March 22, 2021

Today’s date should figure out which it is going to be: 22, 20, 21? I am at yet another of those silly crossroads where I have to figure out what it is I am going to be. You would think I was living in Venice, on the island, with little bridges everywhere you look. Up we go and over, yet again. Ha. I have had some interesting life experiences, some fun times, some thrills, some spills… Today, because of an ER visit on the weekend and some residual weakness/breathlessness I am reflecting on living. Ha. It is so damned fragile and so damned persistent. A human being is hard to kill and easy to destroy. Isn’t that odd?

I have been destroyed by a few words and I have survived intense medical conditions, automobile accidents, vicious dog attacks, and stupid moves that created ‘ha, ha — ya missed me’ scenarios. I was never arrested for any of what were politically popular to pursue, so-called crimes and I probably should have been. I never went bankrupt and that should have happened, at least the once. I was never beaten to a total pulp and I should have been. Oh, yes. I deserved it. I got the thrill of the near miss and I did get thumped around a bit, maybe that warned me? Hahahahaha. Being young can be so much wonderful fun. It’s exciting, just to remember it all.

In my little corner of the world..(sort of, Le Petit Prince of Otton Lane) Just three words, strung in a row can do more damage than a speeding 2000 pounds of metal. No threat of stroke or pounding heart attack can wound more than: “You can’t sing!” or “Not your key!” The longer phrases are even more damaging: “You are obviously not understanding what you are reading. It is over your head” or “No! That is not what the poem is about!” What makes those statements all the more dangerous is the core truth. No, I can’t sing very well and no, I didn’t understand the complexities of ‘The Good Earth’ (Pearl S. Buck) or anything much of Baudelaire. All true. I liked reading that stuff, I enjoyed it but Le Petit Prince is on his tiny little blue-green space, looking off into the stars and imaging he is seeing something quite different than is there. He reads and sings and writes and it is mostly under-developed mark-missing hog wash. Hahahahaha.

Most of the time, I am concerned that I am not like the others, that I don’t understand. I compare, I measure, I worry a lot. Usually. Today, it is okay. I am enjoying some lovely soup a friend made for me. He made the soup and brought it to me because I was momentarily physically askew. Isn’t that nice? Other folks have been very kind, too, concerned for my well-being. They are sincere. They are sincere in other ways, too. They pretend not to notice that I haven’t studied Shakespeare correctly. They say, “Oh, how nice!” when I post a poem on my website. They say, “Sounds good!” when I post a video of me playing piano and singing. They mean it, even though we all know the singing and playing and writing are a bit scanty on the technique. hahahaha. Sigh. They are and I am simply grateful for the efforts of others. We like our friends and neighbours. We enjoy life. Nice.

A little boy in the townhouses behind me always greets me when I am outside. He shouts ‘Uncle!, Uncle!’ and I wave. I say, “Hello!” very cheerfully and I mean it. It thrills me to hear him call out. He is just being a little, excited boy child and doing the things he just does. That’s enough to make my heart skip a little. It skips more than the atrial fibrilation could ever cause. hahahaha. He, the little boy, doesn’t seem at all concerned that I failed in two separate marriages and that I spent all the money and ate all the donuts and got fat and now have physical problems and can’t write like Pablo Neruda or Charles Bukowski or sing like Jan Vickers or Bruce Kotowich… The little boy is very selfishly enjoying life. He accidentally spreads that enjoyment just by being and doing without purpose beyond joy. He is not calculating cause/effect, effort/reward… he is not evaluating, measuring… He is just doing. He is just being. He is just living.

