predictions of events yet to come

i read
in the brain that changes itself
how the writing of
one person affects an other in a
future space and time.
how can one possibly predict
with any accuracy
from our low vantage point
the future?

sign

"NO ISOLATION
PATIENTS IN
DINING ROOM OR
ON COMPUTERS."
sign on computer box, almost totally ignored by me.

my saturday

i've had a quiet day outside
and reading lamb by christopher moore.
pushed myself hard
in the self-grooming dept.:
teeth and shaving.

ruth over richard?

although conventional wisdom may hold that
richard is stranger than ruth
for blogging i find
ruth is strange enough

story 1 part 3

I thought about God all the while we swam back. I rested on the deck, which my grandfather had built, decades before, when I was a little boy. My grandfather died not long after that. I am sure he did a lot of living between the deck-building and his death, but I do not know about this time, so the deck-building is firmly connected to his death in my view. I rested and Glen brought me my guitar. I wrote a song about diving into the water and racing the bubbles to the surface, like being charged with the inevitability of God in your life. It is a good song, but I have not performed it yet.

Glen brought me the guitar as he tidied the tiny livingroom; he did not know where the case was, so it was easier to bring the guitar to me. The livingroom needed cleaning because we had been living in it for the past day-and-a-half while it rained. I was going to join him, but first I needed to get this song out of my head and down onto paper. Glen knew that without me saying a word; someday he would make a good partner, but for now he was stuck with me, and I with him. Glen is moody, and it does him good to have his own space, whether it is his room or the miniscule cottage livingroom

story 1 part 2

We rested in the middle against the slimy rocks, and as always our conversation turns to God.

"What if God didn't mean to enter the historical record until Jesus was crucified?" I asked. As conquerers, the Romans kept records of everybody they killed; it was one way of getting your family geneology done for free.

"Then God doesn't reveal himself to everyody."

"That doesn't make sense. God must be known to everybody just the same."

"Why?" wondered Glen, for the first, but not the last time. Then he fell to his usual line of inquiry: "There must be another way."

"Come on," I said. We had about half mile to go to the diving cliffs still.

I break clear of the surface and take a huge breath in. I look up at Glen. far above me. When you jump, I tell him silently, make sure you jump out as much as you jump down. There may be rocks near the cliff just under the surface of the water.

Glen jumps. He picks up the conversation from the rocks as if an hour hasn't elapsed.

"The trouble with you is you want evolution and revelation."

"Yeah, so?" So was my challenging point.

"They don't go together, evolution and revelation."

"Says who?"

"Says a lot of people."

I reach the base of the cliffs and scramble up the right. "The Bible doesn't say so," I counter, going up a mere fifteen feet before turning to jump. Glen scrambles after me.

"The Bible doesn't support evolution."

I jump. A few seconds later, Glen is next to me, bubbling and laughing.

"It doesn't disprove it, neither." It's my story, damnit, and I'll tell it the way I want it.

"So then, it comes down to a matter of interpretation. Which, I suppose, is a matter of faith," he said, dejectedly, though it was hard to tell while swimming. He knew where faith led to in our friendship. But I propose a different topic, just to keep him off-balance.

"Maybe Jesus shows up in different places to different people at different times. He is God, you know."

"But he shows up in a specific place with a specific purpose at a specific time."

I swim over.

"Yes, in our version of the story. Come on. Even if you don't believe in evolution you gotta admit there were others living in far reaches of the globe at the time."

"Like the Amerindians?" he offers weakly.

"Yeah, where are they in the Bible?"

I continue.

"See? The Bible is too narrow to be the inerrant word of God. That's a lie made up by a bunch of priests with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo."

This time he reaches the cliff-face first and scrambles up. He jumps from very far up, and sails over my head.

"I don't know," he calls out. He hits the water, arms already flailing. He breaks the surface and adds,

"You've got to give the Bible more scope."

story 1 part 1

I jumped from the cliff to the shimmering water forty feet below with glee and wild abandon. I jumped not ever having jumped so high. Down into the water I went, legs and arms akimbo to slow me, to make sure I get to the surface, which is now all I want to do.

