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Looking At My Belly Button
OK. When you become lost, you can’t keep barreling on, hoping you will walk out of being lost. You must backtrack to the beginning. Seems that the holy books agree with that too. When you lose your way, you return. But an old man cannot return to his youth. There is nothing sillier than an old coot trying to be young again.
But God has allowed me to age without becoming senile. That is my blessing for this mild winters day in the great pampas of Central Texas. I fear senility more than death.
I want to return to functional health again, and so I have started a new regimen of eating, exercise, and mindfulness. I have allowed the indignities of aging weigh me down, and I really don’t want my exit from this life to be while infirm and incognizant.
So. For mindfulness, I have begun what is known as a ‘bullet journal’. It is sort of like a day planner and journal. Instead of letting the day unfold, I want to take a bit more charge of it. In it I chronicle even the most basic of life events, look at them with a gimlet eye, and delete, modify or accept them as they are. An example is this little missive here. I want to write each day, but move away from my usual gloomy introspection and back into observation. My ability to write coherently has suffered from too much navel gazing …
Eating is another matter too. My biology has continued on, while my attitudes about eating haven’t. I really don’t need a farm boy’s breakfast anymore, nor do I need to worry about putting on some weight for the hard winter ahead. A whole host of dietary maladies have forced that home on me …
That issue has been a bit harder for me to adjust to. A one-egg omelet with a ¼ slice of cheese just looks anemic on the plate. I need to remember to put breakfast on a salad plate instead of a dinner plate. One sausage patty is enough too. No. Really. It is. I may have to get something smaller than a 4oz juice glass. And just one slice of buttered toast? Man! This is going to be hard!
And I am a miserable failure on the exercise level. My goal is really very modest. Five minutes of treadmill walking, five minutes of dumbbells in the morning. Five more minutes of treadmill in the evenings. It isn’t like I have to give up my whole life to exercise. But I sure do resist even those modest goals.
But I am determined … I want to die healthy …
~r
In the Clearing Stands a Boxer …
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving”
But the fighter still remains
~Songwriters: Paul Simon / Annie Gawenda
A sort of pensive morning this sunshiny but cool winter day.
An online friend asked of us to give the one song that best describes us.
This is an easy one for me. The Boxer.
In a later performance of this song with Joan Baez, Paul added the verse:
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin even me
I am older than I once was, and younger than I’ll be, that’s not unusual
No it isn’t strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same
Oddly, this day also I heard from a few other old voices, and the melancholy swept over me in huge waves. How I thought my life was going to be far different than it was back then. Not that I am complaining. I am quite happy with the outcome in these latter years. But I sure had not seen this day coming from that viewpoint.
I started to send an ‘add me’ request to these old voices, then paused. That was then. It’s no now. I have nothing in common with that old life. So maybe I am indeed more or less different. And life continues. Still, a small part of me wants to ask them “How are you doing now?”. But I didn’t click the add me button. Some things are best remembered for what they were.
Photo: Jack Dempsy … a home town hero and world champion boxer
Where did the MoJo go?
Warning. Old man musings ahead.
I once again attempt to write a little bit every day now that running an election has passed. I am divorcing myself from any concerns with the ruling party. In fact, the new me will regard politics, political parties, and people who hold reforming political views with thinly veiled contempt.
The week has rolled around on me once again, and I wonder where the time went. My mind is still telling me it is spring, but the faded greenery out the window testifies that spring is long gone.
Just got the news that an old political foe from years back has died. I mourn his passing even though he was a pig-headed academic lefty and loved citing factless facts as … well … facts.
I didn’t get the cataract surgery. My GP wouldn’t approve of the proceedure until he nails down why my heart will suddenly take off at 150+ beats per minute. The episodes don’t last long, and seem to be a bit worse if I am not careful with my diet. So I am wearing a cardiac monitor for 14 days or until the glue gives out on the sticker, whichever happens first.
We haven’t had the first frost yet, and the grass is still requiring a weekly mowing. I have been getting out a bit more and have upgraded my outdoor tools to ones that are small, but powered. A folding stool now goes from place to place with me as I attempt to clean out old flower beds and remove them. The time of posy gardens has come and gone.
And I sit here wondering what has happened to me. I used to love trying to make the mundane interesting. To grab your attention and hold it while going on about my dyspepsia and other ailments.
