Archive for January 2012
Unexplainable Flow
It is quite possible that you weren’t expecting it at this point in the continuation of all things, but, yes folks, it is already that time again for the unabashed rampage of sentence-be-damned ruminations to flow unadulterated with pure impunity in the ongoing quest for greater enlightenment and insight from the flowing stream that is commonly referred to as consciousness regardless the entirely unconscious way the fingers become exercised in the art of hunting and pecking as a result of the involuntary habit that forms in which the pinky bounces the delete key repeatedly to back up and take a second stab at hitting the letters in the proper order which forms a recognizable word sometimes in the neighborhood of one that is meant to be and not one of those made-up attempts to force a high scoring play in a turn on Words With Friends that sounds good at the time but never seems to appease the all too strict censor programmed into the App, which when downloaded as the free version, comes with its own little psychology experiment of force-fed advertisements that stare at otherwise innocent victims in a constant barrage of push this button – no not yet – okay, now, as if the repetition will produce a higher likelihood of surrender and eventual acquiescence in the form of prying open the tightly held purse-strings and shelling out the few pennies it would take to stop the attacks in a departure from laboring to maintain the principle of proving there is enough will power in the world to outlast those who concoct such manipulatory manifestations in the guise of logical protection from dwindling assets at the expense of missing the forest for the trees at a time when the woods are no longer buried under mounds and mounds of the white stuff that used to fall a lot in the winter in the parts of the world where that’s what used to happen when it got cold because the angle of the earth meant that the hours of daylight diminish to the point that people become sad and workers with day-jobs can find themselves leaving home in the dark in the morning and returning home in the dark in the evening as if daytime never happened and the hours of drudgery to earn the compensation that might allow a person to eat a meal or keep a roof to sleep under somehow all happen in no time at all and the concept of time is just a figment of some planner’s brilliant imagination to bring order to otherwise limitless freedom from worrying about being late or on time or even the simple fact of ever getting to a point that would reward the incredible tenacity of someone who would actually hang in there long enough to inhale all the words streaming out of one man’s crazy mind in the late hours, or is that early, I don’t know, but the least I could do is write something profound like the quip I posted on Google+ yesterday which was
because I liked the font that I stumbled upon in making the prior day’s Words on Images post which was a simple poke at it being Monday and my tendency to feel an aversion to the first day of the work-week since I’m one of those going to a day-job that doesn’t involve being outside in the fresh air taking care of horses, which, of course, is the plan that I aspire to achieve in the not too distant future and imagine what that might do to the stream of conscious writing that rolls out of my keystrokes!
Up Down
I took a walk yesterday to pick up replacement bulbs for the headlights on my WRX. I had the car checked by a Subaru dealership last week and they informed me it wasn’t the head gasket that was leaking, it was a valve cover. A much more affordable repair. I also learned that my car shows none of the rust that is typically seen in the same year models found in Minnesota. He assumed the car was from out of state. Maybe it was, before I got it, but that was 6 years ago. I guess I’ll hang on to this gem, since I’m so fond of it. Worth the price of repair to patch up a leak.
So, they alerted me to a burned out headlight. I have no idea how I missed that, unless it just happened that morning. Since it was a beautiful day, and I am supposed to be doing more walking as therapy for my back, I decided to hoof it to the auto parts store. It’s so counter-culture to resort to doing errands on foot in the suburbs. I like being able to do something contrary that is also healthy for me, and for the planet.
I grabbed my camera and cut across a golf course and into an industrial park, becoming mesmerized by views both up and down…
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Duty Fulfilled
A few weeks ago my wife’s father stopped by the house and dropped off an envelope with some simple instructions for me. Since Cyndie is in Boston, I was to take care of depositing a couple checks into her account and then let her know she needs to write a check of her own and get it delivered. Easy enough.
He said it wasn’t an urgent task, but an important one. I didn’t want to overlook it, so my goal was to just take care of it right away. How hard is it to deposit a check? Well, to start, Cyndie and I have separate accounts at different banks. We have both of our names on each of the accounts, but I have no idea what her checking account number is.
Over FaceTime, I brought up the subject and Cyndie said I could just look in the drawer in our desk where the checks are and I could get a deposit slip out of the back of one of her books of checks. Sounded easy enough to me. Consider it a done deal.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. I rummaged through the many boxes of checks, and found old ones for each of our children, one from my bank account, and then a box full of old blank registers, with calendars on them now long out of date. There was nothing from Cyndie’s account.
Days passed, and Cyndie and I failed to connect. I figured I could look for an old bank statement of hers for the account information. There should be a file-full around here somewhere. But the sad truth is, Cyndie and I manage things very differently, and after looking everywhere I could imagine, I found no bank statements for her checking account. They may be here, but there are a lot of boxes and files of paperwork that Cyndie saves, and I can’t seem to find the needle in the haystack.
