A Peace of My Mind

Reflections on 2018

A new year, a clean slate.  I'm sitting at my computer at 6:44 ET in my bedroom with Whizzbang, aka, Dumbstruck the Wonder Pup, who is on the bed asleep, the soft whirring of the fan I use as white noise, and a new fresh set of days before me called 2019.  What will they bring?  What shall I write on them?  But first the past 365.

The bad news.  We still have an incompetent baby in the White House and a Republican party that abets his tantrums and incredible ignorance and indifference to all things American.    Barring death, incapacitation, resignation or impeachment we will continue to have this for 2 more years.  Like the old Victorian bromide regarding sex,  "...close your eyes and think of England."  Close your eyes and think of America. We will survive.

Last year my immediate and extended family remained in good health.  Some even in spite of my careless and haphazard supervision.  Ayla, the child in question, has blossomed from a post-blob stage to a chattering being that sometimes goes to the bathroom...in the bathroom.  Bro Phil continues to work because he can't help it.  The Wombie works three jobs because if he doesn't, who will?  I remain the only one of us three who has no meaningfully paying job.  I'm conflicted, but contractually bound for another few months to babysitting.  What seemed fun with Norah has become an albatross with Ayla and this will be remedied in the new year.  For that I am thankful - the mantra August, August, August replays in my head. Norah remains my best buddy in Kitschland.  She is growing up and I am sad to see it.  But she still has wonder.  Some people lose it and never regain it.  I have hopes that she will keep it always.  My daughter continues her mastery of management with skill and a common touch and is a bright spot in the Kitschland landscape.  Brendan, who found a different drum to pound remains funny, engaging, whipsmart and a willing susceptibility to the vagaries of love.  Sometimes on, sometimes off the grid, he devours life from a different trough than me, or anything else I would be comfortable with.  

2018 brought us Whizzbang, aka, Dumbstruck the Wonder Pup.  She is everything a good dog should be.  My gain is the current Mrs. Blythe's loss, of course.  She hates her.  She is a cat person.  And she lost her 18 year old cat this year.  How to fix the divide?  That remains to be seen.  Meanwhile, Whizzy is up for any walk, short or long, barks if she thinks anything is threatening to me, and never misses her feeding times.  She follows me like a shadow.  And, true to her nature, I am always being nudged (herded) wherever I go by her cold nose on my legs.  It's weird but oddly comforting.

It brought another lousy Met's season, now eight out of ten.  Ownership's cheap ways spell mediocrity in the near and far future.  And another year of Existing In BFE.  How much longer for the blog?  The end is near.  My readership is down, and I find myself enjoying the breaks more and more.  Will it survive the year?  Better to ask if it will survive the month.  

We lost some friends this year.  Lance passed away in G-Burg suddenly.  An old family friend from Seaton I never even considered him dying.  My boss Randy died of a heart attack a couple months ago and still trying to figure that one out.  If there was an outside architect to my working career it was him.  He hired me for three jobs.  Four, if you include the time I quit.  And amongst all those years was lots of laughs and good ideas.  He instilled in all of us the value of working with people for little pay.  And to go before his first cup of coffee seems especially cruel for someone who did so much for so many.

So what shall be written on the days of 2019?  First off I am hoping for a Mueller Report that is not shoved under the rug by a toadie AG.  If there is collusion/obstruction of justice we need to know about it.  No person is above the law.  If there was none, then good.  We as a nation must hold on to the things that make us American regardless of outcome.  

I continue, like the dumb unknowing salmon of the northwest,  to struggle upstream in search of home.  Sometime this year I will be free from ties to Kitschland and will attempt, once again, to play the balancing act between two states.  Will I find something cheap up there that won't break my budget or will I remain the "guest who stayed too long"?  

Besides that, I have many miles to ride on the top of a motorcycle.  The only place to do that is up North.  If there is such a thing as true freedom, or the sense of such a thing, it must be from the hard seat of a cycle, looking out at the countryside through plastic rather than glass.  The thrumming of the engine, the smells of the road, the anticipation of what is around the bend.  I also have many miles to drive the Frump and shows to exhibit her.  Again, only the North is the place to do that.  

My heart may belong to the North but its continual beating is due to the friends who reside in it. From the Corner Boys, the Wombie and the BB crowd in Aledo, to the Breakfast club in G-Burg, I am always amazed at the warmth when I return. Thanks.  And how do you thank a guy who has provided a million laughs, deeper understanding of many issues, and judgeless friendship.  Here's to my pal Neighbor Tim.  For an old introvert these guys and one in Tybee keep it all grounded and give me a support and shoulders to lean on when occasionally I drift and think I'm all alone.

I suspect the new year will be like the last:  continuing to swim upstream in a relentless quest for home.   Hating Kitschland when here and missing it when gone.  Six toes in Clearwater, four up North.  Loving the dismounting of the cycle and walking into a new bar after a long ride, whether real or imagined. Walking the tightrope and dreading the gusts.  

And like 2017 before this last one, the best words that describe our human condition and what we do as we flail in life, seeming to progress but often lagging back in helpless are the words, seemingly often quoted within these pages, from the last page of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter --- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther..... And one fine morning ---

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."