THE 1%

 

The waters flow, carrying people away. Supposedly, 99% of the people born on the same day as mine gone. They say not to outlive your friends and I am finding that to be true, though I’m lucky and have a few younger ones left. Maybe they’ll remember my name for awhile.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. I have been trying to name some of the many who’ve passed by me: family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. A few remain lost in the well of time, though many I could recall and they still live in me.

I have always been haunted by the transitory, even if I feel very lucky to have come this far. It’s hard to be melancholy while the adventures have gone on for me, but loss is written on the waters, and they continue to flow by.

May all these who follow rest in peace.

Paul Pease 

Thais Pease

Henry Metcalf

Lulu Metcalf

Noah Mundt

Holly Barnett 

Michael Liss

Randy Beck

Laurie Beck

Berta Gardner

Robert Pfennig

Amina Agisheff

Clark Brown

Peter Jodaitus

Renate Moock

Lee Breuer

Louis Logan

Geert Hendricks 

Suzanne Monaco

Carianne Wrona

Ruth Maleczech

Ed McLaughlin

Bill Peters

Rudy Giscomb

Bert Kaplan

Dale Kinski 

Franz Cilensek

Bookseller

Norman Elarth

Joe Bisanyani

Bluffton boy

Little girlfriend

Cousin's wife

Brain tumor

Jim Dwyer 

Jesse Mills

John electronic 

Sri Dalton

Peter Tscherning

Walter Pease

Luzerne Pease

G&G Pease

George Hitchcock

Oaxaca, Mexico, September 22, 2023

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Outfoxing depression

 

Hmm, last spring i made lists of advice,  techniques, as much practical stuff as i could find. I felt frustrated with all the mind manipulation: live in the present, be here now, empty your head of thoughts.  Maddening,  don't you think? So i looked for things i could actually do. 

And people came up with surprising stuff. Here are a few, including tap along your acupuncture meridians.

Stick your head in a bucket of cold water. 

I like the 'time warp', having an evening with drinks, clothes, pictures, old movies,  everything to put me in a particular moment in the past. A bath in memory. 

An easier one: 'listen to sad music'. I don't know why it works   but it does. I've been listening to cool jazz from the fifties.  It gives me the feeling life will go on and on.

Enthusiasms

 

Alas, i'm rummaging around in memory for something to light my fire! I've listed as many as I can remember off the top of my head. Unfortunately,  the one i feel most pleasure from is FINGERPAINTING in the second grade. Doesn't seem a fit occupation for a man of a certain age. 🤔 Looks like I'll have to sit with the record for awhile. Wish me luck.

PICTURE BOOKS

SKATING IN THE WOODS 

MAKING AN IGLOO

FINGERPAINTING (2ND GRADE

WINNIE THE POO

SCOUTS

BASEBALL

PLAYING IN THE SNOW 

KICK THE CAN

POOL

SWIMMING 

GIRLS

WOMEN 

DANCING

MARBLES 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

POETRY 

TRAINS

TRAVEL

ART

THEATER

MOVIES

BUTTONS

BOOKS -READING

STORIES - MINE AND OTHERS

SLEEPING 

WALKING

FRIENDS 

MOUNTAINS

OCEAN -BEACHES

BOATS

TAROT

SHAMANISM

MONEY (TO LIVE)

HEALTH

COVID

MUSIC,  LATELY  COOL JAZZ

DAYDREAMING 

LOOKOUTS 

LEARNING

PHONE! COMPUTER 

INDIA

JAPAN

RUSSIA

XMAS

LAUGHTER (COMEDY)

PAST LIVES 

PSYCHICS 

COUNCILORS 

SUICIDE

WATERCOLOR 

MYSELF!!

DRIVING 

AMERICAN INDIANS 

MUSEUMS

EATING

SEX

ICE CREAM 

BREAD AND CHEESE 

ALCOHOL

IF ONLY I HAD A REPUTATION TO RISK

 

Tonight I'm going to risk my reputation as a rational person. I am working out of many past lives. I know this is a theory for most people, but I think for me it's an actual holiday.

The 1st psychic I went to, Gloria Sax, gave me a whole list of past lives. I wrote off a bunch of them. They were the usual kings and queens and all that kind of stuff, but she gave me some very specific ones that have stuck in my mind ever since.

Number one she said I was a scientist on Atlantis who helped develop the power that blew up the island. I had seen many people die. Then, let's see, there was another one. An American Indian one where I was a counselor and chief, a spiritual leader. And after there was a dark one. a kind of evil shaman type and that I had never worked those evil deeds out. And the last one was...

Those may have been the only ones I remember

I thought it had one more but anyway my point is that in this lifetime I have gone through periods of being obsessed with shamanism , with American Indians and and maybe with destruction which would fit with Atlantis and the end of the world kind of feeling, my shadow.

