Still Kickin'

I've been away again for awhile, though I've not actually been anywhere except my room, because, as has become quite natural for me, I've been ill again for awhile. This time the problem seems to be the flu, a regular guest whom, as I have said in the past, sets up house in one's body here in Bali and then comes and goes as it pleases, and indeed stays as long as it pleases when it is at home. Already a week now with fever and various unmentionable etceteras, and not showing any sign of departing any time soon. Gosh how time passes when you're busy being sick! But we shall change the subject. 

As is my usual entertainment, or burden, when ill, I've spent long hours, especially when I might have been more happily sleeping, ruminating over various random things. Such as: 

1) Blueberries. Picked straight from the bush by a high mountain lake, round, plump, moist, ready to burst. My son gathering them in a pail we had used for morning coffee at the campsite, blond hair busy at somersaults in the breeze. Later, we will use some with pancakes in the morning, or as close as you can get to pancakes using a black iron skillet over a temperamental fire--gooey, rubbery things, one edge crisp the other oozing, blueberries bleeding veins of nectar into the dough sometimes jam-like sometimes crusty. And indescribably delicious. The finest restaurant cannot produce pancakes like these. 

2) Bert and Ernie, and the recent acknowledgement that they were indeed gay. How can this be? They were hand puppets, right? 

3) How to say any number of things in the Indonesian language, including the thoughts I am obsessing about. Ruminations alone are not enough. They must be transposed to another language. 

4) Donald Trump. How he is not simply a quirk that will go away with the next election but more like an illness that has set up house in the body. He is merely the manifestation, the latest strain of a virus, a malignancy that will only grow and spread. He is the vomit, the mucus, the pus, the shaking chill, the myalgias and arthralgias, the rales and rhonchi, the necrosis, the death rattle, not the disease itself. He is permanent, we are not. This is the least favorite of my sick-room fixations. 

5) The unspeakable bliss of simply feeling well, and how we ought to sing with overflowing joy, spilling over with grateful astonishment at this singular miracle, intent in every blessed second to immerse our entire awareness in this one incomparable, impermanent gift. Every minute is a treasure. Don't make plans. Don/t think of tomorrow. The treasure is bottomless but the time is short. What is not withdrawn cannot be given nor received, and tomorrow the lid is closed. 

Morning Prayer

6 am, as usual. The dog is scratching at the front gate. As usual. Rising is an uncertain thing. You have to be careful. First this leg, then the other. Where are my keys? 

The dog comes in, enters my room without a word or a wag of the tail, and buries himself beneath the foot of the drapes. Well, he has been out all night. God knows what he's been up to. 

A bowl of instant oatmeal as usual, with brown sugar, some raisons, and milk, and the morning news. The usual news. The dog makes little woofing sounds in his sleep. 

On the other side of the walkway the neighbor dries her hair in the sun with an orange towel. brown arms and legs the color of honey, hair cascading to her toes as she bends over the veranda's ceramic floor. I think that I am quite in love after all. The Hindu morning prayer is sounding from the temple, gliding over the browning grasses of the rice fields. 

A fugue of bells. A reminder of so many unknown things. 

History or Rumor

I received a picture today through Facebook's ostensibly helpful daily reminder of past posts. It was a photo from 2014 showing a much thinner version of me standing with a large group of children, happy as a clam. The thing is, I have no recollection of this. None at all. Who are these children? Why am I with them? What are we doing? 

I have no clue. Other than that the year was 2014. Which apparently means only that my memory does not extend to five years' time. And when I turn this over in my mind, it strikes me that I can remember nothing else from 2014. I was here but not here. In fact, when I think about it, I remember very little of the past ten years of my life. They happened but did not happen. 

How strange. Did they matter at all? Perhaps they mattered at least to someone else? I don't know. I will need to construct some kind of history, albeit a flimsy one, from Facebook reminders. I myself can be responsible for a cogent history up to the year 2004. After that, it's all in a haze.

The Chosen One

A woman I was dating some years ago, who would later become one of my wives, though not t the same time, mind you, as the others, once commented rather effusively that I was "like Jesus". My immediate reaction was one of cringing embarrassment. Of course, I understood what she meant to convey--that, unlike others she had been with, and under whose influence she had suffered considerably, I seemed uncommonly, almost miraculously kind. Nonetheless, I knew the comparison to be wholly inaccurate and undeserved. No human being can possibly live up to such an association. Moreover, it seemed a standard, an expectation that I could not possibly meet, being, in fact, much more similar to Lucifer than to Jesus--and in fact, by the end of the marriage, she would think the latter association more fitting, I'm sure. 

