Wow!

So I have been thinking about dying.  Dieing?  I got sick last week - sore throat, terribly painful sinus congestion, achy joints.  Finally went to the doctor on Friday and besides all that my blood pressure was way up and I was in afib.  I’ve had afib for 13 or so years, so that was nothing new.  And BP - it’s been borderline for a longtime.  Anyway, got my antibiotic and my mucus relief, went home, took my medicine and went back to bed.

Blood pressure got higher.  And higher thru the weekend.

Meanwhile, I’m reading.

I’m reading a book of notes from a man who never finished his book.  And I finished reading the notes. And it is a fascinating book of notes - about literature and poetry, and construction and economics, and politics and revolutions, and poor people and rich people, and wars and peace, and Paris and neighborhoods, and religion and theatre, and art and dreams, and railroads and telephones, and collecting and history, and 

I’m not afraid of dying.  I was thinking this weekend - I don’t want to die.  I love living.  I hate some of the things in this world, but I like my life.  I would hate to die before my father because I think it would devastate him.   And before Brook, I know it would devastate her as well, but she can recover.  No - I don’t want to die, but I accept that I’m going to die and I think I’m okay with that. 

I also read a novel about a man who had taken 10 years of notes about a composer that he wanted to write a book about.  But he couldn’t write the first line.  He was always going to do it today, or tomorrow, or the next day.  Meanwhile he struggled with illness and loneliness and self-consciousness and a form of hypochondria - he was sick and it was diagnosed, but he was obsessed with the fact that HE thought he was dying - death anxiety?  How come there is a word for being obsessed with an undiagnosed illness but not a word for being obsessed with dying?  And while he was trying to write a book about his chosen composer, he wrote a book about a trip and a memory of a prior trip and a discovery.

Fascinating combination of books as at a fascinating moment in my life.

The first book is one that I had heard about for some years - like A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, or The Man Without Qualities or Ulysses - one of those touchstones of modernity and criticism that so many of “those people” point to as a critical if not indispensible step in the world of cultural, historical, and human philosophy.  And I am so proud and glad to have read it and it is everything everyone has ever said about it - impossible, un-narratable, indigestible, gargantuan.  

The voraciousness of the author - the utterly unquenchable thirst for knowledge and connection between things and people and time and causes is to me so wonderful and admirable.

A comment made about a friend of mine some 30 years ago comes to mind - “The thing about Ken is that he wants to know everything.”  I always took that as a goal.  I want people to say that about me.  

I was walking through my house yesterday, these various things floating in my mind - books not finished, interminable notes published as a 1000 page book - and noticed a book of poems by Baudelaire and another by W.H. Auden.  I saw a Times Literary Supplement and a New Yorker sitting on the table.  I noticed a book of paintings by Joan Mitchell.  And I felt so glad about my life.  I felt so wonderful about what I am surrounded by.  I am so pleased that this is my house.  And I’m not worried about dying.  I’m happy and I’m satisfied with my life and with my being.

I want to live longer.  I want to read more - there is so much more I want to read.  I want to write the way all these people I read have written.  I don’t know what I want to say, but I want to write.  And I feel so fortunate to be alive now, here.  And to have been born male and white to parents that valued education and erudition, who wanted the best for his and her children, who cared enough to not drink, to stop smoking, to eat well, and to take care of things.

For all of that I am so grateful.

I wish everyone could have that.  Could be this way.  Could be fascinated with beauty, and philosophy, and history, and peace.

I don’t know how I got here.  I could trip off the places I’ve been, the experiences I have had, the people I’ve met.  But I don’t know how I got here in my head.  I have so struggled at times to be comfortable in my skin.  To be okay just as I am.

I used to go to classes at night school at UNCG and following class or before class I would go to the library.  I would walk around the humongous periodicals room or through one of the floors of stacks and I would marvel at all that was there and yearn to be able to just spend time walking about, sitting anywhere, picking up anything and seeing what I could find.  I would make mental notes of authors to look up, books to sample.  

The other day I was thinking - at lunch with some workmates - and I was talking to a young man who is on my team.  He’s in his twenties, his wife is a teacher.  He asked me what do I do when I’m not at work.  I was struck dumb.  I read I said.  And I couldn’t come up with anything else.  I was struck by that - years ago I would have said - I play softball and basketball and golf; I swim in the morning;  I ride a motorcycle;  I go to the beach; I go to movies; I take care of the yard. 

I feel so rich.  I feel so excited.  I feel so many full emotions at this moment.

After reading these two books - one - an insurmountable, indigestible thousand page aglomoration of notes, one a 156 page stream of words about an unwritten book and a journey - I realized it didn’t matter WHAT I wrote, but it was okay to write whatever.  And that is okay.

All the anxiety about what to write - the anger at our times, the bitterness over how people are treated, the fallacy of capitalism, the density of the populace, the unfairness of the marketplace - all the stirring of all of that - just go.  Just go.

But do it.  It is time to turn and go.  I feel so glad to have been where I have been - in my reading, in my mind, in my life.  I feel so grateful to have been where I have been, to have glimpsed and tasted all that I have tasted.  And I am so eager for more - for more reading, more authors, more perspectives, more considerations.  And I want to go more.  But I am happy now.  I don’t want to die.  I probably am not going to die anytime soon.  But regardless, I am happy.  And pleased. And I’m okay.

Hanging on....

Barely.  Hanging on.  Just getting a few words - a dry spell and that is a-ok for the time being.

Poor night's sleep, long lethargic day, and on the prettiest day of the year no less.  Sunny and 65 or 70;  a marvelous sunset and now I'm off to bed expecting better rest, new energy and a gathering of words to begin flowing this week.

