The Leaping Year

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Something in the air this morning.  Winter is leaving but not without a fight.  Spring is lingering, restless, in the halls.  Everyone everywhere is doing their thing this morning and will keep doing so throughout this day.  Their thing, for certain.

What makes it special?  What makes anything special?  The meaning we give it is the shortest answer I guess.  But what does that mean?

It looks like it will be a nice day, here, for me; I hope that it is the same for you, this day, there.

Do you recall four years ago?  Does anyone?  Presidential election, day before March, last day of February.  The year that leaps?  And I thought it was just the day.

I don’t really know why I write the words that no one reads, no one hears.  Do you sing in the shower when no one is around?  Why?  Why not. Just do it.

It’s already 2016 and I don’t feel like it’s all that much different than any other year in my life. My focus though has changed.  I just really want to do something that matters more to others than it does to me.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I have always tried to do good things for others and I have succeeded many times- more than I have failed I really can’t say for how do we really know or when do we readily accept that any such attempts are failures?  No, I want this to be a clear path to victory, a new path to personal liberation.

My career has passed.  My kids have grown and though still in the act they do not need much from me anymore.  I sometimes wonder how much they ever really did.  I love them more than my own life which is of course the way it should be. My wife and I have settled into marriage some years ago.  Finances are fine for now but a bit concerning if the new venture does not take.  It is something more of a give than a take but to keep giving I have to take something- one of Newt’s laws I think.

So take when you are young and give back later when you are able.  Maybe give a little along the path of taking and still take a bit along the path of giving.  Give and take, I’ve heard it before.

Can one man make a difference?  As much as any other man or any other woman I would imagine.  And how can we make this so?  Wake up and get to it; wake up and get through it.  And while you are doing so, take a little and give a lot and try to make a difference that matters- to yourself, to your family, to those you have never even met before.  If only we all approached things in such a way, every day.

From the night will soon come what remains for the day.

So I do truly wonder what this day has in store for me, for us.  Will we be better tonight when we rest our heads than we were this morning when we lifted them to greet this extra day?  I guess we will have to live it in order to find out.

Hard Trying

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One morning I awoke and committed to making things different.  I would do everything different, everything better than I had ever done before.  I felt good before trying.

I tried, I really did. I tried and I failed.  But I didn’t fail to try.

So I set off on a different path and just decided to be a better person and try to go out of my way to be nicer to those I knew and those I was meeting for the first time.

I tried, I really did but it did not yield the results that I had hoped for.  Saturdays were still dateless.

I wondered what it was that seemed to work so well for others while not much of anything seemed to work for me.  So I thought and I thought.  As long as there is an idea left with even just a little hope behind it then there is still a chance.

I decided then to get involved, to come out of the shadows and put my name in for anything that I could possibly handle, to open up and really be part of the team.

That kinda worked, but just for a while, just until I challenged something and was essentially thrown from the team.  For them, trying was not enough. You had to come along to get along.

I knew who I was and what I was and all of the good that I had to offer.  All those field days with me and just a couple other dads.  All those contacts with teachers and coaches to establish a relationship.  All those contributions of time and money to causes and events.  The attempts to join in to neighborhood events and get closer to the neighbors.  All the times I helped folks around their houses or helped them to pack and move, later never again hearing from them at all.  The hours planning the right courses for my kids, the paths that they should follow in this sport or that class or that musical pursuit or this club or that friend ship.  The faith and trust I placed in others who had no such capacity themselves, at least not for someone such as me.

But I guess in the end I am not much good.  I am left for dead when ripe for living and presumed missing when front and center.  I am invisible.

I have accepted all of this as fact and processed it as truth.  Life is as it was meant to be for all those involved.

Your time will come if you just keep trying, they have always said to me.  Or maybe they said it to someone else and I just overheard, thinking in the process that someone had cared enough about me to care about me at all.

But there are good men and there are great men and then there are men like me.  Or maybe there really isn’t.  Maybe I’m all alone.

Finally made it all the way to unique.  Finally made it to a place I can call my own.  Finally feel at peace and at home.

Finally time to pack up my own house and get along for now I know that my time has also almost come, my time is almost here.

It’s a shame that I’ll be gone when it finally does.

