GS EOH

 The students in this semester's Journey to the West Class had obviously and collectively lost their minds.

That said, my arms are ripped.

And the Tree

 Before the storm hit we had already gone down to Morse Sugar Farm to get our tree. It's strange to think that I only started getting a real tree during my previous relationship, meaning that for over fifty years I always had a fake tree. I'm sure there's some great metaphor here, which, as usual, I'm too dense to understand.

Janet fought against my urge to get the smallest and saddest tree (because it makes me sad that they're going to spend Christmas Eve alone and unloved in the lot) and instead brought home this beauty.

Black Lodge

 The other night we had our first big snowfall of the season, topping out a little over a foot. It's funny, I've been in Vermont long enough when that seems like such a blasé statement. It was only about a foot, no big whoop (to paraphrase the excellent Andy Burkhardt).

Here we were, about halfway through the storm, night was falling at the snow plow guy had just made the first of two runs. It is a homey little place.

Happy Birthday

Someone, could be anyone, had a birthday the other night. Here's a picture I snapped at table #59 (the little one in the corner, overlooking the Winooski River) at Sarducci's here in Montpelier. Hopefully I'll always make Janet this happy.

I am so incredibly blessed to have this amazing woman in my life.

Bumming Around the Camp - and Life

 Here's an absolute rarity: a pretty good picture of me. One of the students snapped this picture one afternoon on the recent Jordan trip as we were hanging out a Suleyman's camp in between adventures. I look old, but not completely decrepit.

I shoot note that I'm wearing an Ali McGuirk Til It's Gone hat (which the students kept stealing and swapping amongst themselves) and my Four Corners of the World Deli t-shirt.

Sixty Eight

 Here's an epiphany I had the other day. Up to this point I've previous owned four houses, all of which I owned for six years. So, this is my fifth house, which I moved into this year, when I'm sixty two, and using irrefutable mathematic logic, I'll live in it for six years. Now, at that point I'll be sixty eight. Theoretically we could move to Portugal in 2028 (although I suspect it would be earlier), although I guess we could have already moved and then just sold the cabin that year - or Janet might toss me out at sixty-eight, although she's an awfully kind soul (but I wear on people, obviously) - or I could just kick the bucket. I'm going to bet on the latter. If that's the case I want the props for a brilliant prediction.

Potato Bun

 Last night Janet and I were invited over to Gary and Ali's place for a Christmas dinner - some seriously great tacos. This is a duh statement, but as a parent there is simply nothing better than seeing that your kid is safe and sound and flourishing. I love the life they're building together.

The only picture I have where Ali is actually standing still. All of my other pictures look like she has just received a call from a creepy, small Japanese girl crawling out of a well.

Oh, and I got to meet Ali's new cat, Potato Bun, who took an instant like to my shoulder.

And the Universe

 I'm suffering from a headache and the universe. Physical aches, more blatantly painful than moral ones, reflect in the spirit and set off tragedies not contained in them. They make the sufferer cross with everything, and everything naturally includes every star.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 331

Brother Pessoa, I can feel your pain. Recently I made the decision that this spring's student trip will be my last. Granted, it's my twelfth, which is a lot, especially when you consider that everyone of them was essentially different. That said, I figured that I'd run more. However, a number of factors, at last count I think it was four (although it might be more), have convinced me to call it a day. I'll still travel, obviously, but instead I'm going to take that time and travel with Janet and potentially family and friends. I'll miss taking the little lunkheads overseas because I think I've opened more than a few eyes to a very different world, but, in the end, as the great Canadian philosopher reminds us, there comes a time.

Walkers

 My brother Eric and his SO Linda visited last week, and it was so wonderful to drive them around Vermont for a couple days. Amazingly, I've been up here twenty-three years and it's the first time I've dragged him out the #HoosierHellhole for a visit.

Here's a picture I snapped of Eric, Linda, and Janet when we were walking around Groton in our futile search for moose.

O Grito Do Moloch

 As part of my quest to learn Portuguese (and, as we know, I suck at languages) I'm taking a number of approaches. First off, obviously, I'm working on Duolingo, and as of this morning I think at 218 straight days. I tend to make fun of Duolingo, but they must be doing something right if I manage to jump in and knock off several lessons every morning. And, while I grouse about my utter ignorance of Portuguese, I do feel I'm learning. I also started trying to translate, sentence by sentence (one a day), a Portuguese translation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (figuring that I've read it so many times in English that it would help the process), but the sentence structure is simply way too advanced for me. So, instead, I just started working on a Portuguese language version of the Adventures of Blake & Mortimer, in this case O Grito Do Moloch (The Cry of the Moloch). My friend Kerry recently proposed, what my other friends who learned languages have proposed, that I start with young adult fiction and work my way up. And so the adventure begins.

