What Is It With These Guys?

Got to the part in the John Lennon biography where The Beatles split up.

Got a sinking feeling in my heart.

The Beatles split in 1969.

What is it with these guys?

Our Ring

I lost my wedding ring.

It has been on my finger for 36 years, 28 days. Approximately. I cannot convey to you what an empty feeling that is for me.

I was reading this morning, had been for about an hour. Stopped to stretch and somehow I noticed the ring was gone. It's not like I check for it all the time or admire it with swooning intensity. It's just that, all of a sudden, I noticed it wasn't there.

Since I have lost weight it has slipped off my finger from time to time.

Always when I am cold.

Could have happened this morning. Could have happened yesterday.

I walked around the house, walked around the yard, took a look around and in my car.

Not there.

Some people downplay the significance of a ring or a piece of paper. They can kiss my ass.

The ring is inscribed with words Carol and I dedicated to each other. I take it off from time to time and squint to read those words.

The ring is a solid reminder of the life Carol and I have shared for almost 37 of our 61 years on this planet.

A good life.

A life that through all the ups and downs and hard times has resulted in the greatest magic of all.

Keith and Craig. Emily and Karen.

I lost my wedding ring.

I am fucking pissed.

What Of It?

There is a bird perched on a branch outside this window as I write.

Was perched, now gone, one sentence in.

What a cool winter scene. The bird was pecking at the branch it sat on.

I am a city boy. I do not know what this means.

It was a small bird, kind of cute. Cuteness that belies the majestic capability of flight.

What a powerful concept flight is, what an amazing sense of freedom it implies.

My gut says birds don't appreciate this anymore than humans appreciate the ability to walk or the fascinating utility of opposable thumbs.

Then again, anything in nature is smarter than anything in humanity.

Maybe the bird exults when it soars. Maybe it thinks consciously or feels subconsciously how very cool it is to cut through the air, negotiating wind, digging the sun, flying faster miles an hour.

Maybe it is like meditation to the bird, providing a sense of peace and calm.

The moment was: the bird sitting on the branch pecking, hard packed snow underneath reflecting nothing but cold do to the lack of the sun. A subtle wind, few leaves left stranded on the trees, occasional cars slipping by (much too fast on my rural road), squirrels in frenzied survival mode.

The bird did not give off any air of desperation or depression. It moved quickly and confidently.

Beautiful to see.

Are there levels of emotion in the animal kingdom? I sense moods in our cats sometimes. Maybe sadness, lethargy, maybe a touch of illness.

Also happiness, excitement, love both given and gratefully received.

Do birds get sad or lethargic or slowed down by illness? Or are they naturally happy to the exclusion of all other emotion, which is exactly how they come across.

And if so, what does that tell us about classes of animal society?

I'm getting carried away here. On purpose.

I am trying to write differently this year. Or trying to add a new dimension to any good style of writing I may have.

What I am trying to avoid is bad writing. Boring writing.

Unfortunately, forays like this into new perspectives will probably result in some horrible stuff until I master it.

Or abandon it for some other approach.

You probably think the above is nothing but drivel.

That's OK. It probably is.

At least I am trying something new.

Just Some Words (Slapped Together in Nonchalance)

It was insanely cold. Josh looked out the window at frozen snow, treacherous ice, fallen trees and urgently racing squirrels, and lusted for summer.

Visions of smoke cloaking the barbecue grill, cold beads of condensation running lazily down a frosted mug filled with a pretentious designer beer, favorite T-shirts casually caressing a beer gut, and easy shorts baring ivory white chicken legs, soothed his tortured mind.

Winter had been slapping Josh around all his life. He couldn't seem to get away from it and he didn't really know why.

The cold shriveled him up, folded him into half of who he really was and took away a lot of options.

His charming personality was compromised during the winter months because he spent most of that time complaining about the cold. Obsessing about it, trying to figure out a way to justify living in it, ducking in and out of it like a wild animal desperate for safe harbor.

Until recently. Josh turned a corner into the new year as temperatures plummeted, and his mind grasped a new potential.

Suddenly (after a lifetime of incubation) it became crystal clear that winter was a time for transformation. For evolving.

Why not?

Nobody was looking. Nobody would ever see it coming.

He could change his life, change his habits, change his outlook and emerge into spring a new man.

Barely recognizable and infinitely improved.

Long hours spent inside created potential for study and reflection, for illuminating dark corners and identifying what was real and necessary, and what was aberration.

The cold stimulated focus and intensified alertness. Josh's mind was better poised to absorb new concepts, to adapt to familiar stimuli in more useful ways, and to accept change rather than to deflect it.

He felt powerful.

It was Josh's delicious secret. In the dark, at night, reading, studying and improving himself, evolving into the man he always knew he could be.

A man to be reckoned with.

It was insanely cold. Josh took a break from his determination to look out the window at a bleak and frozen landscape.

He smiled.

New Year's Resolution

Made one New Year's resolution this year, and I am going to stick with it because there can be no doubt that it will transform my life for the good in an almost immeasurably exponential way.

I pledge to use the word "mountebank" as often as possible.

Seems like there are more and more opportunities to do so in our rapidly devolving society.

One Quick Note

As New Year's Eve exploded into New year's Day we were watching coverage on Channel 4.

At a break I switched to another channel and caught Elton John live in concert.

He was singing "I'm Still Standing".

Seemed prophetic.

Last Words

When someone dies, we often find ourselves thinking back to the last conversation we had with them.

Wishing we had not said something, wishing we had said something, wishing there even was some meaningful last conversation.

I got lucky.

The last time we visited Sarge, I was the last one walking out of the room. Cori was standing next to the bed.

He said "Ciao for now."

He used to say that all the time. Typical cool Sarge phrase that he made all his own.

I use "Ciao" a lot but I try to refrain from using "Ciao for now" to avoid charges of plagiarism or being sued for copyright infringement.

Truthfully, if I used it a lot I would have felt guilty for stealing it from Sarge. So I use it sparingly.

Anyway he said "Ciao for now" as I was walking out the door. I turned around and told him I had stolen that phrase from him. That I used it from time to time and that I had stolen it from him.

He smiled.

That is the last conversation we ever had.

I can picture the smile, I can hear his words and I will cherish the memory forever.