12.7.2023 – piled ice, snow, every

piled ice, snow, every
thing looked raw except when
you knew what it meant

There wasn’t even a trace of green in the landscape but then it smelled like spring in the fifty-degree temperature and the sight of the mounds of snow on the north sides of houses, shacks, and log cabins, and the drifts along fence rows, and the glistening drift ice far out on Lake Michigan and the ice piled on shore on the westerly sides of the forested peninsulas out into the lake.

It was more the contrasts in the present that attracted me to this paragraph.

Its a line from the fifth Brown Dog Novella, He Dog, by Jim Harrison.

I grew up in Michigan.

I grew up in West Michigan when the Lake Michigan was a 45 minute drive away and more times than I can remember, I made the drive out to see Lake Michigan covered in ice.

Trips to the ice do stand out though.

Once when my wife, then girl friend, said to me that I was going to get her out on the ice.

Then I pointed out to her that we had been walking out on the ice for a couple hundred yards.

There was also the time I went through the ice when I was about 12.

I yelled HELP, I’M THROUGH THE ICE and my brother Jack, who had driven us out to the lake so was nominally in charge yelled IS HE KIDDING.

My brother Pete got to a place where he could see me and his eyes bugged out and he yelled NO!

My point being that when I read, “the glistening drift ice far out on Lake Michigan and the ice piled on shore on the westerly sides.”

But that isn’t exactly accurate.

I mean I wasn’t reading.

I was listening.

I was listening to the audio book as I took a lunch time walk at work.

In my head, I was along the frozen shoreline of Lake Michigan.

My feet were making their way towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Both places were about 55 degrees.

I heard “… the sight of the mounds of snow on the north sides of houses, shacks, and log cabins, and the drifts along fence rows, and the glistening drift ice far out on Lake Michigan.”
I saw the December empty streets of a summer Resort and then the glint of the sun off the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The beach was almost empty.

I don’t know what Kings and Presidents get paid or how much money those billionaires have, but I don’t think they get to walk along an empty beach at lunch time too often.

It was quiet.

I could see forever out past Tybee Island.

I could hear the waves.

I could hear the putt putt of a shrimper going past not too far off shore.

I could hear the gulls.

It all sounded a but raw except when you knew what it meant.

12.7.2023 – in small rooms, offices

in small rooms, offices
hallways, elevators, buildings
never knew existed …

Due to a medical crisis of no little impact that landed one of my children in the hospital for five weeks I found myself making many trips to the city of Charleston, SC and while in Charleston I have found myself in many small rooms, offices, elevators and buildings that I never knew existed let alone thought I would ever be in.

I was sitting in a large, sunlit waiting room yesterday and I looked around.

There were other people like me who were there because they had to be there to get something fixed or were waiting while other people got something fixed.

There were, like me, in a new place.

Then there were these people who inhabited this place.

The office staffers.

The medical staffers.

And the people who interacted with these people on a regular basis.

It came to me that that this room was a foreign to me as if it was in another country.

More than that.

It was another world.

The directions, the locations, the habits, the customs even the language were all different.

Normal is all relative I guess.

Bizarre is where my mind goes I guess when I am physically occupied and restrained while I can give free rein to just thinking.

I started to get a handle on my surroundings by thinking of CS Lewis and the final Narnia Book, The Last Battle and the phrase, “Come further up, come further in!”

Mr. Lewis writes, “… as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know.“

We drove to the city of Charleston.

We took a new exit and parked in a new location and walked on another ramp to a new building and took an elevator to a new floor to a new room filled with new people who directed us further up and further in to another room with new who people who directed us further up and further in again and again until we were deep inside.

In a small room, an office by way of elevators and hallways in a building I never even knew existed.

We met people along the way who sat at keyboards and typed out instructions that brought up information about my son that told his medical story.

Then we met Doctors who knew more about my son’s insides than they would ever know about him.

So here is the point.

