Category: Life

Whimsy

One Year After

One year later…

Curious, how time just goes on as before, as if nothing has changed. And once the thought occurs, you look around and wonder what has changed?

Not much, really. The present emerged from a slow set of inevitabilities that challenged as they happened and left us with a sense of exhaustion, melancholy, and perhaps a tinge of unfocussed regret.

Life has a shape. We can’t always see it, not all the time, and it does change in response to, well, living, but it does have a shape. We rely on it, we live within it. I’m not sure I would go so far as to say it defines us—more that we define it—but it certainly contributes to our sense of self. The components that create that shape…other people, aesthetic choices, the general gestalt of the world…

When there is a loss, that shape changes radically enough that we are unbalanced. We stagger, grope for the familiar ease with which we navigated (or the familiar dis-ease, which can form its own kind of dependence), we experience a reordering that seems impossible because that which is lost cannot be replaced.

The effect is often unexpected and we aren’t really taught how to handle it. It’s just assumed we’ll figure it out—or, as seems to be the case, we’re expected to simply keep staggering drunkenly through the rest of our lives as some kind of homage to the loss.

But healing happens for the most part. We learn how to walk again. Sometimes we replace the lost part, sometimes it simply heals over and we learn to go on with some balance. Sometimes we find something new that is not a replacement but fills out that shape we once knew.

Recovering is never indicative of forgetting, though. 

It’s been a year since my father died. He faded. It took a few years, but finally he came to crisis and he passed away after a few days of difficulty. Despite the fact that he could neither hear or see, limiting communication profoundly, he was popular at the care facility, and he received a final farewell from the staff that squeezed at our hearts.

He was a good man.

There is a large vacancy in my life’s shape now. It does not hurt. I miss him. We had no unfinished business. For my part, he was a substantial part of that shape, a presence to be relied on, not for anything specific but just to be there. I’ve been able to look back on him with a measureless affection for all that he did, for me and others. He could be gruff and occasionally short-tempered (he did not suffer fools) but at the end of the day he was a generous and kind man who went out of his way to make whatever he could better.

After retirement, my parents bought a house in a subdivision and over time he became the guy to go to for any number of things. Most surprisingly, he cut down trees for neighbors. He had spent time as a teenager in rural Pennsylvania where, I assume, he learned how to do this. Insofar as plotting the fall is an engineering problem, it would seem a natural thing for him to do well. I think he cut down 28 trees in the area before time and pain stopped him.

One of those neighbors took this photograph of him after one such project. It is quintessential dad, the best of him. He’s in his glory. He was having a great time. He expressed emotions in limited ways, but when he did, like everything else, he was all in and effusive.

 

I think that part of my life’s shape he once was has been partly filled by memory and by new stories my mother has been telling me, things I never knew or only knew partly. As for what I miss…

Occasionally I think how good it would be to have one more argument (Socratically, mind you), one more conversation. Not that I have anything I need to tell him—as I said, we left no unfinished business—but just to have the talk, the give and take. I surprised him occasionally and I relished those moments. 

I miss him, but it doesn’t hurt. It just is.

He was a great dad.

Art

Images

The one skill I acquired from my stint at my last lab job was color printing. I’d never been interested before. My few attempts in my own lab had been frustrating and unsatisfying. But I had to do it for the job. I learned. But.

But I will always be fond of black & white. I value good b&w more than color (with certain narrow exceptions).

So I’ve been playing a bit. Here, for your pleasure, are some recent results.

 

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Hope Projected

An idea occurred to me recently while reading a history of the early christian church (a very good one, I might add). I have little patience with the absolutes advocated by religious sentiment, the whole idea that one must, above all, believe. That to “have faith” is the most important thing. The materialist in me always come back to the same question: in what? That is the shoal upon which any ship of faith I might board runs aground. And without a clear What, the rest splinters and sinks.

But while I have a firm distrust of calls to faith—likewise demands for belief, for loyalty, for boundless commitment to causes for which I may be sympathetic even if unwilling to suspend all critical analysis of them—I cannot deny at least a set of habits that draw me to it. Historically, we see examples of faith empowering people to do amazing things.

I have not for many decades been able to “put my faith” into anything I cannot define. Further, just defining the thing is insufficient. There must be some basis in accepting its reality. I do not believe in gods.

But I do accept an idea of the numinous.

Recently, while listening to To The Best Of Our Knowledge, during an episode about hope, it occurred to me that we may have the whole idea of faith backwards. Humans have a habit of projecting concepts onto externalities. We attribute qualities to all sorts of things that cannot, in many instances, possess them of themselves. We do this across the spectrum. People, cars, boats, books, buildings, money. Luck is a prominent one. Public figures provide endless opportunity for us to project our desires, our preconceptions, our dislikes and prejudices, our sense of self worth.

I have always conceded, at least intellectually, that Faith (with a capital F) goes beyond concepts like trust, relying upon, dependence. All those are conditional.  Faith is supposed to be absolute, unconditional, ever reliable. Faith defies reason. Faith asserts infallibility.

And I realized that there is one thing we carry inside that fits all that, to varying degrees, which most often we take for granted, but occasionally elevate to supernatural status given the right circumstances. Hope.

Hope is a mercurial idea. Part optimism, part fantasy, part will, it is a view of the world that our place in it will be acknowledged and rewarded. To hope is to choose the positive outcome, no mater how unlikely, over the despair resulting from surrender. It is, in fact, one of the factors in getting out of bed in the morning feeling that the day will come out all right. It operates often without evidence. In short, it exhibits all the characteristics of Faith with one exception—it is entirely self-generated. In fact, there is one thing that faith supposedly provides that hope does not: comfort.

Or does it?

My conclusion is that faith is only hope projected. We put it on an external something then attribute that something as the source and then proceed to believe in it as if it actually existed. (Now, it may be that we do this to another person, in which case it is concerned with something—someone—that exists, but there is still that confusion as to the actual source.) The much-vaunted “faith in god/providence/the supernatural/etc is usually what is meant when we talk about Faith.  Also, because so many people have difficulty investing ideas with loyalty, at least in any sustained manner, we personify the idea and make into…

The question always comes back to, “do you have faith?” I have hope. I may be unable to do anything about that, it comes with the equipment. But I know the source, and curiously that gives me comfort.

It also makes me responsible for any misconceptions I might have about matters of…well…faith.

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Chicago

The first week of April, we boarded a train and headed to Chicago. The train ended up behind a freight train, which slowed us down a bit, so we arrived later than intended. Still, after navigating the construction blocks around Union Station, we summoned a cab and got to our hotel. Famished, we asked what was open this late and were directed to an Italian place three blocks away, which served good pizza.

It was raining when we arrived and continued most of the week to be one degree of wet or another, but it did not deter us.

We met up with friends, ate great good, wandered around the central district around Michigan Avenue, toured some smaller museums, and had a great time.

Chicago is a bit of a joke for us. Not the city but the fact that in 44 years together we have only managed to get there twice. The last time was 24 years ago, for a Worldcon. That one happened 20 years after we met and talked about running up to Chicago. After all, it’s not that far away…

Well, what can I say? Other places, other people got in the way, and we just lacked either the time or the money. Hopefully, that will not be a problem going forward. I’d like to visit once a year at least.

We stayed at a 21C Museum hotel, which was hosting an exhibit which proved to be excellent. Some fine pieces of work, thematically to do with family relations,  both parent-child and siblings.

The restaurant in the hotel, Lure Fishbar, was a marvel. It was the main reason we picked that hotel, as the son of a good friend works there. As one might guess, it specializes in seafood, especially sushi. I’m not myself a big seafood fan, but this was all wonderful. (If you go, ask for Andrew.) And then, the special deal, Donna was able to indulge her love of smoked salmon for breakfast.

The only odd thing was, this is the first hotel room we’ve had since the 1980s that lacked a coffeemaker in the room. Otherwise, comfortable.

