The Faith and the Reliance

Stanley Kunitz began his poem, The Layers, with the common sensibility that accrues to many that, while we have some notion of a continuing identity through our lives ... "I am me and the same me that I was yesterday" .... we had and have had a multiplicity of identities, roles and functions and each one is in a constant process of change and 'leaving behind':

The Layers (from the opening)
by Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. My own early life was destined to taste so-called Sacred Texts, as much as it was to know the difference between the feel of a Craftsman wrench and one made by the many companies that have mastered the art of designing offset wrenches that feel "just so" in one's hand. My Mother came from a line of religious thinkers, keepers of sacred traditions and Writings; the one I was named after, indeed, died September 1913 ... just 100 years ago ... even his name was to carry forward. My Father, on the other hand, was born to smithies and dairymen and thought little of demolishing what was in order to build what was to become. Mutt of such a "mixed marriage," it is, perhaps, of little surprise that yesterday I continued my writings on a theoretical piece about the sanguine value of sadness, while spending some hours pulling apart and rebuilding a pump and a filter  ... all between hours with the visitors who occasion my office and dealing with GuntherDog's need for a haircut. I never forget the other layers of my life ... of course the familial ones which come in layers of their own ... my trek through teaching and running two schools in my life, one a place for disturbed inner city high schoolers ... and one a postprofessional training institute for those who sought to work with fractured Souls by talking to them. There were the years of trying to do Mathematics, a piece of which I continue to see being cited ... the Covitz-Nadler Theorem. (A piece of theoretical Mathematics that never impressed me and still doesn't.) I remember, too, treks through trying to modify that Viennese Doctor's Theory of the OEdipus complex and, now, my work on Sadness ... nevermind years of mixing cement, building walls, plumbing and my favorite ... trying to balance vacuum driven carburetters on a slew of old cars before the process was hijacked by perfidious cyborgs and their computerized fuel injection systems. But what unifying force is there to bind all this together ... what "principle of being abides" ... to go back to Old Stanley's words? While I don't know the answer to that question, yesterday as I was playing with the filter ... dismantling-cleaning-running .... dismantling-cleaning-running .... the title of a book by the midevil Bible scholar, Nachmonides, ran through my head. In his language: Ha'Emunah v'ha'Bitachon .... rendered in English, I suppose ... the Faith and the Reliance (maybe written mid-13th C.). I haven't worked this through in my head and little if anything remains of the Nachmonides' words ... but this much kept swirling about with wrenches at hand .... life ain't much without a confidence that -- whatever the future has in store for us ("See what tomorrow brings" was the name of an early 60's LP) -- whatever unfolds, we ... in some inter-reliant pulling together .... we'll give it a whirl. I wish I remembered after this half Century + of not looking at this pamphlet-sized book of letters how the Old Guy parsed the connection between Faith and Reliance ... but that's gone to memory, at the moment. In any case, I found myself watching myself and others all day ... but particularly myself. This Last Quarter stuff? It doesn't even always make it to Overtime, y'know. Its success, it seemed to me, yesterday, and seems to me this morning, relies on whether or not we (I mean "I" and "You,"  of course) can welcome a future, whatever it may be, with that sense that it will, indeed and with great joint effort, work out ... The filter, this morning, is still running ... and so am I. And GuntherDog is still a schmuck!

A Sunday Morning Reflection

I continue to receive mail from concerned listeners ... I cannot for obvious reasons say whether the notes reflect a common sense of "Seniors" ... that we all suffer from what once was called involutional depression (melancholia) or that the comments are more closely in response to what folk imagine they perceive in me. In general, they are well-wishing ... "Hope you feel better" ... "Sorry to hear that ...." .... "OMG, that's terrible."

I discussed this a few hours ago as I was thinking of coming downstairs with GuntherDog. He did his usual "sit-down" on the landing just on the top of the stairs ... "Pet me or I go nowhere." For some reason, this morning was to be different. I sat down, too.

H: "GuntherDog ... This has been going on a long time, now. Niine years that you refuse to come down the stairs to pee until I've admitted my fealty and debt to you by slavishly petting you."

GD: (Quizzical look ... followed by a turn of the head)

H: I have feelings, too.