For more recent recent times I really think that my interest in Russia and the revolution probably comes out of a lifetime where I died in that particular revolution. And I don't know if I feel like I'm Jewish now but I have a lot of Jewish friends and our family did visit the concentration camps. I had done research on those. So these are all things that are very familiar for more recent lifetimes.

I'm thinking now , well, maybe I'll get another chance after this once I'm out. I'll come back as quick as I can and get involved in the the results of global warming and all the turmoil, whatever happens. If we have a Virus that kills off almost everybody and I'm left with The Leftovers, very much the theme as in STATION ELEVEN, a novel by Jill St. John.

What I like about this for myself is that I may get another chance. I am living out this lifetime enjoying myself. Gloria said and several more psychics said the same thing: in this lifetime I'm meant to take it easy in the sense of not accepting a lot of responsibility and authority. And it's definitely been the case. I haven't had a family I haven't had to be a father figure and I haven't had a career where I've had to supervise a lot of people, in fact I've hidden out on top of the mountain. The whole thing of looking for fires may come from Atlantis and blowing a place up, a premonition of the future.

I know this sounds kind of nutty. I don't pretend to be any kind of Indian Hindu guru type. I Like the literature but the the numerology and all that kind of stuff doesn't appeal to me, though it might come in handy building destructive weapons.

What am I saying tonight? I'm saying that there's probably no reason I should be depressed. It's true I have had a lot of depressing experiences both in past lifetimes and this lifetime.

But if I get another chance then there's no worries, there's no sense it's over, that I can't do anything, that I can't rectify my mistakes in this lifetime.

I don't have any real conclusions to make as far as other people go. I can only say that this feels right for me. I can justify my feelings through my experiences, my interests, and my travels. Being born into a religious family might be also part of this in order to have that extra dimension, which everybody's looking for and which everybody finds in other ways. Past lives are not in the stars or the Accepted standard of the moment.

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FALLING FALLING FALLING

 Can I write a blog by talking? Here's a chance to find out. FALLING, FALLING, FALLING. I have fallen, six, seven times on this trip. First, in the airport in Brasilia, in Brazil. I don't know what I was doing, I twisted around with my luggage and actually a few minutes earlier I had lost my phone and I was fit to be tied. A guard found it, tangled up in the luggage carriage that I had used. So I was obviously not in the best of the frame of mind. When I fell like it was on a rug. I did spread a lot chocolate chips all over the place.

Since then, in Oaxaca have now fallen six times. The first two times were simply careless. One I was taking pictures near a little park and I tripped on a curb, I thought I could make it. And I didn't. Smacked my face in cement on the left side. I had a black eye and a goose egg, and I lay there. Well, a guy came up and said okay, just don't do anything and we'll call a Medico, And of course I was bleeding onto the sidewalk. A woman handed me some Kleenex to wipe up the blood, and I sat down on the curb, and waited for a while and nobody showed up. So I decided to hell with it. I'm going to go ahead and go back to the hostel. And I was able to find it on the phone with the map.

Second time I was just outside my room, and there's a kind of airway, right next to it, and I had dropped something from for my window and so I stepped down but I miscalculated and fell right on my head again against the cement. Luckily only my hip was aching, and that was the same left as before.

The next four times were actually in my room. And they were from dizziness. I tried some supplements from Mexico, supposedly to help with the virus, or anti virus, anyway. And they made me dizzy as hell. So in the middle of the night. I fell at least two times. Once right on my pee can, so I had piss all over my room and I had to clean it up at two in the morning, and I did it one more time, and the same kind of thing. I had to clean pee up at two in the morning.

And then I had two more times. One was in the room, and didn't seem to do much damage except it skinned the hell out of my left elbow. The next time it happened was in the coffee shop where I go. I bent down to pick some postcards off the shelf. And when I stood up too quick, I passed out, and I didn't actually realize I fell until some guy came up to me, an American guy and said, Are you alright. Damn, I had passed out again. So, this is getting to be

monotonous and not very healthy.

I did read once years ago that after 65. You will fall. And I don't know how often that means, but it's how people break their hips. Of course I hit my hip. Every time my left hip, and it didn't break, but it's still sore right now. Now the only time I had this kind of occurrence was probably about eight years ago. I increased my dose of Prozac. And that made me feel very good, but it also made me careless.

Now one thing I know is that you cannot, it is impossible to multitask. And if you are trying to multitask, you're getting in the way of yourself. You can only do one thing after the other. So be really careful when you're stepping, when you're walking to do one thing at a time. Climbing a ladder, don't be thinking about a girlfriend or whether you want to fly, or hat you're going to paint. Just don't do it. And if you're driving a car, you may zone out. I can probably can still exist with that. But at some point when I get older I will not be able to zone out and keep control of the car, and that's why people have to stop driving at a certain age.