My head is in a fog. I don’t know where I want to go with writing. I have lost my audience. I need a new bright bauble to chase. I lost my mojo ….
Lathspell!! Stormcrow I Name Thee!!
Well, now I am thoroughly disenfranchised. Perhaps I always was and just did not know it. I have become a sojourner in a land I once called home.
God’s people have always been sojourners, even In the land where God called one tribe of people to live in. Indeed, the US is not my home if I do in fact belong to a particular tribe of God’s people. But the recent turn of events in the US has driven that home with the stark realization that rabid people have taken over the land.
I no longer can trust the press for the truth. Perhaps we never should have trusted them. But now I am ‘red pilled’, to use modern vernacular. My eyes have been opened. I should be wary of people who desire to lead me, whether they be the county commissioners or the President of the United States.
Though we have been given discernment over evils effects, we have not been given eyes to see the evil in men’s hearts. But when a class of people begin to call evil good, and good evil, you can know which spirit is walking the land. And it is indeed an evil spirit. An ill wind that blows. A bad omen to ponder. And no good can come of it.
If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men.
And if it not be possible, what then? Either pick up the sword and be slaughtered, or meekly go to the slaughter. Not real pleasant options, are they …
The compound láðspel (literally, ‘evil tale’ or ‘evil news’) comes from Old English. It is in fact the almost exact opposite of the much more familiar Old English term gospel (which means ‘good news’).
A watchman speaks again:
A watchman speaks again:
Some eras we are blessed with respect for the government because it has earned the respect it gets. In less blessed times we give deference the government because it will brutally crush you if you openly disrespect it. The church will survive in either scenario, but in the latter case, it must remove its banners, sell off its buildings and gather in the places the adversary is reluctant to go.
At this late hour it does not matter to me, my watch on the chill ramparts is almost over, and I may soon fall into the cozy warmth of blessed slumber.
But if you are young and just beginning your tour of duty, walk your post thoughtfully with measured steps. It is not a time to be careless with your words or living. You may no longer wear your badge of faith on your sleeve, but must rather wear it hidden in your deeds. The enemy is at the gate and he is ruthless even as he preaches his malignant words of love. The era peace is over.
Mowing and Musing
Morning dawns and I awake to it without effort. It has been awhile since that happened. As much as I hate to admit it, the slumber of a laborer is sweeter than that of an idler. But it doesn’t take much labor for me to tire. Six hours on a tractor seat was a piece of cake a couple of years back, but now two hours and I am dragging.
But at last, the unmowed wilds have been leveled to golf course flatness, and the windrows[i] are ready for bailing if I was inclined to go that far. As it is, I will just leave the windrows to dry a few days, then go over it again with the mower and grind it into an allergy inducing powder.
But the major nag has been taken care of finally, and after doctoring myself up with steroid inhalers and antihistamines, I lugged my aching body to bed and slept the sleep of the just. It doesn’t take much to become just in this family. A little production is all that is needed.
So the fall goes on. Next up is the eye surgery … I am almost ready for it. My vision is so clouded that I hate driving and make Snookums drive when I can. But I really hate all the scheduling it requires. Physical exams, telephone exams, lab tests, surgery on one eye, post-surgery visit, surgery on the other eye, post-surgery visit.
That is more activity in three weeks than I have done in three years.
So life flows on by. I sip my coffee and ponder great themes and religious paradoxes, and idly watch political factions fight in a bar brawl of snarly charges and righteous comeback.
I wonder what kind of world will my generation leave … I don’t think it will be a good one.
Good morning!
[i] [ˈwindrō]
noun
windrows
(plural noun)
- a long line of raked hay or sheaves of grain laid out to dry in the wind
Back to the Beginning
Sunday morning.
In a return to the morning coffee posts where I stagger down to the studio while trying not to slop coffee on the carpet, plop down in my new $59 “Executive Chair” and try to write something coherent. Spell checking, and maybe some rough editing is allowed, but these are not orations nor dissertations. Just the observations of an old man facing his doom. The challenge is to limit them to 500 words, but ideally I will wrap them up around 250 words, más o menos.