All said, All done

Personal Reflections & Memories No Comments

 

Once, a long time ago, it mattered.  But that too passed.

My desire to be something that is no longer possible to be has not diminished the feeling.  It is as it had always been and will most likely still be so tomorrow, faded and worn, tattered and torn.

“It’s the only real time that I feel alive” she confessed in the heat of that moment, her face alive as it had never seemed to me to ever be.  And even that changed with time.  The memory of her dies a little more with each coming and going of the day.  Any day.  Every day.

I sit here so very early in the morning yet again and wonder yet again what this day will hold yet again.  And once I think I know just enough to rise and face the day my mind goes blank and all else fades yet again except for the fear of the morning and the fear of the day.

But I don’t retreat and I don’t shy away from what I need to do and I don’t sit and whine about needing more from those who owe me not a single thing.  That would be wrong.

And I don’t assume the world will be kind to me or have to treat me in any certain way.  Just treat me perhaps as you would yourself want to be treated.  Is any one really better than the best?

And while I hope my family will be there for me when the day winds down it is really me who needs to be there for them.  And I try to be, there for them, but am too often not- not enough anyhow- and that too is just fine if they manage to somehow survive my shortcomings..

But who do I go to when I need that adjustment?  Who can hold the concern that I may need?  And is it selfish to ask for such a thing?

Perhaps.  But maybe not.  Who knows.

I guess that a goodly number of us do the best that we can with that which we have and those who we love and, we surely always hope, those who also love us in return.

When did adolescent angst end and young adulthood confidence arrive?  And then when did that pass into complacency and further still into the terror of the coming end?

Sometimes I just don’t get it, this life.  But then, who cares?  Life was not passed to me so that I could understand.  I’m not sure why it is given but once given it should be lived don’t you think?

I guess I’ve tried to live it and even done some good and some exciting things.  It has rarely been too dull but about average in its dullness.  And now I move on.

Things change and people sometimes do as well but, mostly, we are somewhat predetermined I believe and then shaped further by that and those around us.  So maybe we have no choice but to be who we are even as we struggle mightily to be who we think we want to be, who we think we can be.

Do we even have a chance to get there?

Who knows.  Some would say yes and some would say no. As for me I just don’t know.

And it’s still killing me.

“I remember her” she said

Personal Reflections & Memories No Comments

 

“Sure” she answered as she shifted to get more comfortable.  “She’s been around since as long as I can remember.”

“Yeah, since you were born” I said.  “What do you remember?”

“That she was gentle and talked kindly to me.  That she seemed to really like me and was glad to see me when she would visit.”

“And did you notice any changes in her over time?” I asked.

“Sure” she answered “but not in those earlier days- maybe more in the last two or three years.”

“What did you notice?”

“That she moved slower and seemed to have some troubles seeing, more all the time.  A few times I think I might have startled her when I walked up, maybe even scared her a bit and I never meant to do that.”

“Did she act scared?”

“Now that you mention it the last couple times I saw her she did appear scared.  And sad, she seemed very sad” she responded.  I could tell some of this conversation might be starting to bother my girl a bit but I just needed to know.

“How do you know?” I continued.

“Well, I just have a sense for these things, for knowing when people are good or bad, kind or mean, healthy or hurt, happy or sad.  I know when they are and aren’t scared.  And she just seemed scared.  Terrified almost.”

“Of what though?”

“I think it was that she was scared of what was starting to happen to her.  Sometimes it was anger but mostly fear.  Maybe it was that she was scared of the unknown, of what was happening and what was still going to happen.  I think she knew she was fading and couldn’t stop it, any of it.  And more than anything I think she was scared and sad that she was losing the ability to see” she explained, wise as her years may allow.  So perceptive.

“So she was sad?”

“Sure. One son had died and another had surgery for cancer.  She’d lost her husband years and years ago and a couple siblings and also many friends.  The life she had been a part of must have seemed like something in the past, something she would never regain no matter what, and she was, well she was so terrified of, well dying. It was obvious to me.”

“I guess I should have seen it to” I said.  “I knew what was happening- I had seen it when my dad started to fade but I was so far away and things in my own life seemed so much more important.  I didn’t make it back before he passed.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah.  And she had always been good to our family hasn’t she?”

“From what I know and what you’ve told me, yep.”