Actually, I'm looking forward to this. I checked on Amazon if I could find other Portuguese language versions in the series but they were all $71 (WTF?). I'll pick some more up this summer when I'm back in Portugal (if I'm not back there sooner).

Calvary and calvary

 If one day I succeed in carrying the cross of my intention to the good Calvary, I'll find another calvary on that good Calvary, and I'll miss the time when I was futile, mediocre and imperfect. I will in some sense be less.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, Ch. 180

I suppose I should have included this passage in the earlier post from chapter 180, but for some reason I thought it deserved its own space. Why would the other calvary be both less and greater than the final Calvary? In some ways I guess because we were still in some ways still evolving, still experiencing life in an earlier imperfect, but also purer, sense. We will not be undergoing the beauty of living that life for the first time. It's like that passage from The Book of Disquiet where Pessoa laments that he'll never get to read The Pickwick Papers for the first time again.

Vampire Village

 Here's a picture I snapped from the walls of the Lindoso Castle, where I found myself every night that we hadn't abandoned the cottage in pursuit of air conditioning. Not featured in the picture: actual living souls in Lindoso.

The view of the graineries, the appropriate piles of grain - which both mysteriously appeared and then equally mysteriously disappeared, and the vampire village in the background.

Precarious Life

 If one day I become financially secure, so that I can freely write and publish, I know I'll miss this precarious life in which I hardly write and don't publish at all. I'll miss it not only because it will be a life, however mediocre, that I'll never have again, but also because every sort of life has a special quality and particular pleasure, and when we take up another life, even a better one, that particular life isn't as good, that special quality is less special, until they fade away, and there's something missing.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, Ch. 180

There are aspects of this rumination that remind me, oddly, or maybe not so oddly, of Marcus Aurelius. I guess the big difference is that Marcus, despite the attention he devotes to the inner life, is also a proponent of the necessity of living in the world, whereas Pessoa prefers dreaming and not leaving the inner world.

Shimmer

 And another shot from the weekend's trip to Groton.

Groton

 OK, so we missed out on moose again in Groton, but we did see this,

The #YankeeHellhole seldom disappoints.

World's Within Worlds

 Eventually I'll get caught up with the hundreds of pictures I want to post from our Portugal trip, but the world keeps getting in the way. Here's an odd little picture that I snapped on the walls of the castle in Lindoso, where I would climb every night to look at the valley, the graineries, and the vampire village itself.

Not a Fan of the Corndog

 Somehow Janet had never eaten a corndog, which speaks to a sad, isolated, and neglected life. Unfortunately, my efforts to broader her horizon at the Tunbridge World's Fair didn't work.

Seriously, how did a girl who grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts never have a corndog?

Morning Writing

 Just a quick snapshot of my little corner of the cabin, and the mood for morning writing.

Now, if I only produced writing as brilliant as this scene promises.

Big Boy

 I swiped this picture from my brother's FB feed. My Mom getting ready to tear into a Frisch's Big Boy.

By this point in her life I'm not certain that the Big Boy didn't weight more than her. For a person who was infamous for sending back meals at posh restaurants, she was always happy eating at a Frisch's or a Waffle House (there's a dissertation topic in there somewhere).

Smack Talking

 Here's a picture that the excellent Daria sent along. I sent it along to my siblings with the comment, "I'm sure she's talking smack and I'm just smiling innocently." My sister Beth responded: "You bear no innocence. Ever." I suspect that wins the Internet for the day. 

It's hard to believe it's already been two months.

The Room Upstairs

 Just another random picture from July's Portugal trip. Here's the window in the upstairs bedroom, where we slept until the unrelenting heat forced us downstairs.

Every little corner of that 13th century cottage was magical. Waking up every day and looking out over the valley at the surrounding mountains was unforgettable.

CB

 Yesterday the excellent Dasha (aka Daria), the daughter of my dear friends Steve and Kerry, shared some of the pictures she took of the wedding. Here's one I love of me giving my friend (and, as we know, little sister) Cyndi a bear hug at the wedding.

As you can tell, I was clearly very emotional. I did manage to cry quite a bit during the ceremony, which my son predicted. Part of it related, I suppose, to the fact that I was engaged twice in my fifties and both times the women changed their minds, so maybe I was just surprised someone would actually married me (grin). However, I think it was just the perfection of the moment and how right it all felt. Having CB there meant the world to me.

