Mud

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of things—we was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us—the new clothes Buck's folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on clothes, nohow.

                                                                                                                                          Huck Finn

     We watched the movie Mud the other night.  It is the story of two boys who live in house boats moored by the  Mississippi river in southern Arkansas who befriend a fugitive hiding on a nearby island.    The boys live in a world of romance and idealism and freedom to roam the wilds of the river.  While back in town their parents wrestle with reality: domestic strife, boredom, and regulation,  (if someone moves out of the houses on the river, the river authority dismantles it),  strip malls with Piggly Wiggly stores and motels line the highway.  But there is no sign of civilization out on the river and on the island with the exception of an old boat stuck in a tree, left behind in some flood that must have been of apocalyptic proportions.  The boys do not have helmets for their motorcycle or lifejackets for their boat.  They take risks, deal with responsibility and honor and right and wrong, but not with rules, regulations or authority.  They are young boys becoming men in an unfettered, elemental environment, free to love and dream, to fight, to swear, to make deals, to desire women.  They agree to get the boat out of the tree for the fugitive to use to escape in exchange for the 45 caliber pistol he carries in his belt.    It is Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Nigger Jim come back to life.

立秋

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird or butterfly
or flower or wearing stone or open eye
when heaven presents in sheets the solid hue.

R. Frost

I sit here, a Sunday morning, observing the blue morning sky and wall of green in sunlight around the yard, sensing just the slightest change of season, from heat to comfortable and cool. 
I will be leaving Duxbury soon after 35 years.  35 years of life with everything of life tempered by the presence of the sea.  Where my greatest pleasure was to walk to the sea or by the sea.  My grandmother once told me that the woods were her church.  But for me there is no place closer to
God and paradise than at the water's edge toes in the sand, terns circling and diving, a late summer warmth and peace, far from the tumult and pressure of everyday existence.  If there was nothing else to put in this blog there was always the tone of grey in the sky as I walked over the bridge, the single duck floating in the fog, the jogger here and there, and in the past the fog horn from Bug Light, and always in the winter the sound of surf.  God has blessed me with this little place, but more and more my observations come from slightly inland and slightly to the north.   

Terminus

last scene of all
that ends this strange eventful history
is second childishness and mere oblivion,
sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste and sans everything.

I am watching the demise of a once proud life
personal dignity stripped from him
nothing remains but to wait for death
but he is loved and cared for.

La Villa Real

Estoy leyendo la biografía de Pancho Villa escrito por Paco Ignacio Taibo II.  Empieza con una advertencia de la incertidumbre de todas historias. Por ejemplo, no dirá cual versión de los acontecimientos del inicio de la vida cuatrera de Villa es la verdadera.   La leyenda es que el joven Doroteo Durango defendía el honor de su hermana contra uno de los Terrazas, la familia latifundera de Chihuahua y tuvo que huir.  Pero todos que relatan la historia incluyendo Villa si mismo varían en los datos, aún en la veracidad de lo todo,  según el autor. 

Ya alcancé la punta media del libro.  Es precisamente escrita, trayendo el lector a los espacios íntimos de Villa y sus generales, y aún al campo de batalla.  Las fotos encontradas en las notas al fin de cada capítulo se refieren atrás a la narración. 

Por mí, un aficionado de las biografías desde mi niñez, hay cuatro aspectos de una biografía que son importantes.  Uno, y el principal que tiene esta, es en las detalles de la acción, de los eventos, las personas, las conversaciones.  Este libro tiene esta calidad en abundancia.  El segundo es en su análisis del personaje de la persona.  Quiero saber cuales eran las calidades de este hombre o esta mujer que lo hizo lo que era,  que le dio éxito o que resultó en la tragedia de su derrota.  Tercero, yo quiero saber el ambiente cultural y histórica.  En este libro poco  se dice de la historia de México, o aún de Chihuahua, su pasado, su economía, su sociedad.  Tengo muchas preguntas, quiero leer de Villa con un retrato preciso de su mundo, de su ambiente, de su motivación.  Quiero tener alguna medida de interpretación del hombre y de los eventos y consecuencias de la revolución.  Yo no tengo de estar de acuerdo con esta interpretación sino que me de algún orientación y algo mas allá de los datos de contemplar.

Finalmente y mas importante es que una biografía tenga un aspecto de suspenso.  Quiero tener la experiencia de la lucha, el conflicto, las derrotas antes de la victoria.  Este se puede establecer en el principio del libro aún si ya conozca la conclusión.  El autor tiene que prometer algo que se vaya a revelar.

 

Flash Bang Whiz

Our dog Baylou has a strange behavior linked to thunderstorms.  He is absolutely terrified by them and tries to crawl into the deepest part of the cellar, and woe to the door that blocks his passage.  When the storm is yet in the distance,  he begins to tremble all over, literally quivering in his doggy boots.  Today I returned home after being away during a brief thunder shower to find the casings and door knobs torn off the doors in the basement apartment and part of the jamb and wall chewed away.  Upstairs their was a crazy pattern of pee around the hardwood floor in the living room.  His bladder completely lets go on the sound of thunder.  Once after  a rumble in the night,  we heard the flood gates open as he stood trembling in the middle of the bedroom floor.

It is a mystery to me why he reacts this way to what is just a noise and as far as I know not associated with anything actually bad happening to him.  It is a problem because he becomes so destructive.

Old Saws, Old Knowledge

I have of sorwe so grete a woon
that joye gete I never noon.


Four years into the recession, my tools are all old and beat.  The bills are mounting and it is harder and harder to make money.  I am, in the ways that count, rich beyond measure.  I have the things I really wanted in life,  a relationship with a good and beautiful woman, I have my son and my step-daughters who remain and are close to me.  If I was younger, it would be easier to believe better times are down the road, but at my age, although I have not given up hope, I know the possibility is there that I am all washed up.  I am highly skilled at what I do and fairly well educated and able, but I cannot seem to get business going again or to get an actual job even though I have spent the last 2 years and much money training to teach. I find my faith, which has sustained me throughout my adult life, is failing me. 

I say my faith is failing me in this sense.  I have reached the point in life when one would expect the bread cast upon the waters would have had time to come back to me.  While in many ways it has, far more than I deserve, there have been disappointments and dreams that remain unfulfilled, and still unanswered prayers after seemingly interminable knocking at the door, and I can scarcely say to others "take the path that I have taken, believe in miracles, risk everything to do what is right, Jesus is the Christ, you must know him".  It seems that most who lived practically, who sought material gain over all else, who put God on the back burner, live more comfortably and securely than I do and even often have more moral authority and respect.  There is no evidence of God, but it was never about evidence, it was always about faith.  What I, early on, believed had the most value: wisdom, knowledge, faith, insight, understanding, and sought with all my heart, I find, in my day to day existence to be almost irrelevant.  So it seems to be a two-pronged loss, I have neither worldly success or spiritual authority.  But I believe as absolutely as ever.