DEEP COUNTRY

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To assert that our Woodstock house is in le pays profonde (French) or the inaka (Japanese) is but a slight exaggeration.  Both foreign phrases translate as the ‘deep countryside’ and seem more apropos than their English equivalents.  The house is almost exactly 100 miles (125 kilometers) north of New York City, about a two-hour drive in normal conditions.  The distance from either the city or the traffic-light-less village of Woodstock is in the Goldilocks zone:  just right.  The last 100 meters of the road to the home are unpaved, and there is only one house beyond ours.  The three acres go mushy/swampy in the back.  My fantasy of building a Japanese-style tea house in a high Kyoto style behind the home is on hold.  In all honesty, ‘hold’ is a dubious and suspect word choice, but it was the preference of a one-time public diplomatist; the structure may never come to fruition.

         After short occupancies by gentlemen of a certain age, my wife and I have been the primary denizens for about a decade, supplemented by occasional dollops of family and friends.  The architecture is dull and undistinguished.  Except for a painstaking and precise imitation of a Japanese torii gate by a local craftsman who has dubbed himself The Chainsaw Poet.  We offered input; he provided inspiration.  The gate is magnificent and memorable.  Unfortunately, it stands seven feet (over two meters) tall between the house and the shed and offers a fine vista of the woods.  Our torii reminds me just enough of Kyoto (I once lived about 90 minutes away by train), but it does not ratchet up the nostalgia meter.  Until proven otherwise, I will claim that our torii gate is unique – as a work of art – in Woodstock.

         In my mid-70s, I move slowly both in my neuropathy-plagued gait and in my writing.  I hope that the extensive slow to ripen introduction will suffice to seduce you into reading about my real subject.  In le pays profonde, we are outnumbered by the animals, both mammals and insects.  Deer play cache-cache (hide and go seek) on each side of the house.  They graze on our grass and, likely sample the parsley, tarragon and other herbs that my wife tries to grow in pots on the back deck.  She made a noble effort this fall to place chrysanthemum in pots outside the front door.  The deer agreed 100% with this gesture but made short work of the lively flowers.  They engage in occasional staring contests before moving on.  We drive with caution, especially at twilight, to avoid the deer on our short unpaved road or the larger asphalted ones.

         According to the Oriental zodiac, both my wife and I were born in the year of the rabbit.   We see a bunny bound in and out of the bushes; we have never spotted babies.  We display an inordinate number of rabbit tsochkes – cups and plates and cutesies – in the house.  Like the deer, the rabbits have gained a special place in our hearts.

         Ditto for the fireflies who light up the nights for at least one summer week.

         But the biggest animal that we have seen, the bear, is not a welcome denizen of our woods.  One spring morning a black bear loomed outside our living room window, then lumbered on.  We made note of his presence but chose not to engage.

Mountain

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I could hear the screech owl this morning and followed the temptation to step outside into the dark to just be with the night a little. The Big Dipper was up there and I followed its tail to the North Star, reassuringly where I expected it to be. That was about half an hour ago. I am back inside, and can still hear the owl, rhythmic and low.

I awoke to an email from last night, a neighbor saying that he was at the hospital with his aging wife. A “scary incident” had happened, he said, at the supermarket that afternoon. I feel for him. He is much younger than her. One can pretty much be sure that she will leave before he does and under the best of circumstances he panics  easily. I know he dreads this. I just saw him this afternoon, coming back from leaving at my front door a piece of mis-directed mail, and we were happy to see each other and exchange some silly little friendly words in the driveway. They are both like cousins to me, almost family, not quite, but much more than neighbors.

It is Christmas and I will make a one-layer very simple (the recipe promises) cake and cover it with raspberries and whipped cream. My close friend will bring the first course. I am wary in the kitchen. Too often things go awry. But I keep returning to try again. If someone is coming over. Alone, ’tis a different story. I am looking forward to seeing my friend. It’s been a couple of weeks and she and I have a comfortable closeness, though she does drive me crazy sometimes. Sometimes I even think that I will wander off and not come back. But then she comes by and that unique closeness is there again, natural, kind of astounding me.

