Exit Strategy

The paperwork is in place

Ready for processing

Before the spiraling expiry date

No it isn't

It never is

Like Tony Soprano

All due respect

Reaching across the table at the Jersey diner

The jukebox's Journey's Don't Stop Believin'

No not yet

Affairs are never in order

Not quite

Prepared for

That rudest of rude interruptions

All due respect

#SCOTUS v. 2022

gimme an L gimme an I gimme an F

(and an FU2)

gimme an E

womb tomb BOOM

firing squad lethal injection guns and no butter death penalty electric chair let 'em fry more guns carry conceal reveal life penalty choice no choice gimme me a gun Johnny got his give me a bomb cradle to grave

through my fault through my fault through my most grievous fault

mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa

pro-life pro-white pro-gun pro-men pro-right pro-wrong pro-lie

wave the flag

wear it

wrap yourselves in it

sashay in it

sway away

lipstick smeared

ear to ear

grinning gamely

smiling widely

in your robes

your Robespierre robes

Reigning Error

rain of righteousness

razing democracy

raising theocracy

Amen.

 

 

Dog Days

After the deed was done or maybe before: she mused "you're like my dog" an elegy a loving postcard mailed to me sprawled there summery spent beside her as she sketched her affection toward Rusty or was it Sandy maybe Rex his loyalty love obedience and companionship so I edged into sleep an afternoon nap against her arm her leg her side as she read, her Rolex off, her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand, cues for unshackling as a prelude to unbridled intimacy. So I gathered I knew what she meant by the canine compliment. I was fine with it not a slight not a condescension but a treasured tableau in her memory's slide show and now mine as well fast forward a decade plus and Doug is dying, everybody knew it would be the last day, a Friday, after Debby had told me the previous Sunday "get up there, he's not coming home, he wants to ask you something," now his last, and my last "goodbye, I love you." Doug in his hospital bed looked at me as I brimmed into tears and he said "it's all right it'll be all right" then he tousled my hair he ruffled the hair on my head as he would have to Divitt the same dog who nearly bit my arm off on the night of Bush v. Gore in 2000 because I grabbed his bone, Divitt, a perfect name echoing the divots of every weekend's rounds of golf, a so-called sport I never played, with Doug or anyone else. I stared into your eyes and I knew it was okay and would be after and forevermore. You asked me to "read something" at a memorial and who knew that request would be such a gift, such a gem, because we never so much as once even swung a golf club together, unlike all those other partners on the fairways and greens who I figured knew you more and deeper didn't they, so why me? Why ask me of all people sort of like what they say about Christ and the disciples he picked why me they all presumably said. Such a revelation, the first of that year, 2005, the discovery of death's secret surprise, death's wink and a nod, the magician's rabbit out of the black upside down top hat. Richard, speaking of golf, six months later, November, in Florida, "let's go hit some, go to the driving range," straw hats, blazing sun, gently kindly "hold your hands this way, yes no that's it, careful, slower, no that's fine" almost hit golfers in the nearby rough but that CLICK! oh God! the sound of it the jolt in the hands resonating echoing into the arms the soul. Richard my brother, we never said half brother, too weak too tired to swing, sitting on the bench, the blistering blaze of light, its merciless scorch. And this was the slide in the carousel, the slide show, freeze-framed, after his death, the ferry to the yonder shore, this the wallet-sized image, the frame of future sentiment and loss, your plantation straw hat the artifact of a Monday afternoon, the farewell in the dark Tuesday morning, you in your bed, did I say good bye or I love you, probably not, though we both knew, to find out later your childhood prayerbook and rosary beads were there under your pillow. Dogstar pointed tooth hair of the dog long in the tooth my life as a dog doggerel mongrel sobs and all that. Then, last year, Maggie put down, across the boulevard from where I sit, tapping keys in the battleship dun afternoon, her eye left open, where did she go, so quickly, invisibly, effortlessly, the hideous simplicity the reckless rudeness of death, to every man woman child dog or leaf, you me and everyone and everything else. I went into my car in the parking lot of the animal hospital. Hospital. Inhospitable Last Exit. A rainy Friday. I wept against the steering wheel. How can I ever leave this parking lot. What can I do. Where can I go. What do I do now. Where's that sought surprise. Under the Tuscan sun, the Syracuse rain.
 

by any other name

Heroin.

