Ripples Need A Rock To Get Started
He was an awkward preteen cretin who hailed from Nebraska, transplanted to the Pacific Northwest. He opened his mouth, prefacing any conversation by saying, “It all began in Omaha.” I forget what came after that, because as soon as we heard this opening line, we quit listening. No matter what wisdom he wished to impart, he had become the “It all began in Omaha” guy.
He would utter his famous line, and we would shout over him in unison, “It all began in Omaha.” Cruelty was easy. Did we even have a choice? Did he ever have a chance? We had to tease him, because if not him, who?
We had no choice. If not him, the teasing would find someone else. If not him, then maybe it would be you. Or me.
This morning as I drive into work, it appears as if I am driving into a wall of darkness. Overwhelming and foreboding clouds, a wall of darkness, impenetrable, unavoidable. But when I am driving in the morning, I can get lost in my dark thoughts, and then find myself, through the benefit of perpetual motion, smack dab in the middle of the dawn. All around me, the sky is gradually lightening, and the wall of darkness slowly disintegrates.
The dawn was dawning on me, as night recedes into day. Yet this darkness that was once before me, now remains inside me. I am Jonah and the day swallows me is my cursed whale.
I am listening to an audible book by Edward Abbey called Desert Solitaire, written in 1968. Abbey recounts his time as a park ranger in the deserts of Utah. For the majority of his time there, he was alone. Not lonely, but solitary, and alone. The only clock was the sun in the sky. The sun and its shadows projected on the dry hard earth as far as the eye could see.
“So I lived alone. The first thing I did was take off my pants. Naturally.”
He goes on,“Of all the featherless beasts, only man, chained by his self-imposed slavery to the clock, denies the elemental fire and proceeds as best he can about his business, suffering quietly, martyr to his madness. Much to learn.”
“For chrissake folks what is this life, if full of care we have no time to stand and stare? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not?”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
I am drawing comfort from his dry desert solitude. I am transported to another time and space, as Inhear about intertwined snakes writhing in a mating dance, while desert lizards almost levitate over the scorching barren rock.
“It is easier to survive a category five hurricane than it is to get through an ordinary Wednesday.” Walker Percy.
My favourite song for December is If We Make It Through December, written by Merle Haggard. Phoebe Bridgers offers an interesting cover.
A business friend said he calls Trump “Fearless Leader”. I say we pin our hopes now on Moose and Squirrel. Nothing up the sleeve. PRESTO. We both remark on the chaos that encircles Fearless Leader, like the perennial dust cloud the envelops Pigpen. What is the something about Saturday morning cartoon analogies that resonate at this time? Why do I yearn for a blanket and a thumb to suck? Damn, it can get difficult not drinking. Not because I miss drinking, because I do no miss it. But drinking, like the aforementioned mentioned blanket and thumb gave me comfort at one time in my life.
I crave comfort food, making a fine turkey meatloaf this past week. I listen to the Holiday songs, especially the classics. Is there a more quintessential voice of Christmas than Bing Crosby? The easy going crooner who invented mic technique. He brought an intimacy to singing that had never been there before.
He seemed like the Dad we all wanted, yet the truth was that both he and his wife Dixie were alcoholics who abused their children, two of them committing suicide.
“There have been times when I couldn't tell whether I was Captain Bligh in a Hawaiian sport shirt or the cream puff of the world, for Dixie used to tell me that I was too lax, that I wasn't strict enough, and that I forgot our boys' transgressions too soon. She used to reproach me with, "You punish them; then ten minutes later you're taking them to a movie. That's bad. You should let the memory of their punishment linger so they'll remember it.” (From his autobiography Call Me Lucky, 1953)