A different kind of leaving.

Telephone.

You left today and the counter is bare.

It is clean, but it is bare.

You left today and the bed is made.

Is is also clean; and it is bare.

You left today and took all of the stuff you brought for your own personal care.

It's gone now, the house is decluttered.  And it is bare.

You weren't in the kitchen making your coffee,

You weren't at the sink brushing your teeth.

You weren't at the table eating with us.

You aren't here now, to visit with, and to hug.

Is this how you felt when he went away?  Clean? decluttered? and bare?

Is that how your days felt after he passed?  unfettered? empty? bare?

Do I dare ask these questions? Since you, while not here, are still there.

So then is this how it felt when I went away? and each time I have gone away since?

Is this an introduction, then, to an empty nest?

To put off this longing, and imitation of grief

I pick up the telephone, and smile again.

The Games of Life

I do not like the trend that I see erupting in games.  And i'm being very grumpy about it in this post, so skip it if you want to stay cheerful.

First, though, remember what is good about games:

Games are used to teach life skills.  Any animal youngster, domestic or wild, learns running and pouncing and biting and fighting.  We call it cute when they are little.  As adults, in the wild, it keeps them alive.  They are "domestic" when we can tell them when it is ok to do which thing (biting, for instance, is what we use in dogs to get them to fetch.  We even direct their running.  Agility is all about telling them when and where we want them to jump, tunnel, hold still, walk, run, etc.)

Games for humans can teach math and communication.  A game like Scrabble is never the same -- so that once you reach a level of competency your likelihood of having a higher score is the same as that of anyone else who is competent.  It's kind of realistic that way:  Become competent, and you kind of take turns winning.  It's (usually) quite civil, fun, social and it hones the brain.  Same with Bridge.  The fun in playing is social, it is intellectual, and it is about self-improvement.

Move now to most electronic games.

(Caveats:  1) I do not play very many of them.  2) Since first starting this post I have been exposed to some much better games -- that do not require a cash outlay in other than the original purchase.  3) I realize that game-makers have to make money, and that hackers can make money too by selling hints.)  Yes, there are levels, and you have to pass.  Passing requires some level of competence... usually.  Hacking the games (a la James Tiberius Kirk) shows, at least, some level of creativity, and skill.  Several popular games let you buy your way past some of the challenges -- using actual cash.  Not only that, but many games only allow you to get to the highest levels if you do pay cash.  And in some games, once you do get to the top, you become a consultant or designer of the game.  (NB:  Sorry, lost the cite -- at the time of the onset of this post there was some article about game players in China who were paid to take control of the game, then sell their "levels" to the highest bidder.  Quite a cash cow for whoever thought up the scheme.  I'm not questioning the legality or ethics of these acts, however...)

What are we teaching our kids and ourselves!?  That money is the only real way to win?  That with enough money you get to control the game?  That no matter how talented you are you can never really achieve?  That the *only* way to have any direction over "the game of life" you have to 1) be on top, and 2) get there with money.

Your only other option, i suppose, is to stop playing these games and go out to enjoy life... if you can find a place in society that doesn't follow these same new rules.

I Will Remember For You

(Fixed a bit, maybe more is needed.

In the days when my father's memory seemed to be slipping
I wanted to tell him that I would remember it for him,
If only I could, if only I could.

Memories of games, and warm firesides, of laughter and play
I wanted to share them with him forever, and ever,
If only I could, if only I could.

Backwards in time he wandered each day, with his own inner memoir of laughter and play
I wanted to hold him in comfort, and to share
If only I could, if only I could.



Where does the past go in each passing moment? what does it mean that the time has gone?
I wanted to tell him it never would matter,
If only I could, if only I could.

When light, itself, seemed not to register, and sounds seemed to echo in the sterile room
I wanted, for him, to see these memories, to hear them to share them,
If only I could, if only I could.

And now that he's gone they reside in us all, splintered and partial, maybe drifting away
I want to sail on that vast ocean, to dip my toes, to take time to reflect,
I think I could, I really could.

Maybe it's just about expectations.

(Pre-note:  Oh my! this is such a 2-year-old note.  Well, here it comes anyway.)

I, today, hereby declare myself in union with the ancients:  The ancients who desperately waited for, and then celebrated, the coming of winter solstice.

Normally, where I live now, the sun disappears and becomes unknown to the inhabitants.  This happens some time in October, and usually lasts until about March.  Sometimes we'll get a glimmer of some bright thing in the sky in mid-February, along with extra warmth, reminding us that there is sometimes another way to live.

To be fair, clouds become unknown to us around mid-June or early July, and don't show up again until October.  There is sometimes one storm in late August or early September -- but that one cannot be taken seriously as it involves a temperature drop and a lot of wind, and that's usually about it.

Back to solstice:  This year we have had sun, almost non-stop, since Thanksgiving.  You would think that would be an improvement.  After all, the morning light comes earlier than it does with clouds.  The evening light lasts longer than it does with clouds.  And yet... the sun hovers so low in the sky!  (And i'm not even halfway to the north pole!!! I have lived further north and it didn't bother me so! listen to me whine!)  It seems to be, from sunup to sundown, 5 o'clock on an August afternoon.  A slight fog which could be either moisture or dust, the longish shadows, all reminiscent of the dog days of summer... but without the heat.

Those blasted inversions and fogs have acclimated me to a constant level of depressing dim light.  Yes, constant -- the moisture is lit from the bottom up by city lights, all night long, especially when people have their Christmas color out.  The variation on those days would be how far you could see!

It's all about expectations, i suppose.  Having the sun, every day, leads me to believe that we are already headed out of a (not very serious, so far) winter.  And yet we are still diving in, and we are nearly to the bottom of the dark.

This, then, is why I celebrate the coming Solstice:  I expect more light when the sun is shining and we are not getting it!  Oh, and Mom is coming to visit too.  :-)

On September 10, 2013

It has been over 10 years since the planes hit the towers, and other planes were hijacked.  I confess to knowing that we were going to be perfectly safe where we live since there are likely zero zealots from half-destroyed countries that have even heard of this state.  Even if they live in the U.S.  And in the grand scheme of things this state does not rank highly enough in *anything* to be called "grand" or be included in any schemes.  While there are still plenty of extremists here, they are too few in number and too poor in resource (now) to be the center of much national activity.

Why, then, did the governor deem it important to set up blockades around the statehouse in a city that even US citizens barely know, and many of them cannot name (let alone having the said zealots from another country know)?  Again, there is no strategic value here -- so both the paranoia was not justified.    Perhaps historians might be able to figure this out, if there is any reason to bother.

Nationally (or even within this state), why do we have to have yet another flag-waving ceremony for something that set the US on an abysmal international disaster course?  Have we not yet waved enough flags to prove that we are vacuous? with incredibly short memories? unable to make up our own minds? and willing to follow along any lie that fits in with our belief systems?  Rather than talk about that whole nonsense:

Perhaps we could  *sincerely* honor those who died on that day by taking care of those who were injured, and taking care of those whose family member(s) died on that day.

If it was up to me, I would declare September 11 to be National Data Day -- in which we look at the difference between facts and not-facts, in which we look at how our beliefs beg us to reject anything we don't like.  It would be a day of tolerance for differences, reflection over our *real* international record, a day of non-aggression and non-intervention.  A day in which no one could ever have any reason to attack the US's national symbols of power and wealth.