I found inside a drawer." Jackson Browne. Actually it's an old cardboard box I've had for years, and my parents had for years before that, and my paternal grandmother before that. I've mentioned some of them earlier, but this is the first time I've really carefully perused them. Most of my father's WWII photos are unlabeled, though several have his penciled comments, like "this guy was in the tent next door," or "moving out with 60-pound packs" and so on. Still, the more I study them the more the mindset of this young man out adventuring comes through more and more clearly. I have some photos of my mother in her youth (she is still with us at a spry 94), and some have her distinctive handwriting on the back. I feel a sense of playfulness and vulnerability in those captions. "The Sgt. who lives next door drives this car for the colonel, and wanted a picture of it. Somehow I got in the way." Or one of her in her early teens, holding a cat, captioned, "Me and my kitty, S. Franklin Delano. The 'S' stands for smart, and he is." Other photos, though uncaptioned, have become clear to me, and I can put names to faces with reasonable certainty, spanning maybe 70 years back. The cars, of course are especially distinctive; there is, for example, a photo my mother proudly holding the infant me, and in the background a 1953 Plymouth -- in those years my father would get a new "company car" every year, which he was free to use for personal purposes whenever he was not out on the road getting bids for plumbing projects. I vaguely recall that car, specifically that is that pale green color of that era, and for the longest time I though each make of car had its own distinctive color. There is a photo of my sister at one year, gaping at the camera from the seat of an upholstered chair. There's something universal and timeless about every infant, but that chair and its slipcover, I cannot believe now it was part of my everyday life. Or the phones that sometimes show up, the old black phone without even a dial. All incidental background details look like a movie carefully set to look like the early 1950s. Only they are not a set, they were real, I lived then, but I'll be damned if I can even come close to imagining again what it was like. For the first time I understand that even if I could go back in time, I couldn't make it work. My memory has smoothed it all out, so that those memories don't jar irreconcilably with my present. And I truly appreciate L.P. Hartley's observation that the "past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." I realize now that, for the longest time, I unconsciously believed that I could, somehow, someday, some way, return to some of those times I treasured. But I can't. I cannot. That stone-cold realization hurts, hangs heavy on my heart. When memories become untethered wisps of recollection instead of real existence, something is seriously lost. It's hard to say goodbye to the past and really mean it. This time I do, and having done so I sit, blinking at the bright reality of the present, and realize what's gone. These days, this present time, is its own world of wonder and experiences for most of you, but it's not really mine. My reality was in those gone times, and now those are really gone for me. I sit here now in the cold shadow of existence, the light of the past extinguished forever. And also with a sense of freedom. I can look more easily into my own soul, and at the wider world around me. I find that exhilarating, this opportunity to learn who I really am, free of the context (and constraints) of a particular set of social mores. If that makes sense. After all, this is my 200th blog post, so I've tried to make it a good one. GL
. . . I'm younger than that now." Bob Dylan, My Back Pages. Someone recently asked me if, now that the Covid-19 restrictions are lessening (at least for now) if I would be shaving my "quarantine beard." I said no, why would I? "Because you look younger without it." Me: "You mean younger than 70? Why would I want that? Because that's what I am." I am not ashamed to be 70. As of now I am in good health (knock wood) and relatively good living conditions (wood again). I regard those 70 years as hard-earned, and that I have gotten here in the way I am is a blessing, if not a miracle. I am "young" enough to ride my bicycle regularly and to enjoy walks in the nearby woods. And skydive. I've adapted (mostly) to the digital age, but I did have the privilege of growing up in analog times, and to have gone through my childhood and youth without any major stressors; unlike say Gen-Z people, those who grew up in the shadow of 9/11 and now have to cope in a world and economy turned upside down by the virus (and now the BLM crisis on top of that, not to mention very real global warming). So in a way I have gotten the best of both worlds. I recall lyrics from Going Back, a Phil Collins song, via the Byrds: "But thinking young and growing older is no sin And I can play the game of life to win." Still, I do miss those younger days, when my life was simpler because my world was smaller. Letting them go is bittersweet. I'm thinking here really young, pre-teen, when that world began each morning in my parental home, and ended there, safely, each evening, with a lot of unfettered living and learning happening in between. So let's close here with another bit of Dylan lyrics, from I Don't Want to Do It, a little-known song recorded by George Harrison: "Looking back upon my youth The time I always knew the truth. I don't want to do it. I don't want to say goodbye. To go back in the yard and play If I could only have another day." But, anyway, goodbye for now. GL