Do I think of him? Yes. I have altered and tried even to dismantle our connection, but I guess you can never erase people like that. I just go moment by moment,. It’s when I think beyond this very moment that I get into trouble. For instance, I start thinking I should, or even that I want to, go see him. And the push-pull begins. And then I have to remember and ask myself, okay, does that mean you want to go now? When the answer is yes I will go. Before that I just have to be careful not to create a jungle-gym in my head of criss-crossing thoughts that get me into a painful confusing jumble.

Doodler

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Joy

I hear Joy to the World
I am a young girl in a Christmas pageant
Miniature wise men follow
A silver, glittery cardboard star

Excited I sing all of the words
Feeling God’s presence
In this holy, candle lit sanctuary.

I hear Joy to the World
In my college dorm
Following the days death toll
From Vietnam

Angry, I turn it off
And claim God’s absence
In the world and in my life.

I hear Joy to the World
As I hold my new baby
Marveling at the miracle of birth

Eager, I hum the words
And ponder
God’s existence.

I hear Joy to the World
Alone in my apartment
Separated from my child and her father
I remember joy and cry

Discouraged, I denounce the words
And vow to seek
Other spiritual paths.

I hear Joy to the World
As I run across the hospital parking lot
To see my dying sister
The last Christmas music she will hear

Desperate , I mock the words
And yell at God, asking
Where is there joy in the world?

I hear Joy to the World
Cuddling my granddaughters
Surrounded by family
Celebrating new life and love

Peaceful, I sing all of the words
And feel God’s presence
In this holy moment.

I hear Joy to the World
My wrinkled hands
Hold photos of loved ones
As I recall stories and laughter

I remember that candle lit sanctuary of my youth
The questions that always take me deeper
I silently give thanks for it all and quietly hum
Joy to the world.

UPROOTED

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Today is my 38th birthday. It’s also 25 years since my Bat Mitzvah and 25 years since my dad passed away.

Last year, around this time, I was uprooted and brought here, from a place where I was happy and had a decent job. I was taking step forward and starting to put money away.

I’ve spent much of my 30’s looking back on my 20’s and the things that went wrong.

I pissed away 4 years of time and money at a liberal arts college on a degree that left me useless in the real world.

To counteract that, I became and RN, a practical skillset, which I chose as a reaction against the choice I’d made in college. I wanted to feel useful, wanted, needed.

But that probably wasn’t a good choice of profession. IT was a level of responsibility that was a bit beyond me. I burnt out and broke down.

I look back, way couldn’t I have chosen a different path?

I was lost and didn’t know what to do with myself. I lacked a sense of direction. I was like a nice car with a tank full of gas, but no map, no GPS.

I needed my dad.

I look at other friends of mine who are better off. One friend, a Reference Librarian, knew that she wanted to go into Library Science from the time she was young. She had a straightforward path in front of her. She never considered other careers. She also has a husband and has been with him since college. They were each other’s one and only.

Why? Why does God, or whatever powers at be that are up there running the show, seem to bless some people with straightforward paths, and others, he gives scattered pieces and expects us to put it all together?

Another former classmate of mine, an average student, went to MSMC for accounting, and is now head of finance at the county water department. That sounds like a good job.

Yet another childhood friend, who pretends never to have known me, was also an average student. She is now a successful dietitian.

I envisioned many things for myself when I was young: marriage and motherhood, college and career, ministry and serving God. I had all different priorities. But you can’t have it all. You must pick one path and stick with it.

In some ways, feminism has freed women from the bondage of dependency to men. But in other ways, it has made our lives more complicated. Now, we have the expectation not only for marriage and family, but of building a great career, too. And the desire for children is still there, but there’s a time stamp on that part. So, we spent our most fruitful, fertile years in worry and anxiety that we aren’t doing enough.

I’m learning deeper acceptance of my circumstances. Things make sense now. I can look forward, to whatever is left ahead.

Maggie Lawson

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UNSEEN/SEEN/UNSEEN

Seen? Who even knew it was a thing, “being seen”?

