IT'S SO THEY CAN BE FOUND

Lucian Freud – "The Sleeping Cat" (1944)

"We take it for granted that we all have our own story to tell, and that story is what makes us, us.  We can take it equally for granted that every single person we pass on the street has a complex interior world in their heads that we know nothing of."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space, New York, Bloomsbury, 2021

Saying goodmorning to someone in a text, I also wrote "Another day on the Catherine Wheel." Although I am not yet awake enough to really assess my level existential despair and/or to get anxious about the day to come. The coffee tastes good. Vera is wiggling around on the concrete outside. There's a plan afoot for Domineers yoga, and I think I am going to be teaching my nextdoor neighbor some yoga this evening as well. I will have to put some thought towards that.

David, my brother, has graciously consented to Janet sitting for two weeks, so it looks as if the New York trip is on, in the neighborhood of 10/27 to 11/9. I admit to a great deal of anxiety about it. That is understandable after not having been there for two and a half years, most of it spent in semi-seclusion. Is semi-seclusion a thing or are you either secluded or not?

So evening yoga didn't happen due to a sprung wire in a youngster's mouth and ensuing emergency trip to orthodontist. Stationery bike happened and a light yoga session with the Domineers happened, too. 

I am restless in general and nervous, almost afraid, about going to NY which is not for a month. Maybe the very idea of a trip is such a big step after being in California for so long. I worry that I won't have anything to talk about to my friends. Well, maybe I will get to go to some pretty places and read. Plus, I think I will get to meet my great niece! 

Mom and I have to get up early Shirley to get to her monthly eye injection for her macular degeneration. I made her shower tonight as she has little concept of time anymore and everything takes longer than she thinks it does. She may well NOT be the only one for whom this is true.

NIGHTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

I carry joy as a choir sings,

but quietly as the dark

carols. To keep the wind away

so the hidden ones will come

out into the street and add

themselves to this array of

stars, constellations and moon.

I notice the ones in pain

shine more than the others.

It’s so they can be found,

I think. Found and harbored.

— Linda Gregg, The Sacraments of Desire, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, 1995

NOR DO I EXPECT THE NIGHT

Sunday, 9.26

Really nothing to report. 'Twas a quiet quiet day with not much planned so that was a small victory, no? I did a bit of sewing with Christina in the evening, I had gone to the gym, and finished watching Succession so I am all set for the new season in a couple of weeks.

Really nothing I am thinking about. The weather has been unseasonably chill.  Although the sun did come out this afternoon, the day was largely lightly overcast. Just blah.

Monday, 9.27

Another day, hunkered down over needlepoint, streaming whatever I can find to add to the dull buzz and keep me occupied enough so that I am not thinking about the fact that I can't think nor really feel anything but (now) vaguely dissatisfied and bummed out. I did my gym time early today, thinking that I would be having dinner with friends in Long Beach, but plans changed. I took a nice bath in the afternoon and then followed that up with a 2.5 hour nap. No drinking. No over eating. No spending money. I feel rolled up like a hedgehog or hunch-backed for protection. 

DEAR LIFE

if I use my imagination

I can create a river

where I can fish

swim or drown myself

there are always choices

after I have eaten a bad meal

I do not demand my hunger back

nor do I expect the night

to be less cold

because I lack a coat

pain is a room I measure

each time I am in it

and each time I leave

I forget its dimensions

the wind blows over the desert

telling me nothing

but when I forget the force

to which broken stones complain

I will be lost

when I cannot feel the vine’s

need to hold onto something

or when I am happy

only in the presence of others

I will be lost

to the God of Joy

or the God of Sadness

I could tell everything

and each would accept my story

and claim me for his own

but to the God of Remorse

I have nothing to say

and no time to say it

I am holding on for dear life

as my chariot rolls

into the future

faster than I would have thought

possible on its square

wooden wheels

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

I USED TO READ AT PARTIES

 " ... and I use 'recognize' in the philosopher Plato's very particular sense that we recognize the truth when we encounter it, rather than have to discover or learn it."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space

I have certainly experienced that physical shock of recognition, which is usually accompanied by sorrow and dread or at least disappointment that one can no longer lie or deny some truth. 