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune. . . . James Russell Lowell Last week, consumed by an urge to build something, and determined to do so using lumber I already had (leftovers from other projects) I came across the plans for an Aldo Leopold bench. He was an ardent conservationist, and designed the bench as an easy way to make a place to sit outside. Problem was, I didn't have that lumber, no long 2x12s sitting around. I did have a few 2x4s, and a scrap of 2x12. So I adapted the plan to make a chair instead of a bench, and I think it came together nicely. But nowhere to set a coffee cup, so I made a sort of side table, a sort of mini-sawhorse, which can also double as a second seat. The only thing I had to buy new was acrylic stain to waterproof the pair. They sit out here in my front yard, in a little grotto I have created under a large red oak tree. Grass won't grow here, in all that shade, so I let ground cover plants take over, and circled it with rocks I gathered from construction sites, and made a sort of walkway through it. Later I added an old-fashioned looking concrete birdbath. It all seems to have come together nicely. People do a lot of strolling during this pandemic lockdown, and sometimes they notice me sitting here, and wave; mostly they don't see me over here, up near the house, because they don't expect to see me here. I like it that way. I sit with my large, grayish, basalt boulder to my left, my coffee-holding side table to my right. I can see the sky through gaps in the trees, a pale blue and bluish white. I can't name the plants around me, since they were planted by my predecessors 20 or so years back, though they had constrained them to specific plats. But whatever they are technically called, I call them my groundscape. Their leaves twitch in the intermittent breeze. The temp is nearly perfect, 73 degrees F. I hear birds chittering and calling, the (thankfully) distant background noise of traffic, a dog barking somewhere, the tree leaves rustling as the breeze picks up. A babysitter and toddler are on the porch across the street, and I hear their voices indistinctly. A car slips past, its engine barely audible. For some reason I remember once standing by the side of the road late at night in rural Wyoming, and hearing a car approaching from miles away. I was impressed and surprised, but one of my companions, having grown up on a Nebraska farm laughed, and said that's how it was when you're miles from anywhere. A pair of crows have settled in my neighbor's tree. They argue loudly, then fly off, harsh voices trailing behind. A tiny green bug drops from the leaves overhead and I ever so gently brush him away. It's really his world out here, not mine, and I want to minimize my intrusion. I feel that I'm sitting in the sort of perfection that could not be bought and built with all the money in the world. It's simply here, and I've been invited to settle in for a bit. I feel an urge to capture this moment, but I know it's impossible. A camera could never do it. I want to burn it into my memory, but I know that won't really work. Fifty years ago I stood in a wide river canyon in Afghanistan, looking out at a rock-strewn landscape, a roaring blue and white river rushing past, with green-flecked mountains reaching skyward on the other side. I made a conscious effort to freeze the image in my memory, but when go to find it I find only a memory of a memory, sort of like an old-fashioned library index card. I sort of see the scene, but I can't step back into it. Like Heraclitus' river, that river is gone, the same but irretrievably different. I think of my agate collection, rocks sliced open to reveal colorful remnants of long-ago geological activity, the hardened flow of melted and pulverized and reassembled rocks. They provide a sort of snapshot, a moment of timeless motion frozen in time. But they too are only traces of what really was. I think of the ending of "What I Expected," by Stephen Spender: Expecting always Some brightness to hold in trust Some final innocence Exempt from dust, That, hanging solid, Would dangle through all Like the created poem, Or the faceted crystal. That exemption from dust is what I'm always hoping for, but no longer expect.
Last evening, while closing the curtains against the darkening sky, I glanced out the front window to see my rabbit friend standing before a bed of hostas, nursing and washing her brood of little ones, who seem almost old enough to head out on their own. Then she shook them off and walked into the yard, while the little ones scurried around and vanished into the hostas. I had suspected she was in a motherly mode, but didn't realize the nest was right near my front porch. So the momma and I had something extra to discuss when I sat on the back stoop and gave her this morning's dose of Ritz crackers. Also this morning as I sit here on my screened porch I look up to a hole far up my old maple tree to see a small baby woodpecker staring at the world outside, only to pull back in as one of the parent red-bellied woodpeckers returns with some grub (probably literally a grub or two roosted from some dead wood somewhere). Then the parent flies off in search of more. As my rabbit friend washes herself in the morning sun, then lopes off with her awkward 3-legged gait, in search of more food, then no doubt to feed her brood again. While squirrels sometimes scamper in the trees and bound on the lawn in search of fallen birdseed. And a finch of some sort, reddish-tinted, drops onto the birdbath for a morning sip, and a robin trills in the distance. I hear chipmunks rustling in the undergrowth, and, of course, the constant calling by the baby woodpeckers, demanding ever more of their exhausted parents who are no doubt wondering why the Hell they ever got into this business of babies. Nature is indeed all around, even in this bit of semi-suburban landscape, if one has the time, intention, and, let's face it, good fortune to be sitting in the the morning sun and the gentle, wafting breeze. Such is life, in its good moments at least.
Sitting on the back stoop, coffee cup in one hand, extending a Ritz cracker with the other. My rabbit friend, he with the badly damaged back leg, had seen me in the window and had begun his approach to the porch. No way I could ignore him, in fact I always feel honored by the recognition. So I grabbed a couple crackers and quickly but carefully stepped out the back door and settled on the stoop. The rabbit took the cracker, as usual making his cautious circular approach, stretching his neck e-v-e-r so far, grabbing the cracker and stepping back. He dropped it on the ground, used his teeth to get it on edge, then calmly crunched away at it while I sipped my coffee and looked into those deep brown eyes that ever watch me for any sudden move. I doubt we will ever get closer than this, physically or socially. But it’s enough. He finished the cracker and looked at me, sniffing expectantly. I produced the second cracker, he went through his ritual, and I through mine, all scripted and holy as a formal church communion. He finished that cracker and looked up for a third. “Nope,” I said, “two’s more than usual.” He waited a bit, then moved off with his limping lope, settling under the picnic table, where he began his morning ablutions, licking his front paws, washing his face, then each ear, slowly and meticulously. I found myself wondering why he bothers. Rabbits live such solitary lives, it’s not that any of them will care how he looks. I got a momentary cynical flash that any predator watching from hiding would see the scene as cartoon-like and silly as we would if we saw a side of beef cleaning itself for our table. I tried to banish that thought, but it had already transformed my view of the morning ritual from communion to last rites. Seemed I’m simply offering moral and nutritional support while my friend makes his way to his inevitable ending as someone’s meal, guest of honor at his own last supper. Then I realized something deeper was going on. He, my long-suffering rabbit friend, was simply living in the moment, without imagined and unnecessary thoughts of ritual. I recalled the words of Lao Tsu, “ritual is the husk of faith.” My rabbit friend was cleaning himself for himself, because he feels better after doing it. Not worrying or wondering about the future or the opinion of any other sentient being. It’s the sort of perspective I claim to seek so diligently, though actually awkwardly and fitfully, and he has it simply by doing it. As though reading my thoughts, the rabbit finished his cleaning, moved a few steps to the far edge of the picnic table, where the morning sun reaches. He stretched, settled on all fours, twitched his ears and laid them back, closed his eyes to narrow slits. Basking in the comforting warmth of morning, feeling, I suspect, that it’s been a good day thus far, and enjoying life as it has come to him. I should be so lucky.
Blown by all the winds that pass And wet with all the showers Those lines from Robert Louis Stevenson’s children’s poem, “The Cow,” came to mind yesterday morning as I stood on my back stoop, watching my cottontail friend munching the cracker he had taken from my hand. The sky was gray and all was wet from the rain that had stopped not long earlier. My friend’s fur was wet and stringy, and he looked much smaller than usual. I saw my image reflected in his deep brown bovine eyes. He kept careful watch on me as he chewed, and I kept careful calm so as not to startle him. He lets me sip my coffee in his company, so long as my motions are slow. I talk softly to him, and his ears twitch, I know he’s taking in my tone. His cracker lasts a long while, eating it is slow since it breaks into smaller pieces and he seeks them out one by one; rabbits can’t see immediately in front of their faces, so he relies on his nose. Once he’s sure the cracker’s gone he raises his face toward me, sniffs to be sure there’s not another, then wanders off into the lawn, careful not to put too much weight on that damaged back leg. When working outside I sometimes see him making his route along the back fence or behind the dogwoods. If I speak, he pays little attention to me, at best a twitch, because that’s not our time, he has other things on his agenda. Sometimes I mistake another rabbit for him; that other rabbit freezes for a moment then, if I move even the slightest in its direction, it’s off in a bunny flash, white tail bobbing across the lawn and under the fence. Sometimes my friend will hang out near the back door, lying in a spot worn into the mulch along the foundation. On rare occasions I’ve known him to pay us the greatest rabbit compliment of all, when he stretches out on the grass and fully relaxes. Rabbits do that only when they feel absolutely safe. Not having any predatory pets helps with that, but so does