Just in time for winter in the Northeast -- a species of cockroach, hitherto unknown in America, that can thrive in cold weather. Well, isn't that just wonderful. One more thing to worry about in the icy streets of NYC -- rats, traffic, muggers, and now cockroaches. Kafka would be soooo pleased!
Well, news never ceases to amaze. Nature never ceases to amaze. Life never ceases to amaze.
Metamorphosis was always one of my favorite stories: Gregor Samsa I think was the name of the character, transformed into a cockroach -- story about life, prospects, fears, and realities. And of course the way people react to the changing realities of others, even their closest relatives and friends. Who is my "Gregor" -- is it some woman who has become only cruel and unthinking towards me? Is it Tina?
Monday, December 9, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
The Tragedy in Some Lives
I teach in a diverse human biosphere. There are people of all ilks, types, and genres -- with an endlessly diverse set of obstacles, problems and deficits in their lives.
Why is it that some people get loads of obstacles set in front of them -- while others get only a very few. I have known well a woman who was the victim of incest, then drug abuse, alcoholism, and now the gritty remains of all the previous problems. These problems have caused social difficulties, self-esteem issues, and a complete failure to form healthy relationships on an intimate level. The problems themselves must have fed upon each other until finally the chance for a normal life was gone.
This same woman had "relationships" that quickly became bizarre (or at least uncomfortable by normal standards) and did not ever result in the fulfillment of the happy expectations of a fuller life. This woman even became "lost" in her own partial fulfillment and angry about inadequacies at the same time. For the reformed alcoholic there is no rest; no expectation of ease about the problem. The fear of breakdown is always present. For one who has turned to religion -- any doubt is "of the devil," shows evil, or at the best is a noxious challenge to one's known truth.
As for me I was never ever trying to challenge someone else's truth -- I only know what I am, and what I hope for; and I understand and accept the weaknesses of my own knowledge. How could I do other?
Why is it that some people get loads of obstacles set in front of them -- while others get only a very few. I have known well a woman who was the victim of incest, then drug abuse, alcoholism, and now the gritty remains of all the previous problems. These problems have caused social difficulties, self-esteem issues, and a complete failure to form healthy relationships on an intimate level. The problems themselves must have fed upon each other until finally the chance for a normal life was gone.
This same woman had "relationships" that quickly became bizarre (or at least uncomfortable by normal standards) and did not ever result in the fulfillment of the happy expectations of a fuller life. This woman even became "lost" in her own partial fulfillment and angry about inadequacies at the same time. For the reformed alcoholic there is no rest; no expectation of ease about the problem. The fear of breakdown is always present. For one who has turned to religion -- any doubt is "of the devil," shows evil, or at the best is a noxious challenge to one's known truth.
As for me I was never ever trying to challenge someone else's truth -- I only know what I am, and what I hope for; and I understand and accept the weaknesses of my own knowledge. How could I do other?
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Truth
What is the "truth" of a person's life? There is so much clutter, so much hyperbole, so much confusion -- in every story, every incident, every memory recreated -- that truth becomes near-impossible to find. Because of our fallibility -- our sloppiness -- our lack of mechanical rigor in our memories and recreations; we must always assume that we are probably wrong about them -- either in a minor way, a major way, or both.
Truth is an absolute in some people's minds. It is unvarying and unforgiving to those who don't honor it. But I don't believe that. Truth for me is the varying, the changes, the differences -- but also the "kernel' of the experience. The essence and its existence at the same time.
There is always a flap in philosophy about the "essence" and its practical "existence" being two differing versions of a thing. But for me they are the same. The existence is the essence; the essence is and must be its existence. Neither completes the other; but each totally confines the other.
Truth is an absolute in some people's minds. It is unvarying and unforgiving to those who don't honor it. But I don't believe that. Truth for me is the varying, the changes, the differences -- but also the "kernel' of the experience. The essence and its existence at the same time.
There is always a flap in philosophy about the "essence" and its practical "existence" being two differing versions of a thing. But for me they are the same. The existence is the essence; the essence is and must be its existence. Neither completes the other; but each totally confines the other.
What Does The Blog Title Really Mean?
A long, long, long, time ago--so what does that really mean? Yesterday? Another lifetime ago? A not-to-be-thought-of recent past? A decisive moment of "getting past it" whatever it was? A memory made larger by time? A lie? A fabrication? A "could have been but wasn't"?
Does it suggest to anyone else that the past is not a place to dwell, but only visit? To use but not to relive? To understand but not necessarily to repeat? The past is and can continue to be powerful in our lives -- but it can never be the present? (You cannot step into the same river twice.) The past is the story -- the present is the ending -- the future is a new story!
Does it suggest to anyone else that the past is not a place to dwell, but only visit? To use but not to relive? To understand but not necessarily to repeat? The past is and can continue to be powerful in our lives -- but it can never be the present? (You cannot step into the same river twice.) The past is the story -- the present is the ending -- the future is a new story!
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
On Regrets both Real and Imagined
There are regrets and there are regrets. There are people I wanted to stay with, and people I wanted to leave. There are jobs that I should have stuck with, and those I should have left earlier. There are places that I might still want to visit, and those that I wouldn't be caught dead in.
There are incidents in my past that I wish I had had a chance to think about while they were happening -- I would have reacted differently perhaps. I would have taken advantage of the situation; I might have left myself more open and more vulnerable.