An introvert, I’ve always enjoyed not being seen at all while happily existing as a nobody, unrecognizable, unmemorable, my energy not even missed. I love lurking. That’s when I’m happiest, just observing. I can do that—be invisible even when I have shown them my passport and been checked off the list of passengers. Even if folks had been shown my photo on a WANTED poster, no one would remember me. Slate wiped clean. It’s how I prefer existing. Yes, I eat, but neither burp, nor fart. Those bodily functions would startle folks unaware of my being there, albeit unnoticed. They’d blame it on the innocent dog, again, though olfactory memory is stronger than you might think. Might people recall a whiff of my expensive perfume, but who fingerprints odors?

Desire disappearance? Try this: It’s like how I use meditation to lower my blood pressure especially when the cuff is at its worse pythonic grip. Just shut your eyes, inhale deeply, then exhale slowly a few times, letting go of your bodily presence, and its busy pumping schedule. Then in the next exhale, release your visible ego, the one who wears a touch of makeup or shaves, the one who smiles and is acknowledged. Let them go. Let the light in your expression fade, no eye-contact allowed. Ahhhh… This letting go exercise reminds me of the near-death experience I had as a youngster. As my body was grounding lightning there was no time; there were no choices. My “I” was intact, but my body, now a mere shell, was left behind, evacuated in that instant. My self, though, intact, somehow encapsulated, blindly followed that entrancing addictively leading light. Then, too soon after, I experienced my first rage while being shoved back into my electrocuted remains, to live. Whoopee.

Oh, the attention I got. The nerve healing was sporadic, seemingly endless, the imperfect result, profound deafness in one ear. A new me raggedly emerged, not enjoying the well-meant “poor yous”.

Some thirty years later I intuitively purchased the very last round-trip ticket, a one-time promotion by Northwest Airlines from Boston to Australia and back.

I’d met this swanky woman in a local restaurant, and, oddly,  we’d become friends. You couldn’t imagine more opposites, but it worked, because she drew attention away from me, and I ignored her flashiness, getting to know her more interesting core. I felt privileged she trusted me. Her public persona was built on her life being spread over the society pages, home in Melbourne, and she was seeking refuge in Easthampton to be herself. Alas, she still stood out like a sore thumb. She’d become her reputation. I got it.

When I told her I was taking this trip, she insisted I be shown around by her friends, and that her husband would be glad to host me, thank you very much. Um, did I already mention I be in jeans and a turtleneck, with a backpack, and was booked into hostels?

There, longer story short; after having had a few adventures at Bondi Beach, Sydney, I shyly called her husband, because she’d insisted. “Yes! Yes! Our girls will pick you up at the airport!” Like Alice in Wonderland, I tumbled into a scenario way beyond my country-bumpkin reality, one of uber-wealthy and ostentatious folks I could have never ever foreseen, for me, always so low-key and usually blending into the scenery. But there I was, suddenly being shown the high life of Brighton Beach, the posh side of life in Melbourne. She neglected to tell me her husband was a billionaire, and I was to going to sink or swim in her circle, once ensconced. The girls were imprints of Paris Hilton, though I think she might be kinder.

Yes, my friend the wife, who I shan’t name to protect the innocent, who was escaping the very lifestyle I’d fallen into, didn’t warn me, but I should have surmised, but who could? Her husband billeted me in her closet, replete with a daybed, reading light, and three inner closets—one for her shoes, one for her fur coats, and one for her gowns, not that I looked. Her everyday clothes were in yet another closet within a closet within another closet, or so it seemed. Her jewels in the safe. Yes, it was a mansion. No, there were no guest rooms. It even had formal gardens, and staff. But it wasn’t a home, if you get my drift. It was lifeless, even though it had a Monet. There were dust bunnies lurking behind the Ming vases.

She was back in the States pretending to fit in and not doing that well at it. He thought she was on vacation. She was living with a local Italian she met skiing in the Alps. She’d ask me to lie and tell those who asked that she was in nursing school, and selling Australian wines from her husband’s vineyards, on the side.She’d be back for the Preakness, or whatever their version was. He owned winners. It was all mind-bending.

