The eve that most folks stay up late. I watched the ball drop once in the square, wondered at the late hour, and never saw a reason to repeat the performance. This eve, I saw something else fall, and was pretty pumped about it, ice. Slow moving in a small town, but it happened, none the less. 2011 bodes well.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's last story, The Elixir of Life, concerns Septimius, who wants to live forever. Nathaniel didn't know this would be his last book, as he died while he was writing it. His wife and son finished up the manuscript after seven or eight years and it was then published after his death. This story has some remarkable themes. In fact, although it is written over one hundred and fifty years ago, the character's desires and ambitions appear quite modern. The movie HIghlander comes to mind without the sword play. The joy for me was to see this great author, who ruminated over the moral crucible of the Puritans, deal with some possible downsides of living forever. I don't think the Puritans had that in mind.
When the family moved back to Keego Harbor in the late '50's, we were excited. Since we left the farm, this was our latest, new hometown. We even had our own house. There was a snag of course. The man renting our homestead wasn't paying the rent, or choosing to move either. What was a mother to do? Hope, of course, was never at a loss of ideas. So we moved into the condemned house directly across the street. Some of the amenities, i.e. water, heat, and electricity, were missing, but again, pragmatic problem solvers come up with new ideas. The house had a huge fireplace, and Cass Lake was only a hundred feet away. So, with winter glee, we began dismantling, and burning the house from the outside, while we chopped holes in the ice and carried water inside. City officials frowned on all of our efforts! In fact, they were so dismayed with our violations of ordinances, that they threatened to have us thrown into the street. Hope, never intimidated, or at a loss of ideas, simply stated that she would have the Pontiac Press on site taking pictures of the whole event. Twelve kids on the winter street, not a pretty sight, if you're a party official. In time, we moved across the street to our empty house. Another winter adventure with a happy conclusion.
Post Solstice woke sunny and warm. With extra daylight on my hands, now seemed like a good time to create a still life. Not having the traditional fruit or wooden bowl, I decided to use the materials at hand.
We are on the eve of the winter solstice. Tomorrow will be the shortest day of the year, and when it is over, the days will be getting longer. Not new news here, but for me, cause for celebration. There are no laws that will attempt to salvage the short daylight tomorrow and pretend that we are saving it for a different time, when it is more convenient. The natural law of diminishing winter daylight will be doing an about face. One more day and a wake up.
When ever this song would play, Hope and Wm T. would look at each other with that knowing look, and one would say "reminds me of...", but of course, rarely ever finish the sentence. We're close enough now to talk about it. It is indeed the season. To me, this song by Roy Orbison is special, so I am seizing this opportunity to enjoy it. My Christmas wish is that you enjoy it too!
On my last trip across the cold, wind swept Walmart parking lot, I encountered a bumper sticker that matched the weather. The tail gate of the pickup truck was lowered and on the back of the bed was a sticker that read, "Have a shitty day". Like a jolt from the biting cold, this proactive slap at humanity told me I wasn't as alone as I had assumed. Some free floating ill will must be embodied and walking around in the store. The type of person who writes viruses for computers in their spare time. Being a bit of a recluse, I can understand not wanting to talk to everybody every day, but to generate negativity when you aren't physically present gives a whole new meaning to the term a negative person.
The Hindus say that life is the making and breaking of habits. The most efficient and effective method for me to achieve either of these ends in speech therapy was behavior modification. At last count it had 10 steps, but who's counting. Self conditioning does have its limits though. A missing component is some method to psyche yourself up when you are faced with difficult situations. In the reading of Dune, I discovered this litany that has proved very effective. See what you think.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
After weeks of postponing my trip to the laundry mat, I finally went early Sunday morning after church. There wasn't a single customer there, and I had all of the machines to myself. Perhaps the raging snow storm kept them home, I'm not sure.
I don't think anything has ever been written that puts a face on the cold more than the first paragraph of Jack London's White Fang. Now that I have a carbon monoxide alarm for the fireplace, I can safely re-read it at my leisure.
"Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen- hearted Northland Wild."
On second thought, Robert Service has been there too.
Pretty cold outside now and I still can't bring myself to go to the laundry mat. This leads me to the overwhelming question. What color shirt do you wear if your socks don't match? Instead of going to the mat, I believe I will celebrate Bobby Blue Bland this evening. That is what is cool about "Being in charge of celebrations". Owner-Operator picks time and place.
While in the barbershop last week, I stumbled upon the opportunity to watch a little television. The program was in mid stream. Four panelist were discussing the correctness of a football player caught on camera laughing while he was losing a game. Non of the folks on the panel could explain all the things that make people laugh, as hard as they tried. Then, the scene switches to an interview of the said player almost yelling as he is explaining how dead serious he is about the game. Knute Rockne, the great Notre Dame coach, would take his teams, when they lost, "Back to the fundamentals". Is it the basic nature of games to bring us enjoyment, both in watching and playing?
The kitchen door swings open as Joe, followed by his son Casey, enter. I am sitting on the couch of my little log house staring at the river, lost in reverie. "Tony", Joe yells as me across the room, "Your house is on fire!". "What?" I exclaim, a bit taken-a-back at the very thought. Joe and Casey, being clear sighted men of action, then grab the refrigerator that is trailing the scent of an electrical fire and take it into the yard. "Wow", I say, "Sure glad you two showed up today!" Later when Joe needs me to spot a car, I take the opportunity to give him a ride in my newest, old Fiero. Joe, often times surrounded with the aura of knowing, finally says to me, "You know you have an exhaust leak in here, don't you"? "Actually I don't Joe, but it sure might explain these headaches I have been having." When I moved into this house 20 years, it was in obvious need of chinking. You could see the outside in many places standing on the inside. I thought to myself, hey this isn't all bad. When I utilize my auxiliary kerosene heating system, if there happens to be any excess carbon monoxide, the fresh air blowing through the logs will keep it from being too concentrated and causing me health problems. Economy of Measure, nature's own fail-safe system. For the month of November, I have been burning wood in the fireplace twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. My eyes have been growing tired, and those rare headaches are beginning to reappear. In a flash, I suddenly remember. Paul fixed some of the cracks between the logs! Could it be that my fail-safe system is failing and carbon monoxide is building up? I better do a Bill Nye, the science guy, experiment. So... I'll be off looking for some new technology to check just that very fact.
Since my days at the bat cave with MP and Wm T., I have felt that intensity trumps time. Don't know if I feel that way anymore, but it was an interesting concept at the time, so I ran with it. The following Rockabilly song by Roy Orbison from 1956 has rolled around my brain since then. I just discovered today that Roy died at 52. Not a very long time to be on the planet. See how it plays on you.
I wish I could have been there the first time. The curious human, probably in North America, picked some weeds out of the ground, lit them on fire and put them in their mouth. Then, looking for approval from his friends said, "This is exactly what I've been looking for to calm my nerves. I can see clearly now. Try one, they aren't habit forming". Wm.T. related the following story to me years ago. As a young man during the depression, he left home looking for work. There was more than enough work on his parents farm, but the pay didn't have the same scale as a regular job. In other words, none. He left Carsonville to hitch-hike to Indiana. When he left, he had fifty cents in his pocket of which he spent half on a pack of Camels. I don't know how long the pack lasted, but it illustrated to me the strength of an iron clad habit.
