my night in the hospital

of course i didn't want to stay! alas, the doctor said i'd miss important tests in the morning if i didn't: a brain-scan and a tracing of my arteries by ultra-sound, i needed to be monitored during the night. common sense made me give in. the action had already started, as the woman in the next examining room yelled, "i want to die! let me go! i'll blow my brains out." the duty nursed yelled back, "that's never going to happen. not on  our watch. that's not the way it works." this, certainly, affected my impulse to flee.

i didn't. beautiful young nurses and laughing older ones kept waking me up, testing my reflexes, drawing blood a couple of times. the brain-scan machine banged and hissed like a performance by dada (1920) artists. the ultra-sound fascinating, watching my blood gush on the screen like the sea and hearing the tremendous whoosh-whoosh like waves landing on the shore. i could see the evidence: my body really, really 72.8% water.

by noon, waiting for the doctor's analysis, i realized i felt helpless, having been waited upon so assiduously. how do the rich and presidents stand it? in a hospital your body becomes a prison. i began to doubt i could function on my own. two days later i'm fragile, on the edge of panic. lucky i could and did, driving back to my fire-tower last night, the truck stayed on the highway as i wove along the river. i'm sure this disquieted state will pass.

no, no, they found nothing wrong. since i'd woken up the morning off all this unexpected attention, lurching to one side, having a hard time not wobbling, grasping chairs and wall, they thought i might have had a TIA, basically a mini-stroke which passes before you know it, and an hour later i was fine. alas, two friends ten years young have had strokes recently. this stoked my alarm. my blood-pressure a bit high, as well as my cholesterol. two new cartridges of pills, damn-it-all, rest atop the micro-wave.

i need to be more grateful: no brain-tumor, no evidence of a stroke, clean veins. at my quickly advantaging age, no small thing. my neck's still stiff, and i think arthritis in that locale causing all the problems. pain-killer helped a bit and last night i could sleep in relative comfort, my dreams weird, as always with drugs. and, boy, i think those cute, caring, attentive young nurses made my blood-pressure rise!


        "No one, I suppose, genuinely admits the real existence of another person...Most people are for us no more than scenery."

                                                                                     Fernando Pessoa, The Book of                                                                                                                                                    Disquiet

people love sports, the beauty of the useless

yes, as a teenager, i was one of them, playing basketball, football, golf, tennis, and baseball - and all badly. i can still fall into the mood on special occasions. once i watched the Supebowl. San Francisco played. In the last five minutes, the quarterback threw three touchdown passes, booting up the home-team. what was his name? it will come back to me. after that i never had the urge to observe this annual ritual, nothing could top the experience i'd had. 

once in awhile, i'm in the mood for the ballet of the common people. I'll feel almost beyond human when the right fielder makes a dramatic catch before the ball goes over the wall, or a tight end passes through a dozen pursuers, snatching the pass and weaving his way to the goal posts. who wins, who loses, i try to forget, these people the members of corporations seeking a major profit at the expense of our naivete. 

"only the useless is beautiful,' quoting the poet fernanado pessoa, saying it way more beautifully than i possibly could, and so i give you a lengthy quote from his 'book of disquiet':

     "The present is ancient, because everything from the past was in the present when it existed, and so I have an antique dealer's fondness for things precisely because they belong to the present, and i have the wrath of an out rivalled collector for anyone who tries to replace my mistaken notions with plausible and even provable, scientifically based arguments.

     "The various points that a butterfly successively occupies in space are various things which,. to my astonished eyes, remain  visible in space. My recollections are so intense that...

     "But it is only the subtlest sensation of the slightest things that I like intensely. Perhaps this is due to my love of futility. Or maybe it's because of my concern for detail. But I'm inclined to believe - I can't say I know, for these are things I never bother to analyze - that it's because slight things, having absolutely no social or practical importance, are for that very reason absolutely free of sordid associations with reality. Slight things smack to me of unreality. The useless is beautiful because it's less real than the useful, which continues and extends, whereas the marvellously futile and the gloriously minuscule stay where and as they are, living freely and independently. The useless and the futile open up humbly aesthetic interludes in our real lives. What dreams and fond delights are stirred in my soul by the puny existence of a pin in a ribbon! What a pity for those who don't realize how important this is!"

and i would like to add: everything in art is useless, and that is it's marvel. 

this reminds me of a little story from chuangzu i read over forty years ago and which has remained with me ever since. i'm too lazy to re-type it. click on the picture and it will pop to life:

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu:
“All your teaching is centered on what has no use.”

Chuang Tzu replied:
“If you have no appreciation for what has no use,
you cannot begin to talk about what can be used.

“The earth for example, is broad and vast,
But of all this expanse a man uses only a few inches
Upon which he happens to be standing at the time.

“Now suppose you suddenly take away
all that he actually is not using,
so that all around his feet a gulf yawns,
and he stands in the void
with nowhere solid except under each foot,
how long will he be able to use what he is using?