I, however, was being shown around town as her “best friend” from the U. S., a famous couture, or a food columnist for the NYTimes, or…any other title, depending on the person she was trying to impress with me. Society paparazzi began to follow me. I politely shook them off, claiming the desire for privacy, not press attention, on this trip. Secretly, I wanted out, and just when I thought I could escape deep into my closet for a deep breath and peace, my hostess called her lover, not her husband—her lover—telling him when to pick us up for dinner. Bless me Jesus.

He picked us up in a limousine, and, in front of me—still in jeans and a black turtleneck, which being well bred they graciously ignored—they asked me where I wanted to go. I responded, “Oh, this is your city, surprise me!” Where-upon he, her lover, rather gleefully said, in front of me, “Let’s go where we can be seen!” I am not making this up. I swear he said that. I’m already trying to disappear, not be in the limousine, or somewhere in Melbourne, or somewhere in Australia, or somewhere in the universe, and it just wasn’t working, so I guessed it was my opportunity to learn this uppity, “being seen” skill.

It looked like a very up-scale, very haut restaurant. I inhaled. I exhaled. We were greeted as if we were royalty. I automatically stood taller. I felt a subtle shift, then glances from those already seated thanks to the psychic wave wafting off our entitled aura as we were led to our table. Did I mention I stood taller? Along with this air of elegance, reeking in poshness, came the barely understated introductions to me, as one after another, those in the know, welcomed me, the best friend of she who shall not be named. I’d been seen. I couldn’t wait to shower it off me, that façade.

Once back home, a flamboyant friend wanted to go out to dinner, so, playing him, I asked if he’d like to learn how to be seen! Oh, yes, he did—no hesitation. So, me being facetious, him being his show-off self, I showed him how, and yes, folks did come to our table to be greeted. Unbelievable. This is real. Measurable, it actually exists.

A few years passed, and that same friend asked me if I wanted to be an extra in a movie being filmed on Nantucket. I’d be paid enough to cover the plane fare and dinner out. I’d blend in. I agreed. He was an extra, too. In the end, all scenes he was in were cut, or an angle without him was selected. Mine were all kept, including the last scene with just me, reading on the top deck of the ferry, and the lead, apparently “contemplating his future”, leaning on the railing studying the horizon. My friend was being a royal pain always looking into the camera, asking people if they wanted “to do lunch”. He embarrassed me. So, once he settled down, I asked, “SOooo, how’d you like to learn how NOT to be seen?” His response was a firm, “No.” I’d created a monster.

Maggie Lawson

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TODAY, I AM MAGGIE

Just putting it out there from the get-go…this Maggie pseudonym, supposedly my mask, my chameleon costume, my muse, aka this lurking author, is wondering (in the intangible, the floating outside, observing, third person) if this arbitrarily chosen name will alter my (will the real other Maggie please stand up) honesty. Whew. How well will she verbalize all this to come—since no one knows her as me. Me? I’d stand up, use my own name, but it may be familiar, raising expectations, so, yes, good idea, Marta. Today, tomorrow and Friday, I’m dead to me, replaced. Maggie’s invented, the name I was given by another writer, better known than I, referring to a rollover accident we survived. Hopefully Maggie won’t tell all my secrets, though it would be an opportunity to spill them, and use italics, hyphens, ellipses, !!!!, and the occasional ; in BOLD. Admittedly, I’ve never been good at punctuation, so our Maggie may allow my un-sprung, care-less unedited side to surprise you. I can use her to send you off on an unexpected chatty journey you would not have expected from me. Seriously, you won’t be able to guess who’s behind the scenes—me— incognito. So fun, this hide-and-seek, this alter-ego opp. I’m here; I’m NOT here. I may get to like it! Maggie’s innocence, her nonchalance, may not be so innocent or nonchalant if she reflects me at all. Our “Maggie” may carry on, unrehearsed, just to spite me, spilling myself. Do I already have several personalities? Maybe she’s one finally stepping out and being the other me, the real me? The one not trying to figure it out in therapy. Prepare for pronouns to describe her or me or us or we or “our” (closely related to a possessive pronoun, says the dictionary). I’ve never let go to an actor portraying me, before, though I’ve acted. You’ve seen me! Those times were a blast. Maybe I can allow her to write about things I’ve never dared to expose. I’m already feeling lighter!  Did anyone notice I’m wetting myself laughing at my pathetically running off at the mouth? I realize I feel like I’m floating with Maggie now at the helm.