Is the word part of the scourge? Is it a swish of the sword?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, Heroin as a word was coined in 1898 in German as a "trademark registered by Friedrich Bayer & Co. for their morphine substitute. According to tradition the word was coined with chemical suffix -ine (2) (German -in) + Greek hērōs 'hero' (see hero (n.1)) because of the euphoric feeling the drug provides, but no evidence for this seems to have been found so far."

So what if the name were changed? No, no, no, we're not talking about the myriad demimonde, street, underworld, pop culture, and user-driven slang terms. Not that. Change the name. A new coinage. A coin of the realm of hypnotic transport and molten reverie.

Do words matter? In ancient times, identity was conferred by the very act of naming. There was a power to it. The Hebrew Bible is rife with examples of this.

What would the new word be?

Could such a word have such powers as to be salutary, salubrious, and beneficent?

And even if that were true, would such a move erase allure? Because after all, danger, menace, and perilous risk are part of the game, part of the ritual, yes?

What would that word be? The opposite of "hero"? Hardly.

As the Bard put it in Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” As if to say, "Call heroin by any other name, and you get the same results."

Is it so? How would we conduct a peer-reviewed study to find out?

In "Sacred Emily" in 1913 (year of my father's birth), Gertrude Stein wrote: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." (Did you know that in one version of this immortal declaration Stein put it in a children's story, carved on a tree trunk, round and round?) So, does Gertrude Stein side with Shakespeare on this semantic matter, or is she saying, "It's futile; it's beyond description; it is what it is"? (Or something else entirely.)

Heroin is heroin is heroin is heroin. 

What do you think? What do you feel? Tell me more. Especially addicts. Weigh in on this. 

Do words matter?

How much?

burying the dead, and others

this interment no death dirt tossed the blue yellow butterfly flowers curlicued on the tabled urn her hard-earned urn beside the appointed Book of Common Prayer petitions we recite in common we mouth to the wind her uncommon age virtues demeanor generosity laughter tears we leave these severed maternal ashes for others for strangers to plant no not ashes cremains into the ground it is not her and it is not the ground yet the table the surrogate altar and it is not her here not quite do not look here said the angels at the tomb the gardener a simple hole in the ground a pale rose on the table an alstroemeria bouquet on the gravestone ashes to ashes burying the dead burying this dead engraving her memory what remains

let the dead bury the dead let the dead bury their own dead Jesus snapped hurried harried not my problem as if to say more urgent matters burn at hand such as now and the living above the dirt those of us still born still breathing

bury as in hide conceal protect shelter preserve

others

as for others entomb their reckless ecstasies those exalted maelstroms we loved to call love singing o happy fault o happy day night

bury it all bury it cheap or dear bury it deep

where every singed seed 

stalks the grave ground's readiness

where watered ripeness raves

mother's day, first and last

so dawned the day

breaching my birth

of quickening light

so broke the bleak midwinter

bearing December's child

too early on

touch and go

no breastful of milk

while homeward bound

we now ask what

moonlight we can give her

besides memory

of love like a stone

dropped into an empty well

echoing

still

the turning: vigil / aftermath

"Your mother has taken a turn . . . "

Eyes closed shallow breathing. Words into her right ear. A hum a chorus not a groan an affirmation on each exhalation some sort of yes. The right arm rising not quite flailing. Calls and farewells held to her ear. Softly hold her hand down her right hand the nails done pink the other day by Adrianna. Holding hands. Warm yet warm blood coursing. Who the child. I had clasped her hand such that her skin so papery reddened near her ring. The right arm fitful the left arm still the rest of her stilled. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. 

