Reset

It seems that for years I have constantly had to press the reset button, return to what is really only history, restore the original, unalterable visage of ruin. One falls again and again to the arms of hope, a dream, imagining a victory beyond all reason, forever forgiving the adamant, unchanging harshness of life; believing that we will surely fall this time to an enduring embrace that never, in point of fact, possessed arms. The tattered flag of abject surrender flies of whole cloth once again at the fore of the proud host of love on its march to the center of cemetery ridge; a remembered face, impossibly beautiful, pretends, with tireless deception, to be something, anything other than a ghost.

Men at Work

They're always building things here in south Bali. Erecting, improving, modernizing - joining the 21st century. I appreciate that. But the thing is, all these projects, wherever you go, wherever you stop, make a lot of noise. There is hammering, drilling, grinding, pounding, and I'm just afraid that, by the time all these advancements are perfected and there is a return to the realm of peace and quiet, I will be long in the grave.

Ill

Well, truly, I had intended to post more here during the holiday season, but, as I turned out, I was sick or the holiday season, and I'm still sick. Coughing, sore throat, ever, tiredness, and so on. Been to the doctor twice to this point and have gotten two antibiotic types, but still not well. A real bummer. Have to wonder how much MS is kicking into this as well, at least in the sense that the immune system is not working properly in general, and so not combating illness with proper precision.

Also, the "eph" key on my keyboard doesn't work, as you will note in scanning the above or any 'ephs'. There are none. Also the shipht key on the right side doesn't work. Sad situation phor a writer to be without his 'ephs' and his 'shiphts'.

A Christmas Story

When I was very young, time did not exist. Or at least that was so on Christmas Day. There was this Christmas and the next and the next and each and all were one and the same. Memory was not a thing of the past but something enacted in the present, both perfectly new and perfectly eternal. My brother and I had our own Christmas tree in our room - a small, tattered, beautiful cellophane thing, blue, and bedecked with ornaments that our mother had discarded, the themes of previous years, chipped, faded, beloved. And there were always two presents under our tree, one for him and one for me. We had chosen carefully from our allowances of saved quarters and dimes. Our parents would not yet have awakened - no parents are awake that early on Christmas morning - and so we quietly unravelled our clumsily bound and taped treasures, still winking the previous night's slumber from our eyes. This was the first light of forever, this waking dream into which we had fallen, the first step toward the hallway and the stairway and the descent to the main floor where our stockings waited by the frosted window, spilling over with candy and trinkets, and beyond that, in the main room, the evergreen tree, dressed in dazzling light and tinsel for just this moment, every moment, then, now and forever, the lower branches lost in bright packages and boxes, of every conceivable size and shape. No, There was no time, just this: bounty, color, life, love. It was Christmas, with us now, with us forever, even to the end of the age.

Cat

So I've ended up with a cat. I don't like cats. I was praying for a new laptop or an e-reader, and I got a cat. Did I mention that I don't like cats? And yet this cat seems to insist that it's exactly where it's supposed to be - to whit, in my unwilling care. You will note that I say "it"; and on 'it', I shall insist.

Evening Stroll

Always such a pleasure to take an evening stroll in Renon, especially on mild evenings such as this. It is always an adventure of some sort - a quiet adventure of chance meetings, pleasant chats, curious children wearing wide-open smiles. A man named Wayan wants to know what I'm doing, where I'm going, where I live, where I'm from, where my wife is from, whether I have children and what ages they are. Strangely, my life seems suddenly significant. Anonymity is marvelously banished by simple words of uncalled for friendship. A band of children skip along behind me as I leave my new friend. It's only a trip down the street to the store. You could do it in America in 10 minutes without uttering one word or enjoying a single smile.

Old Times

I sure miss my parents and my brother sometimes. For a moment, a split second, it feels as if they had died just yesterday, or indeed as if I could go home and they would be there, the windows lit from within, the porch light shining, the TV casting colors and shadows on the ceiling and walls, food waiting in the kitchen, the fireplace burning. I would shake the rain off my coat and enter the side door and there, in the next room, would be my father in his chair, my mother on the sofa, while my brother would be back down the hall in his room, listening to music. Weren't they all there just a moment ago? And yet they have been gone for 15, 20 and 30 years. How can it be? How can it be? This was my family, my parents and my brother, the last great people in the world.