familiarity. And the fenced yard. When he and I are being quiet together, I observe his features. On dry days his coat looks soft and smooth, and (don’t tell him this) I can imagine that fur as soft slippers or mittens. On cold winter days he’s all fluffed up, Nanook-style. Some summer days I notice a tick on his ear, a circle of gnats, or some other sign that life could be better for him. And always there’s that bad back leg. This spring and summer he’s been holding it higher off the ground, and I’ve seen him licking at it. Sometimes he will use it to scratch his back ear, but then he licks it again. It obviously pains him. But he lives with the pain and ignores the annoyances. Far as I can tell, he’s uncomplaining. Of course a wild rabbit’s life is a lonely one, with no one to complain to. Cottontails at least are raised in simple, sometimes barely concealed, nests by a mother who stops by a couple times a day to feed them. It’s for everyone’s good, since she doesn’t want to lead a predator to the nest, but it still leaves little time for maternal attention. And of course there’s a very high casualty rate among the young rabbits once they leave the nest. Only the careful ones survive, and not all of them. So in some ways I’m his closest friend, and in some ways he’s mine. We share time in mutual quiet. It’s pleasant, then, to see my friend in the yard this morning, carefully preening himself, washing his face with his hands, stretching out each leg in turn (the bad one carefully) and making himself look good before he sets out on his risky rounds. Part of me wants to say he’s living in a state of denial, but the better me knows better. He’s living life fully in the only way he knows. I sometimes let myself think he’s living in blissful ignorance, lacking (and uncursed by) a sense of self-awareness, with no inkling of the future that awaits him. But then none of us has an inkling of the future that awaits us, and we could do worse than to live like my rabbit friend. To let the future fend for itself, and live fully in our present, making do with what we have.
I just recently discovered the phenomenon known as ASMR; Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It's essentially the idea that certain sensory inputs can invoke a deep involuntary response. Certain sounds, like maybe the handling of bubble wrap, can fascinate a person, and usually, ideally be very relaxing, like meditation, or inspiring, or both. I learned from a short audiobook (sorry @Historical Science) by an organization called Whisperlodge. At the end of that little adventure in office sounds, like paper folding, staples being loaded, a briefcase being unzipped, and so on, the listener was given the assignment of discovering what perceptions seem to command special attention to that person. I found it difficult at first. Negative things came to mind, like fingernails on a blackboard or walking barefoot across a dirty concrete floor. But something that commanded my positive attention? One that I found no longer matters much to me, but as a child I was fascinated by the smooth white expanse of a fresh snowfall, I felt compelled to don my boots and go outside and leave my lines of footprints all through it. Not just our yard but our neighbors' as well; nowadays I feel sorry for anyone who wanted to sit at their window with a cup of coffee and marvel at the purity of the snow, only to see this kid tramping through their yard. Something related that has always fascinated me, and still does, is the melting of ice at the end of winter, or during a warm spell. It's that sight and sensation of water being freed from the bonds of cold, watching drips work their way down stone walls and sparkling in the sun, the fresh pureness of water that's broken free and the sharp sparkle of ice with its shiny watery coat, the curbside rivulets with their little islands. I more than once got very wet, and once nearly drowned, because of my fascination with the sound pond ice made as it cracked under my weight. I still have that fascination, though I stay off ponds and lakes now. But I do get absorbed in using the ice-chipper at the end and edges of our driveway when that hard-packed ice is soft enough break. Interesting, to me anyway, was when I was reading the Tao te Ching, and came to the chapter purporting to describe the "ancients" who lived by it (Chapter 15). Among other attributes they were "watchful as though crossing a winter stream" and "Yielding like ice about to melt." I immediately comprehended those images, the words didn't seem like a discovery to me but rather a re-discovery of something I'd always known. Don't really know exactly what to do with that little bit of synchronicity, but there you have it. Or at least I do. A sensation/image/experience that I feel as ASMR.