"Turn! Turn! Turn!"

That song. The Book of Ecclesiastes.

"It is written . . . "

Circle of prayer. Our right hands raised in benediction. The aura of presence. A surrounding. An upper room on the ground floor. Us. An us.

Unable to get the words out at first my throat my heart.

Whispers into her ear.

The paperwhites, the poinsettias.

Kiss on the forehead. Kiss on the cheek.

The lamp. The vigil the night. Now turned toward us. Slower breath. Her tongue caught between her dry lips never saw that before not her custom. The morphine.

Nearing midnight my hand nearly numb let go her hand our hands let go. The blanket from Evelyn to cover her the cozy covering she so loved. Warm still warm. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. Slower.

"I love you. Good night." Not good bye who knows why.

Morning becomes mourning.

So cruelly rigid unmoving hollow dry so angled. 

So infinitely other than mere hours before.

Kiss on the forehead not her forehead anymore. Cold. She is gone. To somewhere there here anywhere everywhere. Other.

Can't stay in that room.

Exit.

Into the hall into the world this new old world turned.

One less leaf. 

The First Last Christmas

The nurse practitioner had recently assured me: this would be Mom's last Christmas, not merely because she is 102. Her heart is failing, she's not eating or drinking much, the end is near. It is the fullness of time, her time. People say, "I'm so sorry," but I choose to look on the unsorrowfulness of her having lived a full life (her past participle hovering now between present and past), her current comfort, the relief, the letting go. But I understand they don't know what else to say. So, I knew it would be the last Christmas. This did not make me dour or gloomy. Instead, it magnified my visit and vision, and slowed me down. I looked at the sidewalk and the building entrance more acutely, marking it for gratitude now and for memory later. To my surprise, I learned she had already eaten lunch at Oasis, the dining hall. I was a tad disappointed not to lunch with her, as we did on Thanksgiving, but oh well. As I walked the several hallways to her area, I saw a woman slumped over, sitting in a wheelchair in front of the nurses' station. Could that be her? Kind of unusual for her to be sitting there, not lying down in her room. It looked like her. It was. She was nodding off. I tapped her right arm. "Mom, it's me." As suggested by her aide Nicole the day before, I brought her a comfortable pillow, one with a soft and plush texture, like the blanket one daughter had given her and the other daughter had given her as a sweater. "Who's this for?" "It's for you, Mom. How do you like it? It feels nice, right?" She felt it and enthused about its softness. "Who made it?" "I got it at the store. It's for you. I got it at Marshall's." "Thank you." "You're welcome. Merry Christmas." I drew up a chair next to her and sat in it. Then I popped up and got a tissue and tried to clean some eye gunk in her left eye, though it's the right one that gets closed from gunk because she sleeps on that side. The dry tissue didn't work. I talked to two nurses or aides in the hall; they said I should talk to the nurse in the office behind the desk. She used baby lotion or something with a moist cloth or paper towel; each eye; it worked. I felt she could've been more gentle, but then maybe it wouldn't have worked if she had been. I sat a little while and then popped up again to get her cold apple juice with a straw. She loved that. I gave her the straw three or four times for sips. "What are you doing after this?" "I'm going to go for dinner at Ethan's. We're going to have turkey. There'll be six of us." "When are you going there?" "At 5:30. Maybe I'll take a nap first." (Maybe?) "How are the roads?" "They're fine." "You're going to Ethan's. That's nice. What time?" "5:30." "You're having turkey?" "Yeah. Remember, I made it many years when Beth had to work. It's not so hard. People make a big deal over it. The gravy's the thing, the hard part. You had the best gravy of anyone, Mom. The best." Her eyes brightened. "Yes, oh yeah." "One time, was it in Stamford, we didn't have any Gravy Master and you were looking all over for it. All you need is a few drops." "That Gravy Master is the secret ingredient." 

A family down the hall had a golden retriever with them. I importuned upon them to stop by. I knew she'd love petting that dog. she did.

"Well, I'm going to go, Mom. Do you want me to take you to your room to lie down or do you want to stay out here?" "I'll stay here." I kissed her on the cheek and then again on the forehead. "I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas." "Merry Christmas. Thanks for coming, for always coming." "You're welcome. Why wouldn't I? Glad to do it." Our eyes locked. I walked down the hall, but not before waving to her and she to me, as if we were in the departure lounge at a bus station or airport. 

After the nap, I headed, solo, to Ethan's house, at 5:20. I felt but tried to ignore a low-grade hum of loneliness, sadness, and dreaded what-if-ness, not about Mom but about me and my journey thus far and today in particular. I feared a low-grade hum turning into a full-blast bass note. Approaching my son's house, I felt the evening darkness descend, the cold air blanket downward. This could be the last Christmas for any of us. Who are we to say? Who could be so cavalier or breezy to say otherwise? Sure, I'll be the oldest there, but we know what can happen in the blink of an eye, rudely disrespectful of age or station. And if a year later, we were absent, any one of us, or more, we would give the world to have this back again, pay any price, sell our souls and honor, anything, just this one time.

The shimmering snow crystals in the frozen, star-specked moonlight on the lawns to the left of the sidewalk. The town's bright holiday lights twinkling up ahead to the right. The patter of my footsteps. The strands of ice on the steps leading to the door. My hand on the railing. The barking dogs. The glass panes in the front door clouded over, frosty, from the condensation and warmth inside. 

king, or queen, of the road

As I idled at the stoplight, I watched it balletically maneuver in and around vehicles making a left turn, essentially a U-turn to head back from whence they came. The performance lasted less than a minute. I say "it" because at my distance I couldn't discern whether the performer was male or female, and since there was only one of "it" I am choosing a singular, indeterminate pronoun.

Danger filled the air.

It could have been hit by one of the turning vehicles. I suspect such a collision would not have been fatal to it, but who can say? A collision certainly would not harm any of the drivers or their vehicles.  

It danced and swirled and weaved artfully and gracefully, avoiding any contact with windshields or metal. Its sense of smell and vision were life-savers. 

Was it aware of the risks, the potential dangers and threats, as I was? It had no time to think, just react. 

I winced a few times, as if to say to myself, "Uh-oh, careful, watch out, ouch, no, yikes."

It performed proudly and regally, I dare say majestically.

And with impunity.

Harmlessly.

Before I knew it, it was time for me to turn. I lost track of it. It was gone. Or I was gone from it.

I saw no milkweed nearby, but it could have been growing in the median or on the side of the road.

Was it tired from its flight from Mexico?

This solitary Monarch butterfly splendidly survived, for that moment, that day.

No regal decrees were issued.

It fared better than five of the six wives of Henry VIII. (The last one survived him.)

"My" Monarch had nothing to prove, no obsession with heirs or riches or lineage or royal puissance.

Just flight.

Just Monarch-ness.

I, your loyal and humble servant, bow before you.

forwards and backwards and backwards and forwards and . . .

Palindromes. 

They are amusing, clever, and challenging. Spelled the same forwards and backwards, palindromes have a rich history. It is said that Ben Jonson coined the term in the 17th century. The two most famous examples that pop (there's a palindrome!) into my mind are: "Able was I ere I saw Elba" (referring to Napoleon's exile to an island in the Mediterranean) and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." Palindromes also refer to numerical sequences. Palindromelist.net is an extraordinary, active, live resource for this phenomenon. Stunningly, it presents a "longest palindrome" that takes up thousands of words! I would imagine that either a computer crafted it or some version of crowd sourcing collaborated to create it. 

