A new day dawns. It leaves me wondering. Who am I today? Who will I be tomorrow?
The opportunity to have any sort of control over who and what I am is coming to a close. I don’t really know how much longer I have before pain and illness dissolve me into nothingness. But death is not the end of existence. I may be forgotten totally by the day after next Thursday, but my existence will still have become a permanent fact. Yes, I am one of those dopey-derfy-think-too-much types known as an existentialist.
I am feeling ill again. Any time that happens may be the last time. But that doesn’t worry me.
The important thing is that the dance continues. It doesn’t matter who the dancers are, or who supplies the music.
We can be clowns if we choose to be.
We can safely be fools if we really can’t help it.
An awful lot of awful things go into who and what we are. Those things make us full of awe. They make us awesome. Aw, shucks. What an awful thing to say.
But what is all this stuff and nonsense really about today?
It’s just Mickey being Mickey… Mickey for another day.
It’s not really poetry. It certainly isn’t wisdom. It’s a little bit funny, and only mildly depressing… for a change.
It’s just Mickey being Mickey. And a partially Paffooney gallery.
I first heard this song as a freshman in college. It struck me that it was hauntingly beautiful… but maybe I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
The song is about losing body parts and being okay with that.
That can actually be kinda creepy, right?
It is probably a song about gradually dying.
But that’s not really what it’s about.
I am there now. Peeling, cracking, drying out… my life has reached the downhill run toward the finish line. But I am not worried and not afraid. Life is so much more than hands and eyes and legs and feet. I can lose those things and have no regrets. I am so much more than merely the sum of those physical things.
My spirit soars. And my life is bound up in words and meanings that are now written down, and are at least as imperishable as paper. And may, in fact, be written on a few human hearts here and there.
Today I go to pick up the family at the airport before noon. They have been visiting my oldest son in Virginia since last Wednesday. Not exactly a larkish vacation in the middle of the school year, they went there to be with him while he had surgery on Thursday. The trip caught me at a time when I am simply not well enough to travel, even by airplane. My arthritic back problem doesn’t allow for long periods of sitting. So I got to stay at home and take care of the dog and do what housework I could… You know, the stuff dads are expected to do when they get left out of a family vacation… again. So, I washed some dishes… but not all of them. I laundered some bedding… but only my own. I cut some grass… but only the tall stuff behind the house. I did enough work that the boss shouldn’t be too mad at me when she returns home. I did get her car’s oil changed, though I don’t do that myself any more.
But while the cat’s away…
It’s not what you are thinking…
And why are you thinking THAT?
I broke out the paints and HO Model train stuff that needed painting, updating, and repair.
Fun for me may be defined differently than it is for you.
I put snow on buildings with white puff paint where there was never snow before.
A real whee of a time, I know. But it’s not like I could go out dancing… or singing in the rain. My life and my jollies are a bit slower and more sedate than they used to be.
I also wrote a bit more of my werewolf novel re-write. And soon I must go to the airport, so enough of fast and silly Paffooney-making for me.
(**Note** Paffooney is artwork made by my hand and connected to writing. It’s not what you were thinking. And why were you thinking THAT?)
For the past two weeks I have been battling the Wicked Witch of the Diabetes. Her armies of flying blood-sugar monkeys have been snatching away my healthy hours and leaving me with pain, headaches, and depressing blues of worry. I have been combating the disease up to now with diet and exercise only. But even the miracle of a handful of peanuts filled with good diabetes-bashing niacin is apparently not magic enough to make me feel better. I probably have to go back to the doctor and get put on insulin injections. And that is probably more expense than I can afford. Health insurance loves to collect ever-higher premiums from me, but they really hate to pay for anything.
In answer to my problem I have started a new art project. Dorothy with a bit of attitude has flown in on the latest twister to start bashing heads and murdering witches. It is probably the worst kind of magical thinking to believe drawing pictures can make health problems go away. However, you don’t just let flying monkeys run wild. The pen and ink will get a colored-pencil treatment and I will show it to you here on this blog as we proceed down that yellow brick road of life. And I will get better somehow and someway, even if I have to pull that little con man out from behind the curtain and call him names until he cries. He’s going to find something in that bag of tricks to help me.
You should listen to the music. Not only is it beautiful, it is the perfect description of the now. Yes, I am a touch depressed, and the music is deep blue. But there are such strains of the bittersweet and angelic light, that Albinoni must be speaking directly from his heart into mine. This music paints my soul.
The sky reflects my mood with lurking dark blues and obscuring clouds incapable of completely taking away the sun. I finally had enough money to visit the doctor today. I had an infection in throat and sinus. I got medicine to heal the sores, and the medicine will prevent pneumonia, and probably saved my life.
My family was whole and together for the holidays, though three of us were sick for a good share of it and unable to spend the time together as we would’ve liked. Still, even though we had to take number one son to DFW Airport in the rain and send him back to Marine world, we got to see him and share good times with him, no matter how short. Deep blue with angelic violins of musical light. He made it back safely. I have more days and probably more months to live and write. And the music of existence continues to quietly play.
