Alleys at night

Dusty old Beijing alley at night
from last autumn

It's nearly 2 am. I can't sleep. I've been skimming the news. Had some peanut butter. Sometimes that helps. It didn't. Now I'm in the front room. When I look through the sliding glass door to my right I can see the amber lights of the town through the bare branches of the trees. I can hear the cheap clock ticking from the kitchen and the ringing in my right ear. When I look directly up from the screen I stare into pure black. I can't detach. Can't drift into sleep. Now my eyes are adjusting a little to the room. Light reflecting off the glass of a picture hanging on the wall opposite me emerges from the blackness. I can see the outline of the dark ceiling above the white walls. I'm restless inside. Unused. Disconnected. The I Ching tells me I must endure this eclipse.

Oregon update

Post-surgery is a drag. For all the medical advances, cutting the body open, poking around, pulling stuff out and sewing flesh back together is crude. No way around it. But, in spite of all that, Kathy was home the next day and is doing really well. I was under the impression that after the surgery we'd have the complete picture of what we're dealing with but no. We're waiting for the results of the most recent biopsy and still don't have a prognosis. They didn't get all the cancer but that's what radiation, hormones and chemo is for so on we go. That's the news. Not the best. Not the worst.

I lived in this valley for over 20 years so I know a lot of people. We both do. That makes things much easier. Plus we've been spending most evenings playing Dominion with the game group. It's not just us. People get obsessed over this game. M. Lee sent me a link to a discussion at Board Game Geek in which some guy announced he was planning to play though the entire collection of cards alphabetically. Not too likely. Someone else replied: "So, if you play a game every 10 minutes, 24/7, you  can play though all possible combinations in only 549,518,481,835 years!"

Napoleon with his favorite black and white toothbrush

Today we've been kicking back. M. Lee is in one room on his laptop and I'm in another on mine. I've been posting photos to flickr groups since mid-afternoon with a short break for dinner. Then, about a half hour ago, I found the Film Noir Mood Pool. Naturally I joined but then couldn't find one photo in the thousand plus I've uploaded to flickr that fit that category. How could this be? I love noir. It was a shock to see how one-sided my focus has been for the last few years. I finally rooted out a couple of images that kind of work, after I removed the color but still, this will not do.

News at 10:33

Finally Minerva and her magpie companion dropped by the Bird Park today for some peanuts and kibble. It's the first I've seen of them this year. The place is incomplete without them. She was a little too big for the branch she's trying to perch in but that didn't stop her.

We are back in Nevada for a couple of days to pick up a few things. Kathy, M. Lee's mom, has her surgery next Friday and we need to be there to help her out afterwards. It's great to be home, if even for a bit. The sky is blue and everything is where it's supposed to be. Ah well. When we're here any length of time I get restless. It's the curse of the gypsy soul. And speaking of wandering, my ADHD-PI is really out of control today. It's such a drag.

Whatzup

OK. I have to roll this thing forward. That means get out, crank the crank and spit out a new top page. It's a very clunky process in the way that the first cars were very clunky. I don't feel up to writing anything but it has to be done. So, by way of a whatzup, for the last few weeks we've been helping M. Lee's mom navigate the rounds of tests and doctor's appointments. Mostly that has meant waiting and wondering. At least tomorrow we get the prognosis. And we'll go from there.

And since we're here anyway, we've had a couple of game nights. We have stacks of board games but are currently addicted to a card game, Dominion. It's all anyone wants to play, well except for M. Lee who recently decided we should get back to regular board games, at least for awhile. We all agree in theory but end up playing Dominion anyway.

Last night we played three games. The first was basically a contest between Shane and M. Lee. They both got their strategies going right from the start and it was impossible to catch them. Not only that, the gods were completely against me. I had good cards but they never came up in useful combinations. During the second game Michael, who's new to the group, was the first to gut everyone with the King's Court/Thief combination but, in the end, M. Lee managed to crush us anyway with a King's Court/Laboratory. I won the last game with a simple Big Money strategy. That irritated the hell out of everyone.

Bird Park update and other news

Gnocchi for breakfast. Doesn't sound all that good to me but the magpies and starlings loved it. It was very freezer burned but that didn't stop them from gobbling it up. Around 7 AM the Bird Park is busy as usual but after that the action really drops off. I'm thinking it's the weather. It is unseasonably warm but then what's a season anymore?