Imagine a "Twilight Zone" or "Black Mirror" episode featuring characters who speak only in palindromes. What a challenge for the screenwriters! Just browsing through examples under "A" at Palindrome.net, one sees ratings-inducing, albeit inappropriate, bits of dialogue such as: "A car, a man, a maraca," "A slut nixes sex in Tulsa," "Ah, Satan sees Natasha!" and "Acrobats stab orca." (Don't get steamed at me; I didn't make these up; just quoting here.) Picture (aurally) the characters conversing palindromically, yet it takes a while for them to discover that is their only manner of discourse. And when they have to think about it, instead of letting it happen naturally, the characters find it impossible to speak fluently. Furthermore, viewers watching this episode are at first unaware of the palindrome dialogue. Would viewers using closed-caption subtitles catch on sooner?

In observing my mother, who is 100 + 1 years old, I see a painful-to-witness version of life's palindrome. Her regression to a simple, childlike state is not precisely a palindrome, but it has parallels. Life's video is spooling backwards, until it reaches the zero we begin with. Since the pattern is rougher and less formally precise than a palindrome, consider it a squinting palindrome, a parapalindrome. (This is not the least original on my part. It's another version of the Riddle of the Sphinx.)

Is the parapalindrome the organic sequence that humans typically experience?

In other words, is this what happens not only to our lives but also to our relationships, our jobs, our promises, our mind and body? 

Is progression-regression-progression-regression the "normal" march of time?

I think not.

That's too tidy a reckoning, not zigzag enough.

Agree?

turning points

How many turning points do we get in this life? I do not know. You may say that every moment is one. Understood. But how often do we dare to disturb our own universe, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot? I concede there are the obvious turning points, the walking-down-the-wedding aisle moments, or the deciding not to do so. For all we know, there are even greater turning points, and we did not recognize them. Or perhaps we did. Firsts, as in kisses, cigarettes, drinks, drugs, days on the job, words exchanged, or silences. Lasts, of the same. And more. As well as less.

Life is a mysterious journey, is it not? Especially when we are in the thrall of turning points we may be blind to.

O Wisdom, O Wisdom, grant us wisdom.

Bravo, Braves Beneficence

So, Denis With One N and I head to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Atlanta Braves game. In advance of this, I have sent handwritten notes to all the official Braves broadcasters (to my knowledge) telling them I'd be at the game and asking if I could give them an autographed copy of Baseball's Starry Night and maybe even chat about the book on the air, with the full and sympathetic understanding that the book recalls a painful night for Braves fans. Tuesday morning I had received a Twitter DM from radio guy Kevin McAlpin (who had not received a note, unfortunately), but we never did end up meeting. Denis With One N and I conferred with Ticketmasterman Big Mike, holding court like a regal Buddha outside the Ted, but even Big Mike said check the box office if you insist on being out of the (for me, dreaded) sun. After buying three $40 seats (for Denis and his brother Jimmy and me), section 204L, behind the plate, third-base-ish, under the overhang out of the sun, I saw a guy with a Giants hat and -- bingo! -- animated conversation...with Tike and Dawn and Patrick, season ticket holders at AT&T, I believe, attending their 35th and 32 and 31st ballparks, something like that. Giants fans! Giants fans in Atlanta on baseball pilgrimage! I look for The Faithful all over, especially at ballparks, and it is always cool to chat it up with them. (This is ballpark number 20 for me, best I can tell.) Incidentally, the ticket window gal saw my Giants shirt and said she saw someone with a Giants hat, but I think it was someone different.

The game was a fairly sloppy and dull affair, starting off with Hudson v. Hudson, Daniel and Tim, that is, and ending with D.H. leaving early (turns out we learn today he tore an elbow ligament) and ending with a T.H. and Braves' win, 8-1. Chipper Jones three hits! Homer for Michael Bourn (and Jason Kubel. Mini fireworks, from the Gas South sign in right, for a Braves pitcher's strikeout; bigger fireworks, coming from the Coke bottle on the Skydeck in left, for a Braves HR. No such theatrics from the visitors' feats. During Bourn's homer, I was buying 10 bucks worth of 50-50 charity tix from a cute Braves volunteer or worker.