There will be a day when I can just do and be. I will record a new song. I will finish the books I started writing. Those things will happen, I know that now. Those things are important, they give me a thrill to do. I always will do them, even if the self-deprecation and the limiting continues. It is just a thing. It is a thing I do, like calling out ‘Uncle’ is a thing the neighbour boy does. I can attempt to do what I do well. I can attempt to eat healthy, get exercise, be nice to people. I will be successful sometimes and sometimes not. Maybe I will work hard on my arts technique, maybe not. Maybe I will go for a walk, maybe not. Maybe I will bake something and take it to a friend, most likely will at some point. Until they come for us, we will continue. There is nothing to judge or forgive, really.

Like the proctologist said, I suppose it is easier if a person just relaxes a little. Yeah. I am grateful. It’s enough.

March 18, 2021

Funny, I actually have learned a couple of lessons during my time on the lovely blue-green planet. That fact does not dismiss or mitigate the ways in which I still ignore the lessons learned. Ha. Like an ordinary fool, I go astray the mark once in a while. Occasional slippage notwithstanding, I am learning and have learned ‘a thing or two’. At times, I do look in the mirror and behold/admit that I am human. I have learned that, as a human, I have ‘Good Bob’ and ‘Evil Bob’ as part of my construction. I have learned that, while being one of Earth’s most powerful creatures, I must accept those two certain aspects of life. Though I would wish the two reconciled in favour of good, I must accept that I can’t change everything, bend everything to my will. I must also accept that each of us bipedal smart-asses have enormous power and that our power carries with it responsibility. And…I learned I must accept that there is much we cannot learn, know, understand. We ‘all gotta re-lax’.

I have discovered, through trial and error, that I am and there exists, good and bad. Those are two most important ideas that Adam and Eve allegedly learned but weren’t supposed to know. I am sorta Christian, so I got to hear about them. Good and bad get talked about a lot down there at church. In my limited knowledge of other religions, the same concepts occur. Everybody seems to have figured out we are each two folks in one. According to my early Sunday morning listening when I was much younger, A and E learned those states of being whilst eating fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Tasty stuff, apparently. In the story book, it was a snake caused all the fuss and enticed our hero/heroine with apple pie. Damned snake, anyhow! He probably opened massage parlours and made potato chips, too! If you have heard the story of A and E, you will understand my upset at the sniveling voiced reptile. Jaysus! Can’t we humans catch a break? Can’t even go for a walk in paradise without some kind of shit distracting us!

A and E passed down the lessons and I learned ’em, kinda. (…by the way…I am naked and you and the fish and fowl and other fauna are, too! Did you know that? hahahahahahahaha – so naughty!) I am one of the many capable and cunning creatures that inhabit this time and space. I am a partner and I am equal. The other creatures don’t have to learn much stuff, what they know is mostly fed to them by genetics. I don’t think they are aware of good and evil, they are innocent and just work to rule without screwing stuff up too badly. The other kids didn’t listen to that ol’ snake. They were busy just doing what it is they are born to do and not bitchin’ too much about it.

I had to learn things, because of A and E. So, I learned and I think I know about Good Bob and Bad Bob (and Naked Bob..hahahahahah) and that a part of my job is helping myself, along with all else that creeps, swims or flies. I have to find good/evil balance and we all have to work together to balance the ship, keep ‘er spinnng. Balance is important, without balance we might flop over on the heaviest side and carom off the sun or something. Without thinking about balance, everybody would try move someplace warm and easy, like the left side of the boat, where they could just slough off and chill. That’s where the buffet is. The poor innocent creatures living there would be pushed out of the way and/or eaten up for lunch.

I guess I learned, I know that my responsibility is to observe, learn, try to keep what I believe is good from being oppressive, restrictive and try to keep the bad from being too exciting or enticing. I shall try to stay in my lane and stop honking so much while all the other earthly creature traffic whizzes around me. I am not always successful but we just don’t want accidents. That won’t be in our best interests, personally or as a group. We run the lights, sometimes but we have to try. It would be nice if nobody got hurt, including us and it would be nice if we keep all other breathing things around. Their help is needed and we can’t afford to lose so many on our way through the universe. If we play it smart, if I keep my lessons learned in mind, there won’t be a lot of explaining to do when God (the manager, judge and referee) calls the match.

