“Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. Loneliness is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots in the great silence of eternity.”
via whiskey river
Where’d she go?
I realize it’s been almost three weeks since I posted. That probably shouldn’t bother me or anyone else at this point; though I do wish I hadn’t read all those best-blogging-practices articles before I started this blog. “Three posts per week plus three comments per week on other blogs” always sticks in my [...]
A poem – one of solitude’s trinkets. Or why I don’t write sometimes -
I often yearn for
The wordless place
Of quiet brushstrokes
And gently rustling nature,
Where falling backward
In total trust
Without direction
Feels as perfect
As its common opposite.
Where the restful process
Of simply being
Is creativity enough.
And this place,
By its simple perfection,
Without judgment, labels,
Goals or true effort
Can transform a nothingness
Into a [...]
I’ve been periodically giggling about this all day, so I’ve decided to share. When working on that last post, this gem surprised me -
Who’d have thought the No. 1 definition of geek at Merriam-Webster Online would be:
1. a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
You have to get all the way down to definition No. 3 for:
3. an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity <computer geek>
Ponder the irony. How’d the No. 3 definition ever evolve from that No. 1 definition? Just curious.
And, silly me. The reason I looked it up was I thought maybe the EE in geek had something to do with electrical engineering. (Don’t take offense, Griz, the “technical geek” is much less derogatory than it used to be – more like a badge of excellence, now.)
There’s lots more on the word “geek” at Wikipedia.
In this week of cascading celebrity mortalities, and the resultant gnashing and wailing by media and fans, I was initially embarrassed that I live in a culture of such profound celebrity worship. But then empathy kicked in.
After all, the families and friends of the celebrities suffer no more or less than the countless other ordinary families who this week must face the loss of a loved one. Premature and unexpected, or the anticipated death of an elder – loss is loss.
Perhaps when we mourn deeply for a celebrity, someone we don’t really know, we’re facing down our terror – practicing for the inevitable death of someone truly close; or perhaps we’re further resolving a grief we already carry. Grief is a necessary and unavoidable part of the human experience, no less real whether we grieve for a close loved one, a beloved pet or a cherished celebrity. We should not judge the validity or import of another person’s grief, but rather remind ourselves of the common path we travel.
This beautiful poem was written by my cousin, Janelle Olney. Janelle was an oncology nurse for many years – not just serving cancer patients, but also counseling their families:
The Letting Go by Janelle Marie Olney
Here you wait, in this room of hissing machines, and whispering loved ones.
Touched by latex covered hands, you open your eyes long enough to say “I’m still here.”
I know you’ll be leaving soon.
On the street below people go about their day, unaware of this unfolding drama that dwarfs their mundane concerns.
Something this momentous should trigger lightning strikes, or cause the very stars to darken in the sky.
But it’s only death come calling. Stealing in on quiet feet and taking you away.
An empty chair at the table.
An empty pillow on the bed.
An awful empty hole in the hearts of your wife, your children, and those who will always remember you were here.
Death is so cruel in its ordinariness.
People die every day, and two are born to take their place.
But ordinary is not a word that will occur to those whose lives will soon be torn apart by the letting go of you.
Janelle’s loving son, sisters and parents were kind enough to share this poem with us at Janelle’s funeral, three years ago. Janelle’s death was accidental – she was 48 years old.
Rhododendron blooms
Swift, vibrant splendor – then GONE!
This year’s reminder.
Most of our rhododendrons are pretty shabby this year as a result of our unusually tough winter. They’ll all need a careful pruning after bloom.
Blossoms on the reds seem particularly short-lived. One rainfall and they’re past prime – and this is Western Washington, after all, so you know what that means. I bemoan their fleeting glory every year – hence, this morning’s haiku. I think the bees prefer the reds, too. They work feverishly – knowing only NOW!
I found Eremite Mike’s Blog after Mike left a comment on this blog. Though Mike didn’t leave a link to his blog (perhaps because the blog is quite young), his comment revealed a clear empathy with the hermitic path, so I searched him out.
I am continually impressed with the profound beauty and depth of his posts [...]
While doing a little fact check for my last post, I ran into this poetic gem in a NOAA document:
“Considerable evidence indicates that climate in the Puget Sound region is cyclical, with maxima (warm, dry periods) and minima (cold, wet periods) occurring at decadal intervals[....] Mantua et al. (1997) and Hare and Mantua (2000) evaluated relationships between interdecadal climate variability and fluctuations in the abundance and distribution of marine biota.”
Maxima?… Minima?…Biota? Can’t decide if these sound more like feminine hygiene products or dance moves. I’ll forgive the author if he speaks English as a second or third language. Just so much easier to say:
Puget Sound climate alternates between warm, dry periods and cold wet periods at about 10-year cycles. The cycles impact the abundance and distribution of marine life.
(Footnotes are always great for crediting the researchers.)
In the mid-1980’s, I worked briefly for a firm which held a large editorial contract for NOAA. The task was to clean-up and translate the written work of a number of federally-funded “principal investigators” who were out roaming the Arctic, assessing the environmental impact of developing natural resources (OIL) on Alaska’s outer continental shelf. The original intention of the editorial project was good – compile the research for public consumption and produce a readable book.
I suppose the sub-text was to demonstrate “whatever we do up there, we looked into it carefully.”
The “Reports from Principal Investigators” arrived in boxes of loose pages, some typed, some handwritten, with labeled photographs and charts and sounding a lot like the first climate paragraph I quoted above. The editorial task was daunting.
I actually have a lot of admiration for those scientists (principal investigators) who were out braving the elements to watch polar bears and other Arctic mammals and birds. I have even more admiration for the ones that braved the same elements to watch algae grow. However, I sincerely hope we are now producing generations of better communicators in the scientific community – presuming, of course, generations X and Y can break their acronym/abbreviation addictions.
I’ve been out of academic, environmental and editorial loops for awhile. Please – someone tell me the writing has improved! In the mid-1980’s personal computers weren’t very portable or fast, so back then; we were probably lucky to get what we got. Even now, I suppose there’s only so much you can do electronically in sub-zero temperatures. But in our culture of rapid written communication – e-mails, text messaging, social networking – surely our connected, young scientists are getting better at using written words effectively. And if not, why not?
I departed the NOAA editorial job before the project was finished. My reasons were more idealistic than practical - based on my insider knowledge that the contracting firm’s president quadrupled the contract costs because he was going through a divorce and needed the bucks, rather than because it was actually costing more to produce the book. (I admit my idealism was bolstered by the knowledge that Griz had a good job at the time.) But some of my colleagues who hung-in informed me later the ultimate sale-price of the book would have to be $350 per copy to cover the editorial work. (Are taken-for-granted cost overruns still written into Federal contracts? I hope not.) Don’t know if anyone ever read that book. It’s probably in a library somewhere.
I have a best buddy who’s a professor at a large university. She periodically contemplates retiring (until this year). She loves to teach, but her recurring complaint always comes down to “Sometimes I just don’t know if I can read another dissertation.” So maybe it’s too early for the better communicators to have hit grad school. Of course, the eternal trail of pedantic academic-speak may be perpetuated by older academicians. Kind of like the 72-hour hospital shifts medical students endure even though it’s been proven hazardous to students and patients. Another one of those ”We had to do it, so they have to do it” rites of passage.
But there’s still some good news. With electronic publishing, all that bad writing can be made available to the hard-core researchers without ever producing more than one paper copy. And maybe now, with all the government cut-backs, we just won’t have dollars available for all those unnecessary words.
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J. D. Salinger will be 90-years-old on January 1, 2009. The Catcher in the Rye was first published in 1951. Salinger’s reclusiveness has become as legendary as his literary contributions. He seriously defends his privacy – with a high fence, occasionally with a shotgun, and persistently through legal means. A curmudgeonly, misanthrope if I ever [...]
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A Blogging Hermit Status Report
That last post on on Most Memorable Hermit Dick Proenneke flipped a switch. It flipped my blogging switch to the”OFF” position and I’ve been searching for the “ON” switch for a whole week now. I’ve had several opportunities and flashes of insight that would have easily translated into decent posts, but [...]
