A Deep and Dark December...

Well, well, while a certain part of the Simon and Garfunkel song is indeed appropriate at this time, I'm for once in a mood where I'm not feeling complete ill at ease. Yet all around me, the tentacles that have enclosed about me in recent weeks have finished with me for now.

I have had an interesting epiphany, about where we are, and why the screaming, wailing, pleading banshees of the great wasteland continue to exist, and why so many there are? I read it in the "letters" to the New York Times this evening, and I read a familiar, talking loud but saying nothing response.

What about? Why 74 million Americans put their trust in a man many openly admit they cannot stand, but march behind, lockstep toward destruction. They made it clear--issues, not the man, but the man is wound about with the issues, and they play largely to the fears, paranoia, prejudice and hatreds of people living in a time gone by, one in fact, that never existed.

They see picket fences, 1955 America, when good, white, Xtian men ran the country, and similar such men largely ran and ruled the world. Where blacks stayed in their lane (the polite way to say know your place), where women stayed in the kitchen, birthed babies and did as they were told, where gays stayed in the closet, and the "others," the unwashed, the heathen, the white trash took their pay in crumbs and liked it.

They see a land where government is limited, except when they want something done, rights are doled out to those each of them decide can have them (for now), and all the liberties our free society grants, but none of the responsibility.

My, but we are a smug, entitled, self-adoring lot, are we not? We fight our battles on social media, or turn to our televisions and have our favorite sports teams, talk show hosts and preachers do our fighting for us, just so long as we don't have to sacrifice comfort.

Comfort, yes...COVID-19 NO...this week, I have learned that a friend from college, and one out west have it. The former is in hospital, and he asked on the oracle of Facebook what it all meant?

I am no expert, but I felt his sadness, at missing his wife, his children, his pets, stuck where he is.

On a more personal note: my eldest brother is completing 12 weeks i hospitals and rehab centers. Not from the pandemic, but more understandable health issues. He is doing as well as can be expected, but options for his future are few, and I worry about him, not a day goes by that I don't, and wonder what on Earth might I do?

Well, having spent more time in hospitals than I wanted, or wished, I remember: illness, pain, unable to eat for days, hallucinations, emotions at having some doctor I didn't know come in and schedule me for surgery, and me having to get quite disagreeable about that shit.

Feeling the enclosure of death, and having an experience that led me to believe I really was heading down the tunnel and wondering who that was waiting for me...well, here it is: these are reminders. Reminders, to enjoy even the mundane things, be grateful and thankful for them. And I wrote in the past, appreciate them, next time around, and consider the change. The inevitable change that life brings, and how you react to it and deal with it.

There are the things I think of...and we must think of.

Now, how about this...I came across this site the other day. My friend Lauren, who goes by many names had done an entry for this website. I wasn't sure if they did interviews, or what, but I thought I'd drop Lauren's name and find out more.

They asked me if I would write a think=piece about my latest book, Searching for Roy Buchanan. Why not? They wanted to know not about the book so much, as what went into the book.

And so...

https://www.thewordicle.com/searching-for-roy-buchanan/?fbclid=IwAR3Ug3ZfQfOKonjdPemUaYK30R1arTekpFRPMTmx_uH7iecwnvqVKkHhOAU

There you have it. I really have thought over all those bits for 13+ years, and it's been a trip. I hope that makes a bit of sense, and makes you wish to read my book, and perhaps others...

That is a little quote box thingie I got from Canva, which I use, and I didn't plan on coming up with a quote that was weighty, or useful, but there we are.

The book, the next, the ones I must read, the ones I must edit, and have edited. There is so much to do, so much to say.

Recently I learned Charles Bukowski had 15 or so unpublished works waiting to be set free at his death. I think that's where I am. I don't plan to live like Bukowski did, and I doubt I'll know the life he had in any form. Cousins of mine knew him in LA, and hung out with him. Wow...imagine drinking with him, and listening to him talk.

I think back to the front of this...as I listen to Krishna Das, and have been for hours, as he says at the ends of his events online, may we all have the needful things, such as good health, enough to eat, and that we may be able to follow the footsteps left for us by others.

We need to grow, and grow up. We need to focus, on the big picture, do what is necessary, not necessarily on our gratification agenda, to ensure that we all have enough, and that we can truly follow a path that will not make us a cut above, but as human as we can be.

I try to write in a direction that says a lot of these things. I have more to think of, to work toward, and I don't know if I get another life to do it in. This one, appears to be the one. I'll follow that path, and I hope my footprints and writings go for good.

A Rock? An Island? Don't know...sometimes we need to be alone, not to be lonely or to feel it, but to know we are alive.

Peace, Out.