Uhoh…

no absolute proof of God exists, empirically or forensically. The big guy didn’t leave any measureable foot prints. There is no consensus. Science can’t prove ah-yes-or-no. My understanding of God is not yours, etc. The guy/gal/entity is pretty much subjective and chimerical. Oh, remember? I did mention that there is a lot we cannot learn or know or understand. Even our best scientists can only guess at this entire magnificent display we call living, life, world, universe. There must be fifty opinions about reality, where we come from, where we are going, how best to get there and what is all of this exactly. Well, sir.. I think if we take responsibility, try to do the right thing, try to learn our lessons, accept that we can’t know and fix everything, know we won’t be good to ourselves or others from time to time, accept that we will stop at the Green Hat on a school night and that apple pie is fattening but pretty damned enticing… it will all work out. What needs to be revealed will be. Forget you screwed up and carry on. For everyone and everything, the lights will go out and the door will open. “The main thing is to not get too ex-cited!” (old hillbilly aphorism)

March 17, 2021

It is ‘Good Excuse For Drinking’ day…and no bars open? Sigh. What is a fella to do? We have gone through a Christmas and a St. Patrick’s day without the staunchly traditional part of it… No bleary-eyed, slurred, “..but really…I thingk youware bea-u-ti-ful…” No, “…oooops….I thingk I peed my pantz”. Sigh. Doing that at home alone loses some of it’s shine. It’s not amusing and there is no one around to tell you what happened that night. They don’t know, they were home alone too. I guess that a few of the bars and restaurants are hosting a Zoom or a Facetime St. Paddy’s. That should be dangerous and weird. I think of the delay effect and folks carrying their ipad or phone with them into the toilet and not shutting the video or audio off. oooops.

Another good excuse for drinking is the blahness of lockdown. Simply knowing we are limited, closed off, shut down brings out the restlessness. There is much to do here at the house but I can’t get up and get at it, I am too thirsty. I am too hungry as well. I am hungry, thirsty and I am shifty because I know I can’t go anywhere freely. A fella can’t just ‘pop in for a look around’ and wander the shops, have a nice lunch and beer. Of a certain, none of that is a necessary thing or a thing I even do all that often when it is possible. The knowing I may not makes for a hunger to do it. The knowing I can’t go for a beer with a friend makes me thirsty. I am like a teenager who has been held under house arrest…I want to pry open the window and escape. I want to sneak off somewhere but I can only go for a drive or a walk, that will have to suffice.

The changes during our Covid experiment of lockdown are interesting. I have read that ordinary flu and colds are less widespread. There were, by one study, 292 flu deaths versus 500,000 Covid deaths over the year in the U.S. Apparently, masks and lockdowns have had a major impact on communicable disease, illness and death. With everyone masked and staying at home, I am curious how many drunk driving arrests have been and will be avoided? I should Google that, just for the heck of knowing a new thing. (Slight pause and clicking sounds) After my quick look, I find The Toronto Sun notes that in Peel region, there are 29% fewer drunk driving arrests since the Covid lockdown began. Strangely, car theft has increased. Maybe sober folk have less difficulty with the whole hot-wiring situation?

I am meandering today. I couldn’t sleep last night and I took a pill, that makes me groggy for the day afterward. Had to do it, though. I needed a rest. Hm-de-dum…tap, tap, tap…I feel thirsty.

I have been lucky my whole life. There are so many near-misses and slip-ups that led to no great trial… Amazing! I can tell ya some stories! Ha.

I once disobeyed common sense and ran in the house, playing with the dog. I was in my stocking feet, running down the hall toward the foyer and it’s polished slate floor. To the right of the entryway, a matching slate hearth wrapped around a quite nice fireplace. The hearth was a foot and one half up from the floor. I leaped up onto the hearth, still running full tilt and my feet lost grip. I flew, horizontal, in the direction I had been running. Pure luck. I landed, hard on my back, on the carpeted floor – NOT the polished slate. I looked back and decided, “Nope, better not do that again!”