“She was a surrogate grandma for our boys since they were born.  They called her ‘Granny Peg’ from the time they could first speak” I remembered sadly.

“They did seem to get along very nicely.  And she always had a kind word and hand for me.”

“Sure.  She sure did” I said.

“She did?”

“Yep, she did.  She’s passed away” I suddenly confessed.

“Oh no, that’s so sad to hear.  Did you see her?”

“No, not since the Christmas before last when you saw her too” I said, sadly.

“Why not?”

“I keep asking myself the same question” I answered.  “But like with my dad I just don’t have a good answer.  Maybe I just don’t like death either.”

“Me neither” she said as she got up from her bed slowly and with more than a little effort.  As she began to walk she did so with a limp on her back leg and she seemed to struggle to see the floor so moved along slowly and carefully.

She was aging and we both knew it but we didn’t talk about it.  So was I, I suppose.  I wanted to help her but couldn’t.  I hoped someone one day would help me but realized they couldn’t.  But a simple visit and a kind word might go a long way.

If only I had considered doing the same for Granny Peg.

As my girl limped away, all four legs seemingly giving her problems, she stopped and looked back with her fading eyes and seemed to smile a smile not of happiness but rather a knowing and somewhat sad and resigned smile.

“It’s too bad, I liked her.  She was a nice lady” she said as she moved slowly off.

“Yes she was” I thought to myself, “yes she was.”

la mort de l’immortalité

Observations No Comments

 

When it was time to die I found I still wanted to live and, yet, in the prime of my life I sometimes found that I wished I were dead.  I lived then died but did I then live yet again?  Would I?

I had a friend- we didn’t stay in touch over the years- who had a very strong desire to live to a very old age, say to 300 years or more.  He asked me “wouldn’t that be coo?l” and I had to answer that I didn’t think it would be.  He was incredulous; I was not.  I just didn’t think it would be so great but I really wasn’t sure why not.

Would we all still continue to get more gray and wrinkled as we continued to age?  What would we look like at 200?  300?  I shuddered to imagine that.  Maybe we would all just keep looking like we did at 100.  And that’s much better….  !!

Imagine this: “Yep, that’s my blushing bride.  Been married for 275 years now…”  Sound good to you?

And would fertility be extended as well?  “Yep, I have 97 kids, 48 boys and 49 girls.  We might try again to even things up.”

How would family gatherings look?  “Yep, we had Christmas at my son Joey’s house last year.  1,150 people and he has a small house but at least it won’t be his turn again for another 97 years.  But then there’s still Thanksgiving.”

“Yep, lived here 112 years.  Third house we’ve put up on the same spot.  Another 25 years and we’ll have lived here longer than any other place we’ve owned.”

If we lasted longer would other things as well?  Would regular stuff wear out the same as it does today?  “Damn!  My favorite jeans just disintegrated when I was putting them on.”

If we never died would we still maintain great relationships with all of our friends and loved ones?  “Nope, haven’t spoken to my daughter Jane or anyone in her family for over 100 years.  And she has 62 kids, 135 grandkids, over 400 great-grandkids- I think- and I just don’t know how many more beyond that…”  Doubtful.

Would dementia and cancer and heart disease and the like just be conquered?  Would the only way to die be by accident or maybe by war or maybe on the job?

How could we possibly stay in touch with everyone?

And if we didn’t want to die because we wanted to maintain close ties with our kids wouldn’t they feel the same?  And wouldn’t their kids feel the same?  So if we are all looking to stay close with those we beget how in the hell would we be able to stay close to those who begot us?

Maybe every person could have only 1 or 2 kids.  That would help but things would still eventually get out of control.

And the population growth problem…wow!

And what about heaven?  If you believe and if you have parents or grandparents who might now be there are you okay saying you don’t want to ever get there to be with them again?  Leave your kids or never see your parents again…  What about the loved ones who got there by accident- same story there.

I guess these are just some of the things that come to mind some years later as I think again about my friend’s question.

I guess the time we have here on his earth- afterlife or not- is maybe just about right.

Almost like somebody, somewhere planned it that way.

