Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Finally some Winter – clouds, wind, snow flurries, 25 degrees – and then clear blue skies in the afternoon
The 25th day of January in 2012

News from the world of astronomy today is a reverse view – the Earth’s blue ball taken by satellite on Jan 4. It’s all over the internet - take a close look.
Somewhere down there . . . you are . . .

THE CURSE OF THE SLASHING RED PENCIL

For twenty years I served on the faculty of an elite high school.
Drawing, Painting, and Art History were the subjects I taught.
Part of the pleasure of any given day was time spent in the faculty lounge.
Swapping the war stories of the teaching experience, talking ideas, kicking administrative incompetence around, telling jokes, and above all, bonding with those whose basic values included quality education.

The faculty lounge served as an informal seminar, where you could learn aspects of subjects you did not teach or comprehend – Chemistry, Math, French, and Music, for example, in my case.
The faculty lounge, at its best, was a graduate seminary in education.
And several times this led to be being allowed to sit in the back of other teacher’s classes to get a taste of their knowledge and pedagogical style.

There were some remarkable colleagues there and I treasure their memory.
I miss them and the experiences of the private club of the faculty lounge.

On the other hand.

It was often painful to watch when teachers of English and History marked and graded papers in the faculty room – a common event.
The marking and grading was done in red pencil.
The teachers often thrashed through piles – multi-tasking in haste, as if they knew what to expect and could do the work without much deliberation.
The teachers were looking for mistakes in punctuation and spelling, as well as content and construction, and seemed to take pleasure in finding errors.
They worked with swift slashing motions as if they wielded a sharp knife or an ice pick – cut-and-stick style.
It seemed like a “gotcha” approach to correcting papers.

They scribbled notes and esoteric remarks that were hard to decipher.
I know because when I went over the papers with students who were my advisees I often could not fathom what the teacher said or meant.

There were times in the faculty room when a teacher would say or even shout, “Listen to this!” And read a garbled sentence or a paragraph full of confused facts.
The denizens of the faculty lounge would laugh.
And gossip about the intelligence and personality of the student.

I found this process of speed marking and this brand of comedy painful.
This breed of English teachers had blood on their hands, from scratching out the heart and souls of aspiring young writers.
Intentionally or not they were wounding instead of inspiring.
Students were being held up for ridicule for being students.

What I witnessed reminded me of what must have happened to me and my writing once upon a long time ago . . .
And probably to you, as well.
Remember all those papers you got back marked in red?
“WRONG!” was what one teacher used often on my work.
Why was it wrong? She didn’t say. I was just supposed to work it out.

And I recall one teacher whose handwriting was so bad and whose notes so cryptic it would take a code book to figure out what she meant.
But some of us figured out that if you just re-wrote the paper with minimal obvious changes she would never re-read it. And your grade was really based on what she thought of you as a student in other respects.
She didn’t really care about the writing – she’d seen too much of it, I guess.

On the other hand.

My favorite English teacher addressed a paper first with a green pencil.
She first read through a paper for basic content – looking for the good stuff.
Her green comments, which I can still see in my mind’s eye, were such as:
“Good.” - “Yes!” - “You’ve been thinking!” - “Strong paragraph.” And the best one: “If this paper was a song it would be a hit! Keep singing!”

At worst she would write: “Think about this again.” or “Are you sure?”
and “What about another point of view?” She raised questions to encourage me to think, not to leave me defeated with scars on my spirit.
I looked forward to getting papers back from her with excitement, not fear.

And yes, she did go back and read papers again using a red pencil.
Using little editorial marks we understood: “sp.” – “punc.” and a slash line meaning starting a new paragraph would be better.
We did make errors.
We were students.
We most needed encouragement, not damnation.

This English teacher was not a wimp or a pushover, by the way.
She had high standards for us and for herself.
She made us work hard, and even memorize poetry.
She thought the best of us.
She wanted us to think the best of us.
She was an educator, not a teacher-terrorist.
I still treasure her marks in green pencil.

(And then there was the professor who used a whole box of pencils of many colors . . . he favored purple . . . but that’s a story for another time.)

