You want it painted what? .... hmm hmm hmm

Memorial Day came and went unnoticed this year for me. I was not in the mood for political speeches, six-gun salutes or television news outlets trying to convince viewers they could huff and puff patriotism better than their competitors. In a year or two, the pendulum will swing back and I will join in the parade to a cemetery again. In the meanwhile, during the holiday weekend I continued to concentrate at getting everything in my life in order that I want to be in order. (I am becoming more and more focused and serious as time passes.) Along those lines, "my barn" and several exterior elements to the house and the patio were painted and/or otherwise updated and improved. Notice the painter, in the top photograph applying the first coat of paint/stain to my barn and, in the second photo, giving it a second coat of red. Can you see the difference? (It was tempting to have it painted black.) Anyway, while watching the painter at work, it occurred to me I am falling into a pattern, although I swear it is an unintentional one. It involves my doctor, my insurance agent, my dentist, my investment counselor, my lawyer and, now, my painter/handyperson: They all are women; they all are blonde women. Funny, the way things just seem to happen without even thinking about them .... hmm hmm hmm hmm ....

What comes next?

If the music seems to be a labyrinth of confusion, a maze of indirection, a tangle of illogic -- well, I suppose that is because it is. This is what happens when it snows in May, when memories of May include (to borrow a line from Charles Dickens) the best of times and the worst of times, when the month of May seems to be a literal castle of indolence. (That bit of allusion was borrowed from James Thomson, a Scottish poet; it seems only fair to balance an Englishman with a Scot, does it not?) These songs, along with another two or three seemingly dissimulated pieces entered my mind a few evenings ago when mixed with Southern Comfort, so I listened to them each a number of times. There should be a pattern to them -- a common bond -- but, if there is, I cannot find it. It seemed quite reasonable, therefore, for me to toss into this cocktail of music a photograph which might also seem purposeless, perplexing, pointless. A man and a dog, resting, it would seem, on a hallway floor. So, who are they, why are they there, what are they awaiting, what comes next? That is for me to know (actually, "to contemplate" would be a more accurate phrase to use) and for you to speculate, if you so choose. Hallways are like roads and rivers. They lead to somewhere, usually to nowhere of significance on a personal level, but sometimes the journey along them proves to offer a glimpse into another world -- into another reality -- into another time.

Far, far away the music is playing

Just another rainy day in a quiet neighborhood ....

One never knows .... does one ??

A segment from:

"The Clock That Went Backward"

By Edward Page Mitchell

published in September 1881

"Your clock does not go," suddenly remarked the professor. "Does it ever go?"

"Never since we can remember," I replied. "That is, only once, and then it went backward ...."

Here I caught a warning glance from Harry. I laughed and stammered, "The clock is old and useless. It cannot be made to go."

"Only backward?" said the professor, calmly, and not appearing to notice my embarrassment. "Well, and why should not a clock go backward? Why should not Time itself turn and retrace its course?"

He seemed to be waiting for an answer. I had none to give.

I thought you Hegelian enough," he continued, "to admit that every condition includes its own contradiction. Time is a condition, not an essential. Viewed from the Absolute, the sequence by which future follows present and present follows past is purely arbitrary. Yesterday, today, tomorrow; there is no reason in the nature of things why the order should not be tomorrow, today, yesterday."

A sharper peal of thunder interrupted the professor's speculations.

"The day is made by the planet's revolution on its axis from west to east. I fancy you can conceive conditions under which it might turn from east to west, unwinding, as it were, the revolutions of past ages. Is it so much more difficult to imagine Time unwinding itself; Time on the ebb, instead of on the flow; the past unfolding as the future recedes; the centuries countermarching; the course of events proceeding toward the Beginning and not, as now, toward the End?"

"But," I interposed, "we know that as far as we are concerned the ...."

"We know!" exclaimed Van Stopp, with growing scorn. "Your intelligence has no wings. You follow in the trail of Compte and his slimy brood of creepers and crawlers. You speak with amazing assurance of your position in the universe. You seem to think that your wretched little individuality has a firm foothold in the  Absolute. Yet you go to bed tonight and dream into existence men, women, children, beasts of the past or of the future. How do you know that at this moment you yourself, with all your conceit of nineteenth-century thought, are anything more than a creature of a dream of the future, dreamed, let us say, by some philosopher of the sixteenth century? How do you know that you are anything more than a creature of a dream of the past, dreamed by some Hegelian of the twenty-sixth century? How do you know, boy, that you will not vanish into the sixteenth century or 2060 the moment the dreamer awakes?"

April is a month of beginnings

Recognize it? Sort of a stairway to paradise for some ....

Go .... do .... be what you dare

Some say you are what you eat. I suppose that is true to a degree.

I prefer to think you are what you experience.

As often is the case, I have been thinking about places to escape to, both on a temporary basis and in a more permanent context in which to create a new beginning.

There are countless places worthy of exploring on a temporary basis and, in that sense, as always, I am curious what others might think. Put it this way: If you were to go anywhere you wished as a tourist for a few weeks, where would it be? Tell me, please. I need ideas. I am searching.

The greater question is where would be a good "home" for me for a few years? 

I think I would like a milder climate than that which exists in the northern tier of the United States.

Although personal freedom and the absence of government interference in the lives its citizens is noticeably and rapidly declining in the U.S., it probably exists here more so than in any other nation on earth. For instance, I have a propensity for owning and practicing with firearms. I am not sure there is another country in which I could maintain that "hobby" anywhere close to the degree I do here.

Mountains are nice, deserts are fascinating, but woodlands and water appeal to me more than anything, and I need to be close to them. Very close .... a place to walk in the woods and to swim in the waters .... a Neverland in which eternally to be Peter Pan.

From my point of view, metropolitan areas are for visiting, not for residing. Living an hour or so away from a large city is fine, but I like to be able to step out onto my patio or balcony in the morning in my underwear, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pistol in the other, and pop off a few rounds at targets on the other side of the yard. I also like a hilltop with a majestic view. I left a place such as this in 2001 and, in most regards, I have regretted leaving ever since.

So, any suggestions? Everyone has a personal concept of paradise. This is a glimpse of some of what would be in mine, and I am curious if anyone might know where it might be .... where I might find it ....

April footnotes .... 

My hair no longer is long. Cutting it off in the Marine Corps symbolizes rebirth into the Corps. Cutting it off in a Biblical sense symbolizes loss of physical strength. Cutting it off in my era symbolizes surrender to society. Cutting it off right now, for me, symbolizes winning a $200 bet and a dare .... and, sort of a new beginning.

My father's birthday is/was this month. He was an Army tank driver. Maybe, that is one reason I became a Marine Corps rifleman. Teenage rebellion. I am trying to be funny ....

April flowers are where you find them

"This is the strangest life I've ever known ...."