Remains of the Dazed

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Is there something going on that I should know about?  Seems something has been taken from me, from all of us.  Have I the time to consider all that has transpired?  (Ah, yes my erudite friend, yes indeedy…)

There’s something wrong and there has been for some time and we all know it’s true now don’t we?  We were happy once; we were surely children once, playing with toys.  Where did all that go my friends?

I left the house today and meant to come back.  I made it you should know.  I made it should you care.  And should someone ask then you can tell them that I am likely to do it again and again and they can’t stop me.  Not yet.

At least I don’t think so but things are changing so I wonder, I wonder.  Sometimes I’m even a bit scared y’know.  Ain’t you, just a bit such and so now and again?

This government has gotten way out of hand.  I don’t know if anyone can stop the unending growth, the seemingly limitless spread of the greatly unelected.  They had names for such hordes in Communist Russia.  Hell, they had names for such hordes in Tsarist Russia.  Here they just have a tag:   .gov

Who is responsible?  Who is in charge?  I’m scared y’all.  The folks are taking to the streets and they have no plan only anger and a need to release it.

Yeah, I’m scared when only black lives seem to matter.  Now they’ll tell you that it used to be only white lives mattered and they might be right in some cases, not every last one.  But when only white lives mattered weren’t black folk scared?  So why would it be any different for white folk nowadays?

Oh, I get it.  It shouldn’t be any different now- white folk SHOULD be scared.  In fact maybe it ain’t so much that black lives matter- because with all those blacks killing blacks I don’t see how they really do- it’s much more the belief that white lives, and maybe others as well, just don’t matter.  Ain’t it so bro?

Does any of this matter to any of you?  Maybe it should; or maybe, one day not far down the road too far, down that road, it will.  When should becomes will then all those hens have come on back to roost you know.  It was said and it was meant by far too many.

Why do folks who preach against injustice want to do away with justice?

Why do folks who preach about old hatreds just create new ones to replace them?

Why do folks who preach fairness want to be able to control what is and what is not?  Is that fair?

Who they think they’re fooling anyhow?

I was brought up to tolerate but not embrace unless the desire to embrace is mutually felt.  And, even then, even enemies hug before they kill.

And wasn’t that Jesus Christ dude betrayed by someone close with a kiss?  The kiss of death.

Y’all better wise up and realize we can all move forward together toward a better place and that we don’t need no damn shepherds to herd us there.

Y’all better smarten up and realize you’re being controlled today is just a prelude to being owned tomorrow.  Slaves used to be forced into it by force- now we just get there by sweets and we do it gladly because they’re taking away everything that might allow us to say “hey, wait just a damn minute.”

Ain’t no freedom to vote if your vote is controlled.

Ain’t no family left to fight it.

Ain’t no churches left to preach against it.

Ain’t no place to run and sure as hell ain’t no place to hide.

Baa baaa baaaa…Vote for me and I’ll set you free.

Rap on brother, rap on.

Trewiligier

Reflections & Memories No Comments

 

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes le mercredi, vingt janvier, deux mille seize

I want to feed the birds, again, in peace and then die.  Is that asking too much?

The cry has died, the sigh has ceased.  The reign of man has ended.  The cry that once rang loud and clear and true all across this land is no more.  No one to cry out and no one left to hear even if they might choose to do so.

It is Wednesday, yes.  And it is January, for sure.  The twentieth day to be exact.  And we are well into the second half of the second decade of this now no longer really new millennium.  The war to end all wars was raging, working hard to end all wars indeed, one hundred years ago today.  It can be mighty cold over there when the battle rages, or perhaps stops in stalemate with trenches drawn and excavated to briefly protect those already dead, or dying, or soon to be either or perhaps even both.  Such is the way of war but that was when the cry still rang out and there were still those alive, perhaps then left for dying, who had answered or might still respond to that call, hear that cry, stand and take it no more.

Something had to be done; something still remains to be done on the lifeless and still fields of that forgotten battlefield, no, not then and still not now but someday soon, someway different yet somehow still the same.

No one heeds and no one hears and no one cries and no one dies and the dead shall yet come here no more.  Not as they once did.  We are hardened to their voiceless cry and we remain seated; always seated and in no hurry to really get anywhere.  No cry, no response.  No call, no return.  No life no love no happiness no way.  Not here and not now.

One hundred years ago it raged and perhaps still does somewhere.  But not here.