All of us have been victim of the slashing red pencil syndrome.
As teachers we tend to refer to our own teacher’s example, and they, in turn, were probably victims of the slashing red pencil syndrome in their own time . . . and on back into far time, forever.

The red pencil approach to education slops over into our way in the world.
Encouraging a red pencil approach to life itself.
We edit the world:
Wrong, wrong, wrong and again wrong . . . bad, bad, bad . . .

This is not meant as indictment of all English teachers.
But it is an indictment of a style of approaching life . . . and editing.

Editing.

That’s what set this train of thought in motion in the first place.
If you make your living as a writer, as I do, then the curse of the slashing red pencil continues to be a part of your ongoing life.
And I’m in the process of marketing three new manuscripts – all to be scrutinized by the wielders of the red pencil.

Editors edit.
That’s their chosen profession; that’s their job; they get paid to wield the slashing red pencil. It’s a mentality – “I can fix it – I can make it better”
And, to be honest, the best ones can and do.

Once I had an editor for my nationally syndicated newspaper column who said to me that there was nothing I could write that she could not improve.
And she added that the test was whether or not I agreed with her edits.
And no matter how often I sent something to her that I thought she could not mess with, she did, and she was right. Every time.
I don’t know what tool she used to mark up my words.
Her edits were conveyed to me in black and white in e-mail form.
But what I sensed and felt was the work of a green pencil.
I thought of her as a coach, an advocate, an educator – not just an editor.
I’m a better writer because of her.

Enough of all that.

Here’s a summary of Fulghum’s view of writing and editing.

The theories of post-modern literature make sense to me.
There is no one book – one way to write – one way to think.
There is the book the author writes – with his intentions and sensibilities.
There is the book the editor edits – with her values.
And there is the book each individual reader reads, adding their intelligence, desires, experiences, and imaginations to what the author and editor began.
None are the same book.
All reflect a human need to communicate one’s truth in one’s way.
All have validity.
All should be respected.
All should first bear the marks of the green pencil, and then the red one.

Finally, this encouragement:
When you go out into the world to examine what’s offered, always carry a green pencil with you.

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Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Cloudy skies, snow flurries, 20 degrees
The 18th day of January in 2012

The hot astronomy news is the discovery of planets orbiting around two suns. Imagine that. Two sunrises and two sunsets every day.
It’s truly weird way out there.
And weird here, as well. No winter. Mild, dry, sunny. No snow.
Minimal wild life, inside and out – no mice, no packrats, few deer or coyotes or saber tooth tigers or mountain alligators.
A disconcertingly high amount of calm . . .

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

A couple of weeks ago I posted a journal containing 7 very short stories.
The posting had this introduction:

My daily personal journal contains a random collection ideas and images and information accumulated in real life, day by day.
My imagination often takes that material and runs away with it – extending the factual into the world of the possible.
Truth is at the heart of the process, but in different forms.
Here is a variety of examples – with no particular connection or theme.
The only thread is between my mind and yours.

The posting ended with the note that there would be more to come.
Sure enough, the stories have continued to unfold in my mind.
Here’s one – the original beginning and then what happened . . .

FIVE

A couple made rambunctious love in the room below me in the middle of the night in the Nikos-Takis Hotel on the Island of Rhodes - Nov. 11, 2011.
The floor and walls were thin, without much soundproofing.
Woooo-haaaa!

I salute their enthusiasm, their passionate cries, their sense of rhythm,
their endurance, and their terms of endearment.
And I appreciate their religious sensibility in again and again calling upon God to witness their love making. “Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios!”

Moreover, I admire their stamina.
It was a three-round, two-hour circus event.
Leaving me sitting wide-eyed and exhausted on the edge of my bed.
Wow!

When I sat across from them the next morning at breakfast, I was surprised.
For one thing, they were sharing a bottle of red wine at 9 a.m.
For another, neither of them was young or beautiful.
Nicely dressed, neatly coiffed, politely behaved – but not young or pretty.

“Is that the couple from room 2 – the one below mine?” I asked the waiter.
“Yes. They come every year at this time. And . . . they are not . . . how shall I say . . . married to each other.”