Those sorts of incidents litter my past like Mr. Big wrappers…they are everywhere. An ordinary person would be hard pressed to believe I had even half a brain. “If X led to Y, then why attempt Z? Aren’t they similar? Can’t you expect a similar result?” Yeah. Perhaps, it is a masculine thing but viscerally — I am not so sure. I see folks of every description taking huge chances with their star alignments, their stocking feet and their own polished slate floors. Every day of living unearths another hard stone hearth for the unwitting. I have been lucky, so many others not so much.

Unwitting. That word has another connotation for certain. Another way of understanding would be that un-witting means, ‘doing something in a manner unburdened by availing of wits.’ It doesn’t only mean that a person is surprised by something they hadn’t sussed out. Haha. Aren’t we all without wits a time or two? What is it that causes us to say, “quick! Let’s…” just before the accident, the bankruptcy, the police incident?

Oh, yes. The police incident (s). There, again, X led to Y, why try Z? Some of those escapades have been logged, reported, punished and some have been very funny. I was in an accident that didn’t involve my own volition. I was, in fact, waiting patiently for the light to turn and minding my own business. A loaded work van across from me suddenly started to pull through the still-red light. At that moment, a brand-new speeding sportscar approached on the right angle. Smack! The resulting spin of motorcars, ladders and other loose items did involve me. The car I was driving was incapacitated and required a tow for serious cosmetic surgery. The investigating police officer offered us a lift to the station where we could phone for a ride. We sat quietly in the back seat as he drove and after a few short minutes he looked in the mirror saying, “…first time in the back of a police car, eh?” I just smiled and nodded, there being no need of any more detailed revelations.

Ah, luck. I have lost all the money, thrown up most of last night’s beer, been fired, shouted at, beaten up, arrested, fallen from a great height onto concrete, survived an incovenient venereal disease (or two) and married/divorced twice. None of that destroyed me. It has destroyed others but not me. I was lucky, I escaped. I stand here on the sidelines, quietly munching a snack and watching the unlucky flicker across CNN. I am reminded of watching the Wildebeest on a nature program of some time ago. When a lioness stalked them, they all ran in panic. As soon as one of their number was captured, downed and dined on…they all stopped running. “Well, no trouble now…it is someone else being eaten, mmmmm, love this grass.” Isn’t that what we are doing when we watch the news?

Yeah. I have been lucky and my heart goes out to those who have not been. Sadly, improving someone’s luck other than my own is a hard thing to do. I watch the tragedies and wipe my brow in relief. As go they, so could I, so have I. Beyond putting my head down, enjoying my luck and living my life, what else can I practically do?

There isn’t much I can accomplish to ease the way or solve the problems of others but there are ways, small ways. I can shop local, I can cross in the crosswalk and look both ways before doing so, I can watch carefully for bicycles, I can say hello pleasantly to the homeless person and be cheerful to the clerk. I can set aside judgement and accept that I have, myself, done stupid things. That is a hard thing to do, as well…the setting aside judement and accepting that we are all human and most of us don’t act out of spite. Even if we did act out of spite, there is probably some silly reason, something the spiter did unwittingly.

so.. It’s okay, I can put some money in the pot from time to time and appreciate how lucky I am. Yeah.

March 15, 2021

Lots of noise at the ranch, these days. Don’t know why? My pipes rattle, the ductwork creaks and groans, I hear loud thumping all the time. What gives? Was an entire family disposed of indelicately on the premises a while ago? Maybe a drug cartel arranged the hit and it took some time for the police to clean it all up so that the previous owner could dump the place on the market. Maybe it’s that folks have come back to warn of something. “What is it Lassie? What is it girl? Thump your tail once for ‘get out, now!’, thump twice and give us a little bark to say all is well.”