The birds- yes, they cry out but now in hunger and not in happiness.  They must be left to live and I must feed them ever still before the coming of the winter dead.  They too will die if nothing is done and there really is nothing to be done that anyone still here can still do.  The birds do not sing- they cry out- and I would like to give to them all that is left to me to give before I can die.  Hopefully in peace.

That may be too much to ask for or expect but it is not too much to hope for given all that I have done for them…and you, yes for you.   There was always that.  Always them and always you those hundred years ago when the cry still sounded.

We then marched and moved on and then sank slowly back into the earth- that cold, hard, unyielding earth of winter long ago- back into it once again.  No battle raged but the birds did cry out and I left then, finally, flush with hope and courage that, if I could just feed them once more it would all be right even there and then without me.

Once I thought it was they who cried out and now I know that for all of these lifeless years it has been me; just me.

It was cold and the earth was hard those hundred years ago.  The birds no longer sing nor cry.  There is no life and no love left there on the bleak and barren plains of sad Trewiligier.

Just quiet sadness for those passed.   Those like him, and her, and them.

And, of course, those too much like me.

Vents froids soufflent; mais oui.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes le mercredi, vingt janvier, mille neuf cents seize

Mesmeronics

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Yep, that’s what I hear.

Lookee here. I’m a technology guy; I had a career in electronics and technology. I was fresh out of college at the advent of the cell phone. I worked in two-way communications and the micro-circuitry that paved the way for so much here today. I worked in the semiconductor industry that made even much more miniaturization possible. I was there at the advent of the software industry (though my company managed to miss the boat but that’s a story for another millennium). I lived through the days when computers moved permanently into the workplace and then on through homes and businesses and on to ubiquity. I was there then- really just a bit over 30 years ago- and I am here now still. Maybe barely. And I am not alone but someday soon the folks who understood the why for why such advances were pursued will no longer be. Their life forces will have been deleted and the knowledge that went with will have gone with yet again. Doubtful anyone will notice or much less care.

And then what?

Oh, don’t fret on so old man. We got this.

Do you really?

Do you know how a computer works and do you know that it is (was) intended to solve problems so that we can focus, as human figure-it-out machines, on what might be next?

Do you know that a cell phone was meant to be used to un-tether us from the dark confines of our caves; to be used as a mobile (that is spelled m-o-b-i-l-e) telephone. Data terminals were just that. Now it’s just back to the caves.

Do you know that televisions were used as family entertainment? There was only one and we all gathered around it…as a family. A lot less was personal and, to me, beautifully so.

Do you know that if you said (that is as in actual speech) something to someone in confidence that you had a reasonable chance it would be kept so? That all you shared might not be there on a permanent scroll to be viewed as will through all eternity by anyone with even a small desire to know?

Or that we used to say good morning and good night to one another?

Or that Christmas gifts took thought and love? And inspired very nice thank-you notes and cards delivered by hand or through the postal hardware services..

And that your every movement was not likely to be captured on an 8mm? Those were reserved for special occasion and often were not encumbered with actual sound or words to spoil the moving pictures. Grainy, maybe, but great nevertheless.

Did you know that we used to watch and listen and appreciate events? Phones and tablets were not used to reserve the moment for later on- maybe a picture or two with friends- to share on-line with the socialsphere. How can a moment be enjoyed as a moment if you’re so damn busy trying to preserve it for later on? That 32GB SD card might as well just do away with the need for our own internal memory.

Did you know that we used to actually have private thoughts and enjoyed them and even our meals without sending out the details to all of our good social linkages?

No my friends, something deep and drastic has happened and you know it as well as I do- that is if you remember before Totaltronics came along.

But after we have been deleted what then? Where will things go from there?

I never thought I would agree with those doomsayers- after all I was a learned man of technology. And what we have created we cannot now destroy.

At least not before it destroys us.

Symphomatic

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Can’t harmonize and can’t read many notes of music but I know a good damn song when I hear one. You can bet on that.

Some fought and died. I thought and tried. And in the end, it really mattered not for they all disappeared and, after years of extreme loneliness, I just up and died. And after fifty years they still grieved.

Somewhere along the way I changed. Somewhere, somehow, I became someone that I don’t really know all that well and like maybe even less. But I still think and I still try.

Even if I am dead.