Later that night I was at a cafe called Rogmi Tou Chrona – The Crack In Time. They were there, drinking champagne and eating roast lamb.
When the musicians began playing, they danced with graceful skill out on the terrace under the full moon.

A taxi came and took them away.
That night there was silence beneath my room.

“Is the couple from room 2 still here?” I asked at breakfast.
“No, they only come for one night – every year.
They are . . . sister and brother . . .”

Later that night, in a plane high over the Mediterranean Sea, the woman sits holding the hand of the man. Same couple.
She looks at him . . . and begins softly laughing.
“Costas, did you really tell the concierge that we were sister and brother?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“You crazy, crazy man. That’s kinky.”
“Actually, not really. We are all Greeks, are we not? And in our myths our gods committed incest all the time. Fathers slept with daughters. Mothers slept with sons. Brothers and sisters slept together. And in our ancient drama, it is the same. No Greek should really be surprised at the idea.
We grow up knowing at least the habits of the gods, if not our own.”

“Yes, but this is now. Isn’t incest illegal?”

“Sure, but the hotel is not going to call the police. We are good customers. They need our business. And our incestuous relationship gives a certain edginess to our presence there. They pay a lot of attention to us. We’re not just another stuffy old tourist couple.  Brother and sister . . . oooooh.
And you can bet that the concierge probably told everybody on the staff and any guest who asked. Did you see how that American couple stared at us?
They were in the room above us . . .”

The woman laughed again and kissed Costas on the cheek.

“I like all the crazy games you play – it gives an edginess to our love- making when we go off on our anniversary trips. Thirty years . . .”

Costas smiled and squeezed her hand.

“Ah, Maria, my beloved . . . we may not be as good as we once were, but we are as good once as we ever were.”

She laughed and kissed him on the check again.
“What do you suppose the Americans upstairs thought?”

“Well, they didn’t complain – and . . . maybe . . . if they knew the whole truth about us, they might be inspired. Maybe they would like knowing that old love is not always tired love . . .”

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Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Clear skies, 17 degrees overnight, calm
The 12th day of January in 2012

One of the first things I do every morning is take a look at the news of the day from the world of Astronomy – the long, long view.
Just to put the rest of the news in perspective.
Astronomers said yesterday that each of the billion stars in the Milky Way probably has at least one companion planet. That’s a billion planets.
The article went on to say that until April, 1994, there was no other known solar system except ours. Now, after the Hubble and Kepler telescopes took pictures, it turns out, ours is only one planet among billions.
And that’s only what we have evidence for now.
It’s as far as we can see . . . now. . .

Before you read the following, go to “Monument Valley” in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley and take a look at the panoramic views posted there.

MONUMENT VALLEY REPORT

There are at least three Monument Valleys.

One is an American Indian Theme Park that caters to the nomadic Bilaganaas - a Navajo category that includes White people, Chinese, Africans, and just about anybody else who is not Dineh – the Navajo word for themselves – meaning “The People.” The tourists come from all over the world to look at Indians and the landscape, buy curios and souvenirs – mostly made in China – and take pictures.

A second Monument Valley is the ancestral home of the Dineh - the real world of the real Navajo people, who go about their lives largely un-noticed by the Bilaganaas. The Navajos have, of necessity, stopped herding sheep and now herd Bilaganaas. Don’t fleece the sheep – fleece the Bilagaanas.
It means jobs for the Navajos, so they accept the situation.

The third Monument Valley is a landscape made of red sandstone buttes and spires of volcanic rock. This scenic part of the Colorado Plateau has been heaving up and weathering away for a jillion years – long before the Dineh or Billagaanas showed up to live in it or look at it. Words really can’t touch it – so do go to the website.

The View Hotel in the Navajo National Monument in Monument Valley is an example of the Theme Park. Take a look on the web. http://www.monumentvalleyview.com/ The hotel focuses on Western Movies. Stagecoach, Apache Junction, etc.Mostly starring John Wayne, who is always the hero of the films.You can see where John Wayne stayed, where he stared at the scenery, and probably where he took a leak – if you ask – whatever . . .The movies dominate the menu in the View’s restaurant.
Food named after characters in the films – the Billagaanas, not the Dineh.So . . . in the spirit of the Theme Park mythology, I had a John Wayne Burger for lunch. Ground, cooked meat on a stale bun, with pickles.Somehow, it did remind me of John Wayne.

