Repetition

Life keeps processing on, with plants to water, mouths to feed, walks to take, and words to write. The sun is pink and shining directly on my face this morning, and it feels like Groundhog Day, today, the day from the movie where everything happens all over again but it's another chance to get it right, better than it was the last Monday. I spent much of my time yesterday outdoors, working in a botanical garden, weeding and raking, and walking around in the cool, early spring weather.

Elephants in the Room

My eccentric grandmother had the habit when I was young of using her own drama to convince me that whatever surprise she had to offer was special and rare and wonderful, and it never was. Whatever it was, it was disappointing, meaningless and empty. There was something wrong with everything, whether it was something she cooked or sewed or bought (I think most of what she said she bought were things that someone else gave her that she didn't want, or that she dug out of her attic). Her house was full of beautiful hardwood carved furniture and her house looked unlike any other house I'd ever been in, as it reflected a mind that was bizarre, eclectic, and from 14 hours north (New York City) of where we were. Clutter with bold colors of red, gold, turquoise and black and old furniture crowded the house. The house smelled of moth balls and if anything was removed from the house the smell stayed forever. When she died, she left behind mountains of stuff that was so old almost all of it fell apart or was on its way to disintegration. Every week or so I have dreams I am back in that house, and last night I was there with zoo animals. There was an elephant on the screened-in porch, taking up the whole porch, and there was a tiger in the living room. They were resting on the floor, and they were sad because they wanted to go back to where they came from. The first time I heard the expression "the elephant in the room," it was at a work meeting, and I had no idea what the expression meant or what the elephant could possibly represent. I feel I never really know what that elephant is supposed to be, and, because it's a big elephant, and a euphemism for something that everyone sees but ignores because ... (why?) ... I feel forced to feel that I should know but I don't.

Time

At a college planning meeting, I heard a few informative and helpful words from a retired public school counselor who is from my hometown. At least 10 years had passed since I had last talked to him, and the way I remember him is that he had brown hair and a brown mustache. He is a friendly, funny, smart counselor and at one time he was a coach. He is the kind of man who a person would feel able to talk to about anything and it would be understood and accepted, as the best of the counselors would be. That brown hair was all gone, and he had much less of it and it was all white. He remembers me, or at least he claims he does, and I hope I did not offend him by telling him I remember him with brown hair, but he accepted my observation and laughed. I started to think about how, now, today, 10 years seems to have passed so quickly, but children grow up in that time and grown-ups may undergo a complete transformation simply because of mother nature's magic. One's perspective on time is ever-evolving as one travels the long and lovely path of years.

Infinity

I read recently that the author of a book I've been reading believes that in our infinite universe, it is a given that life will repeat itself infinitely. Our experiences, thoughts, lessons, patterns, habits, fortune, misfortune ... it is all simply a system of repetition. The more life experience I have, the more I believe it.

I hit a roadblock.

Straight Ahead

Friday night the temperature outside my home was three degrees Fahrenheit. I spelled that correctly on the first try. Today is Sunday and it is sunny, bright, stark and clear. On my countdown to spring, we have only 56 days to go.
The family found a new house to have an attachment to. We all really, really love it and we've visited it three or four times now. It's closer to my workplace, it has beautiful wood floors, a very big deck that covers the front of the house, a grand view of a cemetery, lots of tall windows and built-in bookcases. A match for us that we all feel is meant to be. Alas, there have been many others before it that I have become too attached to ... places that I've become attached to that are unavailable ... am I victim of a tired human condition? Do I need to change or should I continue to dream and work toward making it a reality ... ? Well, of course I need to keep moving forward.

You're Dead; We're Changing Your Book, OK?

So many stories in the news yesterday about modifying Huckleberry Finn to take out the words inside it that censors deem offensive racial slurs. On first listen, my reaction was to feel irritated and defeated at the homogenization of our world, our culture trickling into one stream of what is right and wrong and good and bad and fashionable and indecent; and anger at the audacity of those who have judged and then act by modifying art to make it non-offensive. I close my eyes and see the shelves of Wal-Mart, where everything looks like the same cheap plastic with no character or originality, because the corporations think we all need soulless products that everyone else has, so we can replace it in a few months after they break so we can get more assembly-line-generic goods that everyone else has.
I heard they were taking the "n" out of the book, so I imagined it would be called "Huckleberry Fi_ _" and that there would be small gaps on every page where they entirely eliminated the letter "n" from every word in it. It would still be just as easy to follow, and the_ it would_'t be obvious that they were cha_gi_g a_y o_e particular word or the other .... a subtle cha_ge, if you will.
Then I heard the logic behind the censorship, and I can see some value in making a version available, a choice, to help stop the perpetuation of racially based insults, so that our children can read and appreciate the story without the ingestion of what we recognize now as vicious attacks through name-calling based on where someone looks like they've come from. So, the idea is that the book will be better this way?
Censorship seems OK, as long as the original version is still available to see it in its intended form. Yes, it's not as sharp or authentic and it feels homogenized, but it's a way to enrich our young and impressionable minds in a more innocent way. I do see some value in that, but the problem is that the writer is dead. We can't ask him if it would be OK. I think it would only be OK if the author wanted the clean version to exist, too. Of course, he lived in a different time and he probably couldn't foresee the 100-year-later judgments and calls for censorship on his choice of words. Posthumous censorship seems evil. No doubt ... this censored version will be on the shelf of your local Wal-Mart book and magazine section shortly.