And it was almost ideally located for easy access to a lot more of downtown Chicago than we indulged. Did I mention it was wet? One morning is even snowed, but none of it stuck. We went forth, braving the blech weather, and walked quite bit. The highlights include the Museum of Medieval Torture, the American Writers Museum, the Chicago Architecture Center, and the Driehaus mansion, one of those Gilded Age monstrosities that have since been turned into a museum and, in this case, a venue for new art.

And I got to indulge one of my favorite things, which is photography. I count a trip at least partially a success if I get some good images. For instance:

 

 

Chicago is a very photogenic town.

We returned on the train Friday. Neither of us are used to just walking around like that, so we both felt it, but in a good way. Next time we will visit during a bit more temperate weather, something with more sunshine?

Chicago feels like someplace in our backyard, which may be one of the unconscious reasons we haven’t been there more. That has to change. (We did zero shopping, and we were two blocks from Michigan Avenue!) We have friends there, we have no real excuse.

But for now, we had a very good time. Just sharing.

Art

Projecting

I went out yesterday and indulged myself. New clothes. I needed a new belt. Pants. Socks. I haven’t been to a mall in over a year. I used to enjoy them quite a bit. They sprouted like mushrooms for a time, though, and like the gas station wars (which, yes, I remember) they undercut each other until there was an inevitable collapse. The few that have survived, well.

I was amused a couple weeks ago when I had occasion to drive past one of the first in the greater St. Louis area, Crestwood Plaza. In my childhood, we used to run out there. I don’t think they called them strip malls then, but that’s what it was. Then, beginning in the early 70s, it grew and was covered over. The outdoor strip was joined to a roofed-over extension and then later the original strip was enclosed until the whole vast thing was a small town with lots of cool stuff. It was one of the first ones to fall on hard times. Efforts were made to preserve it and for a short while it became an enclave of independent artists. Alas, it wasn’t really close to the wealthier parts of the area to sustain that and it was shut down. Then torn down. Plans for redevelopment followed, many quite grandiose. I hadn’t seen it in a long while. As I drove by I saw that there was a new line of stores…a strip mall. What goes around…

Anyway, I spent too much money on too few things but for a brief moment I felt good. Last week I stopped by an art supply store and bought pencils, pens, and a small sketch pad. I keep intending to start drawing again, maybe even get back into painting (though I was never huge into that). All that stuff is sitting there, waiting. Between my music, photography, and writing, along with the other things I try to keep up on, I honestly don’t know where I’m going fit one more project.

See, it took years to acquire all the skills I have, such as they are. I don’t want to walk away from any of them. But the fact is, I was never really good at most of them, just good enough to show off, as it were, but not good enough to satisfy my own estimates of what that means. And that was fine since for many of those years I hadn’t settled on what I wanted to do. When the writing turned out to be the primary project, all the rest receded and time was reallocated.

You don’t realize how you lose things when you don’t pay due attention to them. It may be that I’m inwardly dreading trying to draw anything anymore, because it’s been so long that I’m sure I’ll suck at it.

And I really can’t stand being bad at the things I like to do.

Now, you might think, reading that, that I had gotten very good at those things at one time. And as far as it goes, I think I was. Drawing and painting, back in my youth, yeah, if I took my time, I was fairly good. But it came “naturally” so I didn’t consider how practice might be necessary. The music? That was….different. And I have over the last several years developed an improvisational method which serves to impress even as it isn’t exactly “good.” I’ve recently set myself to learning actual pieces, but the discipline of practice is a hard one to recover once abandoned. Photography I did for so long that it just seems innate now, and I don’t walk away from it for very long, so while I could certainly be better, I’m not bad,

Writing is the only thing I do with serious intent, and it seems to take up the largest chunk of time.

I don’t seem to be organizing my time very well, especially if I want to start up a new project. I don’t know where I’m going to fit all the things I want to do. That did not used to be an issue. I just did whatever appealed to me that day. It was all so organic.

Subsequently, questions of goals emerge. And I am brought up against a fact about myself that has always been an issue. I do very little just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Almost nothing. All that I do I have certain intentions, even if only wishes. I started drawing again many years ago when it was pointed out to me that I needed an outlet that had nothing to do with career paths. I pursued it for a while until I found myself looking at the work and thinking, I could sell some of this… At which point it ceased being an outlet and became one more thing with a goal.