But let’s play a game and say that I am not gone, that I still remain as I always have- here and alive in some sort of condition or another and still in search of something. I guess we all are.

If I were still here what would I be doing this very minute? Oh, sure, you can say that I would be writing this but, really, how would you really know for sure? Maybe I wrote this earlier or even later and not just now. Maybe it came along at a later time after I had a chance to think some more about it all. And, then having thought, I could then try…again.

Make it up for me. Make it up to them. Make it to the other side of the river and then head on home once again.

Especially this time of year. It seems that we would all like to be heading home once again.

Wherever that may be.

Sure, they did fight and they did die and I did think and then I did try but in the end it really didn’t matter much did it? In the end they all came home and I just wasn’t there any longer. I just wasn’t home, no, not anymore.

It’s tremendous really, y’know, that whole absence of malice thing. I have no malice left any longer in either the primary or the reserve tanks but I still hold bitterness in abundance and I just simply do not know why. It was they who fought and died, not me. Definitely not me. But, still I did die didn’t I? Maybe that’s why such bitterness in living, having died.

And why? Why did it all eventually come to that; maybe I mean to this since the present, past, and future seem to be kind of mixed up in my head.

I want the best for all of you, truly. The absolute very best of all that remains. If this world holds only so much goodness and if that goodness runs out then what? When? Where? Does the evil grow until it feeds on and soon just devours itself?

And then what? Then what? What?

Tomorrow, no matter if today is even today, is not today. It is another day and I rise in silence to meet it. Well, to at least see what it has to offer.

And then I move on.

Sometimes I try to get back home but most often I just try to get along and finally read the right notes and somehow harmonize with that which plays on beside me.

Play on, play on all y’all.

 

 

 

 

Bubblin’ Crude

Jibberish Observations No Comments

 

Can’t matter no more. No one seems to care much does they? Not him, not her, not you, not them…

Perhaps not even me.

It’s again been awhile and I have no excuses beyond the usual. And they wear thinner right before dinner. Ever so, old chum, ever so.

“Went to school, I was very nervous; no one knew me, no one knew me. Hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson? Look right through me, look right through me…”

And sometimes I guess that’s just the way it goes. What seemed up is down; left shifts to right and passes front as it moves behind back; happy turns suddenly sad and even the sun don’t seem so warm or bright anymore. Sometimes it never even seems to come out at all.

Sometimes, I guess, that’s just the way it goes.

It will soon be Christmas and we will all be so happy again. How could we possibly not be? After all, it is the season.

Always liked Christmas but it’s hard to remember the last one that was memorable. It’s like that a lot I guess. Lotta things; lotsa times.

Time passes and places just seem to fade away or disappear altogether. That too is the way it goes.

There is a place we used to go when you both were young. A place of fun, filled with adventure and excitement; filled with happiness and youthful joy. A place removed, a place no more. Just an empty suite on a cold windy December morn. No more, very much less.

Where did it go? And where have you both gone? When did you grow up and grow away? You don’t seem to really need or even want us much anymore.

I never called my dad enough or wrote enough letters home to let him know how much he’d done for me. How in ways I would try to be like him while in others I would not. Assuredly not; and I think that he would agree actually. Do this, don’t do that…can’t you read the signs?

Thomas Wolfe wrote of her and she seemed to come back to life in full animation. Full-lived and of competent mind and body. And, if Wolfe had allowed, even of lasting spirit and unyielding soul. Only later, in death, did she seem to be fully alive and left, lastingly, on the remaining days of the world. A true gift to us all. Never dead, always dying.

Tuesday was her last day. That morning she passed. That evening we did as well. Into what and on to what we would discover but never truly know. To this very day I do not and, I’m just assuming, I doubt I ever will.

So take your tomorrow and do something fun. Plan your escape and don’t walk, run.

Time runs, we all know that. It runs and we never catch up. We are just left in the dust and dirt and never really know what hit us do we?

But I digress. My main goal has always been to be happy- make a good living, get married, have kids, have a nice house in a good neighborhood. Guess I got that far so all right then. But is it enough? Was it ever enough? What is enough?

No one can answer and that’s just the way it goes I guess.

Maybe in living we get to the answer. Maybe by dying we just wind up making it so.

It is such a very, very mad world.