Our Story

I was thinking last night (although only because I couldn't sleep) about something William Faulkner once said about fitting everything into one sentence, or one paragraph (and most of his sentences are of paragraph length anyway), such that nothing will have been left out, not the slightest shade or nuance of meaning lacking, no question unanswered, no information wanting--nothing partial or incomplete or obscure. Of course it can't be done, and of course Faulkner knew this--although he did try mightily. 

It is like that with the things that we write. They are always partial, only pieces of something much larger, only one angle, one reflection, one shade. We know this perfectly well. We know we have failed to express what we intended to express. Yet he who reads what has been written may well give us more credit than we deserve, or even desire. 

It is like this with living, too. We meant to be complete, comprehensive, accomplished, clear and well composed, yet we have ended up in a chaotic, incomplete, often clumsy, sometimes lamentable narrative that must surely be misinterpreted by those who read us. And we say inwardly No, no--this is not what I meant at all! 

On the other hand, the reader--he who sees and appraises--actually prefers what is partial and incomplete, because the narrative is simpler that way. What appears, divested of the peripheral complications of what was wanted or intended, is good enough. We reduce, simplify, pigeonhole in order that we may have a useful narrative, a general sort of judgment. We end of with reductive caricatures, and we like it that way--though of course would feel the same method applied in summation of ourselves outrageous. 

Well … these are the things I think about at night, rather than sleeping. 
    

Anniversary

I realized late yesterday that it was the 2 year anniversary of my neck, shoulder and back pain--not exactly a call for celebration and song, but just something that popped into my mind. 

In fact, however, there is good news (guardedly), in that the pain has of late dramatically decreased generally from what it had been, and certainly very profoundly from what it was two years ago. I look back now and remember just lying on the living room floor in a fetal position, groaning and on the verge of tears, feeling as if there were a Bowie knife stuck in my back just under my right shoulder blade. 

For two years I explored medication options and experimented with stretching exercises. No medicine that I found had an effect on the pain, per se, but merely helped by putting me to sleep (Baclofen and Xanax). My feeling always was that tendons needed to be stretched and muscles re-trained, and so I relied upon intuitive measures to accomplish these goals. 

Ernest Hemingway once said something like this--that when something good or fortuitous comes along, acknowledge it quietly, but don't put your mouth on it. It's a bit of a superstitious thing, I suppose, but I have always kind of identified with the thought. If you leap up and shout that you are healed, fate itself may be offended and decide to give you a poke in order to show you who is (still) boss. 

And, in fact, a new thorn in the side has been provided in order that the retreat of pain should not leave too comfortable a space to rest in. This is in the form of restless leg syndrome--not a new thorn, actually, but a recurring one, showing up and leaving by a whim its own. So while I am now able to lie on my back or on either side without searing pain, and thus to rest much more easily than I've been able to do in a long time, RLS has stepped in to make certain that I do not rest well. 

I must say, too, that the term RLS does not do justice to this nightly electrification of the body. Restless Body Syndrome would be much more accurate. I mean, I'm appropriately tired when I go to bed, but within ten minutes of lying down, my body decides that it is time to break-dance. Most folks who know me in the day really have no idea that I am able to move with such boundless contortionate energy. Too bad this symptom never occurs on the dance floor. In fact, it never occurs at any time other than nighttime when I would prefer to be sleeping. 

Nonetheless, I'll take RLS over the pain any day of the week. 

Mission Accomplished

Another earthquake yesterday afternoon, this around 5.5 on the scale. The curious thing about yesterday's quake is that you could hear the sound of its occurrence in sequence, from house to house, from the end of the street, where my house is located, to the head of the street, rattling each front gate along the way as it proceeded. (Note that nearly every house here has a heavy iron front gate that either slides on a runner or swings on hinges). Whenever this happens, men shout and women and children scream and everyone rushes outside to see what they can see, which is nothing, of course. And happily so, too--for if there were damage to be seen, they had probably best not be outside to begin with! 

So, yesterday I had a lunch date with Louis, my ex-wife (though still not legally so). This actually turned into a dinner date, as she forgot about the appointment till late afternoon. If there is one thing I have learned about myself in this long life, it is that I am nearly perfectly forgettable. 

And as I stood talking to her in the mall before parting, it struck me that she was finally truly gone, that my self-imposed mission to help her along her way had been accomplished, and that I was suddenly in a place where I could experience, with immediacy, with finality, the fact that I am totally alone, that she's not coming home, that I shall see very little of her from this time forward, that silence is not temporary or odd, like an earthquake, but permanent and eternal. It is finished. 

