A Life Full and Rich

Winter and the Cold Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. Marilyn. Susan. Driving. Hearing. Tested today. Lodgepole Home. Black Mountain. Genocide trial at the U.N. For Israel. America and allies strike the Houthis. WWIII? U.S. Nato. Ukraine. Israel. V. Iran. China. Russia. A post hegemon world. Lev. Metaphor. Rock. Water. Fire. Sound. Clouds. Mountains. Flowers. Death seeds. Those two Mule Deer Does.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cooking

One brief shining: Drew my knife through the salt pork dicing it into quarter inch cubes; it was almost all fat realized I knew nothing about salt pork, regretted that since I had committed myself to making Hoppin’ John with this as a major ingredient rendering the fat and making the salt pork crisp did not make it more edible, next time I’m using bacon.

 

As if the world had insufficient chaos. Now the U.S. has bombed Yemen. Houthis say they will retaliate. What a mess. Ukraine at the northern pole, Israel/Hamas at the southern. This has all the potential of blowing up into a two front war for the U.S. Why wouldn’t China take advantage of a U.S. mired in the Middle East and Ukraine to invade Taiwan? What would the world do then?

Oh by the way. One of, if not the, most fateful elections in the U.S. begins its primaries next week. Other nations too have important elections this year. 45 went off on the judge and the prosecutor at his fraud trial. Claims and cases piling up at the Supreme Court around him. The specter of his “base” rising up if he loses. The worse specter of his base rising up if he wins. OMG.

How bout that Covid wave underway right now? The cold slumping down from the Arctic? Saw it will test the Texas power grid. Again. Geez, c’mon guys!

All this distraction. We need a world united in the struggle to limit climate change. To adapt to the way it will ravage human civilization. Nope. We want to kill each other over religion and power. We know how to do that. We’re good at it.

Then we can throw in the worst surge of anti-semitism in the U.S. since the ADL started tracking attacks in the 1970’s. Which parallels the rise of racist incidents occasioned by legitimization of white supremacy by the very man who apparently has a lock on the Republican party nomination for President.

Oh the ways in which our country, our world has taken giant steps backward. Just in the past few years. It makes me sad. Angry? Yes, but I no longer know what to do with my anger.

 

Shoot. I was gonna talk about visiting with Irv and having a dorm room conversation about the afterlife. Or, how I made Hoppin’ John. Or, how happy I was with Tom’s cardiology visit results.

Well. I will say this. Got my new CD player. The one Odie recommended. Works great. Especially given that I’m deaf in one ear and can’t hear out of the other one. Listening to Mozart. Ah. Put in another CD. Pablo Casals. Playing Bach’s six suites for cello. Many of them for solo cello. Remembered my love affair with cello music. Went into it as I once did at the Ordway. Letting the music run up and down my body, triggering emotions, sensations. This is art I can experience at home.

That excited me. Music. Friends. Study. Reading. Cooking. Family. That all suddenly felt enough. Like my life didn’t need more. Was complete. I still feel that way. A life with a smaller ambit. Yet one full and rich. Yes. Also, why I don’t know what to do with my anger.