The high points were meeting and chatting with Craig P. and his son Sam, star players from Baseball's Starry Night. Craig asked me to autograph a book for Katiebravesfan, also in my book, which I did, and also, a book for Sam, which I did. It was just a very endearing moment, and they later joined us in our seats. In fact, warm moment is an understatement. It left me with the heartfelt conviction that it was totally right to drive from Syracuse to Cooperstown to Charlotte to Atlanta for this very moment, meeting these lovely people, these ardent Braves fans, this father-son duo of love (for each other and the game).

(Small World Department: Jim R. knew of Craig's wife and others in their mutual recent or current positions in the world of commerce.)

Denis With One N and I also toured the clean and friendly confines of Turner Field, getting views from left field, by the Coke bottle and the giant red Adirondack chairs, and walking all the over to the opposite side, by the right-field foul pole.

A splendid time was had by all, to paraphrase the Beatles in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

life, affirmed

A sentence (a life sentence, at that):

Fresh from a stay at the Williams Club, walking down West 31st Street, on the shaded side, they saw a hotel, the Herald Square Hotel, with the word "LIFE" not interrupted but decoratively carved into the concrete face of the building in three different places, as if warding off suicides or affirming an existential state or simply dancing the good ol' joie-de-vivre, and then, several floors higher than those facades of LIFE (and we know how much life can be a facade sometimes), surprise! look! the word LIFE spelled out again in sure declaration, triumph, or inspiration, take your pick.

All Choked Up

The blog post preceding this one almost proved to be my last, forever. Amen.

Unless blogging is permitted or encouraged on The Other Side.

(And what do bloggers do about such matters? Do they stipulate in their will: "Hidden in the L volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica you will find my Blogger username and password. Post the following valedictory message. . . ."?)

Last Monday evening, before eating, I had mowed the back lawn. (Cf. my poem "Mowing the Last Lawn," previously and aptly posted on this blog.)

We were in the midst of having some roast pork from the grill, potato salad, and broccoli when my son E. and his wife J. popped over to give my wife a Mother's Day gift of an orchid and a card. Filial pleasantries were exchanged, and then they were off to see "Star Trek." I returned to my mostly-finished meal. Upon reaching the hallowed space of the dinner table, I noticed that my wife, B., had turned on the televised national news (thinking, I later learned, that our meal was done, over, complete). This is an ongoing tug-of-war. I strongly feel that having the television on at this time is vulgar, that it thwarts any chance of familial discourse, whether that discourse is contrary and sullen or bright and airy or silent or raucous. She strongly feels otherwise, wanting to learn about the day's sordid events via something called "the news" ("there's the Internet 24/7, I protest), relishing the electronic medium as a facilitator in the lost art of conversation, or perhaps welcoming the brash way it fills up the empty spaces between what settles for dialogue. In silent protest, I left the kitchen table with plate in hand, almost as a second thought grabbing a lonely chunk of grilled meat, leaving daughter A. and wife B. with the TV on and me gone. I paraded upstairs to my office, where I now sit. I marched with my plate in hand and a piece of meat shoved by my other hand into my mouth. As I was walking upstairs, I detected a sponginess in my chewing. This wasn't going right. Or was it? Try chewing a little more. Well, I can't chew anymore, now, can I? Don't panic. It'll sort itself out. Or will it? By the time I was upstairs, I knew the food had slid down and had managed to get stuck in my throat or somewhere along its preordained path. I couldn't breathe. I was getting dizzy. I was scared. I knew I had to get downstairs, which I managed to do, staggeringly, Frankenstein-like, plate in hand. I did hear something like a silent inner voice say something like, "Well, maybe this is it. It's that simple and ordinary." I got to the dining room near the doorway to the kitchen, and collapsed onto the floor, making frothy sounds, turning, I've been told, bluish gray. B. said, "Are you choking?" "I managed to nod yes. "Daddy! Daddy!" A. screamed in a voice neither one of us, or B., is likely to forget. "Mommy, should I call 911?" "Yes." B. somehow lifted me up and began to perform the Heimlich. She is a nurse. I could hear A. talking to the 911 folks. I could hear her give my age as 56 (yay! I am really 60) and calmly relay answers to their questions. I had not lost all consciousness, although things were getting blurrier and for all I know I'm making all this up and remember this in some fantasy-fractured manner. But A. kept yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" didn't she? A cry of fierce determination, fear, and love. B. repeatedly administered the Heimlich Maneuver frantically and vigorously (also with fierce determination, fear, and love), but it was not working. There goes that little voice of Sayonara whispering to me again. It wasn't working. For some moments I did think, well, I guess this is it with uppercase i and t underscore bold italic. "Stop fighting me. Relax," my wife yelled, getting more and more frustrated and terrified. Although I found, like the drowning man, it was hard to relax (relax? I'm dying here, like a bad Catskills comedian!), I must have done so even a little because I drew a breath. I had no sensation of having drawn a breath, but something had changed. Something Happened, as Joseph Heller put it in the title of his post-Catch-22 novel. The blurriness began to recede. I could hear better. The pork went who knows where, but not outward. I collapsed onto a chair, exhausted. Were we crying? Or was it later? Or not at all? "Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry. Thanks. You both did a great job. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry I scared you." My voice was hoarse, soft, defeated. The medics got here. My vitals were okay. A. was still frightened out of her 12-year-old skull and escaped to friends across the street, beside herself.