I hail from* the US state of Nebraska, once known as "The Tree Planter State" and in fact the home of Arbor Day. Lonely sodbusters long ago tried to appease the vast openness of the plains by planting trees to break the monotony. In fact, the state is the home of the nation's (and I think the world's) only hand-planted national forest. For awhile I lived on the edge of that great prairie and recall one of the county commissioners, an older rancher, pointing to a distant line of trees and saying that when he was a boy, there was none of that and one could see forever. Likely because of that background, I have a strong attachment to trees and a great aversion to cutting down the same. A friend of mine back home had a very hard time dealing with the fact that the great maple in his front yard, which had shaded his house and attracted his kids for many many years, was dying and was going to come down, either by itself in a succession of falling large branches, or with help in a safe and orderly manner. He wisely chose the latter. So it was with growing apprehension that I noticed shelf mushrooms growing on the trunk of my own large maple, off-centered in my backyard. Those are a sign of a very sick tree. And I had a couple dead large branches trimmed off, and removed one on my own. Hoping against hope it would somehow, miraculously, recover. This spring I when I was outside I repeatedly heard a loud, somewhat abrasive, bird call, and finally figured out it was that of a red-bellied woodpecker, which I had seen from time to time visiting the feeder. But this one seemed more permanent. Eventually I discovered a red-feathered head peering out at me from a hole two-thirds of the way up the main branch of the tree. The hole was perfectly round, obviously carved into the wood. Delighted as I was to have a pair of nesting woodpeckers in my yard, despite their harsh calls, I was also saddened, because I know they make their nests in dead wood. So the end is nearing for my tree. I see that many of the branches have leaf buds on them, so I expect it to burst again into green one last glorious time, then I will be faced with that same choice, cut it down or leave it to fall. Logic tells me to choose the former, even though I'd love to watch the tree go through its natural evolution and devolution to mulch and soil. The neighbors and my insurance company would be unhappy indeed to have branches crashing onto their roofs and fences. Every time I walk through the nearby nature conservancy I see once-majestic trees lying on their sides, in shades of darkening brown, decaying into the very ground that nurtured them, and in the process serving as home to various plants, insects and mammals, all in a well-designed cycle, indifferent to the will of people like me who try so hard to lock things into place, or tidy up things that don't fit into the pattern I prefer. So, much as I will hate to lose the tree, I am honored to be the temporary guardian of the home of a new batch of baby woodpeckers, and a witness to another stage of natural life. *I don't really talk like that, using phases like hail from, but it was a good excuse to pretend to do same.
So sang Simon & Garfunkel in their 1967ish song, "Old Friends." What a poignant line to a 17-year old. No way to comprehend such a thing. I recall when my father turned 70, he said, "well, that's my three-score and ten, the rest is all bonus." I heard and smiled, but in my self-absorbed way, didn't go any further with it. Never thought to ask how it felt inside to be at the point in one's life when it there's not much future left, and the past is what it was, no do-overs. Today I am 70, seventy revolutions around the sun, and wanted so share something of what it's like. And find I don't have much to say. Perhaps the most profound thing would be to say nothing, and mean it. But I can't do it. I have to speak, and the writer in me has to write something. I don't feel anything like my youthful conception of "old." I'm just me, maybe a bit resentful that this shelter-at-home stuff has intruded into my retirement tranquility, but basically the same. I feel maybe a bit of entitlement to be curmudgeonly or to take afternoon naps, because I "earned it," though that doesn't really mean much. I suspect Billy Joel was right, only the good die young. I avoided many of the risks of my era, such as Vietnam, by luck more than anything else. I survived rheumatic fever and a major heart attack, and the adverse stupidity of hitchhiking half-way across the country. And a lot of other things that, looking back, came so close. So I don't really feel so much of an achievement as simply a state of being. I feel gratitude, blessed, and, much as I try to quiet them, I feel pangs of regret for not having been or done what I know now I could have been or done. I also forgive myself, mostly. No profundity, except maybe this: listen to your heart, it's trying to tell you something. Don't blindly follow, but don't ignore it. Be as kind as you can, because that's what will matter more to you as you look back. Don't try to cling to your younger self, but appreciate it. And, as John Prine wrote, if you come across a lonely old person, don't just walk by, because someone is in there. Just "say hello in there, hello." I suspect, but I can't yet say for certain, there are worse consequences than death. That's what my heart tells me now. To quote Cat Stevens, "though you'd like to last forever, you know you never will, you know you never will, and the goodbye makes the leaving harder still." Thanks for reading this, for indulging an old, but not yet lonely, man.