You see, since Louis left, in January of this year, after a two year affair of which I had become only gradually aware, I had committed myself to being a positive influence in the course she had decided upon. I felt that I had done my part in the marriage as best as I was able, I had brought us here to Bali, had set up our household, taken care of and raised her son, Sasha, had seen him on his way back to America a couple of years ago, and had found myself, at last, poor in both health and finances. What had I left to offer but for love? 

And what is marital love other than devotion, regardless of whether devotion is received in kind? 

I was determined to help and also to protect, because I know all too well that Louis is not a stable person. When you live long enough with a woman who suffers from bipolar disorder and know first hand the terror of dealing with an attempted suicide, you understand that you can never relax, you can never be careless. You take into account at all times what might happen (because it has already happened). You stand guard, on yourself and on her. You stand between yourself and otherwise normal, allowable emotions such as anger and remonstrance.  

It seemed that there could hardly have been a more dangerous scenario Louis could have gotten herself into than becoming involved in the stress of an extramarital affair, and with a married man at that, for particular to the disorder itself is the inability to deal with stress in a healthy manner. I committed myself to helping, counseling, advising, encouraging, because I was concerned about her safety, I worried about what she might do. And because I love her. 

I have found myself in the odd situation over the last eight months of refereeing her difficulties with her boyfriend, of befriending him such that he may trust in my good intentions, and in my neutrality, and such that he may benefit from my experience, of talking to them separately and together and of appearing before her friends and peers, our old acquaintances, to reassure that all is well, to deter any unkind judgement that might occur if I seemed broken or angry or anguished. 

This is love: to insist on the happiness of the one you love. 

And so, as I say, it is also, ultimately, isolation. What does the soldier do when the mission is done? What does the general do when the war is over? I see them now beginning to come together, beginning to adjust and commit and become one, whose counsel, from here forth, will be conducted, and rightly so, among themselves. She speaks now of seeing me again in November, and of eventually moving to Holland or Spain. Frantic, tearful calls in the middle of the night will become fewer, and then none. New alliances will be formed, new support systems. What we were will be no longer applicable except as an element of memory.  

The course of love is rocky at  best, and even more so when both parties are coming straight out of a previous marriage, hers of 11 years, his of 40. Indeed, the course of my relationship with Louis was rocky from early on, and love soon changed, as love does, to conform to circumstance and situation. It became what it needed to be, rather than what I may have wanted it to be. 

But I see myself soon removed, and standing alone where we left off--that peak, that end to which we climbed. And indeed we climbed to reach an end, and face now nothing but sky and the old horizons of the past. There alone stand I, with suddenly nothing more to attain. I breathe the restful, untouched air, yet tremble at the vast emptiness all around. 

Arthur's Eviction

Most of us have one house, and that is the house we live in. Often, we don't own the house, but are merely renting from the owner, but we think of it, nonetheless, as our house. Generally speaking, we make the rules for the house we live in--who comes and goes, who is welcome and who is not, and so on. I note these conditions as prefatory to the following. 

The big fat brown dog has several houses, though she owns none of them (she is a dog, after all). She lives in one or another according to her whim, and for each residence, she makes the rules. 

For this reason, the skinny little brown dog, whom had visited for a while and whom I had temporarily named "Arthur" (to which he had no objection) has been evicted by the big fat brown dog. From my house, mind you, which, as far as she is concerned, is her house. One of her houses. Her reason? She doesn't like him. 

Oh, she liked him just fine whilst she was in heat, but now that has ended, and so has his welcome. 

Arthur did make some attempt to stand up for his rights (of which he, like she, has none, but that's neither here nor there); but these objections came to a painful end (for poor Arthur), and so he has given up and permanently removed himself. 

I feel badly for Arthur, but I am told by the big fat brown dog that I do not have enough food in the house for both him and her--or rather, that no amount would be quite enough for her but any amount is too much for him. There is also, she says, insufficient space for two dogs in the house (or, I suspect, in the world). 

"Isn't that a bit selfish of you?" I asked. 

"Yes," she said. "Thank you." 

For some days, I saw nothing at all of Arthur, and had begun to fear the worst. Then, just yesterday, I spied him heading around the corner at the intersection of Yeh Aya and Yeh Sungi--in a hurry to get somewhere, so much so that he did not even acknowledge me as I passed. He seemed none the worse for wear, and not without purpose or goal, And so I guess that the big fat brown dog has things just about right. Life goes on. Live and let live--as long as you live somewhere else. 

I'm just hoping she will continue my own contract. 