My friend Glen jumps from nearly half the height, maybe twenty-five feet up. He's done this before. He has nothing to prove, to himself or to me. We have swum half the length of the lake to get to the diving cliffs. It is shallow in the middle where the rocks rise from the murky bottom to give rest to the gulls and ducks and other birds of the air.

visit with nancy & millie

the visit with nancy & millie
was pleasant and boring.
what else can i expect?
millie is 91 and nancy must be about 63--
am i looking at karen in the future?
except that nancy is not karen,
just as i am not don or craig.

horizontal and reality

while still horizontal
i seem to have a firmer grip on unreality.
so the mornings are good,
before i rise,
and the evenings too.
in between are the hard times
and then the horizontal times seem too simple.
but in the cool of the day,
the rest of the day seems too complicated.
which is real?
how can i, from the inside, tell?
when the tv starts messing with archie,
is it the real archie-show,
or is it a version just for my ears?
[later...]
it's 8.30 in the evening on sunday night now,
and i type first off to stave off boredom,
complication, complicity, and other word play.
i type to avoid the awful tuth that i'm alone
('no you're not!' calls the god from the corner).
i type to pass the time.
i type because it's the most creative thing i can do right now.
i want to create because i've been all input these
many months,
and some output wells within.
i want to create because i'm reading a wild novel,
lamb,
and i want to respond in kind.

i blogged but (off-roading at the strawberry social) ...

i blogged, but something happened and i lost it all
so i'll start again, but it won't have the same flavour.
i wrote something about
how i had difficulty getting ready to go,
how i left my shirt and shoes for when julie arrived
but imagine my surprise when sue dropped in,
and julie stayed in the hall while
sophie stayed in bed (where she remains).
[backstory: sue is julie's mother,
sophie is the dog;
sophie is 8 or 9,
julie is in her early 30s,
and sue in her mid 50s.]
sue and i got on a clean long-sleeve shirt
and my doc martens for going out in the rain
and away we went
to notl via st. david's
where we stopped at st. andrew's cemetery
for the strawberry social.
i went 'off-roading' across the lawn
and had a strawberry crepe while
julie and sue had shortcakes
and we stopped at the tim's at
glendale and the north service road for
coffees and a tea (for julie)
and a pee for me, ahhh... that feels better...
back to the shaver, to my room and laundry,
and to this blog...

i could be here forever

(a ramble)
i feel like i should blog forever,
that the moment i stop i'll never start again...
i guess this comes from feelings of paranoia, from
having been outside for so long
that i reached my inner feelings
but i've got selfish concerns, like
i hope i don't make a mess tomorrow.
i should say
my thoughts are with my kids, too
what are they doing? how are they doing?
i might be here for the rest of my life,
my right temple, my left collarbone,
my left lip, and my breadbasket remind me
that it's really real.
what am i to do?
adjust,
settle in for the long haul....
do something different and daring than
what i've done for the past
eleven months
like what?
and what about the annoying constants
like fingernails and toenails and beard
keep growing and teeth need brushing
--what about flossing?--
but above it all the mind needs entertaining.
the beauty of the internet is
(as i've blogged elsewhere) is that it's
ubiquitous
and somebody has quipped,
nobody knows you're a dog
to which i might add,
nobody needs to know you're a crustacean
no one needs to know you're mad.
if stephen hawking writes whole books
one synthetic letter at a time
why can't i maintain a simple blog?
what does it mean, to settle in for the long haul?
to build relations with people that depend on technology,
on transport or telephony or the internet?

the heroic ultimate last move

i had a long session with bonnie followed by a short session walking,
and the walking seems mad--
if it isn't, why am i doing it?
so, a way out of this madness is to face the walking--
or, if there is no way out, to go with it, all the way...
to the end, to the last step,
to the heroic ultimate last move

i'm desperate, but am i that desperate?

i'm thinking about getting out of here,
desperately so, that it might appear to karen,
and might be my reality,
that i'm transferring my affection to karen to get out of here.
we've been down this path before, with corinne.

the difference for me apart from whether i love karen,
is that our kids are involved
--and chloe has four years of high school,
and wes--well, who knows?

this may be wes' pupose in my life,
that karen and i are never fully separated.

now, do i still love karen?
can i see us ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years hence?
can i see us together where i might otherwise fall apart?

laughing at life

i feel like i'm overdue for a daily retch
i feel angry with these old biddies behind me--
how dare they laugh at life?
living is serious stuff!
but how serious should we approach it
given how ignorant we are?
or should we always be serious despite our ignorance?
or do they feel they can now sit back and laugh,
having lived to the fullest on the inside,
the neverending collective mythos?
is this where i'm at, in the merry month of june (oh-nine):
wondering if everything should be serious,
or filled with paradox, humor, and change?

evening ramble (undecided)

i spend much of the day undecided,
or decided only for the convenience of being decided,
but really, if pressed, not decided--
undecided whether this is real or not--
right now, if pressed, if really pressed, i'd say it's a bit of both
real for the things around me, but unreal in my responses to them

rebirth story (i figger)

i figger
i'll save my longer posts under the pseudonym of red saucer
i figger
they'll start without map or compass or heading and find
root along the route
i figger
they'll find their way home
i figger
i was born to create, to take the word offered to me and mould it while it was mine