But I think of this because we have now a Christian (so-called) conspiracy theorist declaring that Donald Trump is the second coming of God, the chosen one, the savior of Israel, and we see Donald not embarrassed or dismissive, as any sane person would be, but embracing the comparison, basking in the worship, actually stating before the press that he is "the chosen one". Good God. 

I do know something about this popular theory--more than I care to know, really. It is imagined that Trump is a modern-day Cyrus, king of Persia,  elevated to the throne by God Himself to restore the temple in Jerusalem and return the Jews to the promised land. What this all has to do with Christianity or Christians, I do not know. It is simply yet another example of contemporary wacko insistence on conflating the story of the Jews with the Christian message and destiny. The temple that Jesus describes, after all, is no longer in this world, but in the heart of the believer (John 4:21; 1 Cor 3:16 & etc). 

I feel that same pang of cringing embarrassment, and much, much more, at both this ludicrous misappropriation of scripture and at the man who would stand with face raised toward the sky, declaring himself to be the chosen one. Was Donald joking? Well, he will no doubt say so in future meetings with the press, and his handlers in the wreck that is now the White House will be quick to say so as well; but as pointed by the writer of an article in the New York Times, and by others, the man is not joking at all. This is the pinnacle of his narcissism, the chilling extent of his increasingly delusional thinking. 

And it may well backfire. Does anyone remember when John Lennon made the offhand remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus? That didn't go over well. Of course, Lennon quickly and apologetically explained the meaning of his comment. Again, any sane person would. Donald Trump makes no such concession, offers no such apology. For in his disturbed, unhinged mind, Donald is the second coming, the savior. 

Hamurgers and Hip-Hop

Had an increasingly rare visit from Viana and Feby yesterday, the dynamic albeit spoiled young duo. Well, at 11 and 12 years of age, I suppose their interests in life are widening beyond the realm of laptops and iPads. Nonetheless, they retain a healthy, or perhaps an unhealthy interest in hip-hop music. And hamburgers. All things American. It is interesting to watch them sing out the words to these songs, which they have memorized, knowing the meaning of nary a one, which are sometimes actually rather inappropriate on the lips of a 12 year old, or perhaps a 112 year old too for that matter. Ah, but they enjoy themselves. 

Hip-hop soon incites hunger, and they want a burger. Generally, the 'burger man', who sells burgers about the neighborhood on his motorbike, would be around, but not this day, and so a long debate, a haggling over price, ensues regarding where I can order burgers for them and have them delivered via Gojek. It is finally decided that KFC will be most convenient, as it is close by and burgers are reasonably priced an 18 thousand apiece, roughly a buck-thirty USD.

And so the two of them happily consume their burgers with their mouths and hip-hop with their eyes and ears. Pretty much like kids anywhere, I guess. 

Music

In this old house there were ghosts, some old and some new. Some of them I knew, some I did not. One lurked in a hallway and could go nowhere else because something had happened there and there the thing was, like creeping mold, a swirl in mahogany, a fray in the wallpaper. Another crouched in a corner at the bottom of the basement stairs. One glowered morosely behind the purring furnace amid boxes of forgotten, worthless stuff. In that house I found as well a heart. It was a heart that could only be summoned by a pressing of the proper keys. No, not a pressing. A caressing. At the piano, I called out to the heart and the heart responded according to the touch of my fingers. Together, we activated living things, called them into the dead silence of the world, living things like yearning, and grief, and love, and glory. This old house sang for hours on end. And in that time, the ghosts would emerge, and drag their chains toward the sound of the singing, weeping, beseeching, soaring, joyful thing. They made the hair of my neck stand on end. What did they want? What other than to be free? In those times, according to that music, every prison door flew open, and that old house itself shattered from within, and there was no longer a wall or a beam or a root top remaining, but the stars shone unfettered overhead like a million piercing beacons.

Morality Versus Practicality

I am always surprised when news commentators speak of "a close election" in 2020 and wonder who, if anyone, can beat Donald Trump. How can this be?  I can understand that some folks were fooled in 2016, or didn't know yet who Trump really is, but who can possibly be so clueless as we approach 2020? 

Jeeze. 

Well, I heard one commentator suggest that in 2020 people may be facing a moral as opposed to a practical choice. Most people, he theorized, are most interested in the economy, how much money is going into their pockets, how much they will be able to spend, how many shiny new things they will be able to buy. If the economy under Trump remains good, many voters may be willing to overlook personal weaknesses such as hatred and racism and carelessness and narcissism and stupidity and divisiveness in favor of the almighty dollar. 

And if the economy is weak? Well then it might be convenient to consider morality.

Is this really what we've come to? 

I guess we will see in 2020.