Now, at 81 I thought I would not live this long, and I wasn't planning on living longer than this. I came into Mexico and I thought, well this would be the end of it, but I just keep on going. So, I don't know exactly what's going to finish me off. As long as I don't start drinking and step in front of a car, hopefully I will be okay. But the sidewalks here are treacherous, the motorcycles run up and down the streets like crazy, and they go around cars so you don't necessarily see them. So this is my warning to me that I had better watch my step. Okay, falling, falling, falling, just like Alice down the rabbit hole.

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Too old to die young

 

 I’ve often said, “Don’t outlive your own life,” thinking i knew what it meant. Now I’m befuddled. Does it mean, don’t live past your physical capabilities or something else? It could mean, don’t outlive your friends, which would be a wise thought or, if circumstances change and you can’t change with them, abandon all hope. This morning I’m thinking it means, don’t outlive your curiosity. 

If i find the day dull and colorless, is it merely temporary, or a suggestion of something deeper? For example, after being in Oaxaca for four months, the bloom has worn off. At first, everything interested me. I took pictures of art, handicrafts, walked all over town looking at the murals. Observed people with appreciation, clicking photographs at every turn, not always getting smiles. These folks seemed vital, fresh, and not like the dull citizens at home. 

Alas, the day has come when i see protruding stomachs and dirty fingernails, obesity an immense problem, probably due to the sugar in all the pastries. For a long time the noise in the street sounded refreshing. With time it’s become abrasive and the crowds pushy. With everybody wearing masks it’s hard to realize how beautiful so many of women are. I’ve even had flashes of homesickness, despite the fact i have no desire to be there. Small wonder i meet so many nomads who keep moving.

Yes, I’ve met many who’ve been on the road for years, traveling dozens, even hundreds of countries. How do they do it? They don’t become attached to places or people. They can say hello and goodbye  easily. That’s how pilgrims have always done it. The movement itself is sacred. True, i don’t see many on a spiritual quest. Most like seeing themselves in exotic places. The lands around them scenes for their own rolling movies. Others like the feeling of being in motion, riding a bicycle, staring out a bus window, the the foreign smells roiling their hair.

I myself am attached to visual spectacle, constantly looking for the odd details, excited by the tilt of unusual looking buildings, colorful clothes flashing the the sun, old buses painted with slogans. I get used to sights and smells and they begin to bore me. I have to climb on a airplane and seek a contrast. And yet, i am really a person of attachments. I begin to yearn for familiar voices and faces.  Even the electronics of this age can’t bring me the flavor of a friend or the crunching of a known street under my feet. I am certainly a failed wanderer, though i like to play the part. 

Bums, beggars, and layabouts

Alas, alack, I’ve discovered another lethal strain of Puritanism in myself: i believe a person must make a contribution to the common good. I think mostly in terms of beauty, creativity, and art. That’s awfully narrow. It leaves out caregivers, policemen, garbage collectors and the great mass of people. What about parents loving their children or bill-collectors being kind? Every kind of giving might be considered essential.

Yet the other day I discovered a distain in myself. I met a young beggar from Kentucky displaying the sign I LOVE TACOS AND MEZCAL. He usually had a sign MONEDA PAR UN CUARTO. Yes, he asked the Mexican passerby to pay his hotel bill, and he’s remarkably successful. The general Mexican citizen has allowed him to travel all over México without a dime, and he’s been doing this for years. A young American begging succor from his Mexican hosts.

Now he is very charming, a good talker, his Spanish good enough to cage a ride to the coast, where he resides now. Friends at the hostel lauded this as courage. HE’S CHOSEN HIS LIFE. And i demurred without saying why. I didn’t want to admit a traveler needs to pay his way somehow, whether he’s in the depths of the tropics or on skid row. I’m an ardent fan of street singers and performers. Anyone can learn a few tunes on a harmonica or strum simple chords on a ukulele and belt out a song.

Skill is not the question here, though I’m inclined to give more money to the more

tuneful. Yes, i always give money to street musicians. Fifty cents to a dollar. I receive their thanks with magnanimity, or i smile as they merely plunk away without looking up. They’ve the pride of their profession. Any artist with any salt does. I like artists who draw on the sidewalk, those who yank and bop at puppets, jump through hoops, mangle a dance routine.

I don’t tolerate fakes however. There’s a guy on the streets of Oaxaca who carries a bronze soprano sax and sits with his son. He’ll play three notes, sit and wait, play the same three notes again. I want to throw a ten peso note at his head. A jerk like this spoils the whole scene. Luckily, he’s the only one. There is a young violinist who plays badly, but i encourage him with a few coins and he gives me a big smile. I want to encourage him till he plays at Carnegie hall!