I didn’t get to say goodbye

I didn’t get to see you and say goodbye.

They told me that I wouldn’t have wanted to see you

as you were so ill and in so much pain.

I didn’t get to see you and say goodbye.

They said you wouldn’t have said goodbye in any event.

They said that you were not going to die,

You were going to go home.

You would die as you wished

at home

in your bed, with your family

your dog, your cats.

Death didn’t give a shit what you wanted.

Death came quickly.

We all wish that death,

when it comes

as it must,

comes quickly,

still

I didn’t get to say goodbye.

Pain is the leaven that makes our lives rise

Yet there is a darkness spreading over part of our society. And we don’t really understand why.

-Paul Krugman-

I was going to write about this and then Kate showed up and the sun came out.  I am so grateful to have Kato.  Pain can bring gifts.

It has heightened the joy of having Kate.  Does that make sense?

Now isn’t this interesting?

1. restrain or regulate (a fluid, sound, etc.).

   “to baffle the noise further, I pad the gunwales”

   synonyms:

   perplex, puzzle, bewilder, mystify, bemuse, confuse, confound,disconcert;

   plural noun: baffles

1. a device used to restrain the flow of a fluid, gas, or loose material or to prevent the spreading of sound or light in a particular direction.
   So baffles can be a device, or an action.  You can be deliberately baffling as in confounding, confusing, perplexing or you can be confounded, confused and perplexed.

All of this implies agency.  I “pad the gunwales”, I baffle myself.

This can’t be read enough.

The Wild Geese
by Wendell Berry

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

This makes my heart open up and breathe.

Baffling winds

the doldrums. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

I love this—a belt of calms and light baffling winds.  Baffling as in confusing or baffling as in playful, chimerical? Baffling as in what the fuck is going on?

Aren’t baffles something?  I’m going to look this up.  Oh I love words.  Look where they lead you.  Exactly nowhere my dear but in a most interesting way.

Just Being 2

I am in a lull/doldrums.  When does a lull become a doldrum.  A doldrum reminds me of the ancient mariner–“-water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”  No movement—

Sue and I have talked about this a lot.  It’s waiting for something to happen.  I do well in crisis, not so well in regular life.  I need pushing as I don’t push myself so well.