"... inwardness was always tensional and — as Byron saw by invoking Lucifer — it was not so much the path to inner peace as providing a new area of conflict."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space

Yeah, that inner space of near constant conflict if self-recrimination can be thought of as conflict. 

Later ...

That's what happens when I start reading again. Things jump out at me.

I haven't really been able to articulate my general senses that dread, truth, loneliness, reality, and regret are woven in some kind of net around me. It all pierces so much ... I am mixing my metaphors here but I already warned you that I am not particularly close to any reasonable explication here.

Not only do I feel my own loneliness and detachment from the bigger river of activity, I feel for my mother in her horrible arthritic pain, loss of sight, loss of memory, loss of really appropriate friends (she is still stewing over Joseph and the puppy) ... and having to live with someone who doesn't want to be here and can be short-tempered. And then the other stuff of the country falling apart. And the pandemic. 

There was a review or rather a musing about the HBO remake of Bergman's Scenes from A Marriage. 

"It is a profound insight on Bergman’s part to notice that loneliness involves a detachment not only from other people but from reality in general. As a child, I had trouble forming friendships, and turned instead to fantasy. I could imagine myself into the books I read and, by embellishing the characters, supply myself with precisely the sorts of friends that I’d always longed for. If you have engaged in this kind of fantasizing, you know that the thrill of creativity eventually collapses into a feeling of emptiness. This is the moment when loneliness hits. You’ve prepared yourself an elaborate psychological meal, and you realize, belatedly, that it can never sate your real hunger.

One is often loneliest in the presence of others because their indifference throws the futility of one’s efforts at self-sustenance into relief. (If you spend a party reading in a corner, you come to see, no matter how good the book, that you are not fooling anyone.)"

— Agnes Collard, The Problem of Marital Loneliness, NY'er 9/25/21

(I used to read at parties because I didn't want to really participate or couldn't find the correct engagement. Or I really couldn't put down the book.)

I don't know where this leads. Another day, another foot in front of the other, more dread, more feeling that I am caught in a continued wince of existential pain. I really could use some relief so that maybe I could turn some energy around and maybe get productive here or there. 

That's it. The above is where my better self is thinking, trying to feel it enough to express it in more than phrases and quotations. 

SO, THAT'S WHAT'S UP

I just don't feel like writing. I think about it all day, but thinking is as far as I can get.

I am very depressed and anhedonic. I'm not interested in much of anything. I am escaping into the usual, streaming some series I have probably already watched, and working on a needlepoint project or two. I endeavor to do a chore or two, some laundry, some ironing, a few of the dishes, maybe water the trees, but I just want to zone out. 

I have had some good talks with KH and SMS who are similarly despondent. We all share a feeling of ubiquitous dread, waiting for some other major shoe to fall ... more virulent strains of Covid, another political setback, major earthquakes, the end of Roe versus Wade, the further ascendency of idiocy ... I don't know.

My malaise is compounded by my life with Janet. She is back with the Domineers but not happily. The host Domineer got a new puppy, pretty young. My mother has been haunted and in severe mental anguish as the host Domineer abused the puppy, got angry and threw him against a wall. I wasn't there, I didn't see it, but Janet returns to and mentions it several times a day, although she continues to sit next to the host Domineer and play dominoes with him and the rest of the group. 

It is entirely true that it was a bad idea for this man to get a puppy. He is not of great patience. He is also in his 80s, in poor health, and unlikely to live for too very long. This dog will outlive him.

But this is not germane to my mother's anguish. And she is anguished. She thinks she should have called the ASPCA on the host Domineer. I am saddened and confused by the all of it. I don't know how to comfort her or to help her find some peace in the situation. I would not call most of these folks highly evolved, although I don't think they are quite that cruel and self-indulgent as to hurl a puppy across a room. 

