Fog City

 As you can see the year is drawing to a close. I'm listening to my last Christmas CD, A Jazzy Christmas, with the likes of Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee. The season has taken its toll as it does each year. All the preparations and plans can and usually do come unglued. This year just as the family came together we were struck down by the pernicious and ubiquitous flu bug. We had to apply the covid protocols and separate individuals from the family herd to control the contagion. Unfortunately we were second to fall victim to the sickness, consequently we were eliminated from certain fun family functions. These new viruses tend to linger much longer than expected. Physically and mentally they are draining, which is frustrating, because you can't join in the festive fray without worrying about spreading the flu. We did the best we could and survived full of joy and blessings for the optimum minutes we did share.

If the ongoing news is any indicator we were the lucky ones. At least we were home, the millions traveling to be with friends and relatives were met with unbelievable obstacles. Blizzards, ice, whiteouts, airline cancellations, all of epic proportions stranded million across the land. Extreme seems to be the new common. The holidays are supposedly a time to remind us what is meaningful. A time for centering. I think mostly it is adjusting. Adjusting to extremes. Adjusting our momentum from fast to slow. Adjusting our audio from chatter to listening. One aspect of being under the weather is the silence in isolation. Sickness force adjustments, concentration, reflection, quiet, stillness, a kind of meditation or medication. Adjusting. 

A new year is just around the corner and adjusting will be a primary ingredient. You see I've gotten old and my body forces constant and permanent adjustments. I''m learning tolerance by having to tolerate all the things I can no longer do. This is extreme because all my life I took for granted certain abilities would last. But now the obvious limitations need tolerance and adjusting. As the larger world grows ever more extreme, so does my personal world. Adjusting to the simplest tasks becomes extremely more difficult. And so it goes!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

"I'll see you in the funny papers"

Fog City

 So what? Always the question, to express more opinions, observations, attitudes, ideas, and remembrances or forget about it. Who really cares and do I even care? Sometimes I feel the need to write because somebody might read it and get a sense of who I am or was. But what to write? Current events is always good for ranting and raving, family matters rekindle what is joyous, especially children's development, the increasing aches and pains of aging, comparing the experiences of the past and present, you see just spewing spontaneously writes itself. 

The holiday season is in full swing. Halloween just concluded and fortunately I didn't have to participate. I've always been shy and introverted and I am reluctant to dressing in elaborate costumes. I don't mind eating exorbitant amounts of candy but at my age excessive sugar is a killer. Not to mention the excessive nature of the upcoming holidays and the stresses involved. I'm already strategizing the use of aches and pains of old age, as well as old age itself, as a means to minimize holiday activities. We'll see, I've survived this long!

It's been months since I've written for this blog. I sense it becomes repetitive. I find myself most of the time a cynic steeped in fatalism. I have to urge myself to be optimistic and glean the positive and beautiful from the world around me. It's easy with grand children because of their innocence and exuberance. But distance of sorts keeps us apart. So the ongoing pernicious politics of life swarms over my psyche like a cloud of wasps. Our country is torn in two without a bridge of compromise, and a real civil war, with weaponry, festers just below the surface. I fear the gloom and doom!

Then there is getting old. I'm 74 now and realizing begrudgingly I'm basically irrelevant and invisible. I had a revelation yesterday, let go of the ego, and unnecessary expectations. Sounds simple doesn't it. Actually the more alone you or I are the easier it gets. The aches and pains grow and functioning on most physical levels ceases, which eliminates expectations. Since performing socially is curtailed by physical restrictions there's no need for ego. Impressing on any level is unnecessary when you are alone, so who needs an ego. This awareness although difficult is relieving. 

A man is just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be!

 

Fog City

 I'm in isolation. Finally after two years of conscious caution I've been waylaid by the persistent Covid virus. I turned 74 on July 28 and boy does that sound old. What happened was I saw an ad for a Tommy Castro and the Painkillers show. My youthful exuberance surged and I dug deeper. The band was playing on my birthday at the SF Jazz Center which was a natural inducement, because the venue is down at the Civic Center and just a 5 Fulton bus ride away. Anyway its was a special night full of great music and I got to reconnect with an old friend, the base player, Randy MacDonald. I'm building here. A couple days before that outing another extravaganza took place. Our San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club was honoring our oldest member. Arnie Barros was turning 100, truly phenomenal. The festivities included bowling in the morning and a catered lunch of Arnie's choice. Our district supervisor proclaimed it Arnie's Day with a framed City Hall certificate. Of course our club President made a speech extolling Arnie's long history of achievements, while Arnie sat smiling and eating. Over a hundred of Arnie's admirers including a huge contingent of his extended family, were on hand for this monumental occasion. There's more. A day after my birthday I had been scheduled by my dear wife Christine to help, as she hosted her cousins. Again we utilized the bowling club because her traveling clan was thirteen strong. They are from the Midwest and were obliged to visit all the favorite SF tourist attractions. They weren't wearing masks and by the way masks were optional in all of these large social gatherings. They had a good time and Christine instructed them on the basics of bowling and provided snacks making for a comfortable afternoon. It was a short visit because they had to race to Pier 39 to catch a tour boat circling the bay before leaving for Fresno. Whirlwind. So for a guy who has avoided social contact pretty much throughout this pandemic, I virtually jumped into the deep end. The day after the cousins left the virus symptoms surfaced all together. 