Dream

 I've never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life. My worst sorrows have evaporated when I've opened the window on to the street of my dreams and forgotten myself in what I saw there.

  I've never aspired to be more than a dreamer. I paid no attention to those who spoke to me of living. I've always belonged to what isn't' where I am and to what I could never be. Whatever isn't mine, no matter how base, has always had poetry for me. . . .

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 92

This passage brings up so many memories and so many emotions. One of the most obvious is my Dad famous/infamous judgment that I "was never there" when I was growing up. He didn't mean physically, but rather intellectually or maybe emotionally. In that he's probably correct. I was always someplace else, lost in a dream. It meant that I didn't complain much or involve myself in active confrontation, but it also meant that I didn't pay that much attention to what was happening around me in the family. Sadly, it also tends to explain why I'm not "there" now.

Moon

 Eventually I'll carve off time to upload a lengthy post, including too many pictures, of the graineries that saw in Lindoso and Saojo. This is not a particularly good picture (in the midst of focusing in the picture ended up a bit fuzzy - I need to check out one of the versions on my camera) but it gives a sense of the generally creepy nature of walking around the graineries at night (and also why I did it every night).

But at least it helps keep the vampires away.

Where is God

 Where is God, even if he doesn't exist? I want to pray and to weep, to repent of crimes I didn't commit, to enjoy the feelings of forgiveness like a caress that's more than maternal.

  A lap in which to weep, but a huge a huge and shapeless lap, spacious like a summer evening, and yet cosy, warm, feminine, next to a fireplace . . . To be able to weep in that lap over inconceivable things, failures I can't remember, poignant things that don't exist, and huge shuddering doubts concerning I don't know what future . . .

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 88

On my recent trip to Indiana I made my way out to Moores Hill to visit my mother's grave, as I do every time I make it back to that part of the universe. It was a weird visit because my father went with me (they were divorced something like twenty-five years before her death). I left him in the car and spent some quiet time with my mom, which ended up as a quite emotional experience. It was emotional in a good way because I was telling her that I just got married this summer and that I was happy, and that she didn't have to worry about me. After that I got back in the car and my dad almost immediately began to trash her, going over the same endless rehash of her alcoholism and how hard it was on him; this is very typical of him, and it's one of my regrets that I wasn't smarter or more emotionally advanced enough to see how he was separating us from her when we were growing up, which only made it worse, of course. It's all grown worse as he's passed into his MAGA phase, and, as people often point out, the cruelty is the point. In this instance he had the advantage of being old and increasingly infirm because I think if he were younger and more fit I would have pulled over the car and a row would have ensued (which is a rare for me; I think I've yelled at him exactly once in my entire life). Essentially, this was not the time to be trashing my mother. Of course, here's the thing: she wasn't really that supportive presence that Pessoa describes above. She was, as I said when I spoke at her funeral, "complicated." As I've often joked (or, well, not really joked), if I had grown up with my friend Dave's mom I'd be a much saner person. So, what I think I miss is the dream of a mother. It makes perfect sense that I've found such happiness in the cabin here in the woods with a loving, supportive, nurturing woman (an almost Freudian/Campbellian womb).

Polvo a Lagareiro

 Seriously, how much grilled octopus can one man eat? I almost discovered the answer to that question this summer in Portugal.

Seriously, I think I could plop down to a meal of grilled octopus (polvo grelhado) and a pitcher of sangria just about every meal and be quite content with life.

Porto Street Scene

I have nothing profound to add by way of commentary to this picture I snapped of a winding street in Porto, other than I'd love to be there right now.

Only a Voice Inside Ourself

 Have you ever considered, beloved Other, how invisible we all are to each other? Have you ever thought about how little we know each other? We look at each other without seeing. We listen to each other and hear only a voice inside ourself. . .

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 329

It's funny how a write like Pessoa, who can can come off as so isolated (and appearing to desire even more isolation) and unfeeling (and almost celebrating that unfeeling) can also write a passage which also a tremendous lament for that isolation and lack of feeling. I'm only 230 pages into the 1000 page biography of Pessoa by Zenith, so maybe I'll have a better answer for this question soon. Is it simply because these are supposed to be the words of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's better-known heteronyms, and allegedly not those of Pessoa himself, that allows for this disconnection? Or, is it simply that all of us are this emotionally disjointed?

Correio

 If you're wondering how long it takes postcards to get from Soajo, Portugal to the US the answer is seven weeks, which I'm blaming on the US postal service and not the Portuguese.

Minha mulher doce dropping postcards into the box on our first trip to Saojo.

