahh. Part of it is simply the satisfaction following good exercise, but I think there is more. My dad retired from a wholesale plumbing company desk job -- after spending his first 30 or so years as a route salesman, and spent the last ten years of his life on a small farmstead he and my mother bought, along with a dozen or so acres of cornfiel and a large hill dotted with cedars. I truly believe those were the happiest days of his life, puttering around in that old, cobwebbed, barn with its torn slats and dim memories of the time when it was an actual working farm. He’d work on the house or restoring some outbuildings in nice weather, and work outside some in winter, like I did this morning. He died of a heart attack up there, and I can’t picture him dying any other way. It wouldn’t have been right. Perhaps I am also reflecting my childhood, having come of age in a small midwestern town, surrounded by farming. I lived in town, as did my friends, but the farms were always there, sometimes we even visited someone’s relatives who did farm. And my best friend kept a pony on a small farm just out of town, and in summers we’d take long walks out there and, again, there was that same half-rundown sort of barn, with swallows darting about, weeds at the foundation, the hint of rats or other rodents. Also, down there -- central Nebraska -- was also in the heart of the Homestead Act of the late 19th Century, where anyone with gumption or misguided enthusiasm could stake out 160 acres, “make improvements” and have their own farm, something that resonated powerfully among the ungentrified Europeans especially. So I grew up with stories of homesteaders and hardship, “use it up and wear it out/make it do or do without.” No illusions of easy success. When I was a kid there were still survivors of the “Children’s Blizzard” of 1888, which had swept across the country’s midsection. When the weather changed from balmy to blizzard in a matter of hours, and children especially suffered, trying to get home from their one-room schoohouses or freezing within. And in my own family my mother’s grandparents homesteaded, survived for some years, then lost it in the Great Depression. I don’t know how I would have fared with crop failures and foreclosing banks, or balky equipment or any of the business of farming, but I know that I am happiest mending fence (even if it’s just a chainlink fence around my backyard) or tending the crops (garden plot), or raking leaves or shoveling snow, or whatever. And the cool dimness of darkened places still calls to me, and I have felt no greater pleasure than peeling off the overalls and settling inside for a bit,
it's one of those classic January winter days in the upper Midwest -- bright blue sky dazzling off stiff snow, sparse thin snowflakes drifting down as though squeezed from the sky itself. The birds come and go from the feeder, black-capped chickadees, myriad types of finches, a Cardinal couple sometimes together, sometimes alone, a Bluejay dashing down and back, even a red-bellied woodpecker. All of them desperate for seeds to keep their high-energy lives going. I've been out in it, bundled against the cold, feet crunching on the snow as I fill the feeders. I note the trail of rabbit tracks, where my flat-footed friend has made crepuscular visits, circling to the back porch looking for tossed out lovebird seeds (and maybe a handout) then to beneath the feeders. I stand and look about me, breath steaming at 5 degrees F. Then I turn and go inside, doff my gear, rub my hands, pour a fresh cup of hot coffee. Winter for me is a come-and-go thing, at my choice. I think about something I came across yesterday while researching my ancestral namesake; in 1863, nearly 160 years ago this month, in the ice-cold wilds of Idaho, at a place called Bear Creek, a group of U.S. soldiers attacked a Shoshone Indian village; about 20 soldiers died, more than 200 Indians died, the rest fleeing up into the wilderness. It was a typical Indian War story; white settlers having moved in and driven off the game the Indians relied on, some desperate starving Indians retaliating savagely, the U.S. government deciding to take the fight to them, only without bothering to seek out specific trouble-makers. Better-prepared and better-armed soldiers attack and destroy an entire village, young men, old men, women, children. The result was the so-called Bear Creek Massacre; at least it was not called a "battle" as so many of such one-sided encounters were called. It was a massacre. I'm not passing judgment here, it was a sad story of two civilizations clashing. After the battle the soldiers, desperately cold, had at least the basics to fall back on; they built fires, raised tents, warmed themselves as best they could. The Shoshone survivors struggled through deep snow and cold, until the fortunate ones found another encampment. The most most relevant aspect of that story, for me, this day, is that their principal chief, Sagwitch/Bear Hunter, was shot twice but survived by plunging into a river and hiding under some brush, fortuitously coming upon a hot spring; it's that idea of desperately diving into icy water on a sub-zero day that jumps out at me today. I don't think I could do it. But then I've never been that desperate.