Gosh, I DO go on…

Who even remembers the actual me, anymore? Who recalls the oh, so familiar funky book jacket covers, photo and bio, the me who used to be a guest on talk shows, who followed a formula I alone invented, like the Hallmark movies, that worked until it didn’t.  We all got bored: You and I, both. Unsure of everything, nowadays, I am now riding the leaking air mattrass/dusty magic carpet of a one or two-shots success

I knew Marta and Fred way before they’d become publicly “authentic”, way back when my writing was hot, hot, hot. Oh, they are real enough folks. That’s what attracted me to them. Nothing fancy here, folks. Their potlucks rocked. They were genuine in the way some of us grew up, like me, back in the days when the air smelled like a bit of sweet hay manure, because in real life, manure isn’t just solid and streaming, piled up by the barn, you know.

On occasion, the cast changing, the surroundings, stable, we, snug in overstuffed couches and chairs by their fire, wrote our exposés together, strangers fed and, knowing no one we shared our shy hunger to write, then read our tales to actual listeners, not like you readers who I rarely meet. Our emotional and verbal spills were encouraged. Was it therapeutic? “How did you really feel about that?” “How did abuse change you?” I reeled from the intimacy. Could I ever tell my terror I felt being chased by a man full of fury, or describe the laughter that suspended my existence like an explosive sneeze or a tell-the-whole-world orgasm?

How does one write authentically? Am I authentic? God. Did I miss the point? I felt I did. I felt awash in being me, whomever she is. My words ran amuck. I’d had no lessons on writing. I’d been lucky, and then I wasn’t.

In their cozy home, there weren’t any grades, just increments of trust and connection. It may have been the first time I realized that my story may have triggered a reader’s memory, side-stepping my intended perspective. Their interpretation wasn’t my business! Did I know back then that there were age-old basic themes for all stories? No. My ego assumed my points made were fresh, unique.

Remember, Ian, the Scottish handyman? I know, now, I made his character flatter than he deserved because I felt if I exposed his emotions, it would give mine away, and it would have, but if less flat I may have released yours. Sorry for that. Other than writing only in declarative sentences, as if I knew stuff and had straightforward opinions, or, presenting as serene, with faux confidence, how else could I protect my fragile ego? How could I better express myself? Stories are how cultures share their values, through examples. That should be natural for me. They can be emotionally expressed, but don’t have to be true to get the point made.

Maggie can reveal I feel unheard and discouraged, when I cannot. Will she be more candid, less complicated by self-promises and expectations?

If I, I mean Maggie, if we write freely here, less constrained by the tedium of my too many years of research and insinuating my selves into others, will you recognize me by my style, my characters? Am I that obvious? Or is this an opportunity for me to reinvent my approach, not ride on my history, my fame, be it short or long-lived.

Do I even remember how to be me—or can I now become me in an anonymous character, unremarkable? Impersonal? I’ve always loved planting less obvious, lesser characters in my stories to round out and celebrate the ordinariness I cherish. What does that even mean? Maggie=Pen Name. I suppose I could have used Penny, or Tom, instead. Too late. Is my femaleness obvious? Could I even be a they?

I’m used to my editors cleaning up after me. So, do I try to write with rawness, now, via Maggie, to help you intuit the aching pull of the moon, and no longer squirm through the formulaic sexy beach scenes? Do I still focus on character development, the twist at the end, the seductive trail of crumbs to get you to desire to read on, and on and on. Is my job still to provide the energy, the cleverness, my truth to the story; Am I still the enticer? Should that “A” (<) in “Am” be capitalized?

If she writes in a loose, chatty, stream-of-consciousness style, will that ID me as a fraud, or shall I have fun attempting to allude, surmise, or distance through Maggie? Yeah! I shall become mysterious. I don’t want you to find me. I’ll change up my locations, characters, genders, era of history, the common grounding mention of the everyday use, let’s say, of mum’s best China, or that our pets eat out of tins, not bins.