Next, I emailed a request for her account number, but that went unanswered, probably lost in her over-loaded inbox. After days of failing to reach her using FaceTime in the evenings, I made a point to wake up early and try to catch her before she left for work. She was kind enough to pick it up, but only to tell me she was late and had to dash out the door. She told me she would text the account number.
This had already become embarrassingly overcomplicated. All I wanted was to take care of it right away so it wouldn’t drag on or be forgotten. I waited for her text. I waited two days. How long does it take to send a text? I left a voice message on her phone. I must have sounded desperate. As I was falling asleep after that second day, my cell phone vibrated to an incoming text message. It said she had mailed it, and she was sorry I was so worried about this.
I wasn’t worried, but I sure was frustrated. I checked the mail that next day. Nothing. I suppose it could have been delayed a day. I checked the day after that. Still nothing. Is this some kind of test for me? When I finally got a chance to speak with Cyndie by the end of the week, she confirmed she did mail a deposit slip and blank check, but not till the day before. She had carried it in her purse for a couple of days until she found a mail box.
I checked Saturday’s mail. Nothing. Monday, nothing. Tuesday, nothing. How hard can this be? To complicate things, I had forgotten that Cyndie told me she was traveling to Florida for a conference. I couldn’t figure out why I was totally unable to reach her for several days. I was about ready to give up, but each day, I’d check the mailbox, just in case.
Yesterday, I finally got what I was after. To add insult to injury, the letter that Cyndie waited two days to mail ultimately got mangled and torn open by a Post Office sorting machine. The deposit slip and check with corners missing, and the torn envelope, were put into a larger envelope and, to the Post Office’s credit, at long last, they delivered the items into my mailbox.
After bringing in the mail, I went right back out the door, drove to the bank, and made that damn deposit.
Stone Work
I’ve found myself thinking about Nepal and the Himalayan mountains lately. What better way to honor that special place again than with a few shots of rocks? One is a cairn that existed long before I wandered up to take a picture. It is draped with prayer flags that weren’t catching much wind. The other is a rock I balanced during a session of play along the Dudh Kosi river while my friendly Sherpa, Lakpa, watched over me from above. There’s many a day I wish I could just step through a door and be on those trails in that region again.
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Priceless Friendships!
The fantastic brilliance of life springs forth in everything! It is in the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult. Our greatest lessons do not come from times of calm and collected, easy living. It is the challenges, the trials and tribulations, which produce the gems of outcome that glimmer with the brilliant beauty of our eventual successes in life.
It has been brought to my attention, by friends who care about me, that some of what I write lately is spawning worry about my state of being. I will admit to taking advantage of some of the angst, (created in me by the departure of my lovely wife to the job in Boston), composing some prose that explores the feelings thus produced. To an artist, such fodder is a rich vein to be mined.
I am grateful for the feedback, though, because I was not aware of the level of impression my words were creating. I am richly blessed by friends. In particular, Ian Rowcliffe, who provides me with insights and inspirations through his comments, and his unfailingly positive focus. Also, my good friend, Gary Larson, a champion in helping me take care of myself. Mike Wilkus has been a (mostly) weekly date for dinners out on the town, or movies, or sometimes both. Many special friends from my circle of bicycling buddies, who came over last Saturday, bringing food and good cheer, to watch a movie I’ve been itchin’ to share for weeks. And my morning soccer comrades, who just yesterday were helping me release endorphins with plenty of laughter and cheerful competition.
I am eating very well, despite my disinterest in cooking, getting in my maintenance exercises for my back, and actually enjoying the opportunity to get a taste of living on my own. Being separated from Cyndie isn’t easy, but it isn’t all that hard, either. It is “both / and.”
Part of me just might have been hesitant to portray my situation in too rosy a light, lest I come across as a heartless cad. I fear there could be some ‘splainin’ to do if my wife thought I was having too much fun here without her.
I was telling Gary last night that I am enjoying having some of the rooms in our house become more a reflection of me, as I remove some things that had been put in place for when two people occupied the space. As referenced in yesterday’s poem, the rooms are losing some of Cyndie’s soul, but I see that as a logical step toward our putting this house on the market. When she moves home again, we are envisioning that we will be in a new place, on property with space for horses. I expect the current situation will end up making it easier for us to part with the house we’ve lived in for over 25 years.
Thank you to all friends, new and old, who read me here! I’m hoping you find my travails relative something… preferably something positive!
Without
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you weren’t here last night
to hear if I had something to say
not that I did
but that doesn’t matter
it isn’t the point, anyway
I took a stroll through empty rooms
and talked to myself out loud
some nonsense, not about anything
a break in the absence of sound
I’m watching how slowly
the soul of this place
is shifting
without you around
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Relative Something 