Life Imitates Art vs. Life Imitates Weather

Life Imitates Art vs. Life Imitates Weather

You've heard the expression that life sometimes imitates art.  The thought goes way, way back.  From Ancient Greece comes Aristophanes' famous question about the comedies written by Menander: "O Menander and Life! Which of you took the other as your model?", much later comes  Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life", and later still, in George Bernard Shaw's preface to Three Plays he wrote, "I have noticed that when a certain type of feature appears in painting and is admired as beautiful, it presently becomes common in nature; so that the Beatrices and Francescas in the picture galleries of one generation come to life as the parlor-maids and waitresses of the next."  Does Art lead perception, or is art such an expression of life itself that the question is indeed circular?  Darned if I know.

But today, I am sure of yet another notion, that life imitates weather.  As I sat at the breakfast table watching the fog slowly lift off the inlet outside my window, I could sense the fog lift from my own head.  I could focus on the moment first, observing my self and what I was feeling, what I needed to do for the day, where I would go and more.

Later, by 11:30 or so, the sun appeared, briefly at first, and the pace of things around me quickened.  More people appeared, making more noise.  Things that had slipped my mind were in place again.  I had energy and focus.  I ticked things off a mental list that was more complete than the one that came into focus when the fog first lifted.  The day was perceptibly warming up and so was I.  Even as the sky clouded over, the warmth it left behind sustained the level of activity around me.  I sat briefly by my window and watched the pelicans swoop over the inlet, feeding on fish at low tide.

Later, with the higher tide, human fishermen would return on their boats and fish far less efficiently than the pelicans do.  But still, the warmth would draw them out.  As it was, it sent me back out for more.  The sun returned, sparking enthusiasm for one final errand on my list, one I had put off for weeks because of the effort involved.  

Still the sun sustained us all.  Not a blazing sun, just the sun returning after a few chilly days.   As the sun went down--so early during December here--we relaxed and cooled as the evening did.

A Shell-Gift

A Shell-Gift

What is this, she asks, what does it mean

See it from my side, he thought with a smile.
Step away from your own side once in a while,
The gift's hard to make sense of, I already knew.
There's not a thing I can offer, no obvious clue,

That explains why I've given this shell to you,
it's lovely, it's fragile, yet somehow it's strong.
It's old and looks empty, but it will sing for you,
sending forth the magnificent sea's endless song.

The gift's not expensive or especially dear.
You may never see it as I did right here,
seeing you touch it, hold it up to your ear
and listen a moment was truly, my dear,

All I really wanted that shell-gift to do.

Why Don't Gym Shorts Have Flies?

Why Don't Gym Shorts Have Flies?

If needles have eyes, why don't gym shorts have flies
If brakes can have shoes, why don't cars get the blues.
If Air Jordans make news, when will sweatshirts amuse

When porkers can't fly, why do blackbirds make pie
If horses become glue, when will Brunswick be stew.
If all those turkeys are eaten, when will all eggs be beaten.

If there're dogs called Ol' Blue, when will my sis be Ol' Sue
If that earns me the dog house, know I'm not such a big louse.
Rhyming's not that much fun, if you can't dis anyone.

In fact, it's so boring, you'll soon all be snoring.
Unless I get to the point, then get out of this joint.
But some yarns are pointless, and prostheses jointless

Questions don't become serious or even mysterious
when asked all the time, just in order to rhyme,
but a life with no questions can lead to suggestions

one is really quite shallow, and lighter in weight
than a single marshmallow, your best friend just ate.
So let's just forget it, or soon we'll regret it.

If your gym shorts lack flies, understand they're a prize
when compared to a leotard, really, you guys.  

Plumbing the Heights and Depths

The other day, after careful searching, I called a plumber about an intermittent problem we were experiencing that just wouldn't seem to quit, and seemed to have become continuous. We asked around and looked around and called this gentleman.  He's been in the area for a long time and several people recommended him highly.  Naturally, between the time of my call and his scheduled arrival, the problem went away, as it had before.  He stopped in and I described the problem.  He gave me a quick diagnosis, then confirmed it by simply running some water in the kitchen sink for a few minutes, never even bringing a tool into the house.  Talk about plumbing the heights, and there was more.

He spent the next twenty minutes or so telling me about himself and the life he's had on this island for nearly seventy-five years.  He was entertaining and I nodded, smiled, commented and so on to the effect that he kept right on talking.  We had some work done recently and asked who I had used.  I named the contractor but could not recall the last name of the plumber he used, only recalling his first name as"Barry."  He didn't recognize the name, but proceeded to tell me a story about a man he knew with that first name, with whom he had a serious falling out, but that he was on his "prayer list."  He acknowledged that many people have forgotten all about prayer, but that he had a list of people and he prayed for some or all of them each night.  I was suitably impressed and said so.