Dare Maggie let words fly without restraint or rhyme or punctuation or connection refrain from proofing or editing at all letting them fall, words, letting them entangle? Would they better explain our now (Maggie and my) disjointed, dithering grasp as we try to reinvent the inevitable? Will this part of the assignment relieve us? Would you identify better with our new obviously synaptic word salad than the structure you’re expecting? Do we secretly identify best with those who try to show what it’s like to flounder, or to die, even if we’re in denial? Shall we show what happens when you inhale a crumb? I do know about that. I died—not by choaking, but yeah. Don’t give me that surprised look. Die. Say it out loud. D I E. We all die. Yet, our Maggie is pretend, and like so many good books, she lives because she’s not real and she’s not me, she’s definitely not me. I end. So, stay. Allow us to try to tell you a story that allows an actual end.

Mountain

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What would I write if I were to write something right now? It is afternoon and I might say that I am lonelier than I thought I would be. That I am thinking, more than I thought I would be, about other people who seem to be having more fun than I, knowing more people, going out more.

And yet I love being home with no one around. It is unusual not to have something to do. I mean, I have plenty to do, but nothing I MUST do right ow except respond to my dog’s pushy nose at my elbow telling me she wants a walk even though she had one two hours ago. She keeps saying with her nose that she is more important than the keyboard, and she is right, but I am selfish much of the time and insist on doing what I want to do before yielding. I’m actually much happier once I start writing, and this paragraph could go on much longer. Maybe I will pick it up later, after the walk. And then she’ll want dinner. So maybe I won’t go yet because it really will take me awhile to get back here. How about a new paragraph?

You see? I have a quiet afternoon and do I do all the things I normally don’t have time for? Do I read James Joyce? Well, not yet I don’t. But I am writing, so I should not be so hard on myself.

I like starting new projects in the morning. I’m a bit like a balloon that tends to run out of air as the day goes along, descending gradually.

Couples always seem to be doing something together. But I remember how glorious I felt for a long time after my partnership with someone ended. Perhaps I am still adjusting, though it’s been a few years. How long does adjustment take? Until the next thing, I guess.

Chinatown

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It is the ordinary that I miss, the unremarkable minutes.  Close to the end, not knowing it was close to the end, riding home from the Mexican restaurant where we ate tortilla soup and scooped up gobs of perfect guacamole on tortilla chips and Googled Faye Dunaway to see if she were still alive—we’d just seen “Chinatown” at the Triplex — we stopped at the Price Chopper for something, what was it?

 “I can go,” I said, meaning, you can wait here in the car in the parking lot for me to do whatever small errand it was:  distilled water?  Toilet paper?  And him saying: No, I’ll come with you, because that’s what he did, he came with me, because he just liked to; he liked to be with me, in proximity, doing some ordinary and forgettable thing.

Back in the car, driving home through Stockbridge on the dark empty road, I thought about how  different the silence between us felt, than it had felt in my first, unhappy marriage, driving with that husband through the silent suburbs of New Jersey, when it wasn’t just the road that was dark and empty.  I felt anguished,  then, stranded alone in the wrong life, without faith that happiness was even possible, the silence in that car a deep space, vast and indifferent.  Now, this silence was home. This man, this car, this night out together, this mundane errand at Price Chopper: home.  How good it was, this home we had made, that we lived in wherever we went; this place where silence was sweet and full of love.

I almost stopped writing to look up the date, when that was exactly, that we went to that movie, and drove home in the dark, and I remembered that long ago loneliness and noted that it was gone; that I was at home in my right life, now, with this man who wanted to accompany me to the paper products aisle just to be together. I wanted to write that exact number down for dramatic effect.  As if it’s not dramatic enough to say:  it was a matter of days, when this happened; only a few days, before he died.

Sentient Being

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We’re celebrating Christmas Eve by going to Nirvana. No, not the Buddhist Nirvana.  The Indian one.  The Nirvana Indian restaurant in Woodstock. We have a 7o’clock reservation and we’ll pop into the  Candlestock  candle store and buy a Christmas candle if they are still open when we get to town.