All these things, this world, it all functions and exists even now as I type this.

Parallel worlds?

Parallel universes?

Sitting in this sunlight waiting room and thinking what fresh world had I landed in?

Sitting in this sunlight waiting room, it kind of creeped me out.

Who in the world are we to think anything about ourselves.

Then I thought of quote of Mr. Churchill’s.

Mr. Churchill was speaking on the topic of prison reform when on July 20, 1910, he said in a speech in the House of Commons, that there existed … “A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State … a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment … and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man — these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”

I just wrote, “Who in the world are we to think anything about ourselves.”

Yet in response, I have to answer maybe we have … an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man.

Couple that with For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21)

And I tell you something.

That was quite enough for sitting in a sunlit room that I had never been before let along knew existed.

12.4.2023 – it is silly stuff

it is silly stuff
that has some relevance with
nothing happening

Erwitt downplayed his role as a photographer, often shrugging off pretension or chalking it up to happenstance: “It is silly stuff that I think has some relevance with nothing really important happening, but somehow being able to communicate some kind of fun,” he once said. There’s a lightness of touch that characterises even his most serious images, and he was a master of ironic juxtapositions and comic charm.

From the obit for photographer Elliott Erwitt, Nixon, Monroe and cheeky male buttocks: the soul-affirming photography of Elliott Erwitt, by Charlotte Jansen.

Erwitt worked into his 90s, and was ever practical about his art. “Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures,” he told the Guardian in 2020

11.22.2023 – ataraxia

ataraxia
understand what can be and
what can’t be controlled

Today in the Guardian, Brigid Delaney, a onetime columnist for Guardian Australia, posted the story, Six ways to make your life easier and more peaceful – by using stoic principles asked the question:

“ … how could I still be informed while staying sane? Could I feel at peace when there seemed be an increasing amount of global instability?”

And she answered, “Then, I discovered the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy of stoicism.“

According to wikipedia, “Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived, flourishing life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing certain virtues in everyday life such as courage or temperance and living in accordance with nature.”

The article was interesting and worth the 5 minutes that the website decided it might take me to read it.

I really liked her section being relaxed.

Relaxed is something I have always aspired to.

Relaxation is something I rarely find.

I guess I should have been a runner.

Not a jogger.

But a runner.

A sprinter.

As Sam Mussabini says in the movie, Chariots of Fire, “... a short sprint is run on nerves. It’s tailor-made for neurotics.“

Ms. Delaney writes under the heading, Be Relaxed:

The Greeks had a word for the state of mind we need to cultivate to remain calm: ataraxia.

Ataraxia is a state where you are free from distress and worry. Ancient philosophers believed achieving ataraxia created an emotional homeostasis, where the effect wouldn’t just be a more stable base-level mood, but one that would hopefully flow out to the people around you.

If you are more tranquil, you will be less likely to react or combust if something doesn’t go your way.

Imagine that your flight is delayed because of bad weather. You could react and take out your anger and frustration on the airline staff (who have no power to change the weather) or you could accept that the situation is out of your control – and remain calm and chilled.

With ataraxia, not only do you not ruin your own day, you avoid ruining other people’s too. In a tranquil state you may even make better decisions.

Ideally, someone in a state of ataraxia is not gripped by high emotions – such as lust, envy or fear. Rather, they have used the control test to understand what they can control, and what they can’t.

I had to look up how ataraxia is pronounced.

Say anorexia but swap Atar for Anor and you’ve got it.

Can’t wait until I tell someone I am embracing ataraxia and wait for them to want to check my weight.

I really like that last sentence.

More to the point, the last part of the last sentence.

… understand what they can control, and what they can’t.

I am not sure that those Stoic fellers in ancient Greece ever met Dutch people.

I won’t say that the Dutch part of me isn’t happy unless I am worrying about something whether I can control that thing or not but I will say, it sure feels like it sometime.

If nothing else to worry about, there is the weather.