Getting Janet up and going gets harder every day. We had arranged for me to teach yoga to the Domineers but it grew too late what with getting Janet ready on both Tuesday and Thursday. And by the time I get her out of the door, I am in no good or positive mood to be teaching anyway. 

Underlying this is, of course, early mourning for her passing, although I think she will probably make it well past her 95th birthday in February. She just gets more frail and less present, at least with me. Patrick stopped by today around the time she got home from dominoes and she was very engaged. 

So, that's what's up: I'm down. 

NOT WHAT WE WANTED

Rene Magritte, The Art of Conversation, 1950

Hopefully, these fellows' conversation is switching them into that desired third dimension.

Been quiet in this corner, I know. I lack for outside inspiration or internal motivation. Just that one-foot-in-front-of-the-other business we all know too well. I have been skimming over the surface of depression like a skipped stone. Hopefully, I will keep skipping and not sink to the bottom of anything. The weltschmerz dogs me around, nipping at the exposed sad parts of my psyche. The continued pandemic, the idiotic rushes to judgment of Biden, climate change, added in with Mom care make a person sort of slow and prone to wanting to be spaced out.

I haven't gotten lost lately, except in watching The Wire. I happened upon an episode and then got caught up in watching beloved, lost Michael K. Williams. I dream about Bunk, and Clay, and Sindor, and Lester. Fortunately, I am halfway through Season Five so this obsession will end.

The weather has been so damn clement that it is throwing me off. Mentally, I am all hunkered down for the blazing hot of September and October, but instead, I had to put another blanket on Janet's bed and am wearing a sweatshirt sitting here at the desk (windows are still open, I like the fresh air). I haven't researched the meteorological background on this, but were I in the East, I would think Fall is in the air.

And besides Anita, there is other grieving going on. I miss my kitties EmmyLou and Oona. There was such much going on (Jan 6th riots and BLM/early pandemic) I could not bring myself to fully focus on their loss. And I am grieving the loss of my yoga studio. Had the pandemic not occurred, my practice and probably my mood would be very different. I know it is frowned upon to dwell upon the past and things that are no longer, but that's an intellectual choice not an emotional choice. And those feelings are still there. I know I am lucky that I contracted such a mild case and that my mom didn't get sick at all, but that positivity does not negate the sadness and loss. 

THE NEGATIVE VIRTUES

loneliness

is a luxury beyond the reach

of those who have no privacy left

and live in the hope

of its constant invasion

but to those

who have always been alone

it is a friend

poverty

gives us a sense of direction

when we don’t know which way to go

and when we walk

on the edge of its cliff

we never go mad we can’t afford to

fear

like courage and charity

begins at home and expands in circles

rocking all the boats it touches

and bringing in its wake

the last of the negative virtues

maturity

which is not what we wanted

but comes anyway when we realize

that the things we feared

as children

can no longer hurt us

and that we fear them no less

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

BACK TO THE PLACE I HADN'T MEANT TO LEAVE

"And mistakes ought to be rectified, only this one couldn't. Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn't be crossed. I had to find an explanation other than the real one, which was we no more immune to misfortune than anybody else, and the idea kept recurring to me, perhaps because of pacing the floor with my father, was that I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn't have gone through and couldn't get back to the place I hadn't meant to leave."

— William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow, Vintage Books, New York, 1980

I can relate to not being able to get back to the place you hadn't meant to leave on ever so many levels. 

Days later.

Yes, well, that's me fighting the ... well, if not good, then regular fight against ennui, depression, and outright self-destructive behavior. A couple of times I have found myself driving in a less-than-location-based fog. I am good on going in the general direction and paying attention to traffic, but not mapping out the most direct route very well. When I am out of the house, in the car, by myself, I very much space out which has led to overshooting freeway exchanges and missing the most direct routes, finding myself having to change course. 

And if that isn't an apt metaphor for how I have misspent my life, I don't know what would be. Right general direction, wrong paths, and not always sure where I was. 