As for the second Monument Valley and what’s going on in the lives of the Dineh, take a look on the web at The Navajo Times http://navajotimes.com/ – the newspaper of the Navajo Nation. The excitement is in the winter basketball games – take a look at the Sports section on the website. High school Navajo basketball is the hottest, fastest, fiercest form of basketball – both boys and girls. You never hear about the players – they don’t go on to college ball or the NBA – the Dineh are not tall, just tough. The high school teams really kick butt – while the spectators pound drums and chant in the stands. Wild!

But I went to see the full moon rise over the landscape of Monument Valley.
I did that.
And saw the sunrise the next morning.
Awesome.
Worth the trip.

Talking with an old friend who lives in Alameda, California, he reported seeing the same full moon rising red out of the clutches of the trees on the top of the Oakland hills – meanwhile sitting at his dinner table eating cracked crab.
Just as awesome.
It’s not where you are, I guess, but just that you manage to look – to be there.
Putting “Watch the Full Moon Rise” on your Things-To-Do-List helps.

So what did I bring back from Monument Valley?
First, a traditional Navajo ceremonial basket – a flat form made of juniper root and yucca fibre, in a red and black pattern that has a spirit way in it – an open path for the ritual powers to come and go.
It was made by Mary Holiday Black who lives on the Navajo Reservation near the Arizona/Utah border.
She is the driving force behind the revival of this Navajo craft.
She says considering the baskets will help calm your mind.
(Go to Mary Holiday Black Navajo Basket Weaver to see for yourself.)

Besides Mary’s basket, I brought home a bag of fine red sand – so fine it seems more like flour. The soft sand is the main component of the great read monoliths of the Valley – stone weathered by wind and time into sand.

I collected the sand from the dry river bed near Oljato – way, way out in the emptiness of the land of the Dineh.
Oljato means “moonlight water” – referring to the way the light of the moon is reflected on the fingers of water flowing into the wash from a spring at that place.
Somebody, sometime, must have looked . . . and thought . . . and called it,
“Moonlight Water” – Oljato.

I brought some of the water with me, as well.

I placed some of the sand in Mary’s basket.
Along with a small bowl of the water.
And lit two sticks of pinon incense.
And placed this ritual offering outside in the moonlight last night.
Mary is right.
My mind was calm.

____________________________

And lest you think this is all ooo-wah mystical hooey, the sand has a practical use as well.
It is part of my plan to catch mice.
After catching 61 last winter, but not seeing any recent signs, I wondered.
Last winter I learned that if you put out a cookie tin covered with the fine red sand on it – in a place where mice travel – with a pine nut in the middle – the mice will leave their tiny footprints in the sand on the way to the nut.
Then you know . . . and can set traps . . .

Ah, but no mice tracks this morning.
Perhaps the basket and the water and the incense and the sand calmed the minds of the mice.

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Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Weather is mild, calm, cloudy – neither this nor that
January, the second week of 2012

My daily personal journal contains a random collection ideas and images and information accumulated in real life, day by day.
My imagination often takes that material and runs away with it – extending the factual into the world of the possible.
Truth is at the heart of the process, but in different forms.
Here is a variety of examples – with no particular connection or theme.
The only thread is between my mind and yours.

ONE

In a small European country it is the law that all citizens must vote.
In every public election for which they are eligible.
Or, to be more precise, a citizen must appear at the voting station.
Must register, take a ballot, consider it, and place it in the ballot box.
It is, however, legal to cast a “white ballot”.
That is to say one may decide to vote for no candidate.
An unmarked ballot may be cast, as a sign that the voter does not find any candidate worthy – a vote of No Confidence.

One year the candidates for office were a woefully inadequate lot.
Extremists, clowns, fools, ego-maniacs, and corrupt incumbents.
The campaigns were a shoddy circus – an insult to intelligence.
And so.
By unspoken common consent all ballots cast were “white ballots.”
Everybody chose to vote for nobody.
Even, apparently, the candidates themselves.
Government came to a halt.
For a few months the people simply did what they knew they must do – obey the law, pay their taxes, do their work, and act with civility one to another.
The people governed themselves.
It was a good time . . . for awhile.
And then . . .