I know that my ears are not improving. I have to turn the tv up loud in order to hear the tires screaming and the bullets being shot and the zippers going up and down, yet, with all of the noise, I hear myself making water? Hm. I was hitting the porcelain and the tiny ‘tink, tink, tink’ was clear as could be. I even heard it over the tinnitus (a constantly increasing din, btw). My impression is that a tiny tinkling would be drowned out by all the other noise, but no. Hm.

Just as Trump disappears, the ghosts of a mysterious past show up. Or, maybe, the noise is a sink hole preparing to sweep me and my lovely things down and out into the great lake. Maybe that is the creaking and the groaning. Maybe Toledo has turned on the pumps in order to fill the Nestle’ plastic bottles with a green algae and a couple Canadian chests of drawers? Maybe Fermi has come on-line again and started the damn magnetism up. I notice the glow across the lake from time to time. That is probably what is happening. I am almost certain of it, since my heat pipes are clanking, straining, bending and leaning a bit southwest. Of course, the noise could be caused by television and cell phone transmitters. Five G means no good, nossir. I sure hope the junk I can’t get rid of disappears along with everything else. Do you happen to need a slightly used toilet? (no warranty expressed or implied whether this device was involved in any sort of crime scene)

You may wonder and I wonder myself, why I sit at the Marina with a cup of tea and a bagel for a while each day. On the surface, there is nothing much to see. A few people pass by, bundled up or not as per the weather. A dog or two leap and play or not as per their inclination. A squirrel skips past, slams to a halt long enough for me to imagine he is wearing a tiny brown derby hat, then scampers off. A few birds swoop down to the water that is, as yet ice or float when the wind is right. Today, there is gusty wind so the birds just sit it out. Not much going on at all. Just breathing and occasionally breaking wind, listening to the radio, staring off to the horizon.

I am gazing toward a place I know to be called Toledo, Ohio. This causes me to wonder. (hahaha…to-wonder, To-ledo…get it?) I can’t see Toledo, I can only see an apparently horizontal line demarcating sky/water. I know from map study that Toledo is over there, further. I was told this in school. Folks I know have mentioned it. It was on tv. Toledo is just over the horizon and the horizon line is because Earth is round, like a ball. I know these things, have heard about them, believe it to be so but I can’t see it. Without the witness of my eyes, I have to take it on faith that Toledo is there.

I have lots of questions, sitting here observing, that science can answer readily. The folks who know and have run tests and experiments and things cheerfully explain about what I am witnessing/feeling. They give me in-depth background and I believe them but some of the stuff they say isn’t apparent. I see the trees bending and feel a pressure on my face and the scientists call that wind. I can’t see the wind but I can feel it so I believe them. Wind. Okay. Then, after we decide it is wind and it is blowing, I ask, “Why does the wind blow?” I am thinking inside that maybe the wind is not blowing but is standing still and earth is turning so fast that wind seems to blow. It is blowing the hair back from my face. It is causing the lady over there to lean forward just so that she can stay upright.

“Well,” said the scientist, “you are almost correct.” “Which part is correct?” I say… (in patriarchal language we use the pronoun ‘he’ when there is an indefinite and unascribed sex to the subject) He (see?) says, “..The part about earth turning. It does”. It is then that I start to wonder again about what causes the wind to blow and the scientist says it isn’t the earth turning, it is a bunch of other reasons and I stop listening after a while because it gets too complicated. I mean, I am not deciding which stock to pick or anything…I was just curious. Okay, so the wind is blowing because some air got hot somewhere and cold moves to hot and cold is heavier than hot and so air becomes wind and wind blows.

Okay. I don’t have proof. I only have the feeling of pressure on my face and the image in my eye of a lady leaning forward against something that is invisible. Okay. Wind. I also don’t have proof that the earth is a spinning ball. I believed a scientist and who knows if they are scamming us. Maybe they want us to only ask them questions so that they can feel important. Maybe they make all this stuff up because it sounds good on paper. Maybe Toledo isn’t just over the horizon?