In other non-news, I finished Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (audio book highly recommended) and have moved on to George Packer's latest, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal (and also recommended). I mention this because, as you may remember, I haven't been able to focus enough to read in many months. I am encouraged. 

Vera is not happy with the desk arrangement as I rarely sit in such a way as she can sleep on my lap. This causes her to pace all over the desk and credenza, and, often my laptop. McCoy, however, has found his way to a suitable place in one of the many boxes of books and papers.

The weather continues to be suspiciously clement. I even have on a wrap as it is 63 degrees tonight and the windows are open. Generally, September and October are in the 90s and 100s. The days are getting shorter here and there is an unusual-for-Los-Angeles autumnal nip. This is reducing my excuses to not be productive.

And yet through another lens, I could write myself as ... is it enjoying my days? Nah. But there have been a couple of days where I mostly do what I want: some reading, some needlework, some binge-watching, Janet tending, gym going, wine sipping, some errands or chores (light on that score), and maybe some sewing. (McCoy has moved onto the chair which I am sitting at the edge of. Vera has curled up in the only corner of the desk where she fits and is contemplating the outside.

But there is that low level pervasive depression and anxiety. I think the hopelessness of the world always weighs me down. Waiting for something else bad to happen, feeling sad about the situations of the acquaintance who is trying to find a women's shelter for herself and her children, the dearer friend who is across the country from her family in crisis, the pandemic ... Also, perhaps unadvisedly, I have been re-watching The Wire to see Michael K. Williams, and Breaking Bad to make me forget I am on an exercise bike for 5 miles. 

WHATEVER BECAME OF ME

1

because the moon

comes straight up from the mountain

like the hidden possibility of madness

escape for everyone to see

and the wandering stars

who are said to rule our lives

wander on in darkness

I feel a need to lie down among the stones

and caress any of them

who have survived

2

I always looked for what I wanted

in the wrong places

until the desert

taught me to want what I found

now on summer nights

I sit in the garden

where it is hot and dry

and young stones grow like weeds

when the moon turns

a mad white face upon me

having nothing to offer I hold up

my empty hands

it is so easy to be happy

3

this morning a woodpecker woke me

practicing on his drum

and all afternoon cicadas rang

like the telephone I haven’t answered

I am what has become of me

a man who lives in the desert

where coyotes wail more skillfully

than hired mourners

at the funeral of an Eastern king

where every night the stars

whose light I have not earned

and will never deserve 

return as if to keep a promise

and even the rain

when it falls is coming home

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

SUMMER IN THESE LATITUDES

 As if I needed another damn book, I got three in the mail that I must have ordered when under some alternate reality. At least I am staying out of thrift stores. And at least I am approaching reading again. Besides listening to Empire of Pain, I started listening to the latest George Packer, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal.  That's all to say, I might well read all three of them. If I can just put down my needlepoint.

The Domineers met today. Hooray! So Janet got out of the house. They said they were willing to go back to yoga so resumption of class on Tuesday. It will be interesting to compare that to teaching the chair yoga class at Town Hall. We will see soon enough whether that class will go forward.

No one showed. Oh well. Not giving up. I think I will withdraw the class for October so as to give me more leeway in maybe figuring out a trip to New York. And maybe some time in Oakland/Berkeley as well.

I didn't get Janet out of the house in time for another perambulation of the block this evening, which I meant to do. She was sleeping when I got home from my non-class and by the time she awoke it was dark and I was deeply into Empire of Pain and some solitaire. 

One of the treasures I "inherited" from Anita was a MontBlanc pen which I have always wanted. They retail for about $625.00. Why and how she had one is another Anita/Carole mystery. Until I just looked it up, I did not know how expensive they were. It's the cheapest one. I guess I won't be throwing it in my purse and lending it out. 

I keep wanting this "death phase" for Anita to be over. I have things to tell her. 

