I am a different person now. Different but not profoundly different. Can old dogs become profoundly different? One year ago I was still working with no immediate plans for retirement. That is a kind way of putting it. I had a dread of retirement and had my head buried in the sand regarding it. So this time last year, I was on vacation--well vacation from the plant sitting on porchville--not on vacation like sitting on a beach or ♥ing some place like the various state or province travel bureaus would have me do. So a year ago, porchville was rather finite and measured in days. Now porchville has something of an approaching infinity quality to it. Not really of course, it will be measured in decades, I hope. I am shooting for three with a few years tossed on, which would give me roughly 33% of my life left. I used to have this self imposed actuarial date of 80, just used as a rough guideline for a time to checkout--no firm plans. Well I am not sure I like the math:
62 / 80 = .775 X 100 = 77.5% life gone... 100% - 77.5% = 22.5% life remaining.
For planning purposes, I really like 90+ something better than 80. Ugghhhhh! All this actuarial horseshit has such a finite air about it. I think I prefer a diaphanous approaching of almost infinity. Not infinite mind you, just vaguely approaching an almost state.
I have looked back over the posts for the past year to see if I could find something really nostalgic. Not really. Provocative? Not really? Mind expanding? No. Entertaining and edifying? I doubt it. Navigating The Finite is pretty much a site where one can rapidly view Bernini's The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila and not get a virus. The posts are way too long and usually about subjects that nobody gives a shit about...except me.
In my first post I warned you that this was written for me, not the reader. The warning stands. All I can say is that the past year has more or less proved in stark terms that the warning was less of warning and more of a prediction. So why do this? Hardly anyone reads it. Why do people keep journals? Why do they keep scrapbooks? Who looks at that stuff? Well this is my journal, my scrapbook, my work of art. It keeps me occupied, out of my wife's hair, off the streets, and out of the bars. I do have a couple of readers, and they are as precious as gold to me. If you find something of interest, learn something, find a moment of humor, or think "wow that is a really cool idea" then this has been a grand success. If not, you can find Saint Teresa here:
Navigating The Finite, St Teresa of Avila
"Happy anniversary, St Teresa."
"Happy anniversary, Sextant."
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| The Question Mark Butterfly |
Oh I forgot, yesterday during a Fourth of July picnic at my mother-in-law's place, I got a very good look at a butterfly called the question mark, Polygonia interrogationis. I haven't seen one since I was a kid, not that they are all that rare, I just haven't been looking. It sat for several hours on a low spruce branch and we had a very good look at it. Of course, I did not bring my camera. The photos here are from the web site linked on to the scientific name. The butterfly gets it name from the small silver question mark located in the center of the bottom of the hind wing. See bottom photo.
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| Note the silvery question mark in the center of the hind wing. |
Butterflies and Moths of North America
Well.... Happy Anniversary to you Sextant. I'll start this again. I had a bunch of comments written already and I somehow lost them when I switched screens. Arghhhhh I hate that. I'll rewrite from memory.
ReplyDeleteYour blog has been a splendid success. In my mind at any rate. I hope you are able and willing to write another bazillion or so posts. I for one have enjoyed reading them. Yes, some posts were well above my head and I probably didn't get nearly as much out of reading them as you did writing them. But as you mentioned, the blog is your journal or scrapbook, and you are writing for you ! But perhaps that's not quite correct, because I think deep down you are subconsciously writing for others as well. I know when I write my blog, I always try to keep an eye out for how others will take or perceive my ministry as you would call it. And so it is with yourself as well. Your obviously not selfish, you like to share, otherwise why do we write in a public forum ?
I have not read all your posts, but I hope to this fall/winter when ole man time allows me some slack from all this outdoor stuff. I started writing my posts on March 28, 2011, with the " Prairie Sentinel" and you were writing a post about Love of Old Trucks. Your blog has inspired me to start " La Salle River Ramblings". So you get a feather in your cap for that.
But I think your blog about Jerome was the catalyst that drew me into your world as it were. Synchronicities and all that good stuff. I think in a post down the road you and I will have to revisit our good friend John Jerome and look at some of his other works and dissect them a little. For me Jerome is one of those people with whom I would have wished to meet, what a cool guy. I was thinking the other day that it would have been great to have him as a neighbour. Much like yourself.
And it also my sincere wish that you live to be 100 yrs old. In relative good health of course. Cause when your dead....you'll be dead for a long long time. Let's enjoy our time here while we can. Sharing blogs, life experiences, whatever commonality or differences we come across.
. Let's let everyday life be our destination and relish it for all it's blog worth. Perhaps we should try and stay on the road less travelled, I think we'll get more bang for our buck so to speak.
So keep blogging Sextant. A good way to spend part of your retirement.
And thanks for the encouragement to stick with mine, good friend.
Blog on.
As always, thank you for your kind words of praise and encouragement.
ReplyDeleteRegarding writing comments, if you move to any page other than the page you are commenting on, you will lose your comment. What I do is open up a separate window or tab to check references, but like your experience this morning I usually forget and wham your comments are lost.
You are correct about Jerome. We should go back to that. Not Judson but John. I never finished On Turning 65 and I bought several of his other books on your advice. I really want to go back to Stonework and re-read it. Stonework was one of those seminal works that steered my life.
I like your notion of the "road less traveled". I have this thing about journeys, roads, and of course navigation. I also like eccentrics and hope that I qualify as one. You certainly do, and that is meant as one of the deepest compliments that I can offer a person. Normal people don't look for aesthetics in rusted 55 Oldsmobiles, or try to stuff an 800 gallon tank into a school bus. Think of back when you were in high school. Who do you really remember? The eccentrics, the weirdos, and of course the good looking girls--that were not eccentric. So yes, let's, you and I, stay on the road less traveled...look at railroad tracks, a neat old tree, and a lonely road that goes no where particular, but every where in general. I would consider it an honor, to walk a mile or 10 with you.....
and besides that I really need to get off my ass!
Every now and again I have to veer off and look at something weird...I can't help it...bear with me. I love the human mind, quantum physics, odd mathematics, contemplations of God, and well...yes, truth be known, sex. I find this stuff fascinating yet well beyond my understanding which is why I find it fascinating. Newton's laws of motion hold no special appeal to me. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does, but do I understand it? Hell no!
Indeed we will be dead for a long time, but in my mind that is when things will get really interesting. For you see my wife (in her red high heels, black stockings, short red miniskirt and a low cut v-top with enough cleavage to make your eyes pop out of your head) and I will be sitting in this cool jazz bar down in the sinners quarters of heaven. Being the fact that it is heaven (albeit the cool sinner's quarter) my wife will hear the Turtles, and I will hear Appalachian Spring and Ahmed Jamal at the same time. We will be chatting to Feynman (while he sketches one of the topless waitresses) about quantum electrodynamics and St Augustine about why he decided sex was such a no no for the church. Old Baguette will him straight. We are going to be eating spaghetti made with sauce from tomatoes and spices from your garden and salads garnished with your garlic scapes and drinking Lady Busman's wine and the Busman's stout. No headaches or hangovers in heaven. You and the Lady Busman have reserved seats at our table. You just have to be good enough to get heaven, but bad enough to make to the sinner's quarter. You don't want to be over with the righteous--boring! See you there!