That’ll be it it as far as Christmas celebrations go, although I may tune into the National Football League’s Christmas Day games, even though the games scheduled for Christmas 2025 are both lackluster and largely meaningless and not I’m sure what the schedulers had hoped would be the case.  But it is what it is and beggars can’t be choosers and so I’ll probably tune in to keep this particular Christmas tradition alive and kicking.

The thing I like most about Christmas are the Christmas lights and the Christmas plants.  We have a big Christmas tree with plenty of lights, both blinking and non-blinking and we have sparkling Christmas lights decorating both the inside and the outside of our house, and I bought four new Christmas plants this year to add to festive feeling and wonderful Christmas atmosphere that our place currently exudes in great measure.

And what about Jesus?  The “Reason for the Season,” as they say.

Let’s leave Jesus out of it.  He’s not really involved since there is no way he was born on December 25 to begin with.  He was probably, according to several astute astrological studies, born sometime in September.

It’s pretty clear to anyone who cares to delve into the situation that the early Christian were only too happy to glom onto pagan holidays and transform them into Christian ones for the sole purpose of making the newly spreading religion of Christianity more palatable to the heathen masses they were trying to convert.

And from the looks of things, they did a pretty good job. So called Christmas trees, yule logs, mistletoe, gift-giving around the Winter Soltice and a lot more came directly from the Druid and the Norse pagan traditions and were quickly reframed and adapted to suit Christian theology around the meaning and significance of the life of Jesus of Nazareth who subsequently became Jesus the Christ.

And let’s not even get into Easter.  That’s pretty much the same story all over again with Easter eggs and Easter bunnies that can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon fertility and renewal rites celebrated around the time of the Spring Equinox.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing against Jesus and if fact, I happen to be a big fan of his, even tough just like the Buddha’s birthday that the Buddhists make a big deal about, I’m  not into celebrating anyone’s birthday, except my wife’s birthday, which is a different story altogether and one that I don’t feel any need to explain or justify.  My wife is pretty much a pagan and really loves the Winter Solstice and I am totally cool with that.  Not only do I enjoy going to the Phoenician restaurant in Phoenicia NY every year to celebrate her birthday but I also enjoy doing what is necessary to keep marriage and my family life sailing along smoothly and joyfully.

And it’s going pretty good, thanks to Jesus, to Christmas, to the Winter Solstice with all its pagan accoutrements: the lights, the plants, the Christmas tree, etc.

I’m not thanking Buddha though.  Buddhists really annoy me, and I don’t want to give them any props or kudos of any kind.  Maybe I’ll go more into that in tomorrow’s exciting episode.

This is Sentient Being reporting from Nirvana.  Not the Indian restaurant.  The Buddhist one.

Exiled King

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Reach out your hand to grasp the lovely peach, to pull it from its stem. It slips through your fingers like air. Try again. No sensation of touch to match the vision. Nothing is there. The peach is a mirage. Either nothing is there, or it is your own hand that is entirely insubstantial, less than a ghost. Maybe it is you that is the mirage. Try again, fail again. The peach hangs there, untouched. Try, try, fail. The rage that bubbles up seems more than is justified, but…it is a fact. When the world refuses to participate in your plans, you want to tear it all down.

Long ago, I ingested a hallucinogen that caused me to see visions of real-world objects that were so convincing I thought I could interact with them. My flesh apparently existed in a different dimension from these objects, which were like pictures projected on smoke, entirely unreachable.

I am grateful that the substance wore off and by morning I was back in the land of the solid.

The experience I am having now in my old age is like those hallucinations. Occasionally an idea for a short story arises in my mind. In its thought form, it carries a feeling of substance, depth, truth. Then, I begin to pull it from the ineffable realm of thought into the world of the physical: keystrokes assembling specific words, words chosen and placed in a particular order, actual sentences in black and white on a screen.

That’s when the mirage occurs. One sentence, maybe two, then…nothing. The idea that had looked so solid shimmers away, untouchable. The vocabulary required to grasp it, whatever it was, has disappeared into emptiness. In a murky void, I reach. I try and fail and fail again.

Neither the peach nor my hand is real.

Then I grow bitter and hateful. I cannot expect to wake up tomorrow and be back in the land of the solid. Apparently I must abandon the entire enterprise. The days of being a writer are over.