SAN JUAN’S DAY

during summer in these latitudes

one disappointment is as good as another

each year when the rains come

we are convinced by the sophistries of water

that the dust will not be back

and each year it returns unerringly

falling upon us

like the patience we have forgotten we possess

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

ALL GONE, IT IS BEYOND REPAIRING

Posts without number(s) amen. Now, where do we go from here.

The answer to that must be the continued, continual meandering through life and blogging as I have been doing for the past ten years. I suppose I should be pleased with myself for posting as many as I did, but it still feels more like a mitigated success because I wasn't able to accomplish it in anything like 100 days. As  if I need to get more down on myself.

Our jacaranda.

I took strattera again today. I don't think it is doing too much besides making me anxious and therefore depressed which I don't need help with. Perhaps I will be struck productive between now (6:00pm) and bed time. So far, not a lot (but not nothing) has been accomplished. I drove down to pick up my sewing machine, did some ironing for my mom, and listened to Empire of Pain. 

Not exactly a good book for a person who is despondent about the state of the world to be reading. The unhappy escalation of medicine and business does not for a positive world view make. On top of the Taliban State of Texas. On top of the pandemic being worse now than last year. On top of. On top of. Not on top of old Smokey, for sure. 

JV had the insight to know that my magnolia needs to be watered so I guess I could go do that for a bit. I could even listen to my book. 

Crispy magnolia getting ready for a bloom or two.

Later that evening.

I did get Janet to go for a walk around the block for the first time in weeks. I can see that she is losing strength as she doesn't do much of anything. It was pleasant enough out, not too hot and the sun was mostly down. She did fine. I then went to Trader Joe's. She was a bit more lively than usual when I got back which I attribute to the walk and me forcing her to drink more water. It is almost impossible to get her to drink (enough) water. 

So, did you all know this was the larger definition of apocalypse (from Wikipedia): 

An apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, from of/from: ἀπό and cover: κάλυψις, literally meaning "from cover") is a disclosure or revelation of great knowledge. In religious concepts an apocalypse usually discloses something very important that was hidden or provides what Bart Ehrman has termed, "A vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities".^[1] Historically, the term has a heavy religious connotation as commonly seen in the prophetic revelations of eschatology obtained through dreams or spiritual visions. It is believed by many Christians that the biblical Book of Revelation depicts an "apocalypse", the complete destruction of the world, preceding the establishment of a new world and heaven. However, there is also another interpretation of the Book of Revelation in which the events predicted are said to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Roman armies of Titus. This second view is known as the Preterist view of eschatology.

In all contexts, the revealed events usually entail some form of an end time scenario or the end of the world – or revelations into divine, heavenly, or spiritual realms. There are many other books from the Jewish and Christian world that can be classified as apocalypses. In addition, other books of the Bible contain passages pertaining to an apocalypse or to apocalyptic circumstances.

I am so upset by the state of the world and the USA in particular that we are coming to a very late and very uncomfortable "come to Jesus" (or pick a religious icon of your choice) phase (a moment won't cover it by a long shot). And I think this is the sedimentary depression I am feeling. That all kinds of things are coming to an end. Many shelves were empty at Trader Joe's tonight, even if I did go late. Continued proof that things are broken? I think so. Supply chain interruptus. 

I can see my mother's demise but not what will come after it for me. 

This definition is interesting in regards to the film Apocalpyse Now. Was it a great "looking back"?  (A backward glance as Edith Wharton would have had it.) I never thought of it that way, more the street definition of everything falling apart. But I can see how apt it was, looking back on the clusterfuck that was Viet Nam. 

Fox chewing on Nina.

My classics-educated friend who was chatting with me about the Greek meaning of apocalypse made reference to Lot's wife in the Bible, who, as you all probably know better than I, looked back and was turned to salt. She saw the apocalypse, the ruin behind her and was turned to salt ... but was that merely (or not so merely) the salt of her tears? 

Okay, so I don't have a very good feeling about the future. How can I "Be not sad/Be like the sun at midday" as the I Ching might advise. It feels very much beyond me. 

With apologies to TLB. Another bummer coming.