The symptoms seem to be waning but I still tested positive this morning. I'm watching the Giants and Dodgers on my iPhone while I update my blog on my laptop. Lucky me I have all I need and I made 74 who'd a thunk. I guess I'll see ya in the funny papers!

Fog City

Today the battle rages between external and internal forces. The difficulty is keeping them separate. They overlap and mingle so as to upset the balance. My very precarious mental balance that is. Why is balance necessary? Simply because it minimizes stress and we all know stress kills. Most all of societies ills, maladies, ailments, dysfunction, are totally or partially attributed to stress. Stress rears its ugliness in myriad and varied ways. Everything we think or do has an element of stress. But if we can limit the stress by separating the external, jobs, finance, wars, politics, traffic, with the internal, anxiety, regret, self esteem, fear, well just maybe the battle isn't a total loss.

Solitude can play an important role and something I've decided to utilize more and more. It's easier to control the environment when you are alone and quiet. You needn't allow the external stress to invade your privacy, your solitude. Then the internal stress of your own making can be dealt with calmly and peacefully. Separate and balance. I found as I get older I need less and less. I've also found when out and about interacting socially the external stress, even the happy stress of family gatherings, manifests itself physically. Nerve endings react, pimples/bumps, toothaches, rashes/hives, muscle and joint aches, and occur for no apparent reason. Stress. 

You see if I want my quality of life, which is certainly limited as I approach 74 years old, to be joyful, then I must adjust to these new realities. I know it's difficult for friends and family, who only know the persona I've cultivated over a lifetime, to wonder what's the matter. I can't go around trying to explain that I'm adapting to the mental and physical person I've become. Although I do and those explanations seem futile and or inadequate, which is more stress. So you see I'm leaning more and more toward solitude however much the external forces tug at me to get out there.  

I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto "to live well you must live unseen." Rene Descartes

The human race exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. Charles Bukowski

Blessed be he who has found his solitude, not the solitude pictured in painting or poetry, but his own, unique, predestined solitude. Blessed be he who knows how to suffer! To him comes destiny, from him comes authentic action. Hermann Hesse 

A few quotes from mental friends, I hope you don't mind.

 

 

 

  

Fog City

Today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, the eve of Lent. We are still in the throes of the Covid epidemic but much less so. Most people have been vaccinated and hospitals report fewer cases and less emergency over crowding. Restrictions on mask wearing mandates are being lifted and a cautious normalcy is returning. Let the good times roll and let's celebrate Fat Tuesday in true tradition before the fasting and abstinence begins tomorrow. I'm also celebrating 16 years of sobriety. There was a time when a planned celebration was in order. Food and drink, colorful beads and hats to match, loud music and raucous behavior, a mighty release, but no more. Those days of revelry are a thing of the past, a distant memory. Not only am I sober but I got old. So staying sober is hardly a challenge, because I do very little of anything. Although when I look around this very polarized world, autocrats vs democrats, authoritarians vs egalitarians, it makes me sad and frustrated, and God knows I could use a strong drink. The human fabric gets more frayed and chaotic as remedies and solutions seem impossible. I hunker down in my solitude and wait patiently for the grand children, in their innocence and exuberance to fish me out of my mental quagmire. Being with them and their skipping and smiles and robust parading around, makes each minute a Mardi Gras. Their unencumbered hopeful joy is a much a needed balancer, juxtaposed against the great expanse of despair for far too many.

I reflect on my own youth when adult problems were yet to come. Like my grandkids I played with abandon, all day if I could. I would get weary from the shear joy exhausting all my energy. I was comfortable and confident in my own skin and my family environment. I was happy and growing and learning and absorbing. I was a sponge filling with happy and exciting experiences. I'm reminded of that long ago life when I'm with the children and I feel good. But like that long ago idyllic life, change happens and we can't and don't stay children. The adult world, the world of suffering, the world of injustice, the world of hopelessness, encroaches my consciousness. 

I'll celebrate Mardi Gras sober, with my children and their children on my mind, and all the joy they've brought me in my life, and give thanks.