Not even an attempt at being upbeat today. Trying to get my head around something almost unimaginable, at least in real life. Here in the middle of the pandemic, medical people are obviously seriously stressed and overworked. One doctor (52 years old), directed a clinic and was a professor at the local medical school and very well-respected. She also had an issue, an underlying condition that made her especially vulnerable to Covid-19. So she was being very careful about social distancing, and asked her husband and daughter to be sure to do the same. Husband did, but daughter and her boyfriend (both living with the doc and her husband) didn't comply. So the doctor and her husband rented a nearby Airbnb for the kids. Daughter got upset and frustrated, said the mother obviously didn't care about her. (?) Daughter also at some point had told her boyfriend that the parents were wealthy and had lots of money lying around the house. Boyfriend thought he needed easy money, so he and a colleague decided burglarizing the doc's house would be a good thing. But apparently things didn't go well, maybe the parents woke up or the burglars got otherwise frustrated. They ended up kidnapping the parents (still in their sleepwear) and drove them (in an SUV the parents had furnished the kids) to a nearby wildlife conservation area, and executed them, shooting them each in the head and leaving them in a ditch. Husband died immediately, wife lived until a jogger found them next morning, but died at the hospital. Police got some very strong early leads and in their investigation talked to daughter. She told them her boyfriend had been with her at the Airbnb all night. But with GPS research, police followed the route of the SUV and soon made a solid case against the boyfriend and his colleague. They are now in jail, with $1,000,000 bail. No charges (yet) against the daughter). So sickening, heart-rending, and simply sad on so many levels. I'm glad I can't understand it.
I was revisiting that beatup old cardboard box in my basement, the one filled with black-and-white photos, some dating back to the turn of the 20th century, most WWII shots my dad brought back, and miscellaneous family photos up to the 1980s or so. Many of the them are unlabeled and so likely lost to the murk of days. Included are a few shots of me as a young child, a couple of them professional portraits, a few small semi-candid shots. One, which on the back has my name and “age 5”, shows me on a small backyard swingset, in winter, wearing mittens and a hat with flaps. I’m sitting on that part of the set we used to call “the horse,” the one on which two kids sit opposite each other and make it move by pulling on a bar. It’s in the backyard of typical post-WWII midwestern development, small box houses, looking a lot like the photos of my dad’s Aleutian Island outpost during the war. Few trees, most of them quite small -- it all looks a lot like what is was, farmland recently converted to housing for the returning GIs and the baby boom. Snow is still drifted up against the backs of the houses, though out in the yard and around the swingset, the ground is bare. I’ve got my hands on the bar, and smiling for the camera. I had mostly forgotten that swingset and the photo brought back a lot of vague memories. And one specific one. My father, a well-meaning man who sometimes took shortcuts, had assembled the swingset -- not an expensive one, I’m sure, given his early career status -- anyway he bolted it together, stood it up, and turned it over to me. Probably that next spring or summer (we moved the following year) I and a friend or two were swinging on it and, as we did with the bigger ones at school, we tried to see how high we could go. Pretty high, high enough to make it rock. Then high enough cause it to tip over, depositing us out in the lawn. No injuries, but we had to wait until dad could dig some holes and set the legs in concrete. That incident is burned in my memory, not traumatic, simply a peg on which a lot of my other earlier memories hang. Thinking on that swingset brought to mind a part of my later self, busily adulting and thinking big thoughts, shushing that inner child, trying to push everything into logical boxes. I remember, when the kids were about grown, seeing the occasional swingset or playhouse in someone’s backyard and thinking what a waste it was to put all the energy, money, and time into something that will be abandoned and forgotten in just a few years. Better to invest that time and money in things of more lasting value. But today my five-year-old self is telling my adulting self that he (the adult self) was wrong. True, I have no idea what happened to that swing set other than we didn’t move it with us. No doubt it got handed around somewhere until rust got the better of it and it went to the town “dump,” where it faded away. But it didn’t fade in my memory, where it stands indelibly. It wouldn’t be there if my dad had taken the cold attitude of measuring value by external factors only. For me, in that photo and in the surrounding days, time stood still; it doesn’t matter to my inner child how far the world has moved in space and years since then, because its value lay in my experience. I’ll have have that swingset all my conscious life, and I’ll always be grateful that my dad found time to set it up. Twice.