Some of the people I have known wanted to know me better, and I reneged. Some people I have worked with, wanted to work with me on a deeper level; and I reneged again. Some of the people I have known loved me deeper than I did them, and I am sorry about all of that. I loved them and all the opportunities I have had, even the missed ones. Odd irony of existence!!
There are incidents in my past that I wish I had had a chance to think about while they were happening -- I would have reacted differently perhaps. I would have taken advantage of the situation; I might have left myself more open and more vulnerable.
Some of the people I have known wanted to know me better, and I reneged. Some people I have worked with, wanted to work with me on a deeper level; and I reneged again. Some of the people I have known loved me deeper than I did them, and I am sorry about all of that. I loved them and all the opportunities I have had, even the missed ones. Odd irony of existence!!
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Memorial Days
These days in early December have taken on a new and terrible meaning in my life. It was these first few days, the last of many at Hospice Savannah (Rms 22 and 4), that were the end of someone dear to me.
Sheila Nassif Mrochinski died on December 6th, 2006. She died a loving and caring person, a beautiful and hard-wrung soul, a talented and complete human being. She was kinder, gentler, and more loving than anyone I have ever known. She was the best of her family, and the best of mine. She was kind to everyone -- without flinching or reservation. She lived the kind of life that most of us envy -- but, it was too short, too tragically short.\
She was unlucky to have died so young, and from such a hideous disease. Her breast cancer came upon her nearly unawares: a rash, a sore back, a lack of energy -- you wouldn't think these would add up to breast cancer. But they did. The sore back was the result of a metastatic tumor at the base of her spine. Her lack of energy came from her body fighting so hard to maintain normalcy under the relentless onslaught of cancer. Her rash -- on the upper back and extending under one arm to her left breast -- was the quick rush of IBC, Inflammatory Breast Cancer.
There is no tumor large enough to be discovered by self-examination of the breasts. There is only the virulent growth of cancer cells already metastasized throughout the body.
Sheila was unlucky. Whether it came from environmental causes in the cotton fields (clouds of DDT to play in when she was a little girl at Wagram School in North Carolina) -- or genetic or environmental causes down the line (or too much work, as she would gently tease me with after the diagnosis) -- it came. And IBC was no soft
enemy. It was an unfair, unlucky, and unwelcome killer.
Sheila Nassif Mrochinski died on December 6th, 2006. She died a loving and caring person, a beautiful and hard-wrung soul, a talented and complete human being. She was kinder, gentler, and more loving than anyone I have ever known. She was the best of her family, and the best of mine. She was kind to everyone -- without flinching or reservation. She lived the kind of life that most of us envy -- but, it was too short, too tragically short.\
She was unlucky to have died so young, and from such a hideous disease. Her breast cancer came upon her nearly unawares: a rash, a sore back, a lack of energy -- you wouldn't think these would add up to breast cancer. But they did. The sore back was the result of a metastatic tumor at the base of her spine. Her lack of energy came from her body fighting so hard to maintain normalcy under the relentless onslaught of cancer. Her rash -- on the upper back and extending under one arm to her left breast -- was the quick rush of IBC, Inflammatory Breast Cancer.
There is no tumor large enough to be discovered by self-examination of the breasts. There is only the virulent growth of cancer cells already metastasized throughout the body.
Sheila was unlucky. Whether it came from environmental causes in the cotton fields (clouds of DDT to play in when she was a little girl at Wagram School in North Carolina) -- or genetic or environmental causes down the line (or too much work, as she would gently tease me with after the diagnosis) -- it came. And IBC was no soft
enemy. It was an unfair, unlucky, and unwelcome killer.
Monday, December 2, 2013
On the Near Time of Death
This is a week that is burned into my memory. In 2006 I was witnessing and experiencing the final days of Sheila's life under hospice care at Hospice Savannah. She knew she was terminal and she finally took herself off the pills that were shrinking her brain (and allowing her to live) and signalled to me to have her Mom -- Millie return to Savannah.
Millie returned -- had a few good days with Sheila (and me, and the cousin) and then just as suddenly as the first incident of aphasia on the Cancer Ward of Candler Hospital occurred -- Sheila was in the final hours of her life. I will never forget that last night/morning: being awakened by what I thought was Sheila's "call to me" to "wake up"; our last few hours together, and the day of her passing. It was a "passing" into what I hope was a much happier life for She, though not for me (or Millie, or so many others). I wish I could have been a better, more understanding person to respond to Millie's odd grief behaviors -- but I was not. I was selfish -- so selfish that I thought that this was my death too. It was not; nor was it Millie's death. It was Sheila's passing --pure and simple, pure and beautiful, pure and final. I love her still.
Millie returned -- had a few good days with Sheila (and me, and the cousin) and then just as suddenly as the first incident of aphasia on the Cancer Ward of Candler Hospital occurred -- Sheila was in the final hours of her life. I will never forget that last night/morning: being awakened by what I thought was Sheila's "call to me" to "wake up"; our last few hours together, and the day of her passing. It was a "passing" into what I hope was a much happier life for She, though not for me (or Millie, or so many others). I wish I could have been a better, more understanding person to respond to Millie's odd grief behaviors -- but I was not. I was selfish -- so selfish that I thought that this was my death too. It was not; nor was it Millie's death. It was Sheila's passing --pure and simple, pure and beautiful, pure and final. I love her still.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)