As fate would have it, my brother and niece have come to stay with us. I presume permanently, but who knows? They visited earlier, and while here the Covid madness stupidity hysteria settled in and even auto travel was proscribed. While they were here, they concluded this would be an ideal place to live, and after a brief return to their home in Colorado after everyone was too exhausted from all the hyperventilating to care, they made the move.
My brother then had a cardiac episode and went through bypass surgery and is now recovering from that. The niece went to work nearby in Temple, a twelve-mile commute from the house and near where my brother is going through cardiac rehab. Kismet again.
But for me, little changed. I mow when I can, take lots of naps muse on arcane religious texts and torment the budgie.
And blather on like people hang on my every word.
Elegy at the Turn of the Aspens
I am very happy with my retirement to the pampas of Central Texas … it was mostly a good move. But this is one of the things I miss about my old Colorado home. Nothing beats the serenity a drive up Cumbres Pass that descends on me when the aspens turn …
Farewell, Colorado. I’ll not likely see you again until I close my eyes for the last time.
James Dean vs David Niven
I have had very few actual heroes in life, other than the obvious ones in most everyone’s family and a few tarnished icons during my recovery from the bad chemicals and ideas of the 60’s. But one character stands out to me as what I wanted to be.
David Niven.
I honestly do not know much about his personal life other than he did return to England to serve during World War II. And frankly, I don’t want to know. If you have some disparaging information about his personal life, save the juicy tidbits for more appreciative people. I like the characters he played with sophistication and reserve. A perfect gentleman. I didn’t care that it was all an actors skill.
I wanted to be like him, but it is rather hard to look sophisticated when you have acne and a ragged old ‘52 Chevy salesman’s coup. Niven would have driven a Rolls or some other exquisitely crafted car. He smoked cigarettes taken from a silver case which were carefully fitted in an ebony and silver cigarette holder. I smoked Lucky Strikes rolled up in a t-shirt sleeve when I could afford them, and cool required that they hang off of the bottom lip James Dean style. My school ‘buddies’ would have laughed me out of the county if I had used a cigarette holder and used a Ronson™ lighter. Any thing other than a Zippo™ was considered … well … a little sissyfied. And trust me. It was better to be killed that be called a sissy back in those days.
Niven didn’t wear t-shirts. It was either a military uniform, or a tux. He wouldn’t wear Levi’s, and if he had a leather jacket, it would be a brown pilot’s jacket, not a greasers black leather one. Not that I could afford a motorcycle jacket back then.
I don’t recall the movie, but one scene stands out perfectly in my mind. He was falsely accused of flirting with another mans wife, and the husband confronted him about it while he was coolly sipping brandy from a snifter and casually standing in front of a fireplace as the irate husband berated him. The man then punched him, and he carefully set the snifter on the fireplace before falling on the floor.
Tres cool!
I just never quite reached that level of sophistication as hard as I tried. I studied verital wines. Continental cuisine, new the best hotels in every city (if the ads were to be believed, anyway). I did try to dress up one level in my early 50’s, but then I was long married, and sophistication is wasted on Snookums. They don’t come more pragmatic than her. So the suits went back in the closet, the Grecian Formula and Rogain bottles dried out from misuse, and I settled in to be an old fart. So much for my mid-life crisis!
I don’t know what triggered those thoughts today as I sit in front of the one-eyed blinking cyclops. Perhaps it was looking at some searches for studio furniture that triggered that old lust for breeding and sophistication. Today, sophistication is taking the time to slice a sweet onion and put it on my bologna sandwich to take with my morning pills.
But failed dreams aren’t such a big tragedy when you get older. Disillusionment is a theme with us. We discover that politicians become corrupt very soon after being sworn in. We discover that hucksters write the consumer guides. There really isn’t a dimes difference between a Ford and a Chevy. And winners write the history books.
So I sit back and finish my coffee, and finish this missive … no matter what happens, God is not surprised. Sometimes we just got to trust that things will be OK.
A lesson to be learned from ancient history:
It is said that a wise traveler in a foreign land avoids politicians and social unrest. I once was born to this land, a native sprout of its soil, but it is no longer my home. I must remember its fate is no longer in my hands. Yet I weep for its withered blooms of promise yet standing in the arid fields of liberty.
“Can humankind rule itself?” the authors once questioned.
“Apparently not” the faded blossoms replied. The people demand a King, and a King they shall receive.
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