The religion folks are just like the scientists sometimes. They say things like, “Rome was built in six days and God rested on the seventh day.” They act like this God guy (see? again?) was human and got tired after a week’s worth of hard work creating stuff. If someone was strong enough to build all the stars and the fish and the wind and the water and the planets… why would they get tired after six days? Seems to me that this person or thing or electrical pulse would not be able to be tired or energized or feel anything that I feel. I don’t know though. I guess I will have to take it on faith that what Mr. Preacher said on Sunday morning (which I did not research by reading that book) is true. I have to take on faith about the wind and the scientist’s comments, too. (I did not read those books, either)

So I am sitting here, looking at the sky and the birds and the squirrels and feeling the wind and thinking about God and scientists and Toledo and how nice my bagel tastes. Hmmmm Maybe I should read a book today.

I glanced up and out the window, noticing the bright blue sky, the still air, the quiet, the peace…a vague promise of spring fully upon us now. Wee creatures are calm yet, readying themselves for the joyful noise of going about a regular season’s business. On my precious, last season installed, flora the buds are swelling up. Each winter-hardened green thing is warming, softening. Where there was tundra, there is delicious squirming mud. I thought, “We made it! Summer is on the way!” and, “We made it! Vaccines are rapidly arming us against danger!” It was then Jethro Tull’s song ‘Aqualung’ came into mind. At once, in heart’s flight, I was cheered and felt a sense of dread. We are almost making it to spring while at the same time ending used up on a doorstep somewhere. The feeling is one of reaching the goal, at the moment you are swept away by a last wave from the Ice Princess. Are we going to have one last hacking cough and stillness as legacy?

There is much in the last year we have suffered through. Notwithstanding our history as humans and the daunting trials we have survived, It has been a deadly, hard year for the whole world wide. I think we are best to acknowledge that. It might be best to recognize the difficult time and that it still exists. Spring might be here but winter isn’t over yet. The vaccines are here but Covid isn’t over yet. Still, this day is hopeful. The sun promises that hardness has cycled toward a better time. Having a vaccine means that some return to community is on it’s way. A shift of season approaches. The changing season proves that future is still a thing and will become the present at some point. There is light but the brightness of obviously approaching spring is not simply cyclical this year. There could be an irony, too. We survived through this thing but as the cavalry rides in, we could collapse. We are exhausted, just at the moment of re-birth. While the time we are part of changes for the better, we might have used up everything to survive.

I am looking out my window and feeling that we almost made it. Of course, that’s an extreme sentiment, we will continue. There is more to see but the wholeness of spring is tarnished. It is a hollow spring I am witnessing. Joy has an edge to it. The coming season of growth/hope, the promise of prosperity are here and Aqualung lies used up on a doorstep somewhere. Our spirit, my spirit has bled out or remains frozen. Song is hushed, I have little energy for poem-writing. I find only commonplace when I search for the thread. I see the neighbours on their way about and don’t have a clue what is interesting about that. There is no visible aura of the greater picture, the humourous one. I don’t feel sparky. Spring is a so-what-ism.

The modern pandemic has changed living for human beings across the world. We were so close. We flew everywhere, landed there within hours. Locking down has forced us to see our oneness. We witness the common suffering of each other on our ipads/phones/tvs but those machines close us off from each other. Brought closer, separated…more irony. When we are ‘distanced’, our dailyness has a changed shape. Rather than being energized, we are made tired by the new ordinary way. We chat with each other, we sing, we continue but we are emaciated by the way we feed on the simplest joys. We are starving, with our spoons dipping in virtual pudding. It doesn’t satisfy. The computer doesn’t connect us, no matter our bit-rate, no matter the height of the definition. Something dry flashes across the back-lit screen. The artificial, the reproduced is missing body heat. In my own experience of chatting with friends, attending funerals, singing in cyberspace, there is dryness and crackling noise. I was struggling to hear nuance from the accompanying piano when trying to sing or trying to take my piano lesson. It just ain’t as alive as live.