GD: (? Whaddya-say? I couldn't hear you.)

H: Nevermind. Just, never-you-mind. Look. (why do people so often invoke the sense of vision ... whatever) Nobody has it easy. You're pushing ten and I'm on Medicare ... that is, we're close in age. Two Old Guys trying to make it through ... Don't ask me, you smart-ass dog ... Don't ask me "through what" cause I frankly don't know.

GD: (? Can I pee, now?)

H: Well. I'm not petting you, this morning. I have a sneaky suspicion that dogs think their prostates are between their ears and demand this bizarre stimulation. Well, no more. You scratch your own head. Wanna pee? Lift your hind leg and do your scratching thing. I resign. Oh! It's not all you, Gunther. Part of it is having this role of pater familias for so many years ... Married for 48 ... 3 kids ... let's see. If I add their ages, I get 130 years of Fathering. Throw in the inlaw kids, an ex inlaw kid, and six grandchildren and I think I get something just shy of 300. Nevermind the 40 years of being in a service industry and worrying about the needs of students and the visitors who consult with me.

GD: (? I really gotta go. Can I pee, yet?)

H: No. I need to finish. Lookie here.

GD: (There he goes, again, with making fun of my failing eyesight)

H: Before you, there were three Saint Bernards, Kaz Kuratowski, Schreber and Mitzvah), and then there was the real lady dog ... I mean she was a lady and among the finest that walked on God's Earth, Shayna Rosa the Wonda Dog.

GD: (Stop, already)

H: Not till I'm done or you get off your ass and walk down the stairs on your own steam, Schmuck! There were cats, as well: Hans who turned out to be a Hannah, Muncacz who showed up at the back door hungry, Matyos actually from Hungary via Vienna brought by one of your older brothers, Winnie-cat and Emily who both belonged to your Sister, who you know, as well, and Pretty Girl Freud who was found in Richmond by your other older brother. Geez. I've been taking care of these, I figure, for more years (counted cumulatively) than that kidnapper in Cleveland got years for being apparently a real monster ... he got life + 1,000 years.

GD: (Enough. It's no wonder people think you complain too much. Nobody signed you up ... you weren't conscripted into this life)

H: Well, either were you. You didn't even get a draft card?

GD: Woof.

GuntherDog, at this point, toddled down the stairs ... I? I sat there for 5 minutes, or so, and contemplated my navel.

"And the beat goes on."

Truth be told? The past "Life + 1,000 years" have been pretty good, and many -- by no means all -- of my fellow travellers have known how to throw a good party.

I have a birthday coming soon. Maybe GuntherDog and I will go running through the woods peeing on every other tree and then come home for a Last Quarter afternoon nap.

Getting Obstreperous

Enough Already! (a rant)

Isn't it enough that I have to hold on to the railing walking down stairs or need to let GuntherDog lead the way so I don't fall over him and break my neck?

Isn't it enough already that that scruff-of-a-dog refuses to come down himself until I pat and pet the royal dog's head on the top landing of the stairs?

Isn't enough that no one feels a damn thing for an orphan who gets medicare and/or collects Social Security?

Isn't it enough that I have more than a half dozen Doctors all younger than me?

Isn't it enough that symptoms seem to grow in number year after year?

Apparently not for, apparently, we Players in the Last Quarter have to listen to  all kinds of rot ... day after day!

... Anthony Weiner explaining why Oscar Mayer runs his campaign for mayor?

.... why it's just dandy that the Mayor of San Diego, der Linder Torte, has been accused of asking his female staffers to come to work without undies?

... why it is fine for the Governor of Virginia to take what appear to be bribes?

... why infant mortality in USA is maybe 30th in the world of civilized nations?

... why our education system lags behind requiring us to import both field laborers and IT professionals and Physicians to do our skilled and unskilled labor?

... why the 2nd Ammendment guarantees the right to own an armed B52?

... why it takes two claw-foot tubs and four hours for a couple to have sex, nowadays? (with nobody able or willing to explain to me how in the Harry Houdini that's done! ... Maybe I should ask Eliot Spitzer?)