And if the weather is nice, then, like the joke goes, Calvinism is the concern that someone somewhere in the world is having a good time.

Ataraxia.

… understand what they can control, and what they can’t.

In his book, That Time of Year (Arcade Publishing, New York, 2020), Garrison Keillor wrote:

My classmate Margaret Keenan, who became a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. She didn’t claim to heal people but to lead them toward some sort of understanding. I never heard her speak with contempt or derision about anyone, not even Death, whom she saw coming a long way off and met with serenity.

She didn’t claim to heal people but to lead them toward some sort of understanding.

That, for me, was about the best description of therapy I had ever read.

Lead them toward some sort of understanding.

And one of those things needed to be understood is what we can control and what we can’t.

Accept that the situation is out of your control – and remain calm and chilled.

I am not good at this.

Also if I am making that effort to remain calm and chill, forces outside my control seem to demand that I make an effort at gaining control of out of control situations whether such control is possible or not or maybe even if advisable or not.

Sometimes a level of plausible deniability is a good thing.

But I want to try.

And I will try.

I will shoot for achieving ataraxia.

A level of ataraxia that creates an emotional homeostasis, where the effect wouldn’t just be a more stable base-level mood, but one that would hopefully flow out to the people around me.

Ataraxic I guess.

Why not?

Hey, after the beach, who wants to go for a beer?

Just a November Day in the Low Country and looking ataraxic!

11.14.2023 – it’s OK unless

it’s OK unless
overly convoluted
entirely stupid

David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer, in his article, College football Week 11 highlights: Top plays, games, takeaways, commented on the the University of Michigan and sign-gate writing:

It’s a story that will be adjudicated — by the Big Ten, by fans, by media, by courts, by Connor Stalions’ vacuum company investors — with only a passing nod to due process, objective truth or reasoned context.

After all, it’s OK to discern the opponent’s signs from TV copy, or the all-22, or to call up former graduate assistants to dish on their old team, but it’s not OK to buy a ticket, sit in the stands and watch. Whether that makes sense might be a worthy question, but the only issue at hand is whether Michigan broke a rule — a literal written rule and, perhaps, the unwritten rule in which gamesmanship is OK unless it’s overly convoluted, entirely stupid and executed by a guy with a hilarious name.

Whether any of this makes sense might be a worthy question.

I am reminded of something my brother Jack once said.

Jack went to Michigan in late 1960’s as was as close to being a hippie as any one in our family.

Not sure how much, but I do think he took part in the anti-war protests that made Ann Arbor and Port Huron famous.

All I know for sure is that there is a story of Jack talking with one of his Ann Arbor buddies, both of them now respected lawyers, and the buddy said my bother, with some relief, ‘aren’t you happy that Ann Arbor Police announced they had just cleaned house and threw out all those records from when we were in school?’

I also remember a summer afternoon where Jack fell in the lake with his wallet in his back pocket.

Like you do in those moments, he emptied his wallet of everything and spread it out to dry and wonder of wonder, there was his 15 year old draft card.

He looked at if for a minute.

Then he got some matches and lit it on fire and watched as his draft card burned up.

“I thought it would feel like more,” he said.

But I digress.

Jack would watch Michigan football games with us as a family and he was such a fan, he made notes of almost every play on a yellow pad as he watched.

I asked him once what he did with his notes and said “nothing, he just took notes to keep from falling asleep.

So about 20 years, in a marketing effort, the University of Michigan made these cutouts, twenty five feet high, out of steel panels from the words of the Michigan fight song.

These panels were fastened to the outside of the stadium is what became known as the ‘Halo’.

It lasted two years as the the fans and alumni went nutz.

How ugly.

How crass.

How stupid.

How dumb.

Awful.

Didn’t seem to be particularly well executed.

Ugliest.

I I asked Jack what he thought.

He was silent then he said, “Entirely Appropriate!”

Wading through sign-gate, I know exactly what he means.