On my way out to fill the bird feeders, I stopped at the door to check the temperature on my fitbit. It occurred to me that the better way to do it would be to open the door and step outside to experience it myself. How easy it is to slip into an internet haze. Reminds me of the time years ago, not long after 9/11, that we decided to put away our TV, so our 5-year-old twins could be weaned away from it. That was a wonderful 4-year experiment, we did a lot more reading and listening to music of all sorts. And talking. (The WWW was only a vague thing to us back then). The experiment ended when our son had major surgery that resulted in a body cast, and we wanted him to have access to videos and PBS. The one lasting effect was that none of us like commercial TV much anymore. But, back to the point of this entry, when I told my mother, by phone, about our idea, she said, "but how will you know what the weather is?" I said we'd still have radio, or that maybe I would just step out onto our balcony. "Oh, yeah," she said, "That would work." And it worked. And it works for rain, too. We have a large gray boulder in our front yard, that I talked the utility people into dropping off when they were installing underground cables and pulled it out. Anyway,I call it the "weather rock" because I can look out the window and, if the rock is gray, know it's dry out. If it's dappled gray and white, it's raining lightly. If it's black, it's been raining for a while and fairly seriously. Then, if I look out later and it's dappled again, or faded to light gray, I know the rain has stopped. Useful, as long as one is living in the moment. Which is all any of us is guaranteed. This morning when I opened the door I found my flannel shirt, T-shirt, and blue jeans were adequate for the five-minute adventure at the feeders. I hadn't checked the weather rock, but the patio looked dry so I took a chance. All is good, though the gray sky and slight breeze suggest some rain may be in our immediate future. I'll check my fitbit for a longer range forecast, on the off-chance that I have a long-range future. One never knows.
This morning started fraught with negative energy, domestically, internationally, and apparently cosmically. In the middle of it all I walked to the kitchen sink and pulled open the curtains. Out there, in the chilly gray and brown of a not-quite-spring morning I saw my rabbit friend, the one with bad back leg who lives under the porch. He saw me in the window and rose on his back legs (he can still do that) and looked right at me. I went to the back door and opened it. He moved toward me. I got down on my knees and extended my hand, offering a Ritz cracker. He sniffed, moved closer, moved away, circled a bit, worked closer and closer, then took the cracker from my fingers. I got slowly to my feet. He kept a wary watch as he chewed on the cracker. And I swear we made eye contact. I saw into those deep brown eyes, that seemed locked on mine. Without overly-anthropomorphizing, I know we have a relationship. It began when he first appeared at the door two years back, scrounging scraps of birdseed I had tossed out when giving the lovebird fresh food. The rabbit moved around that icy-white porch, leaving spots of blood wherever that rear leg touched the surface. And he kept coming back even as the leg semi-healed; he doesn't usually put much weight on it, sometimes licks at it as though it hurts, tries to hold it off the cold ground -- except when he senses danger, then he rockets off, using that leg as much as the other, no doubt, or at least I imagine, ignoring the pain for the greater good of survival. It's to the point now that if I switch on the back porch light in the pre-dawn, I'll see three or so rabbits grazing out there; two or more will dash into darkness, but this guy comes to the porch for his snack. One can, and many will, suggest it's merely a matter of conditioning, but I feel it much deeper than that. I feel a cosmic connection, a reminder that this universe is broader, bigger, deeper, more mysterious than my usual day to day life, and he is as much a sentient being in it as I am. I also this morning remembered another cottontail rabbit from nigh onto 60 years ago. Growing up in central semi-rural America, fishing and hunting were common activities. I fished a lot, but rarely hunted. Same with my dad. But one winter weekend day dad -- normally a gentle man -- he came home with a dead rabbit; he'd shot it with our 22-caliber rifle, "right through the head," he said, "couldn't do it again in a million years." He cleaned it, we ate it (tasted as I recall, like chicken). He never to my knowledge shot anything else, but I wanted to do it too. To be like my dad, I guess. One winter morning, a couple years later, he and I set out for me to bag my rabbit. He acted as a sort of beater, kicking at piles of brush in hopes of flushing out a rabbit. Nothing doing, time went by, I got cold and bored. Suddenly he shouted, "There he is! Shoot!" In my moment of surprise and panic, I shot the gun the right general direction, but missed the rabbit by a wide margin. I found myself with a mix of disappointment and relief. We never went out again, by mutual consent. I don't think either of us much had much blood lust. I think about that rabbit from time to time, and this morning I remembered it again. Wondered about some sort of cosmic loop, if this one in the backyard has any connection to that. Certainly this one has taught me so much about himself, as I study him nearly every morning, and he's grown to trust me. That rabbit years ago was not real to me, he was an archetype I think, an idea, a concept, a goal. I'm glad I didn't hit him and have to pick him up, blood matted red on his fur, still warm, with the life spirit just gone. I like it better this way, and I like think that being attentive to this one shows how much I have grown since I tried to kill that other one. In any case, I know I couldn't do it now.