... and why the hell it's gotten so damn hot, these days? (According to the Dems, it's technology out of control; according to the Publicans, it's either just part of cosmic cycles or else God's revenge on Sinners, Infidels and Homosexuals)

Any case ... this Senior Citizen has had enough, already, and supports an ammendment to the US Constitution requiring that members of Congress and the Senate sign an oath requiring them to have sex in just one tub at a time and to lose anything that lasts more than 4 hours!

Geez! Just, Go see Alice!

(Sorry for the rant! Was a tough day, yesterday. I dreamed last night of Flux and soldering; sounds like a sexual dream to me! Whoopee! Whoever dreamed up Flux was among the brilliant innovators of history. For the uninitiated? Flux is the Petro-Gel one smears on both surfaces of a joint just before soldering. The idea is that the Flux rapidly reduces in volume as the pipe is heated, rendering a vacuum which will suck the melted solder evenly into the joint ... yielding a 50+ year seal. Now, why can't my doctors be elegant in their thinking and brilliant like that inventor.  Dang! The Docs would stick a tube into the tiny space to watch and be seen with jaw dropped/mouth agape/without a clue, telling the pipes to come back in ten years.)  

One of those odd days, yesterday, that seem to take us on treks that, while they don't go very far, are monthly parts of marriage in the Last Quarter. Really didn't matter whether it was M or me, this time. A set of symptoms arrives ... this time on a hot beach. We take a breather. The symptomatic one lays down back at house ... the complex of symptoms had not been typical of a Myocardial Infarction. Did not want to panic the grandkids. Maybe dehydration? heat related complex? it had been really quite hot on beach and we were on the 'could there be miracles' organic juicing diet. An hour later, the symptoms are no better. The health center on the Island is run by a whole team of Clem Kiddidlehoppers .... call the pharmacy ... 'y'could go to one of thos emergent health issue places up near Pocomoke City ... hospitals? oh, they're 50 miles away or thereabouts.' At this point, it takes two to walk the patient to the car. 25 mins later, we're facing a very worried receptionist who takes us right back. 45 minutes, two ekg's, a line for fluids, and blood spots all over the aqua-blue moo-moo (one size fits everyone from Jack-Spratt to Manatees) and floor later and patient is on Emergency Medical Ambulance going north to the big city ... Salisbury. Spouse following in car ... nervous? you bet! EMS folk: 'now don't you go runnin' no red lights or tryin' to keep up with us. Police gonna lock you up, if'n you do.' Actually, the EMS folk were very nice and the 'abundance of caution' Physician's Assistant who made the only decision he could and his staff were all doing exactly what they should have been doing. OK .... most of you know the next four hours ... More ekg's, more lines, more attempts at drawing blood, more x-rays, great Indian Lady Doc ... really clear in her thinking (this, you know, is not always but often the case that ER Docs are good and quick thinkers) ... checking with old ekg reports from back home .... Couple pressing for discharge before they have to drive home in dark ... hard to see at night ... 'could easily be sharing ambulance heading back North if you don't let us go, soon' ... Nevermind GuntherDog panicking and really needing to pee ... kinda like an old person after getting fluids in an ER. You get it .... Made it back just as the Sun's effects were all but gone from its new home beyond our horizon ... patient feeling crumby still in this 9 hour romp ... couple ready to go to sleep to call it another day Playing in the Last Quarter. Report: Turkey sandwich in ER looked different than the Green Miracle Juices of past week and, standing here on the beach awaiting His Majesty's arrival just before 6, the heat wave has broken. Hey! All's Well that Ends Well!