Next he told me about a brief skirmish he had recently had with a stranger.  For some reason, he and this fella had bumped into each other as he was leaving the store.   The collision had caused the stranger to drop what he was carrying, and he proceeded to try picking a fight with my plumber over it (you can tell he already has me on his side--"my plumber." indeed).  In any event my plumber apologized several times and advised the stranger the he (my plumber) was a good Christian man and had no intention of getting into a fight with him (in the American South, it is quite common for people of a certain age to bring the fact of their religion into almost any conversation.  I swear I once asked a man for directions and wound up knowing which church he attended every Wednesday and Sunday without fail).  The stranger walked away, and my plumber noticed he was getting into a pickup with a name and the words "General Contractor" on the side.  He decided to have one more word with the man.  He asked him if in his work he used blueprints, if he had them prepared by an architect, and if he had someone who could interpret them.  The stranger said, "of course I do" or words to that effect.   My plumber then told him the same was true in life--that the Bible was the blueprint, Jesus was the architect, and the stranger had better learn to interpret them or he was going straight to hell.

Plumbing the Heights and Depths

By now, I expected the next words out of his mouth would be to invite me to join his church.  Instead, he launched into another tale involving a confrontation between him and another stranger after a fender-bender that was clearly the other man's fault.  He recalls looking at the minor damage to his truck and saying something like "That's OK, Pops.  Just forget about it."  The other man came back at him, with "who are you calling' Pops?"  He insisted he wasn't going anywhere until my plumber paid for the damages to his car.  When my plumber pointed out the accident was clearly the other man's fault, he was met with more grief, and the man began getting physical, pushing him several times.  Both men's wives were present, and my plumber told his wife, "If he pushes me one more time, I'm gonna make him stop."  He told the other man the same thing.  The man pushed him again, twice, each time harder than before.  My plumber finally wound up and punched the man in the jaw.  The man fell back and was unconscious.  The man's wife asked if he would help her get him to the hospital.  My plumber agreed, and drove the man and his wife to the hospital.  The man stayed unconscious for two weeks and two hours, then died.

My plumber was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the man's wife insisted on testifying on my plumber's behalf, pointing out her husband was at fault and out of control, that my plumber was merely defending himself.  The judge agreed and dismissed the charges with a warning to my plumber.  Now we were plumbing the depths.  He started telling me another tale, but when we heard my wife opening the front door, he dropped it, saying it wouldn't be the sort of thing he could say in front of a woman.  After talking for ten more minutes, he prepared to leave.  We tried to pay him for his time and effort in coming over, but he insisted he had done nothing, so he couldn't charge us.  (Ahh, back to plumbing the heights--I've had electricians charge me for flipping a circuit-breaker on and off).  It seemed that together we had plumbed a lot of territory, at least that's how I saw it.

Writing And Not

Where does this impulse come from?  I'm wondering because I've gone through a spell in which I didn't write at all.  I'm usually working on something--a speech, an essay, a story or even a poem.  But lately, nothing.  It's best done when I have a lot of energy, writing when I'm tired is not for me.  If I have energy when I start, however, I can keep writing for hours and not feel tired.  I spent some time carrying a little notebook and a pen to capture thoughts I might explore in writing.   Lately they have mostly contained lists of tasks I need to do, grocery lists and other odds and ends.  Not sure of this, but I don't know if a grocery list would prove a very interesting basis for writing an essay.

Let's take a look.There's a sleep diary the doc asked me to keep for two weeks to report the results of my newest prescription, intended to help me sleep.  That would be number six, no seven, in the progression of pharmacological treatment.  The diary indicates progress in sleep, so number seven's permanent now.  I am now on to number eight, which is not expected to have any impact for the first three or four weeks, so no diary on this one.   

But back to the notebook--a list of items to pick up at Lowe's for a project in my home office--stain, a few boards, shelf brackets and copies of the key to our front door (a couple of new locks I just installed).  Hmm, not much inspiration for writing there.

Next up, a list of recipe items needed for making gingerbread men.  A new Christmas tradition, Grandma and Mom go Christmas shopping, while Grandpa makes his famous gingerbread men with the grands.  It turns out the grands are just old enough and competitive enough to take turns with the mixer, the rolling pin and the cookie cutters, of course.  But these are not traditionalists.  Each of them had to choose a different shape to cut out, so we wound up with only half a dozen gingerbread "men," and "women," the latter were added at grandma's insistence--granting equal time to the female grandchild, etc.  However, neither of the grands would use the gingerbread characters irrespective of gender.  So, when I got the occasional turn, i made that handful of gingerbreads.  I was lucky the pumpkin cutouts didn't work, or we'd have some of those instead.  It wore me out, but still not much writing material was there?  A slice of life to be sure, but...