W and I were at the grocery store, getting some last-minute stuff in preparation for her upcoming flight. By way of background, she is Chinese-born but a naturalized citizen, petite, polite. She was looking for something and talking with me about it at the same time, deviated slightly from her forward route, and banged against another shopper's cart. He was a big man, gray-haired, obviously retired. Caucasian. As am I. Wife looked up at him and apologized. He didn't say anything and didn't look amused, in fact looked like he was going to say something not nice. He glared at her, then looked at me, and I looked back at him with a firm expression. I got the impression he was trying to determine if I was with her. I waited to see what he did. He finally made some sort of half-joke, like "you might lose your driver's license," and we went on. This is all conjecture on my part, but based on experience. I really think if she'd been alone he would have said something quite unfriendly about foreigners. We have quite a few Chinese students at the local university, a world-respected research center; not only do they do good work as grad students and post-docs, they pay hefty full tuition. But our city is also a "liberal" island in a politically conservative state, and these are not easy times to be obviously -- or even apparently -- not native-born. Not Caucasian, actually. As my heightened sensitivity on the issue might suggest.
Listening to Sting's song this morning, a vague image and memory popped into my head. I was about 5 years old, I think, and that spring my dad took me for a few walks in a patch of golden wildgrass prairie not far from our house. I was at the age where all things were wondrous and magical. I loved to walk through those plants as tall as myself, I can, at this moment, recall the smell and the breeze. Or think I can anyway. On the edge of that memory is Dad, walking quiet beside me, sometimes answering questions, mostly just wisely leaving me to myself and my discoveries. One time we walked along a nearly-abandoned railroad line, out there where we could see for miles so there was no danger of a train sneaking up on us. It was also -- believe it or not -- at the tail-end of the steam locomotive era, so we would have heard the train from far away. We came upon a small trestle, spanning perhaps a small creek, more likely just a draw or gully. Dad started to cross it, but I was afraid, seeing movie images of people caught on bridges as the train came inexorably upon them. Dad assured me, calmly, that there was no danger, and we crossed, me still anxiously listening for a warning whistle midst a burst of steam. We of course made it. No train, and sort of lesson learned for me. Magical as this world might be, there were keys to understanding it, and voices of experience to heed. Mostly, though, it was a minor part of those wondrous walks. Not long after the train/no-train incident, we ceased taking those walks. I think that Dad, being a busy man who was home only on weekends, had a lot of other demands on his time. Or maybe he just lost interest in them. Which was my loss, though I gained a primal and visceral memory. I don't think I ever told Dad how much I valued those walks, either at that time or in the following years, which was a loss to both of us. He was a quiet, socially-shy, cerebral man, not much for expressing emotion, so those hours when I had him to myself, when we walked in fields of gold, were special for me. Moments like this make me miss him terribly, as much a longing for lost opportunities with him as for him himself. My own parental self also feels some pangs of regret about raising my own kids -- it's so easy as an adult to get wrapped up in daily life, and forget that for the little ones, everything we do is memorable, and it's so easy to forget to show them wonder and let them wander in it, let them walk in fields of gold. And assure them, with adult confidence, that no train is going to sneak up on them.
December before last I was talking to a friend in the locker-room of the Y. Turned out both our wives had a form of slow-growing cancer, and both of them were scheduled for update evaluations with their respective doctors. Two weeks later he told me his wife got a great report -- the new medical approach they were taking seemed to be working wonderfully, almost miraculously. My wife was referred for further testing. Which of course sounded ominous. A few weeks later my friend told me something shocking. It appeared that his wife's data had been somehow misinterpreted -- her cancer was not only back but growing aggressively. They were told to prepare for the worst, that palliative care was all that remained. He of course got a second opinion, even though his doctor, an old family friend, was one of the best in the area. The second opinion was the same. Bad, terrible news. Meanwhile my wife got her final results back. Her cancer was and is almost totally in remission. It's one of those forms that grows so slowly that odds are she will die of something else. Great news. Early this last December I saw my friend at the gym. He'd been there only sporadically over the past year, spending much time simply caring for his wife (we are both officially retired). We'd talked briefly in those sporadic visits, but in December he said he was doing okay. I asked about his wife. He said, in a flat sad tone, "Oh, I thought I told you. She passed away two weeks ago." I offered my sympathies. He accepted and asked how my wife was. I said, feeling awkward, that she was fine. He said "Glad to hear it." He took my email address so he could me the obituary. I got and read it over breakfast the next morning. She sounded like a fine woman, though of course obituaries are almost always black-or-white, making good people sound perfect and bad people sound perfectly evil. Truth is even the best of us have flaws and foibles, but, on balance, and on his report, hers was a life well-lived. I looked up and across the table at my wife. She is a fine woman, in a life still living. I realized how lucky I am to have her here alive, flaws, foibles and all, instead of having her memorialized, polished, and honed, in media and memory.
