"as though it were forbidden"

"The rice fields here stretch almost to the edge of the jungle.  A couple of water buffalo are wallowing in a pond, submerged up to their backs in the muddy water.  Every so often one waggles its ears.  On a field track is another, solitary, buffalo harnessed to a two-wheeled cart, his head so low he looks to be asleep on his feet.  A small group of rice farmers, dressed in wide-brimmed straw hats, shirts, and loincloths, is bending over and toiling away, calf deep in water.  Each time one moves his feet there's a smacking sound, otherwise complete silence; they do their work in silence, planting the new rice shoots in the mud under the water.  Other than a sense of the day coming to an end, there is no indication of the time. It's as though it were forbidden -- there's not even a real sense of present because each performed action is already in the past, and each ensuing one is future.  All here are outside history, which in its taciturnity will not allow present.  The rice is planted, harvested, planted again.  Kingdoms fall into decay.  Stillness.  In the silence of eternities, shots ring out.  The peasants flee."

-- Werner Herzog, The Twilight World

Everyone's An Authority

 

Husker Du, "In A Free Land"

Prescient!

I don't blame Kamala.  She ran a good race.  I do blame decades of FOX News basically telling people to be afraid, to be scared of their neighbors, to want daddy back to solve all our problems.

A Goodbye In Full

It's been a year and a few days since my dad died.  He was 94 and lived an incredible life involving travelling around the world (literally!) as a scientist.  In the end, my older sister and I did our best to keep him comfortable, along with some amazing nurses and the Frederick County Hospice.  He died in his new home here in Frederick, Maryland, with his family and friends all getting a chance to say goodbye.

Taking care of him was hard at the end.  Dementia had taken over, and it was hard not to be upset with him when he cursed at a nurse, or even at me or my sister.  The anger came from his own knowledge that he had lost and was losing control of the simplest things, and I don't blame him.  I guess I find myself a year later dealing with my own anger at -- what exactly?  Human biology?  Aging?  These are hard, immutable facts that we all have to deal with in our own way.

I'm substitute teaching now, but still looking for something full time.  I think he'd be pleased though.  He grew up dirt poor, and education was his pathway to having an amazing and fulfilling life.  I think he'd appreciate all my stories about the good days and the bad days.  I'm also missing simple things like watching college football with him, or having a meal or some coffee.

We're all deeply complicated as people.  And I think we generally do our best, and try to learn from those moments when we're not at out best.  I wish I'd given him more hugs, or been a little more patient with him.  At times it was so hard to know exactly what he wanted, and I hope just being there was usually -- certainly not always -- enough.

We miss you a lot Dad.  I know you can still hear me, sometimes, when I talk to you.  And if you're napping or busy in the garden, that's also fine.  It can wait.

Vote!

Last Saturday I worked as a poll judge for Maryland early voting.  I'll do it again this Wednesday and Thursday (Halloween!).

It's interesting, but also exhausting.  We go from roughly six in the morning until nine at night.  No phones.  We cannot leave the building 

On Election Day, November 5th, I'll also be working.

I'll admit, it's a nice pay day.  I'm still substitute teaching as well but I'd be crazy not to work as many days of early voting as possible.

For what it's worth, Saturday was extremely busy.

"that is the last they see of one another"

Where Babies Come From

Many are from the Maldives,

southwest of India, and must begin

collecting shells almost immediately.

The larger one may prefer coconuts.

Survivors move from island to island

hopping over one another and never

looking back. After the typhoons

have had their pick, and the birds of prey

have finished with theirs, the remaining few

must build boats, and in this, of course,

they can have no experience, they build

their boat of palm leaves and vines.

Once the work is completed, they lie down,

thoroughly exhausted and confused,

and a huge wave washes them out to sea.

And that is the last they see of one another.

In their dreams Mama and Papa

are standing on the shore

for what seems like an eternity,

and it is almost always the wrong shore.

-- James Tate

North Korea Enters Ukraine

North Korean troops are apparently about to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine.

I don't see how this changes much.  Do they get thrown into the meat grinder, or kept back as reserves?  Do they speak any Russian re: integrating into the larger forces?

If anything, it strikes me as desperate, or a stunt at best.  And Kim Jong-un will expect to be paid handsomely.

Mellow Fruitfulness

I think Fall is finally here.  I even wore a jacket today.

Then again, this being Maryland, it could be 90 next week.

Lazy Sunday

 

Frederick, Maryland.

Eyes on the Prize

Han Kang has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I've only read The Vegetarian, but I enjoyed it.  Be advised that it's incredibly dark.

"a color in its own right"

"The colors of the autumn in the garden were now brown and black.  I had learned to see the brown of dead leaves and stalks as a color in its own right; I had collected grasses and reeds and taken pleasure in the slow change of their color from green to biscuit brown.  I had even taken pleasure in the browned tints of flowers that had dried in vases without losing their petals; I had been unwilling to throw away such flowers.  On autumn or winter mornings I had gone out to see brown leaves and stalks outlined with white frost.  Now the hand of man had been withdrawn from the garden; everything had grown unchecked during the summer; and I felt only the cold and saw the tall grass and the wet and saw black and brown.  On these short walks in the ruined manor garden, going a little farther each time, past the aspens, then past the great evergreen tree, then approaching the big white-framed greenhouse, after all this time as solid and whole-looking as it had ever been, on these walks brown became again for me what it had been in Trinidad: not a true color, the color of dead vegetation, not a thing one found beauty in, trash."

-- V.S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival

The Agony and The Agony

For two straight years the Orioles have made the playoffs and then totally disappeared, offensively.  (They are a hitting team, not pitching wonders.)

And I'm really not feeling football this year, maybe because I miss watching it with my Dad.

So, thank you for reading this pity-party of a post.  I'll root for the Dodgers and Shohei I guess.