A friend asked if I saw a white light or anything like that.

Yeah. In the kitchen.

We now return to our irregularly written and read weblog.

LIFE, continued

I've told you before of the graffito LIFE in Burnet Park, once there, then gone, scrubbed, scoured, painted over.

I saw LIFE again yesterday.

LIFE moved (to at least two places) over on Hiawatha Boulevard, Syracuse, not far from the imagined world of Destiny USA. Emblazoned in uppercase letters amid industrial detritus, debris, and abandonment.

I was grateful to see some LIFE yesterday. It gave me some hope.

Today I imagine LIFE was there, a little elusive, shrouded in twilight, but I did not see it directly.

I was cast into twilight. I am bathed in twilight.

I am living in a zone of twilight.

But LIFE awaits. . . as a statement, a fact, not merely posed as a question.

a life exposed

At one point this afternoon, I wanted to surrender to the seduction of sleep. And why not? Spaniards have their siestas (some even go home, put their pajamas on, and have at it -- napping, that is). And why not? Armada or not, the Spanish have been around a long time, longer than our society, and seem to do just fine.

I think I was experiencing an adrenaline letdown after all the excitement and energy of preparing for an interview Tuesday at City Hall involving our company and several others, an interview not deemed important enough for one Common Councilor to attend and not important enough for another Common Councilor who was on the selection committee to do more than come late and then leave after 10 minutes or so, which infuriated me, a corporate bystander at this interview but one who had spent the previous day and more in prepping the team collegially. Uncommon Councilors. Dreadful.

Tonight's walk had its own revelation: remember that piece of graffito with the word LIFE with the x over the i? At first glance, I thought someone had tried to paint over the word, a cover-up of animate form. But, no, just the opposite. It seems that LIFE has been scrubbed to the bone, down to the bare cinder blocks, forming a faux bas-relief.

Was someone trying to clean LIFE, only to find that the background got scrubbed but LIFE persisted?

Did howling rains cause some kind of rapid-fire weathering? (Doubt it.)

Or was it like that all along, but I didn't remember it that way?

In reading "Proust Was A Neuroscientist," I am finding reinforcement in my belief that memory is always unreliable, a faulty archive.

What will LIFE look like tomorrow?