The end of nothing

Due to lack of creativity and just plain being lazy, today's illustration is a photograph of my current workstation looking to the north (as if that were important). Remember, this is just another one of my temporary residences, so I cannot get too comfortable -- a few computers, a few books, a few guns. So, what is missing? Tell me.

The book of our lives

 It occurred to me that most people are recorders of their lives. Some are active recorders, writing diaries or journals or, maybe, simply keeping track of personal events on a calendar. Others do not write, but simply relive their lives through memories and by keeping a firm hold on people, places or things from their pasts.

But, a few people, and I like to think I am among them, are more than recorders of their lives. They are writers of their lives. Each day, they are thinking about and planning their tomorrows. They are writing their futures. The unexpected entry of a special someone or a natural disaster or a bit of bad luck in the form of a potentially fatal illness might alter the plot those writers are creating but, barring the unforeseen, they are formulating a plan for a segment (or, maybe, more) of their lives and then proceeding to live it.

While I have been a writer of my life most of my life, I have been neither a recorder nor a writer the past few years. In essence, I have been a branch adrift on a river, a leaf blowing on a breeze, a pen without paper. Complications enter our lives to alter our hopes and plans and goals, but, I think, it is important to find a way through the  morass of complications we encounter -- most of which are our own creations through bad decisions.

I have written here before that events during recent months have evolved, and that now I actually can see a light for me at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I guess these words are a reiteration of that thought. Barring the unforeseen, the end of my current tunnel -- which is to say my current life and existence -- is only as far away as next spring. And, I am beginning to write three or four possible scenarios as to the direction the book of my life will follow after that point in (flowing, moving, drifting) time.

Some possibilities: Back to Europe for a fourth and, maybe, a final time. (Europe fascinates me, the same way America fascinates some Europeans, and I might decide to stay there.) A boat, a big boat, to cruise upon the river Alph "down to a sunless sea," until an island is found. (In the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson).  A cabin, by a clear, blue lake deep in the mountains to forget time exists. (After the model of some Nineteenth Century American mountain men I could name.)

 A few other thoughts wander through my mind, but these seem to be leading the pack.

These thoughts aside, the main point is that I want to become a writer of my life again -- not merely a recorder and, most certainly, not a man who waits for .... for what? The end of nothing?

Missing, but not forgotten

This probably is the first year since I began my blog in which I did not mention the Marine Corps birthday (November 10) or Veterans Day (November 11).  It is not because they were not on my mind; it was because my mind was not on them.

 Do you understand the distinction?

 I mean that this year -- for some reason beyond my understanding -- these two side-by-side days did not seem as important to me as they usually do, so I more-or-less just watched as they passed me by. One does not forget those "incarnations" of his life which are imperative to his very being, but one does not always choose to speak about them in public and, sometimes, decides to hide from remembering them just a bit.

  

Time is standing still .... when do we leave?

"Time is standing still" and "when do we leave" not only are comments which conceivably might be made by this casual crew of seagulls gathering here, but are among the lyrics in the second song posted today. That song is "Stargazer." The music is fantastic; the performance is pure fun; the video is a tiny masterpiece. Talent is where you find it. The first song posted is "Street of Dreams." Both songs are by the band Rainbow, although the vocalist in the first is Joe Lynn Turner and the singer in the second is Ronnie James Dio. It seemed like "Street of Dreams" sort of went with what I wrote, and "Stargazer" sort of went with what I thought while I was writing what I wrote. Or thought. Or whatever.

What if tomorrow were yesterday?

Strictly speaking, there is a present. 

You know, in the sense of past, present and future.

But, by the time you finish reading these words, the present will be part of the past and gone forever.

So, is the present more or less than the blink of an eye?

I am not certain what I am trying to say beyond wondering if there actually is a present. Everything is moving too quickly for the present to exist except in an instant immeasurably impossible to realize .

I know someone who says she lives for today. I can understand that and realize that on the one hand, but, on the other hand, today only exists on a man-made clock of planetary measurements. In terms of conscious life, there is only past and future.

At the moment, I am trying to decide which one I belong to or, maybe, which one belongs to me, because the present is a dream.

If these questions are easy for you to answer, I do not wonder about you, but I do worry about you.

Then, too, I am not so sure that the past is gone forever or that the future has not already been. Remember, I belong to the "time is like a flowing river" school of thought.

A passage in the "Hovamol"

from the "Poetic Edda"

recorded for posterity by Snorri Sturluson

A little sand  has a little sea,
And small are the minds of men;
Though all men are not equal in wisdom,
Yet half-wise only are all.

 

A few words can mean a lot

Johnny Cash once sang a song in which the lyrics went like this:
"How high's the water, mama? Two feet high and risin';
"How high's the water, papa? Two feet high and risin'."
I might imagine these Canada Geese working their way south for the winter have been asking the same question about the Minnesota River, except it appears to be "rising in reverse," so to speak. Since the river bank normally reaches to the larger rocks and the tree line, it is evident that the level of the river was considerably higher last spring than it was when October began and this photograph was taken. Nature rules, so, "Where is the water, mama?"

The art of conducting a conversation

Speaking as a man who, until the past few years, has seldom lived alone during his life, I am not sure why anyone would choose to do so.

When I was a boy, there always were parents and grandparents present. As a young man in college, I usually lived with three or four other young men, and even with a young wife for a while. Wives and children -- along with a couple of "almost wives" -- sort of covers my adult years until 2007. Then came another divorce and, with the exception of a few months in Poland during 2010, no company for me.

Now, since I am alone, I basically talk to myself. Sometimes, there is a two-way conversation. For a while in the latter months of 2010, I found myself using profanity -- usually several words -- in virtually every sentence I spoke when I was by myself. I spoke out loud at times; to myself at other times, but profanity was always there.

As time went on, I began to speak out loud more often while talking with myself, generally employing my version of a "foreign" or American regional accent. A southern inflection or a western drawl are my favorites. Or, I might try a German or a Norwegian brogue, sounding like many "old-timers" around here do as a result of having spoken those languages in their homes as children. For the sake of political correctness, I will stop there.

More recently, I have gone to carrying on the two-way conversations rather than simply speaking out loud. Many, if not most, are in the form of a straight man and a funny man chattering back and forth. Or, I pose a situation which requires resolution and ask myself to find one.

So, the question is, when will these habits stop or, if they do not stop, what will come next? Talking out loud to myself; including much profanity while I speak to myself; carrying on two-way conversations with myself .... what could possibly come next?

Or, the other possibility, of course, is that perhaps I will find another companion -- someone to talk with, to carry on long, wonderful conversations with .... someone to keep me in line.

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Still no words from me .... too lost in thoughts of tomorrows & of rainbows

No words from me, only the end of something

 

"Crossing the Bar"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.