Groovin' up slowly. Paraphrasing John Lennon. Flatfoot is a cottontail rabbit with a bad rear leg, with whom I have a sort of relationship. I've mentioned him before, how he would sometimes take a cracker from my hand. We first met a couple years back, when I found him rummaging through the birdseed I tossed out when cleaning my lovebird's cage. FF's back leg had been recently damaged then and he left bright red spots in the snow wherever he went. I didn't expect him to be around long, since even fully-functional cottontails have brief lives, being such succulent sources of energy for almost every predator. But he came around almost regularly for two years, and we began sort of watching for each other every morning, I enjoyed the kinship with a representative of the wild animal kingdom, and he at least enjoyed the ritz crackers (and I hope more). Sometimes I'd be sitting in my screened back porch in nice weather, and he'd lope by, and, if he heard me in there, might stand up on his hind legs and look in. The damaged leg had long ago stopped bleeding, but it stayed deformed and he was careful not to put much weight on it. Several months ago he seemed to disappear, and I put it down to the inevitable. That suggested images of how harsh nature can be, and I pictured him either dying a slow and private death somewhere (the best alternative), or under a car, or being caught and dismembered by a coyote, dog, hawk, owl, or whatever else. Morbid speculations. Early last week I looked out the back window and saw a large, fluffed up, cottontail, sitting on the back step of the porch. I thought I recognized him, and went to grab a cracker. By the time I returned the step was empty, and I wondered, kind of hoped, it was one of those spiritual manifestations I hear about, good ol' FF showing up to say goodbye. But yesterday he showed up again, in all his fluffy, gimpy, glory. He stuck around while I fetched a cracker, and calmly ate it as I stood a few feet away, as "the winds of the old days blew through our hair" (Joan Baez). Gave me an unexpected blast of warmth on a cold winter's day. Nice to know the Grim Reaper seems to have given FF a temporary pass, for which, I think I can speak for both of us, we are grateful.
Wandered into my workshop two days ago with an unspoken, undefined need to build something. Gathered up various pieces of leftover lumber and glued and fastened them into usable boards, and built a simple, but interesting box, 12 inches by 20, with a lid. I used a pair of leftover hinges to attach said lid, which doesn't quite close, because the wood used to make it was a bit warped, so there's a slight gap between the lid and the front of the box. Doesn't matter to me because I have no intention of locking it. I used two types of wood, mostly pine but darker oak accents, so it's sort of attractive, if I do say so myself. I won't put any stain or varnish on it because it's not going to be out in the elements and my inner urge turns out to demand a rustic unfinished look. It's going to sit quietly and unostentatiously in a corner of my living space. Once the box was completed, I had to wander into my subconscious to decode the next step of the project. I realized my purpose is to use it to hold print copies of my various writings, as many as I can gather. I understood that having them all in cyberspace is unsatisfactory -- first, because if something were to suddenly happen to me (more and more likely as time goes by) the stuff might be forever adrift in the ether, because passwords change and the people who I have entrusted with them might lose them or otherwise not have access (presuming they had any desire to do so). Even though I know in my heart that all human accomplishments are transitory at best, I still want these assemblages of my time and thought and sweat to be accessible and to last at least a while longer than I. The more solid reason for building the the box and filling it with paper is a rewarding and concrete one -- I like the smell and feel and heft of the box and the texture of the paper, and I like seeing the writing down on said paper, not to mention the satisfaction of watching the pile get bigger as I find and print more and more of it. Finally, there's a sort of romantic feeling about it all, the idea that my survivors going through my stuff and finding will find the box tucked away in a corner, open it with a sense of curiosity, and (ideally for me) rummage through it all with a growing sense of, "hey, some of this stuff is pretty good." There's not much more a low-key writer like myself can ask for, since it's increasingly unlikely I will be getting any of this stuff into a formal format. Simply gives me a feeling of accomplishment and promise and, again ideally, maybe some motivation to get back to writing again. In the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I have to get my clunky printer moving and convert a lot of stuff into real readable print; including some, but not all, of my blog posts.