TWO

In the Navajo Indian culture there is a tradition called Chi Dio Dil.
“The Laughing Party” – held for newborns six weeks after birth.
Up until that time the child is protected from the hardness of the world.
When the time comes, relatives and friends gather to play with the child.
The first person to make the child laugh will be important in its life.

Billy Yazzie died on the Navaho reservation at age 95 last week.
In the traditional hogan where he was born and lived all his life.
“What were his last words?” people asked.
“No words – he just laughed – and died.”
“Of course,” people said, “Of course.”

Billy’s secret Navaho name was “He-who-got-the-joke-and-laughed.”
Well before his Chi Dio Dilat six weeks he was a laughing baby.
At the ceremony it was Billy who made everyone else laugh first.
And it was Billy who became important in everyone else’s life.
Not the other way around.

Billy had a funny face – clownish – high eyebrows, bubble nose.
The corners of his mouth always turned up, not down.
And his laugh was large and infectious, making him welcome everywhere.
Without his knowing he was considered a medicine man – a healer.
Navahos came from far and away to be near him and hear his stories.
Billy Yazzie was not only a laugher, but a great teller of jokes and stories and tales and myths.
Navahos always went away laughing, feeling better.
They revered him as a seer – one who has a deep vision of life.

What’s unusual about that, you may ask?
Well, for one thing, Billy Yazzie was blind from birth . . .

THREE

A tiny spider wove a web and constructed a web-sac on a CD of the music of Mozart - in my house in Crete while I was away for several months.
On the recording Dalibor Brazda played violin, with the Camerata Rheniana, conducted by Henry Adolph.
The spider’s fine, thin, silvery web was a lacy overlay of the CD.
I found her corpse when I opened the plastic box.
She died on the violin concerto No. 3 in D major, KV 211, about halfway through the 2nd movement, the Andante.
Her web sac was built on the 3rd movement, the Rondo: Allegro.

Did she know where she was and what she was doing?
Were there teeny-tiny edible insects inside the box?
Was she aboard the last time I played the disc?
Did she pick up vibrations beyond my ken and liked the music?
Is that what lured her to build her nest just there?
Did she, any more than I, have any idea of her life being lived out with great music underfoot.
Did Mozart have any affect on the lives of her children?

I wondered.

Shall I clean off the disc and go on playing it?
Or shall I set it aside as a small shrine to sacred mysteries?
What would Mozart want me to do?
Answers: Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe . . .
and I don’t know.
Yet.

FOUR

In the market of a small village in Turkey there is a Handle Man.
I have met him in person.
His wares include replacement handles for anything that has a handle.
Pots and pans, doors, tools . . . whatever.
If he doesn’t have it in stock, he will make one.
The day I watched him he crafted a new wooden handle for an axe, a shovel, a hammer, and scythe.
Cutting, shaping, scraping, sanding, polishing, and installing.
He made sure each customer tried out the handle for comfort.
Twice he reshaped a handle to fit the customer’s hand grip.
Through an interpreter I told him I wanted to get a handle on my life.
He wasn’t taken aback.
He knew what I meant.
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “Of course. So do I.
But, alas, I do not make that kind.
That is the work of Allah.
Pray.
Allah can handle anything.”

FIVE

A couple made love in the room below me in the middle of the night in the Nikos Takis Hotel on the Island of Rhodes, Nov. 11, 2011.
The floor and walls were thin, without soundproofing.
Woooo-haaaa!

I salute their enthusiasm, their passionate cries, their sense of rhythm,
their endurance, and their terms of endearment.
And I appreciate their religious sensibility in again and again calling upon God to witness their love making. “Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios!”
Moreover, I appreciate their stamina.
It was a three-round, two-hour circus event.
Leaving me wide-eyed and exhausted, sitting on the edge of my bed.
Wow!

When I sat across from them the next morning at breakfast, I was surprised.
For one thing, they were sharing a bottle of red wine at 9 a.m.
For another, neither of them was young or beautiful.
Nicely dressed, neatly coiffed, politely behaved – but not young or pretty.