I continue to collect photos of new dawns. Here is December 27th.
It is possible that Tomaso Albinoni did not write the Adagio in G Minor. It is believed that it was cobbled together as a sort of hoax by his chief transcriber, Remo Giazotto. He apparently took old Dresden manuscripts and made this beautiful piece as a reflection of the work of Albinoni. Albinoni,a prolific composer of the 1700’s, beloved by Johan Sebastian Bach, wrote opera scores that never quite got published, and so,even though he is a composer of many musical works, most of them are lost to history. Yet, how can such a thing be considered a fake? The music touches my soul. From Albinoni’s soul, through Giazotto’s, to mine, and, hopefully, thence to yours. Listen to it. Really listen. You can’t help but understand what I mean. Even if you can’t stand classical music. Though, if you truly can’t stand classical music… I weep for thee.
As a writer, my goal is to create wisdom and new ideas and stuff that makes a reader feel happy, or sad, or angry, or even slightly insane. But thinking is hard when your head hurts and your body aches and your sixtieth birthday is just around the corner. (Yes, this Mickey is nearly 60, but can you believe that that Mickey is going to be 88 on the day after I turn 60?) Sometimes you just want to say, “Never mind that I wanted to post every single day for the past two years. Just curl up in a ball and go to sleep.” But there are ways to get something done even if your mind is full of the Sandman’s leavings and old, rotted dreams.
You can always get by with posting somebody else’s wisdom… somebody else’s thinking. You don’t have to work too hard to paste things together. After all, why else did you have to look at so many cut-and-paste essays over the years in middle school and high school?
And you can rely on the work you have already done collecting computer files full of colorful crap and stuff you like enough to steal to complete your cut-and-paste scrapbook post. You don’t have to feel like you erred and are about to have your head cut off by an angry Groo.
And you know you can get a lot of cheap likes on Facebook with some of the stuff you have available to put in this post. You have been working at the “Be funny!” thing for a long time, and have gotten almost good enough at it to be funny on the fly. And when you’ve gotten more than halfway to the goal, you can rest a bit. Take a nap. Regenerate the crazy things in your head so you can do this all again another day.
And if you can have a laugh before you are finished, even if no one else in the world gets the joke… well, at least you will feel a little bit better yourself.
When I feel like I am losing my battle with six incurable diseases, I often fight back against the depression by doing some big-picture thinking. How does one little insignificant speck of carbon-based lifeform living on an apparently doomed planet fit into the vast over-all thing that is the universe? Well, I can shift my point of view from the macro to the micro. To the tiny little liver cell that just split off an older cell, the great big organism that is me is rather a big deal. To the tiny germinating thought in my brain that will evolve into this essay, the collection of thoughts and experiences that is my mind and soul are a matter of life and death. What does it all mean, anyway? What value does it all have?
I have been a public school teacher who touched more than 2000 lives in my time. I invented moose bowling. I have written and published more than one novel. I have somehow managed to reproduce and father three beautiful children in spite of my many flaws and geek-o-riffic tendencies. I have achieved success in so many ways. Even if it all ends in the next hour, it will be okay. I will continue to resonate through this little world in one way or another for quite some time. I have affected this world for both good and ill, but mostly for good, and that affects the solar system too because I have been a part of it… and the Orion Spur of the Saggitarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy too because I have been a part of it… and the local cluster of galaxies… and probably even the realms beyond that.
To paraphrase The Desiderata ; “I am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, I have a right to be here.”
Yes, some days when I don’t feel well, I live here… my house and my neighborhood.
So, Lord, this is not about regret or guilt or longing or pain. This is about celebration. It is good to exist. Thank you for every day of life I have ever had.
ege. It struck me that it was hauntingly beautiful… but maybe I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
Mickey Being Mickey
A new day dawns. It leaves me wondering. Who am I today? Who will I be tomorrow?
The opportunity to have any sort of control over who and what I am is coming to a close. I don’t really know how much longer I have before pain and illness dissolve me into nothingness. But death is not the end of existence. I may be forgotten totally by the day after next Thursday, but my existence will still have become a permanent fact. Yes, I am one of those dopey-derfy-think-too-much types known as an existentialist.
I am feeling ill again. Any time that happens may be the last time. But that doesn’t worry me.
The important thing is that the dance continues. It doesn’t matter who the dancers are, or who supplies the music.
We can be clowns if we choose to be.
We can safely be fools if we really can’t help it.
An awful lot of awful things go into who and what we are. Those things make us full of awe. They make us awesome. Aw, shucks. What an awful thing to say.
But what is all this stuff and nonsense really about today?
It’s just Mickey being Mickey… Mickey for another day.
It’s not really poetry. It certainly isn’t wisdom. It’s a little bit funny, and only mildly depressing… for a change.
It’s just Mickey being Mickey. And a partially Paffooney gallery.
…To fill some space today.
And wonder about tomorrow.
And just be Mickey a little bit more.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, cartoony Paffooney, commentary, goofy thoughts, humor, illness, Paffooney, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition