Just Another Day

Sitting here, as usual, well before daylight. I don’t know if it is from lack of sleep or something else, but I do not feel as strong as I have at other times. Practices long ago forsaken, lessons long ago learned, each time I feel good, each time I feel energetic or I feel that things are good, there’s nothing to worry about, I remind myself then, low times are again out there. Though I feel good now, I will not feel this way for ever. In fact, I probably won’t feel this way for very long. And this is not a bad outlook, or a poor attitude. Good times don’t last, Thank God, because then again neither do bad times, and if anything is constant it is that everything changes. (I’m trying to purge and eliminate redundancy from my writings) Are there times, as it seems, that I “see” further and better the true nature of things? I think probably. Even our ability to form accurate constructs of reality change from day to day, and if some days I can’t actually see into things more deeply, The Universe sure fooled me. In math we see this in linear algebra; that if we have at least one piece of information about every unknown, then we can ultimately solve the problem (morebetter, that the problem has a solution). In daily life, there are millions of variables and libraries of information to go along with that. I am not the county’s best mathematician nor the best problem solver, but no analysis can easily solve numerical problems involving greater than three equations and three unknowns; MY POINT BEING, it is not surprising that life is a mystery, and often we are doing very well with even our very best guesses (saving ourselves from the horrors of actual solutions which may not even exist). As time has passes, on those many and increasing days I am able to say “oh death, where is thy sting….”, I know it more and more better, life comes with its own “help” file, we go along “clicking” the question mark tab several times a day without even knowing it. Though a person cannot lose anything more than his or her life, and even there, the anxiety softens with time, ableing us to carry on in the face of great uncertainty. Cancer comes, we deal with it, accept it, and ultimately find ourselves more concerned about how well our cellular telephone is functioning than our lives themselves, and Thank God for that. Which isn’t to say, having long since dealt with it all, it doesn’t all come crashing back down to Earth again, making enormous noise at times (everything changes) scaring the hell out of us all over again. Even still, we are not even surprised when things are back to normal by that afternoon, and we are back to our merry selves. It’s like, I don’t know; it’s like feeling greatful for that horrible headache. It was almost worth having the headache to experience it going away. This particular crash (remember, I’m not feeling well again) I think came when I heard somebody mention how easy it was to learn the python computer programing language. I had a class in programing in college, and went on to use it at my job as a geologist many times. I enjoyed writing code and I was sad when it became less and less necessary for the general public to be able to compile little programs for themselves; little strings of computer logic to help us solve our own daily problems; to answer our own complex questions. Though I didn’t know it at the time, busy as I was, being a professional geologist/geophysicist, generating computer program code is soothing in the same way sewing is soothing. I became sad, because my mind’s voice said, well then, I must obtain and learn this “python”. The happier I became about learning python, the sadder I became knowing that I necessarily should limit myself on what I want to accomplish with my newly trimmed life expectancy. Good friends will tell me that I shouldn’t limit myself at all but it is me who hast to answer the question more expediently than most, do I want to finish a lot of things, or do I want to finish a few things but well (do I use a question mark here? I truly do not know). I “Mona Lisa” smile at myself when I remember Jonathan W. Thompson, versions 30.0 through 39.9. Having good days then meant that I had actually arrived at a new, happier state of being, the elusive wellness I felt was hard won war bounty which would endure and not fade. I have long since abandoned such stable and unchanging views of the world, trading them in for the reality that everything changes and I like it better this a way. I will gladly watch good moods pale for the knowledge that even my deepest “hell” is not permanent either, that I’d nearly endure that headache in order to know what it feels like when it goes away.

Involuntary Motion (2005)

Deliberately - never a good time for me - that it has all come down to this - over and over every new moment, life experience itself a life dividing splitting multiplying everything new containing mostly old the inexperienced asymptotically approaching the whole thing Wherewhen every new day becoming less significant - a smaller thing Ifwhen my second day of life was half my experience that same day - from this current perspective - was it the same as 20 years? Here. That i find myself here at this moment - And that - no less a curiosity than a rack of billiard balls rolling themselves backwards to form a perfect rack - impacting so perfectly together to absorb their collective energies and dispose of it on a briskly escaping cue. II I made a mistake . (once) and i feel better now - having disposed of the guilt - keeping it a secret. I'll not be wrong again - blaming it all on myself - paying back what i don't owe - JonBoy laughs at his dad - asks why the heck he doesn't have any glassware - spoons and forks of the metallic variety . so dad says he doesn't like owning things cause usually the ownership thingy operates in reverse - operates in reverse . My house is filled with enough things to worry about as it is - Dadburn kid can eat out of paper served with a smile and the most genuine fatherly concern in all of humanity. The glassware bowls i broke drilled threaded hung - now banging out cute little tickettitytanks out in the wind out on the porch - confirming for me a belief that had been festering in my heart for which i had had no proof - that most everything had a purpose . I mean a purpose in spite of my own . doesn't add up to nothing anyhow (that kind of stuff c)- good as dads gotten cook'n cornflakes - that boy knows what's up- i mean it never was about the housewares . so you got to give that boy some credit . strange as the old man has been - it's like hot coffee at bob evans - just like it ought to be - so he either doesn't know or genuinely doesn't care - either way - it's just one of the million things that make me love him so much . and i own that c - and i guess that was my point . I like owning that . but i have owned far too much in my life i have owned for too little because fairy tales aren't fairy tales until after happily ever after - which having come to grips with that c - the thought of being any richer than i am at this moment - is utterly meaningless . its all mine. III . it can be quite shocking - learning to what extent the universe does not revolve around us - it's not that i am a mean-spirited person - contrary but to say there are a lot of stupid people in the world is probably a mean - unnecessary thing to say . Mean - doesn't make it false . (and there are those who are now wondering or thinking that i meant them . And i probably wasn't until they thought so) IV . Ansel said when ever he took a photo - he felt as if he was taking a picture of something was that really there - - - taking a photo of how he felt about the scene - the emotion she went on for a spell - this and that about her art - this person whose art i hold in the highest possible regard - uneducated i am about art - painting - drawing ; that the measure of good art to me is directly proportional to the extent at which i leave the work scratching the crown of my skull - wondering how the hell they did that . that is my only measure Human beings amaze me in every possible way - the greatest amazement i find - always in the creative realm - her 30 minute dialogue about abstraction versus realism - who likes whose art or not - i was most curious as to why she even cared . To me - when a person reaches a certain level of skill - who the hell cares what the critics think - but then - easy for me to say . A rope always frays most at its end and ever as much along it's length - same in life i suppose - today is when it all unravels - yesterday’s unraveling’s fold back nicely in the current of time - and are woven back into the fabric of our lives as we remember - I have never personally known a more impressive artist - and she's over there riding in my car - anxious . A lesson for me - we can't always hold the body of our work - or the unfrayed length of it - in our mind . We all - even the best - can at times - focus only upon the messy end - on the current as for me - walking in the fog of snow - i thought about the phases of my own creativity - my outlets many . Athletically - academically - finally expressively - in words and photographs. I don't always have enuf energy to express myself - us bipolars are like that - burst -withdrawal - burst But i am most impressed with what ansel said - that what he photographs isn't really there - that he was never photographing nature itself but HOW HE FELT about what he was seeing - the photo somehow contained that emotion . That is what she's not thinking of when she wonders if her own art is abstract enuf - it is the same dear - her paintings - while always beautiful landscapes - overflowing with emotion - and that is what art is - expression of feeling - i think i read that somewhere - sure as hell didn't learn it in the modern physics course i took in college As for me - walking in the fog of snow - i thought about the phases of my own creativity - my outlets many . I do suppose - within the current fray of my life - it is not that i have ceased to find beauty in my life - rather that i have grown tired of trying to convey it .That taken as a whole - my life is not as beautiful as i had hoped it would be - and those moments when my breath is taken away - significant to me - and of the utmost meaning - i am most often met with frustration in my futile attempts to express it . and for now - i've grown tired of the pursuit - especially since i have seen that it can spoil its most holistic meaning - it is where i find myself - living in the thing that i see rather than trying to express it - i often feel forced to choose V . Ansel said when ever he took a photo - he felt as if he was taking a picture of something was that really there - - - taking a photo of how he felt about the scene - the emotion she went on for a spell - this and that about her art - this person whose art i hold in the highest possible regard - uneducated i am about art - painting - drawing ; that the measure of good art to me is directly proportional to the extent at which i leave the work scratching the crown of my skull - wondering how the hell they did that . that is my only measure Human beings amaze me in every possible way - the greatest amazement i find - always in the creative realm - her 30 minute dialogue about abstraction versus realism - who likes whose art or not - i was most curious as to why she even cared . To me - when a person reaches a certain level of skill - who the hell cares what the critics think - but then - easy for me to say . A rope always frays most at its end and ever as much along it's length - same in life i suppose - today is when it all unravels - yesterdays unraveling’s fold back nicely in the current of time - and are woven back into the fabric of our lives as we remember - I have never personally known a more impressive artist - and she's over there riding in my car - anxious . A lesson for me - we can't always hold the body of our work - or the unfrayed length of it - in our mind . We all - even the best - can at times - focus only upon the messy end - on the current as for me - walking in the fog of snow - i thought about the phases of my own creativity - my outlets many . Athletically - academically - finally expressively - in words and photographs . I don't always have enuf energy to express myself - us bipolars are like that - burst -withdrawal - burst But i am most impressed with what ansel said - that what he photographs isn't really there - that he was never photographing nature itself but HOW HE FELT about what he was seeing - the photo somehow contained that emotion . That is what she's not thinking of when she wonders if her own art is abstract enuf - it is the same dear - her paintings - while always beautiful landscapes - overflowing with emotion - and that is what art is - expression of feeling - i think i read that somewhere - sure as hell didn't learn it in the modern physics course i took in college As for me - walking in the fog of snow - i thought about the phases of my own creativity - my outlets many . I do suppose - within the current fray of my life - it is not that i have ceased to find beauty in my life - rather that i have grown tired of trying to convey it .That taken as a whole - my life is not as beautiful as i had hoped it would be - and those moments when my breath is taken away - significant to me - and of the utmost meaning - i am most often met with frustration in my futile attempts to express it . and for now - i've grown tired of the pursuit - especially since i have seen that it can spoil its most holistic meaning - it is where i find myself - living in the thing that i see rather than trying to express it - i often feel forced to choose VI . ten months - still unaccustomed to the sounds of this place - the smells the embeddedness - embedded within an either that is itself unembeddable - in motion. in my particular case - involuntary robins sing Natures melody - depressive for some - elixir for others unnoticed by the "dead" - Insomuch that another spring is upon me - (the Hepatica might well have bloomed by now) - is it indifference? Or is it truly that the circumstances of my life have changed? until this moment - i hadn't thought to ask myself that question - insodoing - failing to notice the ground upon which i walk - that there even is something holding me up - how could something so fundimental be something never pondered? that i might find a striking scene out my bathroom window - do my eyes let me down? trick me into seeing beauty where there is none - keeping me firmly imbedded within what i find unfamiliar? VII . deep within the fabric of my experience - there are eddies of feeling - gently swirling - swelling at times - flowing out into the boundaries of my physical being filling me with a calm no human expression might hope to convey - at times even this is alarming i can not now - nor have i ever been able to describe my deepest feelings - experiences so rich as to be difficult to tolerate in all but menial portions - yet it is where i live. that i have had disappointments - well - every human being alive has - but i have had much upon which to be glad - and my experience is not one from which you would expect a reasonable person to recoil - - and it is not that i wish to flee from the whole - entire - i do wish at times - for complete- absolute stillness escaping not the ill - not the bad - but the good and delightful as well - everything. i do find it odd - forty three years of life - without recess. there are times i feel overwhelmed - there are times i simply want to rest. X . two things i miss most - my Son Jon Boy - but that has gone without saying for some time now - he's grown so much in the last two years - taller than me now - playing in a rock band - admitted to the most prestigious high school in Indy - proud father i am. The other thing is a genuine fireside - a wintersnight fireside - wherewithout - a soul could freeze in place - - upon closer examination - i find the two - my Son and the fireside bring forth exactly the same feeling inside - a sensation of a soothing glow - all-filling - the feeling that if i never had another thing beside these - a fine fireside - and my Son - it wouldn’t be a wasted life XI . drive some time - fifty miles or more - having left the house at dawn - expect to be floating down the river - trout river by 8 big water river - water that can hurt you if you're not careful and watching for the lurking house-sized rocks that can jump up from the trout-filled abyss and sink your canoe - cold winter day - by my self - no time for an emergency - river moving - put in - float drift down on the discharge - point of no return came and went about thirty seconds after i launched - once a half minute into the trip - the entire trip must be completed - due to the extreme current flow of the river - The day cold - north wind - fish not biting well - but no matter - as Gray also put if - "The fishing was find - the caching was so good though" - and i like that - with a deep sky - bright with weak weepy clouds the day long - many hawks making high broad circle - mating season - many daffodils have bloomed - the water clear - deep and very cold - full of fine - in fact monster trout - if i could only get them to take my bait - I've been fishing all my life - grandfather took me it seems all the time - i wonder sometimes what he would think of my fishing abilities now - fifteen years gone - it was a slow day - catching wise - but i did catch two trophy fish - one brown trout and the other a rainbow - either fish would have made it worth the day it took to complete the expedition - I do so love to trout fish - and as the years go by - i get better and better - and that is a joy to me - XII the old idea - there are times my immediate experience that lay beyond what i might hope to convey - in every possible aspect. It is only because i know you find this to be true as well - my silent periods not unnoticed- forgiven. XIII full thunder moon - they are out there, by the lake and field filled with wildflowers. Drinking a beer or two, not twist off - a rough day, packing - driving past the Massive, high hanging land - pitching tents not worth pitching - lighting lamps and putting the young ones to sleep. Friends. Driving 4 hours over the most magnificent landscape in the world, to find a place to camp? Going places i never thought possible - Never thought would come to fruition. Might never see again. …. The past is more certain than the future, if only slightly.