The promise of Spring is glowing there, right outside my window. It is a promise and not yet reality but that is enough to get by and to lift the gloom. Experience tells that winter will end and sooner than later. Good. Covid is a thing we have little experience of. In 1917 or so, the pandemic flu dissipated and daily life returned to normal. I would like to believe that such a thing is possible with our new pandemic. I am not so sure it will be. Maybe our lives will return but it will be different. The vaccines arrived but Aqualung had his last gasp, I fear. Vaccines are sloshing over the sides of the health care bucket but Zoom and Facetime will stay awhile longer, taking up the brightness and air. Our discontented winter ain’t over yet. Ah well…

There’s proof enough time does exist,
each dub follows lub,
each tok echoes tik.
Why worry myself to sick
which direction the clock takes?
Each additional day wakes,
groggy with the last evening’s drunk
as I am,
wondering:
Why is the furniture broken?
Who is that man?
Is there anything for breakfast?

March 3, 2021

Today is one of the most delicious of days. A warm sun, a hesitant breeze…disappearing snow. Carl Sandburg wrote of the snow hiding in the bushes? I believe. Sadly, I don’t remember enough of the poem to find it anywhere for a re-read.

Yes, the snow has receded to that point of lurking at the edges. Season is leaning heavily toward spring though that is still a piece down the road. Without much regard to when or where spring is, I woke up during my little drive to get a tea and bagel. On my way, I crossed paths with a most desireable young man. Ah, spring! He was so fresh and new looking, I could not help but enjoy the view. It is not that I was imagining a more intimate setting, not at all. I am an old man, we haven’t met… the spider passes the fly on the way to somewhere else. More was not necessary or perhaps, even welcomed. I had pleasure enough from admiring the work of art. Just that. Something beautiful stepped into my field of vision and I enjoyed that immensely. Simple as any true pleasure.

There are so many pleasures drawn from living. Which to choose? I think that, while aging, the task is not to forget them, individually or allow them to diminish each other. It’s also probably not best to compare them in any way to any thing other than: what they are.

The simpler the pleasure, the better to understand and endure life. The simple pleasures are here every day. They vary from one point of view to another but they exist in every day. On that ‘worst day of your life’, there was still a pleasure from something. A pleasure existing at the edges, just under the bush. Perhaps, you really enjoy the colour blue and the day Grandma died, the sky was a most outrageous, rich blue? If you had allowed yourself to step into that moment’s relief, that pleasure…what then of the horrible day? I had a brief experience with my dear mother in law, near the end of her life, that showed me the value of simple pleasure. Her stroke had virtually incapacitated her and she could only communicate with a sparkle in her eye. I held a phone to her ear and played her a recording of Andre Rieu…I could see in the sparkle how delicious it was for her. Simple. Easy.

From one day to next or one pleasure to next, comparison, evaluations are such a waste of time. Sometimes, the pleasure has receded a bit under the bushes but it is still there. That pleasure may diminish, dissipate, the way fog does but another pleasure is somewhere in the day. Maybe not the sort of pleasure that was felt before…but pleasure the same.

I remember being young on a glorious about to be spring day. So nice. All muscles worked, no aches, no pains, vigor enough to last. I stepped out along my way with energy, sensuality. An old man may have passed by as I was walking and enjoyed the view. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Wow. Wasn’t it grand! Just that. Grand and for a moment.