                                             (happier days)

My Rebellious Eyes

My eyes have now become so bad that I'm finding it impossible to read the news in the morning, as I am accustomed to doing. Perhaps this is the  higher powers' answer to the depression I generally experience upon reading the morning news. If I can't read it, it can't depress me, right? (What you don't know can't hurt you). Of course, I can still be depressed by my inability to read, but of course that's a different subject, and one, on the plus side, that doesn't give me a headache. But these letters that refuse to stand still, that refuse to focus--now that gives me a headache. Instantly. It is also giving me a headache to read what I write on this screen, but I trust that will not be the case for the my followers as well.

I trust also that, if the past is any indication, my vision will improve somewhat bye-and-bye and thus provide me once again with the opportunity to be depressed by the news--although I can't think what I will do if the news becomes non-depressing. But I guess that's not likely to happen anytime soon. 

It has become difficult as well to read print in books. Needs just the right sort of light--not bright, oddly enough, but rather dim. Thankfully, I am able to read without problem on my iPad, because of course one can make the print as large as he pleases and can also vary the print and background color. One is able, in other words, to tweak the media toward focus rather than one's own eyes. 

Reading is chief among the simple joys in my life--always has been, and therefore, when taken away, leaves a yawning cavity in the landscape of my pleasure. It is also, therefore, fortuitous in this case that I have not found a good book to read since finishing Yu Hua's Brothers. I have tried a couple (The God of Small Things and The Golden Compass) that proved not worth focusing on anyway. 

I suppose I could convert altogether to the iPad, but there are two problems with that: 1) that I actually prefer to read in the Indonesian language and 2) that I actually prefer the tactile and sensory experience of books written on paper. The electronic media makes the material seem distant and aloof.  

Apocalyptic?

Yet another earthquake last night. I don't know yet what the Richter number was. Seemed smaller than the one the night before, but then again I was in bed this time around, so it was more like a rocking boat than a rocking earth. I do know that tourists are now being evacuated from Lombok (the epicenter). 

I suppose that if this were happening in America, some dimwit would be saying that it's God's punishment of the wicked. In fact, I just read this morning about a pastor saying that the California fires are a punishment for that state's liberal attitude toward homosexuality. Lol. Good Lord, save us not from the homosexuals but from the ignorance of so-called religious people. Consider, by the way, that on Lombok, homosexuality is legally forbidden. So hey, they're doing their part, God, why strike them with earthquakes? Pfft. 

Why is it, I wonder, that men keep trying to press God into the confines of their own miniscule capacity for thought and reason? What God is he, then, other than the god of stupidity and smallness? 

Well, as a fortuitous antidote to all this foolishness, I happen to be reading David Bentley Hart's wonderfully intelligent (and intelligently hilarious) book, The Atheist Delusions, wherein one of the most interesting things he points out, so far as I've read, is that there is often no essential difference between the atheist and the "Christian" (so-called), for they are quite equal in their own special form of simple-mindedness. 

Earthquake on the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Another earthquake last night, and a pretty good shake at that! 6.8 on the Richter scale, they say, originating in the area of Lombok (again). Sadly, I read this morning that 38 were killed. My ex-wife happened to be at the house at the time this occurred, and was fairly panicked, such that she clung to me as if I were the only stable object in the universe. (Strangely, I am the only stable object in her current universe, but I'm hoping that will change for the better down the road). 

After the earthquake, I found that a little baby bird had been deposited on my front porch. We brought it out to the backyard and sat it on the table, where it stayed for a couple hours. Later, it was gone from the table, but then reappeared, somehow, inside the house, sort of skittering/flapping back and forth across the floor. At that point, I sat the little critter on the tall statue in the front yard, and I find him gone this morning.

In an unrelated incident (or I assume it is unrelated), I found two tiny ants in the sealed Tupperware sugar container--which is a bit of a mystery to me. I had just recently poured the sugar into this plastic container with a screw-on lid for the very purpose of keeping out the ants, legions of which hide in my backyard and kitchen, ready to rush out at the first hint of a crumb or droplet to be devoured. 

But these two lone ants, doubtlessly brothers or at least first cousins, somehow found a way into the container, and I found them running hither and thither on the vast field of sweet snow this morning. The thing is, sugar granules here in Bali are not nearly as small as the sand-like sugar we find in the States; and these ants are in fact so small, that the individual granule is larger than they. What then are they to do with the stuff? 

"Praise God!" the one was heard to say. "We're in heaven, Oscar!" 

"Quite the contrary, Walter," retorted the other as he faced the nearest boulder on the slope of this great and unassailable rock candy mountain, "for we are surely in hell, where one hungers but cannot consume, thirsts but cannot be quenched!"

Well, I plucked the first from bliss and the second from torment, and transferred the sugar to a new Tupperware option. Take that!