Back to the notebook, there are passwords, task lists (too many repeat items, of course), more shopping lists and no more ideas for writing, so I'm on my own.  Ah, here's an old note--"Monday 10AM, Starbuck's."  Coffee with a friend.  I remembered that one without the note.  Maybe there is something in that to inspire.    

Well, it's a start, writing about not writing, but the grands are on their way over, so I'd better call it a day.  
      

Amused? Who Me? and Maybe Not Even My Feet

You might think your feet are designed for standing and walking, but there are scientists who believe we are really designed to walk on all fours, and not standing upright on two.  This theory is often used to try to explain away the high incidence of lumbar and cervical injuries among humans.  There are lots of theories as to why primates moved from quadrupedal to bipedal travel, including some who believed they found it less strenuous.  Picture yourself walking around on all fours all day.  I am sure I'd find it exhausting.

Anthropologists have recently found in treadmill studies measuring metabolic, kinematic and kinetic data that four out of five chimps used more or an equal amount of energy walking upright.  The one using an equal amount of energy and the one using less shared skeletal characteristics of the hip and hind limb that allow for greater extension of the hind limb.  Examining old fossil records, they noted the same in some early bipeds.  

Which brings me to my recent experience in four different "amusement" parks in the Orlando, Florida.  My experiences there led me to inquire into what "amusement" means "the state of being amused, entertained, or pleased.  That didn't help much, it's a little like defining "park" as "a place where a park ranger hangs out."  Really?  Amusement is the state of being amused?  

OK, so I moved on to amused, and the answer was not particularly credible--it was "to cause to laugh or smile by giving pleasure."  By the time I had stood, walked and stood again for more than eight hours each day for four consecutive days, nothing could cause me to laugh or smile--about my legs or feet anyway.  I only fully understood the situation when I ran across the archaic meaning of the word amuse (Archaic To delude or deceive.).  Now I get it, we are deceived into believing that walking on two feet is what we evolved into (a higher state, at least assuming you are taller walking on two feet instead of four) so that we could get around using less energy.  But, the fact is, we expend more or less the same amount of energy walking on two feet instead of four.  We forsook walking on all fours (knuckle-dragging as some would say) just to be taller, I guess.  We were likely deceived (amused?) into it.  Today, I think we are being amused into believing that amusement parks are a place where we will laugh or smile all the day long.  

Now, I don't consider myself old and feeble, I work out daily, attend yoga, pilates and personal training sessions, and I walk.  I just don't do a lot of standing around, thus I was ill-prepared for an "amusement" park.  Each day, after six hours or so standing in line or standing around waiting for others to finish their rides, I was "pining" for the pine bench.  Pining means "to feel a lingering, often nostalgic desire."  A perfectly accurate description of how I felt.  I really, really wanted to sit down.  

Which brings me to another gnawing resentment I began to harbor--I didn't care for all those people riding around on electric scooters.  They'd ride up, park and hop off their vehicle spryly, ready to stand in a line, having passed many of those in line ahead of them, who moved aside--believing they were disabled in some way or they would not be on a scooter.  But these people were not disabled, they were simply smarter than I am.  They had probably been at "amusement" parks before, and learned they would be better off renting a nice little scooter than walking, standing, walking, sitting as I did.  In fact, when they "sat" they sat on a padded seat, not a pine bench as I had whenever I sought rest.  Speaking for my feet, I am not amused...          

Thinking About What Makes Friends

I've been thinking about friends again this week.  How rare they can be, how forgiving they have to be if your are not to lose them.   

One thing that stands out to me is that true friends are not blind to our faults.  In fact, we may have even learned they were true friends when we did something colossally stupid or made perfect fools of ourselves in their presence and they didn't feel we'd done so permanently.  I'm not saying they didn't notice.  The best of friends are never blind, they are just willing to close their eyes to your mistakes.  

I know, because I have made my share of blunders, and mistaken one thing for another countless times.  I have misunderstood people and acted on that misunderstanding only to find I was way off.  But, as Emerson said, "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."  Anyone who's been a friend of mine for a while has had to accept my being stupid more than once.  I've found if they still like me after that, they are probably my friends.  

I thought of citing some examples here, but those that have come to mind have been too embarrassing to put on display here.   I'll just point out I find it easy to misread the intentions of others because I'm projecting my own thoughts onto them.  It takes a good friend to wade through some of that and let it go.  

On a slightly less obvious level, friends can sit silently with you without being the least bit uncomfortable.  This is true in some of the most pleasant times, and the not so.  It's not just the not saying anything part.  That can go on among perfect strangers and mean nothing.  A crowd of people on a train or a bus not speaking to one another is not a gathering of friends.     It's the conversations or shared moments wherein you never need to say what's on your mind that count.  I don't need to come out and say it, my friend just knows.

In other graver circumstances of despair or confusion, a true friend can just hang in there being present and be comfortable.  That kind of friend doesn't see the need to fix things or to fix you.  That sort of friend just cares in person.  Great to have in your life.