Hey all, I am literally surrounded by life. The window in front of my desk looks out to my garden. The garden is lush green with knee high garlic and potato-onions, flowering arugula and crimson clover, along with second runs of spinach and cilantro getting ready to pick. Beside me under a grow light is a tray of tiny tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, sage, melons and squash. Lord the squash! Thinking the seed was old I heavily over seeded the little pots. I should be so vigorous in my old age. The thinning will be a problem but that is for another day. For now I needed to clear the pile of seed packets off the laptop and write. Write while Deb pulls dinner and a batch of cookies together in the kitchen and the dogs settle from our walk.
Yup, surrounded by life but on a maudlin day. Last night and this morning was strong rain and the rest of the day has been a heavy grey overcast. It is the day before Easter which by Christian tradition is a day of joy. The Gospel accounts which precede Easter I heard while attending my first Good Friday Mass in some 50 years. No matter your religious perspective on Christ, crucifixion is a horrific death to imagine. It struck me hard and I can't say wholly in a good way.
Hardly as important but still a piece of my mind, serendipity lead me to read and finish on Friday THE WIDE WIDE SEA by Hampton Sides. This is a very well written and readable account of the final voyage of Captain James Cook. Captain Cook, as you likely know died in Hawaii. I knew very little more than that. He died brutally, along with others of his ships company and a number native Hawaiians. I can best describe the cause as cultural misunderstandings mixed with a heavy dose of all to common human willingness to escalate a bad situation to make it a horrible one. Read the book. I can only sincerely hope any would be President will.
Of a more personal note Michael our dog trainer killed himself. He was a tall happy and energetic young man. A former Marine married to a beautiful woman, also a dog trainer, with two kids. They had purchased a property outside of town and seemed to Deb and me a together young couple pursuing a good life. I know we can never know another's reality but it was a shock.
Perhaps less of a shock but more of a damn it, I received an update from my niece on her cancer. Lisa fought a brutal battle with breast cancer some years back that she had appeared to have 'won'. Her cancer reappeared over a year ago in a very virulent rapidly developed form that she has been getting treatment for. In her update she simply said remission was now not judged possible and her radiation treatment would be to alleviate severe pain from some of the tumors. She is my niece so I will continue to pray and hope.
Deb and I received word last night that our immediate neighbor, Jay, died Thursday while being operated on for his cancer. I didn't know he had cancer. His wife said he had sworn her to tell no one. He was an older man and I understand his desire for privacy. Still I wish my last conversation, just Wednesday, had been a bit more empathetic and less self serving.
I'll add in one more dark note on last words. Deb sent me a link to a news organization that seems to be attempting to report news without bias either left or right (imagine that!). In reading a brief article on the National Archives releasing 'new' documents on the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 a link was provided to those documents. I'm no researcher but the link was very easy to follow if overwhelming in it's scope. I was 12 at the time of the Senator's murder and have only limited memories of the event. My rambling around brought me to the interview of Dr Abo, the first attending physician following the shooting. What caught me and smacked me was his description of Bobbie Kennedy, mortally wounded, taking his wife's hand and saying "Oh Ethyl".
What to make of all this? You tell me. I've been too long attempting to be the seer warning to plant a garden and guard against a possible dark future. I still see all the ingredients to that bitter meal laid out. I thought spring was a time of dangerous change to watch and much has happened. Will spring and summer pass with me quietly sipping tea and tending my garden? Will August or October snap us to attention? Will the universe just laugh at my grandiosity and simply continue to make death and gloom of a more personal nature while it surrounds us with life and beauty?
Like the Adam of my last few blogs I will work on my relationship with God. No doubt alternately cursing him, denying him, begging him to answer prayers. The Buddhist say that life is impermanent and interconnected. I take that to mean I should build some magnificent relationships and beautiful castles but know that both are sandcastles. Doug A.
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