I suppose I write these blog posts as outlets. I don’t sell them.  They’re like a shopping trip. Wander through the mall, see what’s new, maybe buy something just for the hell of it.

Anyway, these are some of things occupying my thoughts of late.

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Small Revelations

It is never too late to know yourself better. In truth, working on understanding the inner workings of one’s psyché is—should be—an ongoing process. For all sorts of reasons, not least of which is to have some grasp of your own reactions and how you affect those around you, that work to understand is vital.

Unfortunately, it’s not the most amenable process to any kind of ordered plan. Revelations, discoveries, realizations come when they will, and often not at convenient moments.

We’ve been rewatching some episodes of Queer Eye. We like that show quite a lot, it’s impressive (though early on I wondered at the work they managed to accomplish in a week, which seemed…incredible) and we’ve gleaned useful insights over the course of its (so far) seven seasons. Last night we were watching one and unbidden a thought popped into my head that sent me down a twisted path of self-analysis.

One of my habits—and one I wish I could dispense with—is a tendency to revisit my past. Usually, it’s nostalgic self-indulgence. Remembering good times (or just interesting times) can be a pleasure. But the bad habit part is when I start to obsess over a period or incident I wish had gone differently. Opportunities lost, chances not taken, encounters that did not go well, outcomes that left me uncomfortable. From time to time, I find myself running things over and over as if I could somehow find a way to make them right. I am aware of the pointlessness of this, but at such times I seem helpless before the imaginative reengineering my memories demand. It’s not so much that it wastes time, but it definitely wastes emotional energy, and often leaves me feeling sapped and dissatisfied.

Last night, I had something of an insight. This kind of dwelling is, I think, all about the unfinished and unrealized part of such memories. These are things you were invested in, there was skin in the game, you had your sights set on an outcome that was never achieved, and what your subconscious is doing is trying to see them through. In the process, you relive parts of the past, and it always ends up being just as unsatisfying and frustrating as it was in the first place. That goal is not to be reached and some part of you is geared still toward reaching it. Walking away is not an option because, damnit, it’s not finished.

That it is impossible (mostly) to do that, it goes into a file that comes back at triggering of certain events. There are conversations that I have had again and again in my head that will never resolve the way I want them to, but that only makes them harder to break off and step away from.

I don’t know how common this is, but I suspect some variation of it runs through society and we see people caught up in reliving the past. Often it is at worst annoying. Sometimes it turns into a toxic recycling that continues to disrupt well beyond any utility we might derive in puzzling out the “what went wrong” at the heart of such memories. That need to finish it may be the hook that keeps us coming back and going over it one more time.

I don’t know if realizing this will result in less of this for me, but we’ll see. I just wanted to share it, just in case others may find the observation…helpful.

Art

Going Forward

I started this post last night and it turned into something rather unpleasant. So I trashed that one, went to bed, and here I am. I am on the same page with the late Stephen Jay Gould with regards to calendrical silliness. It is simultaneously one of the most useful and absurd things humans ever invented. Imposing order on the seasons, allowing for cooperation across distances, the timing of events so chaos is kept at bay—wonderful. But the idea that certain dates mean something in cosmic terms? The whole industry of horoscopy, while mildly entertaining, is a window into human gullibility.

But heck, if you enjoy it and no harm is done, go for it. I use meta-dating myself, but mainly for personal matters, like anniversaries or knowing when to cook certain things or go certain places, or, most importantly, knowing when the people around me are going to start acting oddly, usually in extra-cheerful ways. Oh, yeah, it’s that time of year again.

I both get it and don’t get it. My family long ago stopped paying serious attention to holidays. Partly, this was economic—one doesn’t always have the money to do the holidays the way everyone likes—but partly this was a mild refusal to follow the herd.