I usually find fascinating, even upbeat, things in the world around me, and try to capture (and sometimes share) them in my writings and blog entries. Because the world is full of beauty and surprise and wonder. But also filled with the sort of realizations that burst through clouds of illusion, like an owl swooping down on a rabbit contentedly grazing. That particular thing hasn't happened here, yet, but it certainly could. The rabbit thing, I mean. But one of my illusions, or rather misperceptions, has met a timely end. I more or less presumed that I am simply one of many on this journey through life, a flawed but mostly okay character, making all these circuits of the sun, season after season, and all is mostly well, always has been and likely always will be. Now, though, I'm drifting, maybe wallowing, in a river of regret, a feeling no doubt exacerbated by the current Coronavirus and all the uncertainty it brings. Popular thought, true enough, is that with age comes wisdom. I look back over a long life, happy memories, old friends who are mostly gone now, one way or another, newer friends, lost loves, lost opportunities and found ones. I have all that. But wisdom also brings sorrow, the realization that I don't have the ability to go back and fix my mistakes. Especially with my own children. I see kids now and all the fresh wonder they bring to the world, and I wish so desperately I had taken more time to share that with my own, to be there simply to listen and laugh, reassure and encourage. Many times, I'm glad to say, I was there. But sometimes I was simply busy or preoccupied, Sometimes I was simply selfish. Only now can I see through the lens of time and reflection, and I see so many times I was absent, physically or mentally. Not only see, but feel deeply. To be honest, it's not so much for what they lost that I mourn, as it is for what I lost, or, rather might have had. The kids got by, they've grown, and I even have a grandchild now. Sometimes we share old times, sometimes they have forgotten things I recall, and I can't recall things they talk about. But we find common ground, and we are mostly comfortable in each other's company and memories. I don't mind stepping aside and letting them take over the world I'm leaving, and I'm reasonably certain I will be missed, in a good way. My secret sorrow is not for them, but for me. I didn't know then that all the things they said and did, and the support and understanding they sought, was not a demand on my time. It was a gift offered to me, an opportunity to rediscover the wonder of the world, and to gain a deeper understanding the joys and disappointments and beauty of life. A chance to become a deeper and gentler person. It's good that I know this now, and, God and the coronavirus willing, I still have time to revisit our shared pasts, and to make a few amends. But it's so, so, saddening that I cannot go back and simply hear what they were trying to tell me then, and let them know I heard. That chance is gone and will never in this lifetime return. I suppose, in my new role of old man, that I should close this rumination with an exhortation, so here goes. If you have, or will have, kids, please see them for what they are, gifts of spirit, and take the time to really be with them. Grab it while you can, the chance won't come again.
“There’s something in the air.” That line from the song of the same name by Thunderclap Newman in the ‘60s has been going through my mind as this coronavirus unfolds. As I recall from my readings awhile back, during the time of cholera epidemics the leading idea was that of a malignant miasma, some ghostly agent that drifted in the air and brought the sickness. Only much later did it become clear that the source was contaminated water, not foul air. But until that was figured out and the cholera brought under control, the idea of something invisible and evil approaching without notice must have been terrifying. No way to keep out something one cannot detect. Only prayer and watching oneself and each other for signs of the disease. Every cough, every upset, anything might be a sign that the miasma had made it through locked doors and closed windows and beyond precautions. Those in power could offer only vague promises and suggestions as rumors and reports of disease and death grew ever closer to home. The king couldn’t even admit that he didn’t know, but rather dreamt up, then drummed up, phantasmagorical demons, evildoers from foreign shores, as the source of all problems. We’re like that now, except our “miasma” is a scientifically-established virus. But it’s still invisible and there’s not yet a cure; all we can do is try to stay in a 3-foot cone of solitude, wait and watch and wash our hands. There’s no firm pattern to who is getting sick, and no visible sign it’s approaching. It’s not like a natural disaster, flood or hurricane or blizzard with tangible signs of being. Our leaders have only the vaguest understanding of what’s going on, and even less ability to instill confidence that they will get a handle on things. It’s like ghosts crawling into the machine. An unreal feeling, except it’s real. And beyond the paradigm of our lives thus far. It's something in the air.