“Is that the couple from room 2 – the one below mine?” I asked the waiter.
“Yes. They have come every year at this time. They are not, how shall I say, married to each other.”

Later that night I was at a cafe called “Rogmi Tou Chrona” – The Crack In Time. They were there, drinking champagne and eating roast lamb.
When the musicians began playing, they danced with graceful skill out on the terrace under the full moon.

A taxi came and took them away.
That night there was silence beneath my room.

“Is the couple from room 2 still here?” I asked at breakfast.
“No, they only come for one night – every year.
“They are . . . sister and brother.”

SIX

On the beach of the Bay of Kissamos I found a bottle with a note in it.
A well-corked wine bottle – sealed with red wax.
The note was tied tightly with a string.
I fished it out of the bottle with a long wire.
Unwrapping the note, I found it was in Greek.
A friend translated:
“Stella. See previous bottle.”

SEVEN

The last donkey - gaiduria - died in the Cretan village of Avdos last year.
“Angelica” was her name – Angel.
In her younger years the lady donkey was an affable beast of burden.
A working animal known for her reliable strength and patience.
In feeble old age she became the village pet - of children and adults alike.

When she died, the village grieved.
Not just for Angel but for the passing of an era.
Donkeys were once as common as trucks are now.
And now, the last donkey was no more.

Manolis, her owner, and his drinking companions at the local taverna decided that Angel should be given a proper burial, with church rites.
Papa Antonio, a monk from the nearby monastery who served as the village priest was consulted.
“Ochi, No.” He would have nothing to do with it.

In private conversation Manolis explained to the good Father that if he would not cooperate, he, Manolis, would tell the village about what he knew of the relationship between Father Antonio and Angel, the donkey.
And that would explain why Angel was buried in solemn ceremony in a grave outside the walls of the regular cemetery, with Papa Antonio attending, along with most of the villagers.

Do not let your mind think evil thoughts - there was nothing immoral or unclean in the relationship between the priest and the donkey.
It’s just that, unknown to the village, Angel belonged to the monk.
She was Papa Antonio’s personal property.

How?
In this way.
In an overheated exchange about the championship title match between the two major Greek soccer teams, Manolis had bet his donkey against the monastery’s favorite milk goat.
In a fit of monkish madness Papa Antonio took the bet.
Manolis lost.
The monk claimed his prize by hanging a small bronze bell on the donkey, and by providing small funds to buy food for the animal from time to time.
Manolis, who was painfully embarrassed to have lost his beloved donkey to a monk, kept his mouth shut and took care of the donkey.
And the monk, who would have been in trouble with his Abbot for gambling and for owning a donkey, also kept is mouth shut

And now, Angel was dead.
The villagers were pleased with the funeral.
Papa Antonio was pleased that his secret had not been revealed.
And even more pleased that Abbot had approved of the funeral.

The Abbot had no choice, really.
Manolis had secretly covered his bet by backing the other team.
His donkey against the monastery’s milk goat.
The Abbot lost.
Manolis won.
And is the proud owner of a milk goat.
Only he and the Abbot know.
And when the goat dies . . .

These are not strange circumstances.
They are the workings of manly Cretan pride mixed with cleverness.
The spirit that underlies the so-called Greek Economic Crisis of our times.
_________________________________

Enough for now – but more to come – another time.
_________________________________

I end by saying I will be away for a few days.
One item on my 2012 Life List is to try and be at some special place every month to see the rising of the full moon.
I have a list.
On the evening of January 9 I’ll be on the Navajo Reservation in the iconic Monument Valley to see the moon come up.
And remain to see stars and planets and stars and the Great Open where the Navajos and Hopis carry on their lives.

Wherever you may be on Monday night, if the sky is clear, take a look . . .

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Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
January, the first day of 2012

Operation Sloth ended today.
Bobby’s Time Out is over.
Here’s the final report.

ONWARD!

“So . . . just suppose . . . just suppose that . . . for whatever reason . . . you would have to eat me . . . where would you start?”

Silence . . .

My literal-minded wife looked up from her oatmeal – raised her eyebrows –
and gave me her steadiest, full-alert gaze . . .