Oooo - look at the time....

Slipped right on past did this weeks check in...  Got busy watching The Wire and riding the bicycle to work and just living that I almost did forget it by golly.  Better late...

Still streaking.  Paltry but still there.  Chugging along.  I hope to ride the bicycle to work again tomorrow - would put me over 100 miles since mid-January.  But it was 26 degrees coming home tonight and will be considerably cooler in the morning.  I will try - it will be my first 3 consecutive days in a long time.

And maybe I can get some good writing time in soon.  Just having too much fun living, so something has to get pushed to the side.

Check it check it....

What a life - to see Tiempo Libre last night after a delightful if undercooked filet at Blue 5 sandwiched between 2 Knob Creeks.  Then, after the show, a late night fried egg sandwich and Coke at Community Inn.  All this after a good hour long, 3.3 mile walk around the Murray Run Greenway.

Today, reading The Hour and The Arcades Project, a couple of lines jotted down to keep the streak alive.  No snow, lots of rain coming our way.  Got the web cam up and running so I can watch the bird bath at work.

Ready for bed and for one last post on ROW80.  Keeping it going....

ROW Check In - 6

Streak's alive.  Still have written every day.

Rode bicycle to work yesterday and today - that streak alive too - ride at least 2x a week to work.  Up to 50 miles in January and well on my way to 200 by April 15 - roanoke100miler.  Rain expected tomorrow - maybe I'll ride again on Friday and then Monday or Tuesday.

Feeling crusty - tired and expending way too much energy on just getting through the day.

Thanks to 9to5 Mac I bought duet tonight and can share my Mac on my iPad for an extended display.  Pretty cool.

Carry on....

ROW Check In Number Five

Helvetica tonight for the play I saw last night - Helvetica at Mill Mountain Theatre. 

Another four days, another four entries.  Keeping after it.  Getting deeper into The Wire and The Arcades Project.  To a touching funeral today - Penny Siegel - Jackie's mom. 

1,700 private jets in Davos.  Time for a revolution.

Check In 4

Well it was a better Wednesday than two weeks ago, I think.  I haven't seen or read much news today - heads down at work from early until late - a quick dinner, and dashed down a few words and the streak is in tact still.  Something put down about life every day.  Today and yesterday rather light, but sticking at it.  

Check In 3

Kept up the pace until tailing off this weekend - a paucity of words Saturday and Sunday; but tomorrow is a new week and we'll get on track again.

Spent the day (finally) organizing pictures on the computer - consolidating 13 year of photos in one place and starting to pull them together into meaningful groupings and taggings.

Getting Going

Check in 2;  still keeping after it.  Not really keeping a common string of thought but beginning to pull some disparate but related strands together.  The goal is keeping me engaged with the writing and that is sustaining some decent thinking, if not writing.

I've been thinking a lot about mockery.  Mocking someone.  Mocking something.  And also thinking of something a friend of mine once told me - "we don't have the right to not be offended."  If something offends me, I can choose to ignore it or do something about it.  But I'm not sure there is anything that guarantees that I am not to be offended.

The something that I choose to do about it should be within the law - that is, I shouldn't hurt someone who has offended me.  I shouldn't hurt someone bodily.  Can I inflict mental or psychological pain?  Can I offend the person or the thing back?  I don't see why not.

What is the fundamental thing at stake?  To not be offended?  To be honest?  To be clear? To be accurate?  To make a point?

Somehow I think wanting to be 'right' is near to being the fundamental point.  Wanting to be considered more accurate or more learned or more 'in-the-know'.  Don't we all want to be right?  Don't we all want our worldview to be valid?  To be not discounted?

When I was in college and in a fraternity - I think I was a pledge at the time - the fraternity football team won the campus intramural football championship and we pledges thought we'd make a banner touting the victory in a smug, rather pointed way.  The members of the team took down the banner - they didn't feel that was an appropriate way to celebrate the championship.

When I was in high school, our principal would not allow any signs or cheers that were about the other team.  We were not to cheer against the other school - we were to cheer for ours.

These may not be stories exactly about mockery, but I think there are aspects of mockery in each.

So there is a tension within me, within everyone - here's a quote from a book, a very important book to me - The Necessity of Empty Places by Paul Gruchow - p. 148 in my copy:

"There are two large approaches to life.  One is to know your enemies clearly and to poor your energies into nullifying them, into scorn and satire, cynicism and protest, into the arts of nay-saying and emasculation.  The other is to know your enthusiasms and to give your energies to celebrating them, to praise and thanksgiving, curiosity and wonder, to the arts of affirmation and lovemaking.  Both approaches can be moral, intelligent, forces for betterment.  But one is so much more beautiful than the other.  Why should it be so easy to make the uglier choice?"

Why indeed?

On to the next check in.....

ROW80 - First Checkin

     Good start for me.  Though I didn't officially jump in until this week, I have written daily since 1 Jan. Around 4,700 words, which I suppose for me is pretty good.  I expect, from prior experience, the word count will gradually increase as the wheels keep rolling.

     It's noteworthy to me that I jumped in on 8 Jan, the day after the carnage in Paris, Charlie Hebdo.  Freedom of expression is at the top of my thoughts as it has been since learning about it.  It challenges me to stay on task with my goal but to also consider how to exercise my freedom of expression more genuinely, to take my writing that I'm keeping after, away from my desk and my desk alone.
     Thanks for this encouragement.

Je Suis Charlie!

ROW80

A little late to the 2015 show, but I'm in;  to write SOMETHING everyday for 80 days.  Here we go.  Thanks for the impetus and hope I keep it going.