As for me, for awhile I was obsessed with increasing the view count of my photos at flickr. It's a simple formula, more groups = more views. My goal was to get a thousand plus views a day. It didn't happen everyday but, when it did, those views were spread over several photos. Then I posted one photo to reddit and blam! In one day there were a thousand plus views of one photo. Sure, it was an especially nice photo but zowie. The trick there is posting to the right subreddit. Photos posted to a catch-all group like /r/pics move down the front page pretty fast but, in more specific subreddits like /r/ArtPorn/ or /r/CityPorn/, photos tend to stay on top a little longer. Again, a simple formula, front page = more views. I'm on to other things now but I suppose I'll be back at it soon enough.

I'm also still fiddling with enlargements and framing a few pictures. Costco photo is cheap and easy as long as the dimensions are right but I've been having a hell of time with one that's slightly odd. The learning curve. It's a bitch.

Geo-tag: "Visitor from a mysterious place with no name"

And finally, and most importantly, we'll be spending the next several months helping M. Lee's mom who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Currently she's working her way through the tests but surgery, chemo and radiation are indicated. Fortunately, the five-year survival rate for women her age is 85% so we are very optimistic. Plus, she's a very vibrant person, interested in everything and always ready for another adventure so we're thinking she'll do just fine. This waiting period is the hard part. I think once treatment gets underway we'll all feel a little better. So winter in Oregon. 

Tonight

The days go by. We are in Nevada. It is night again. And cold outside. The snow has not melted. The shadows are aglow with it. More snow is predicted tonight but otherwise, the land is in drought. The worst in history. The ringing never stops in my ears although, most of the day I do not hear it. I am grateful for that. I always valued silence.

I am gripped by melancholy but stay busy. I need to hurry but have nowhere to go. The I Ching has advised me, "Scurrying like a mouse. Such blind panic increases the danger." M. Lee sent me the link to the song I was looking for. He's good at reading the moment from the other room.

Lines Past Death

I sat with my Uncle all day the day he died. That was Saturday, February 1, 1992. These poems greeted me when I brought his ashes home to Southern Oregon a few days later. He had mailed them to me from Portland the day before he died, Friday, January 31. In the accompanying letter he  wrote, “All I need is a chance at a new peace”. He died the next evening with me sitting by his side, our faces touching, breathing together. I’ve taken the liberty of calling this collection, “LINES PAST DEATH”.

LINES PAST DEATH

The two were dressed in black, in what seemed like rented clothes.  They went to the man in the next stall, be still, is all I could do.  The man had died.  They took him away on a palette covered with a royal maroon cover and deposited him in a long station wagon.  So he passed his time, in a setting of principles.  No more to be seen.  Only the rented costume comes to mind as I write.  THAT was a fancy way to leave his guest.  Like a disappearance. 


#2

evergreen and birch trees and a small bed of roses…low evergreen shrubs and a lawn on either side of an entrance walk.  Crows scan the higher branches and frighten other birds.  The distance cold alerts one and the winter sun tries to subdue the body’s alarm.  Still, it is day, and we have the whole affect of nature to subdues us    and bring peace.


WINTER

A stalwart, winter day,
seen through the vibran
escapade of voices,
leaves me to wonder at the meaning left behind.
enlivening the shadow of this,
puts the mind at ease.
Where the January sun causes
steam to rise from the grass,
enfeebling cold fingers more.
To move is a mundane project
of prospects made whole
by the failing man seeking
to encase the situation
into something respective to itself.
Cold out, he said and felt in his pocket for the next phrase.
Only metal sounds and the body thrusts viably to taste the cold air
circulating on its tattered edge.


VARY AND VARIANCE

sit well – and sleep well,
‘til all these things stand still.
The existentialist needs somewhere to go.
incidental to the truth.  how depressing =
stay. and see if you like yourself.
cold are the winds of January.
grey, dull forces of winter, cleansing of the topical mind;
male and female appear to take away the body of summer.
You go – I’ll stay, adrift are crows, caw-ing in the twilight.


ONE BRIEF INSTANT OF GRACE

After some few weeks of silence, I long to show the contour of such meanings as could survive a hallway of elders and a nursing home; lunch.  The fittest apothegm means to be oneself elsewhere, and neglect to conclude what this does.

Leave the tray a while.

Why eat all the time


~John Chance, 1992

Note: The word "vibran" is Haitian creole for "stirring".
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