Hui Tzu said:
“It would cease to serve any purpose.”

Chuang Tzu concluded:
“This shows the absolute necessity
of what is supposed to have no use.”

- Chuang Tzu

make yourself useful? big mistake! 


and to add more quotes, read these from the disgraced guru, bagwan shri rajneesh, dance your way to god: 
                          
                          http://www.pbase.com/wwp/way

legend of the one-handed juggler

If I get used to this, I'm a fool.

            Once we've conquered nature, we won't exist.

Enlightenment was a waste of good sex. 

         I lost my innocence with the grasp of things.

Idle hands create more laws.

              Only what I didn't do did I do to perfection.

I've given up trying to defeat my dreams.

        Yes, I'll be your sex-object for the day.

"I carry my defeat like a banner of victory." (Fernando Pessoa)

          If you think you deserve it, you probably don't. 

Senility has it's advantages.

                      He talked himself under the problem.

If you go looking for truth, be sure you miss it.

                        When you found the answer, you fell into the pit of ignorance.

Even the wise need a bit of folly for fun.

              He made a fortune and had no luck.

Too much comfort prevents the unexpected, too little paralyzes thought.

         If I took myself more seriously, I'd have to start laughing.

Growing up is only for those with nothing better to do.

                     Epitaph: It is better left unsaid. 

If your opponent leaves you alone, you can't be doing much.

                 Without controversy evil would never be uncovered.

"No one does anything from a single motive." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) 

                                  Just because you're bigger!

We remember only the unexpected.

              He enjoyed digging his own grave, the exercise. 

Thousands knew, only one spoke up.

                             He got out before it was an accident.

I'm at the age where I always ask: Is he still alive?

             If I lived each day like it were the last, I'd certainly run up a
 lot of credit-card debt.



***********More legends:

            1976 - Murphy's Rebellion:    http://www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy

             Spirit Journey:  http://www.pbase.com/wwp/spirit  




                         



                  

you never get anywhere without self-discipline

jees, tell me something else i don't want to hear! yes, i have it very sporadically, only when a deep, devastating motivation gets hold of me. for example, alcohol. a glass of red wine a day good for the body. trouble is, i take one glass, then another, and soon i love being drunk. damn, can't even take a glass, so i don't. and when i smoked at eighteen, to quit i kept telling myself, 'you're killing yourself, you're killing yourself.' it worked and i haven't smoked since. if i had a heart-attack, i'd certainly work out more, and so on.

habits have hold of me, a sweet-tooth that's destroying my teeth, reading a lot and slumping in my chair, sure at sixty my spine would be permanently bent. i've been lucky to this point. reading obituaries, very few americans live past ninety, yet i once browsed an article: 50 thousand americans 90 years-old work full-time. a conundrum, for sure. 

okay, how do they do it? given good genes, exercising, eating healthy foods. ah, and the hundred year-old guy says: "i've inhaled a pack a day since i was twelve", the nicotine obviously the source of his strength. my friend roger not so lucky. sixty-eight, he lay on is death-bed having them shut off the oxygen, coffin-nails more important than life itself. on the other hand, my friend bruce, a dedicated car-mechanic for his day-job, realized he wouldn't be able to work past sixty if he didn't make changes, set up a tent in the back yard with exercising stuff: weights, aerobic bicycle, treadmill. using these and changing his diet, he looks like a wrestler at the height of his powers.

my friend susie once told me about a tv program on fit grandmothers. these ladies at seventy had the bodies of thirty-year-olds. they worked out at the gym three hours a day! i'm lucky if i get out of my chair for two. can i change my habits, that's the immense question. would it diminish my desire to get out of bed in the morning? ah, if i wanted sex more, if i had a little girl at eighty and wanted to watch her grow up, if i decided to walk around the world, maybe, just maybe these would shake me up enough.

to pass up eating chocolate would take an act of congress, to stay off the computer would mean giving it away. true, a vegetarian for 32 years i probably should have stuck with it. and yoga every morning for 20 years, dropping it when i had back problems. i find i'm reluctant to bend over and pick up a pencil. i can't make changes without either being almost scared to death, or filled with an overwhelming ambition. take my pick, what is it to be?

once i can no longer work, i'm finished. hmm, there's a motive. but who wants to work forever except those 50 thousand 90 year-olds. i watch my friends retire, travel the world, either get fat and lazy, or start a seed business where they have to walk the mountains eight hours a day, gathering . yes, it's all about physicality, and us intellectual types just want our bodies to hang around while we use our minds. even tolstoy grew restless at eighty, jumped on a train, not knowing where he was going. too late. he died in a rural station. 

can i rev myself up? i don't know. something has to change. 

enjoy:

https://www.google.com/search?q=old+age+isn't+for+sissies+quote&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=mN_SUfLMD6bp0gGuxoCYDQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=927#tbm=isch&sa=1&q=obituaries+examples&oq=obituaries&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.724455.739538.0.742668.55.28.8.3.3.7.449.2983.9j16j4-1.26.0...0.0.0..1c.1.17.img.ML_LU973bkk&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmQ&fp=4dfdab502c2bbe6b&biw=1920&bih=927

it takes a lifetime to write your obituary

my friend jeff asked me if i had any tips on his writing his own obituary. i immediately ordered three books sent to him, a cross-section from london and new york. and i've got two others for myself. writing your own obituary is not as easy as you think. i've tried it a couple of times. complete failure. all i can do is goof around:

      "It's very hard to be honest about yourself and probably not necessary...."