Silence . . .

“I had a daydream about cannibalism yesterday. . . and there are lots of circumstances under which people eat other people . . . starvation, occult rituals, pathological perversions . . . lots of reasons . . . but just assume you had a compelling reason . . . just assume . . . and I was the only meat available . . . what part of me would you find most palatable?”

Silence . . .

Without the least hint of a smile, she looked me in the eye and asked,
“Raw or cooked?”

Silence . . .

I focused on my oatmeal, thinking: Raw . . . or cooked?  My sweet wife, the recovering vegetarian? She already has a plan . . . would I be. . . Fulghum tartar . . . or would she wait until I was dead to carve me up for the stewpot?

Silence . . .
One difference between night dreaming and day dreaming is that the latter has witnesses. You are on display if you are lying around during the day.
My wife noticed I was reading Man Corn, a scientific report on the incidence of violence and cannibalism among the ancient Anasazi Indians.
Not just reading, but napping-and-reading-and-napping-and-reading.
She must have seen trouble coming, and was ready for it.

“Well,” said I, stumbling on down the dark alley, “Here’s some factoids:
Seems that the peaceful, placid, nice old Indians ate people – sometimes.
The scientific name for cannibalism is anthropophagy.
And it exists in all cultures across time.
Cannibalism is not illegal in the United States.
Human flesh tastes a lot like veal – but it’s all in the sauce.
The extreme form is called autoscarphagy – eating yourself.
It’s been done . . . starting with the fingers . . .”

She looked up from her oatmeal again.
“That’s enough,” she said. “Go take another nap.”

Silence.

She didn’t say it, but she looked forward to a return to the somewhat-normal and somewhat-predictable pattern of life.
As, actually, did I.

_______________________________

It is not true that the idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
My mother said that to me when I was hanging around doing nothing.
But it’s not true.
The idle mind is a workshop – wherein much is always happening.
Period.

And doing nothing much for a week of Operation Sloth proved difficult.
Consciously trying to liberate my brain from multi-tasking daily busyness took more effort than I had imagined – it was work.
Thoughts of next week and next year and what’s next always pushed in.
“No, not that - not today,” had to be repeated like a religious mantra.

Rest led to restlessness.
Sleep led to sleeplessness.
Self-indulgence led to self-criticism.
And instead of lolling about in a stupor of sweet nothingness, I was soon anxiously waiting for my self-imposed Time Out to become Time In.

Self-improvement and self-control have limits and can be overdone, I guess.
And I did. A few days might have been sufficient.

But there were some absorbing episodes.
For example, I had never thought much about cannibalism, but I did.
Glad that’s over.
But thinking about the unthinkable was an accomplishment.

Once I spent an afternoon trying to think of all the places I’ve lived.
There were some odd gaps I couldn’t account for – Where was I?

For awhile I thought of all the people who once were important to me – teachers, students, family, friends – especially those who I know are dead now – but not really, because they are still alive in my head just as they were the last time I saw them.
I am a keeper of their image.
And then it occurred to me that I am just as alive in other people’s heads in the form of memories of the last time they saw me.
Somewhere, in somebody’s mind, I am still a young teacher, a youthful boyfriend, a tanked-up laughing fool, a loving parent . . . and on and on.
How I wish I could see the pictures and the videos.

There was an almost-asleep-before-a-mid-morning nap review of my Life List – of those things crossed off into never-going-to-happen. Like playing trombone in a marching band, in the front line, at the Rose Bowl Parade.
Too late . . .

I could go on for pages – despite the effort it took, my Time Out was instructive and provocative.

In sum, it’s enough to say this:

It’s not true that your life passes before you just before you die.
There’s not much evidence of that.
It passes before you if you let your mind loose to wander.
And are willing to watch the re-runs.

I do not believe those who say, “No regrets.”
One cannot live without having failed or done some damage.
I do not trust those who say, “No hopes,” either.
One cannot live without believing one could do better . . . and will.

If that was not the case, we would not be doing what we do now.
We clean up the mess, pick up the pieces, put the holidays away, open the January calendar, pick up the tools that give shape and function to life and get on with it.

Time in.

Onward!

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