But I get the utility of making plans and setting goals and calendars can be very important for that. (Besides, I’m a writer—deadlines are real.) Guttenberg, he of the movable type revolution, prior to superstardom as a printer, had been something of get-rich-quick opportunist and had tried to mount of big festival. Word went out, artisans and vendors were to show up, and everybody could make a lot of money—except he got the date wrong and it was all a fiasco. He moved on to the next thing, probably because he really owed some people money. If he’d had a better calendar, we might not have gotten mass printing when we did. (That story may be apocryphal, but many such things happened for less famous people, and it took a revolution in time-tracking to sort it finally into what we have today.)

One thing I intended to write about last night was all the things my fellow humans dote on that I simply don’t get. The list was not long, but the complaining was turning nasty. Not what I wanted to leave out there for the start of the coming year. I wanted to be more upbeat, which can sometimes be difficult for me. One on one, here and there, I’m not a dour fellow, but anyone who has read my posts here should be aware, when my gaze turns global, I can be a buzzkill. There are things people embrace that I don’t get, but usually I don’t care. I only react when the evangelizing starts and my ambivalence is called out by those who think I’m missing something or simply wrong or even stupid. I don’t have to like what you like for you to continue to like it. But if you’re going to call me on it, then I will explain, sometimes at length, why I think you may be, well, off-base.

The other day we listened to a report on art fraud. Some of the prices mentioned were jaw-dropping. I’m sorry, but $50,000,000.00 for a painting? I think it fair to say that this has nothing to do with how beautiful the painting is. There are painters who will never sell a piece for four figures and may be wondering where their next month’s rent is coming from who are likely just as good as (and sometimes better) than that long dead “master” some people with too much money bid on. But beyond that, I had to wonder—why is the provenance so damned important if you enjoy the work at hand? I mean, if you bought it because you like it…

I feel that way about many things. But I realize that other factors get piled on top of such a simple idea and people will find ways to make money on everything.

I believe in my heart that there should be some things kept outside the precincts of profit-making.  Food, healthcare, housing. Beauty. Nature. Education.

We, as I’m sure anyone who actually owns a house has experienced, have been getting cold calls from these “I want to buy your house!” enterprises. I resent them. How dare they. If I want to sell my house, that should be entirely my decision from the get-go. I will reach out, I will call the brokers, I will initiate the transaction. But what we have now is a high-pressure environment driven by people who need your property to generate their bottomline and it is a given that everyone wants to sell what they have. They are making money on the churn, the turnover. A piece of property sitting there comfortably off the market is an offense to their notion that everything has to be constantly in motion, monetarily speaking. But they lose the simple idea that for many people these are not houses but homes and they should be kept apart from all that until the owner is ready. By acting as they do, they “adrenalize” people into making decisions that in the long run hurt us all, because it erodes the idea of constancy and security. It’s only a few steps removed, actually, from abusive eminent domain, which I believe is a corrupt and twisted system that has drifted a long way from its original intention.

There. That’s the kind of thing I was doing on multiple fronts in that discarded essay. I had several things (sports, beer, country-and-western music, junk-throat singers, and on and on etc etc) on the dissecting table and it got…bitter.

I’ve had enough bitter. The last decade has been more than filled with disappointments and let-downs and delays and baffling absurdities and death. For a while, in my younger days, I thought we were getting better at this living thing, but it’s easy to feel we ran off the rails. In so many ways we haven’t. There are so many truly wonderful things happening, all over, and it saddens me that all the ugly hides it and steals our hope.

So going forward, I want to privilege the wonder over the horror, and find ways to damp the horror. Constant bad news is depressing and being depressed, among other things, leeches energy, and we end up too tired. As I said, on a one-to-one level, I’m not an unhappy guy.

But 2023 handed out some difficult to manage stuff. My dad died, being the chief one. We all knew it was coming, and in many ways it was a relief, but months later I find myself from time to time wishing I could have one more argument, share one more cool thing, talk to him one more time.

Going forward, then. I wish everyone to have a clearer road and to find something new and achieve something desired and to have more days of optimism than pessimism. We should expect better, not just hope for it. Make it better where possible. We’ve got a year ahead of us in which changes can be made and hope recharged. Most importantly,  we have each other. Be generous with hugs and smiles and willing ears. Many of us have more than we think. Share.

And don’t let the bitter boil your brain.