WHY I NEVER WENT INTO POLITICS

for Brad

my son

I promised you a world and see

it is all gone it is beyond

repairing we must learn

to live without it

each day a parade of soldiers

goes past followed by dogs

whose clinking tags proclaim

they have owners

and they are not mad

we are told not to look up or down

the sky is not public the earth 

is not ours

we are told to look

straight ahead and march forward

and kill

that is that way it is done 

in this land

my son

I love you and having told you

all I remember all this is left

of an old story

I tell you that those

who use the language of poets

are poets and those

who use the language of thieves

are thieves

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

THE DISTANCE IS OVER

100 of #100daychallenge

"In the spell of these words she sank deeply as if. under an anaesthetic, away from empty and makeshift reality; she went down willingly and pleasurably, relinquishing with eagerness the gritty irritations of the Harbour streets, the smell of fish, the dusty shops with their cast-off clothes and furniture. 

— Elizabeth Taylor, A View of the Harbour, 1947

I love it when I can read like that but I have lately (past few months) fallen out of the habit. I trust it is ingrained enough to come back to me soon enough. I did finish Sineád O'Connor's Rememberings which for sure you should pass on. I have always been interested in her story, but you won't get anything straight here. And who knew she had converted to Islam? Maybe she and Richard Thompson could do some duets.

This weird day started off with me having to get up at 6:30 and drink that awful barium concoction for my abdominal scan. That pretty much made me sick although I was able to get in a bit of a second nap. I opened the second bottle to see if I could skinny it down, but started wretching even smelling it. I called the Radiology department and they said to come in anyway. Puking takes so much out of one when one is older. All that physical rejection and revulsion.

The waiting room was dismayingly crowded. This made me a bit nervous so I retreated to listening to a Grateful Dead show from 1971. Most of the folks in there were around my age or older, but I was pretty sure no one else was even considering listening to the Dead. There was a good version of Wharf Rat. I missed them calling me by name until someone thought to call my 'phone as they knew I had checked in. It was all pretty painless and didn't take long.

I stopped by the post office on the way home to mail the seven or eight packages I had wrapped. up yesterday. One of these was a project I had started working on two years ago, so that felt pretty good. Making some space.

After lunch and another short nap, I staggered to my desk to try to do something. Write my yoga class? Well, at least I can type it up now that I have a printer again. I retooled my last lesson plan and a few minutes to spare before I had to leave, so I opened the mail. Turns out the skin mole biopsy turned up something. They had called me but hadn't been able to get through but I received an approval letter to go to the Dermatology Clinic at UC Irvine. Well, that set me back. I suppose it was only a matter of time. I hope my CT scan comes back better.

And then no one showed up for yoga. Two people had signed up and paid which were not the two people who said they were going to sign up. I don't really want to cancel, even if it is just two people. And I am not as disappointed as I might be. Seems to me that the day after Labor Day is not the best day to start a class. People are just getting over their sorrow that summer is over and hell, no more white clothes for months. I will show up again on Thursday and only give up if no one shows again.

So, here I am at 100, but many more than 100 days. So I guess I didn't really meet the challenge .... or did I merely amend it? 

Wait and losing Michael K. and Jean-Paul the same day?? Say it ain't so, Joe!

GAMBIT

I have boarded up the stations of waiting

where mice buy tickets to nowhere

and windows listen for announcements

of broken glass. Let the hands

of dead clocks rest

on the final numbers of chance.

The distance is over.

I have discarded the menu for lunch

and the menu for dinner. Each day

I choose something different to forget

and clear light arrives, bringing

the sea as it should be, the boats

where they are, the boats

where they are. I go forward

while irreplaceable leaves drip

from green cages and spiders

are playing their webs like guitars.

In the one hand I carry your picture

to guide me and with the other

I am combing your name through my hair.

— Richard Shelton, Selected Poems, 1969-1981, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1982

Now, don't go away. Thanks for hanging in with me. Comments give me a nice shot of dopamine, so keep them coming.