May be our last day here on the edge of the Americas .... waking each morning to the Ocean .... It's been many a thinker, but most recently Leon Kass after writing his lengthy volume on the Book of Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom, who went about hither and yon speaking to audiences about the value of mortality ... carrying on a tradition amongst all the great religions that one should live each day -- whether in the Second, Third or Fourth Quarters -- as if it was your last. Indeed, one should meet each person as if it was the last time you'd meet them ... do each task as if it is your last opportunity to finally carry it out or to carry it out, again, with grace. The word grace must share its origins with the word gratitude ... two sides of a coin. The grandkids ... the half that came, this year ... will be leaving tonight and M and I will leave tomorrow. The prophets are predicting major storms that will arrive to conquer the heat that has had its grasp on the East Coast. Maybe next year all the grandspawn will visit ... maybe if I stop calling them 'spawn,' more will come. Nah! The grandkids know we love them. M and I will be back, this Summer. This is the first time, I've decided to take all Fridays off in July and August beyond some weeks. Some of the visitors to my office are displeased. They call or -- how very modern -- text. I don't tweet, well not yet. It's hard for the to articulate the thought that they might miss me. Such a human experience ... missing another when they're absent ... betimes, when they're present and cannot quite be present. Oh! There are lovers embracing on an unoccupied lifeguard stand. I keep repeating in these notes how strongly I feel about hello's and goodbye's and their feeling relatives .... glee and sadness. There is an ebullience, however, that goes on in presence, as well ... maybe even harder to own. To be open to hello, presence and goodbye ... Is there more?

Not much to report ... sitting here waiting for the Sun to rise .... looking out at a calm Atlantic ... M, the Kids and Grandkids are back at the house sleeping, most likely. The lifeguard stands, where they are, remain empty for another four and a half hours. Mostly couples have come to offer up praise to Eos for her pink sky or to mouth the words I recall from Psalms ... Mah Gadlu Ma'asecha, Yah ... How grand are your creations, God ... M'od Amku Machschvosecha ... How very deep your thoughts. CAUTION: Seaward Cuurents may exist. Signs of a universe only apparently self-aware. Last night, the kids went to say good-night to the Sun, while M and I went to hear a reading of a new play. The local Shrink and her husband's 12 year old (who looked 16) was one of the central characters. An acting out Goth teenager growing up without a father in a little town was repeatedly threatened by her Mother with being sent to live with Grandma in Chincoteague, the town in which we have parked ourselves for 34 Summers and the very same town in which the play had its first public reading. The hall in which this was staged was pretty full and had that nursing home smell of a Senior Center, its previous incarnation. The AC failed, last night. A laughing gull just cawed, as if to say: What y'complainin' about, Bud. 'I wasn't,' Herr Segal, 'just sayin'.' Thar she blos. Deep Pink .. top half visible not out of the Atlantic but above a misty horizon ... She's late, the Sun, she is ... and her audience of 30 or 40 are now visible ... all visibly facing East toward her ... She's bright Pink now and they're, I imagine, each trying to figure out their purpose in standing erect on the surface of one of her smaller satellites ... Mama Earth ... or, at least, I am ... sitting here at the edge or is ot on the edge? She's free of the mist, now ... promising another 95 degree day.

Miracle Cures

When my Dad was dying, one of his middle kids would bring him meds and supplements to take. I fondly remember his plaint: 'Every week she brings me this little white pill ... a different one every week ... but each one is promised to cure what ails me. I mean each one and they're all different.' Yesterday, on holiday and away from my office, one of my kids and the grandkids came, carting a "juicer" ... For those who aren't juiced yet, a juice extractor separates the pulp of vegetables and fruit (Kale, Squash, Cucumbers, Carrots, Apples and pairs ... you name it)from their juice and "micronutrients" (hey! just how SMALL are those nutrients?). The juice has a recognizable flavor ... one that wouldn't sell much in local supermarkets .... and another-Worldly color ... like WWII army green ... You wouldn't paint a car that color. Last week, I got to watch such documentaries on how juicing can change your life. Frankly, I'm ready for some Botanical Magic ... a resuscitation. Have been vacationing on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for 34 years, since the juicer, our youngest, was three. The 6 mile trek to the beach on board one of two bikes gets longer every year ... bridges get steeper ... more young folk passing my 1974 Raleighs (a Supercourse II and my favorite, an International)... pisses me off to have some 25-40 year old run by me with a "good morning". Good morning, my Ass, you young whippersnapper! The bikes are not the problem ... When I take them to mechanics, they offer to give me even-money for one of their carbon-graphite new-fangled models. The mechanics drool. When I bring my older edition body to the Doctors, they never offer to trade. I mean never. I'm waiting for just one -- man or woman -- to opine: Geez ... What I wouldn't give to have a body like you. There are no pictures on this blog! Back to vacation. Bottoms up! Juice? Down the hatch!