     "From now on, your only guardian is a neglected future."  
                                                                                                            (Mahmoud Darwish)

      "I decided to steal her shadow and replace my own with it."

      "Being remembered isn't the same as being alive."

       "Looking back, as I leave my body...."

        "I can't believe how much money I've spent on books."

         "Though born of a minister, Wayne overcame these scruples at an early 
                age."

i mean, how does it all add up? i've hidden a lot of my life, flying below the radar. i value my sense of humor most, but it's very, very sick! and i keep thinking, okay, i encouraged independence in individuals. what a terrible mistake. only kids who follow the path their parents set out for them have a decent life: family, cars, jobs. pushing rebellion onto the unprepared definitely a mistake and a no-no. 

hmm, i used to place great emphasis on my travels, 40 countries and so on. alas, anybody who can buy and plane-ticket and backpack can do the same. and as for romance, i thought i'd succeeded in this department without leaving any illegitimate children. the latter fact may or may not be true. i keep waiting. unfortunately, i now give myself a two on a scale of ten. why was i in such a hurry?

hey, there's an idea. he lived life like it was a marathon. not bad, too honest, but not bad. 

         "Unfortunately, he was short-winded."

          "The race goes to those who play it safe, and needless to say..."

           "He always wanted to get it overwith."

            "Everytime he got to the top, he found a higher mountain ahead of him."

             "He lived for art and poetry and hoped he had a bit of talent. Little did 
                    did he know, like all young people he underestimated the 
                     competition."

well, this is certainly fruitless! maybe if i finish it, i'll die. no sense tempting fate.  humbling, humbling: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/30/magazine/the-lives-they-lived-2012.html?view=The_Lives_They_Loved#index maybe i should be worried about what others say of me? now there's a disparaging thought.

did i end up making momento mori last nite: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/watercolor





        

i always want to start all over again

no wonder i never get anywhere! how can i become a genius if i always begin again, go back to basics, the primitive sources, trying the correct all the mistakes i've made later? trouble is, the ecstasy  is in beginning. poetry, for example, i remember the excitement of discovering it, of simply not understanding its language. for six months i tripped on it, hiking a sierra trail and hiding behind trees to avoid people. how  thrilling to find my first poetic image coming from myself. "the dead branches curled up like ibex horns."

okay, not a fantastic image, i grant you, but my own. i began to see correspondences, resemblances, and reading lots of books, i discovered all poems about love and death, that the key to their cryptic inscriptions. for forty years the impulse kept pounding through me. finally, when i could no longer fall in love, idealize a human woman as the muse, i came sadly to the end of it. all i can do now is philosophize. what a poor substitute! 

yes, i want that thrill of discovery back, like alfred hitchcock did when he made psycho. he renewed himself by putting everything he had on one cast of the dice. what if i did move to australia, dashed my past, adopted a new name, pretended i'm younger than i am, could i recapture my discovery of the stage, six months of going to at least two shows a week, often the same one, in the foggy streets of san francisco? after thirty years at it i could be sure of writing a workable play and directing an exciting production. 

alas, so many things i like to do only once: make a movie, go to russia, choreograph a dance. not exactly false starts, they fulfill a certain impulse immediately, usually when i'm not enamoured of the process. and what shall i do now? yes, i have a special insight into acting. damn, i never wanted to teach and have to repeat myself like a parrot. the same with being a parent. all those basic questions i ask myself, how could i ever have the answers for a child?

ah, i know it's all a desire for the wonder of learning to spell dog and sailing away under my own steam on a bicycle for the first time. those initial triumphs, nothing like them. can i kid myself again and say,   i don't really have arthritis in my spine and in reality, my kidneys operate at full capacity.  can i pull the wool over my eyes, wear rose-colored glasses, chug enough viagra to put my primary organs back in order? perhaps, perhaps, if life were only mind over matter. maybe it is and i just can't remember it, and that's why i need to learn to spell dog all over again. 


              let's give those transformations a review:

              http://www.pbase.com/wwp/spite

                                                                                            Andre' Gide

"We shall cool the black sun/Of its savage, insomniac passion." (Osip Mandalstam)

Pagan Spring:  
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/pagan


"Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And, even when we as individuals pass on, the energy is retained in the work of art, locked in it and awaiting release if only someone will take the time and the care to unlock it."

                                                                                                    Marriane Moore