Yes, it was grand but grand in it’s own way. It can be difficult to feel exhilarated by simple pleasures, now and I ignored them then. I had, as most young folk do, a wealth of pleasures, sorted through them as if picking one out to wear on a beautiful day. I am ashamed, sort of, to admit I never saw them…the pleasures…the simple ones, for what they were. Simple pleasures were obscured by anticipation, appetite, expectation of more or better ones. After a while, gradually, the simple pleasures came fewer between and became easier to see. Now, here I am. I am in this place where my hip hurts, my fingers and other joints are in surrender to arthritis, I am fat, disheveled, walking slow into old age. But…I have today, yet another day of living and being ambulatory. I also had, today, the most wonderful view of a smooth, tight behind in very tight jeans. Haha.

P.S., according to the World Health Organization, I am middle – aged at 70, not old until I am 80. Well, that’s good news, then!

March 2, 2021

Being alive, having that experience was amusing twice this morning. It rubbed off on me, changed me a tiny bit. I used up some of my remaining freshness by laughing. I gained another laugh line. I am less young and smooth than I was before this morning. What happened to cause this?

I watched and listened in real time as a friend argued with Alexa. I heard the question as it was posed and listened as the machine became gloriously confused. Alexa just seemed to start talking out of it’s head about something completely irrelevant… Then, in an attempt to restart the conversation, I could hear my friend say, “Alexa…no. Alexa…stop. Alexa…cancel.” Each request fell on a deaf microphone as the machine kept on. I laughed and laughed. Listening to that argument was an early high point of my day. Later, I drove past a man and his little curly-haired dog. They were out for a stroll and came to a point of some disagreement, I could see that the dog had planted it’s feet quite stubbornly. It was a stand-off between man and dog. The two were facing each other, man looking down, dog looking up. Comical.

Two showdowns affected my day, man against dog, man against machine. My mood was changed and both battles ended as a draw. I laughed, I used up some of my air. My lips widened into smile and further creased my chin. I witnessed life going on and it had a consequence, I was moved, changed, marked. The ordinary chaos of living through a day gave me a mark to notice in my mirror reflection. That mark is proof of an experience to remember, to comment on, to laugh about and enjoy. I don’t regret earning the mark. Living has consequences. Whether you sit it out or get involved. Whether you choose to notice life or ignore it, there are consequences from simply being where time is passing. The sun wrinkles your skin, whether you are laying about on the beach or labouring in the fields.

The consequence of living is a thing, a mark, a change. Whether you are doing the ‘right’ thing or not, being alive leaves marks. Making a good choice leaves a mark. Making a bad choice leaves a mark. Standing still leaves a mark. Agonizing over the choices that left marks only leaves more. We are going to have marks, no matter what. The glass blower’s cheeks are witness to the hours spent puffing away, working, doing the right thing. This happened to Louis Armstrong, too but he was puffing into another sort of bent pipe. I did some puffing once, long ago but I was puffing in. That changed me, inside. I argued for a long time that my insides are a little loose, my brain rattles because I did the wrong thing. I was naughty. Maybe I was. But…maybe I was wrong to waste time worrying about it?

Unlike Louis or the glass blower, my cheeks are billowy and sagging because I talk too much, not because I puffed in too much. Whether my talking was musical or beautiful is a good question. One fellow I was spouting off to stopped me. It was at break time when I was working. I (as you know) like to describe and consider the world around me. I was off on some sort of tangent when the fellow stopped me. “…stop for just a second, Bob. You can go ahead and talk…in fact I sort of like listening to you….but I think you should know, I have no idea what you are talking about!”

I know that at the time of it’s happening, my puffing in felt okay…if it had been legal, I might done more than I did. It was afterward that I worried about consequence. “What will people think of me?” I was human, though and ‘human’ is probably what people think of me. I guess a lot of us do worry about consequence when we are dealing with it and not before, when we are enjoying it’s source. The point is that there is no point to worry about consequence when it arrives…best to just touch the saggy cheeks of it and shrug. On we go. (Lovely work, Mr. Glass blower…good luck with Alexa and the dog…ta ta!)