Humans

 What would happen to the world if we were human?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Boy, did FP ask the key question there. Our inhumanity to the rest of humanity is obvious, noted, and questioned, in one form or another, in every religion, although those same religions are used to justify the most egregious acts of cruelty to our fellow humans.

Hidden

 Time continues to fly along - and, no, I'm not prepared for school starting on Monday. Today is one month since the wedding, which doesn't seem possible (both because it was clearly yesterday and also clearly five years ago). It's also difficult to wrap my head around the thought that five weeks ago we were ending our three week stay in a 13th century cottage, next to a 13th century castle, in the distant mountains of northern Portugal. Sometimes I think I actually do live as strange a life as my friends think I do.

There will be many more pictures of the castle, which was largely open all the time. This meant I could walk up there in the evenings to stroll around the ramparts (and watch the nearby vampire-laden village).

We loved our 13th century cottage, although it was also clearly not made for a climate change world. Alvaro, who is a grand landlord, is in the process of putting in air-conditioning.

Civilizations Exist Only to Produce Art and Literature

 There are people who truly suffer because they weren't able, in real life, to live with Mr. Pickwick or to shake Mr. Wardle's hand. I'm one of those people. I've wept genuine tears over that novel, for not having lived in that time and with those people, real people.

  The disasters of novels are always beautiful, because the blood in them isn't real blood and those who die in them don't rot, nor is rottenness rotten in novels.

  When Mr. Pickwick is ridiculous he's not ridiculous, for it all happens in a novel. Perhaps the novel is a more perfect life and reality, which God creates through us. Perhaps we live only to create it. It seems that civilizations exist only to produce art and literature; words are what speak for them and remain. How do we know that these extra-human figures aren't truly real? It tortures my mind to think this might be the case . . .

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, Ch. 195

OK, I told you I was hooked on The Book of Disquiet, so expect many more passages to find their way into this blog. I was trying to explain to Janet the other day that one of the most amazing and beautiful things about the book is that there are worlds within worlds, and just about the time you figure out the protagonist (one of Pessoa's famous heteronyms) you are led somewhere else unexpected. One would not have expected this elegiac paean to a Dickens novel - and, more generally, to all literature and culture - from the seemingly cynical Bernardo Soares. That said, Soares (again, a Pessoa heteronym) is a dreamer, and the path to doing anything is to do nothing, and instead dream. Of course, this passage jumps out at me because I essentially agree with it. It's doubtless why I used to view my history classes through the lenses of art and literature, and why I torture my students now with Crime and Punishment or the Shahnameh or Journey to the West or Winesburg, Ohio or Kafka on the Shore - or, soon, The Book of Disquiet.

Oh, and I'm definitely tackling The Pickwick Papers next, a novel which, criminally, I've only read portions.

Transcendence

 I have so many pictures from the Portugal adventure to post, but the general chaos of life keeps blocking my efforts. It will come out in drips and drops. Here's a lovely shot of the sky above our cottage in Lindoso.

Sadly, the sky was made even more spectacular by the smoke from all the wild fires.

The Quiet After the Storm

 OK, it wasn't actually much of a storm, but there was definitely a sense of quiet and calm and contentment after the wedding guests left. It's hard to believe that tomorrow it will be a month since that lovely day.

The wedding chapel consisted of the thirty feet walk from the backdoor of the cabin to the edge of the forest.

Minha mulher doce com a gata pequena.

A Well and the Sky

 We never know self-realization. We are two abysses - a well staring at the sky.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, Ch. 11

I made the point recently that I finished Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, and that it's one of the most amazing books I've ever read. In fact, it's so extraordinary that I doing something I've only done a couple of times previously in my decades of reading: I started it over again. I also bought Zenith's thousand-page biography of Pessoa, so, clearly, I'm hooked.  Part of it is my fascination with All Things Portuguese, but it's also a book that you know, as you read it, that it will take you - and continue to take you - to unexplored parts of your mind.

The Peace of Purple Fields

Yes, of course, I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite lines from Marcus Aurelius. After spending three weeks in Portugal this summer it's not particularly surprising that it sneaks into my thoughts almost daily. Here's one of the images that never seems to go very far away: the field above our cottage, next to the castle and the mysterious and creepy graineries. I would walk up there every night as the sun was going down. On this particular night the light was very gentle the wind was gently moving the heather (or at least what I thought was heather) around.

I will have much more to say about the graineries in future posts.

Meditations #37

 A branch severed from an adjoining branch necessarily becomes severed from the whole tree. A man, likewise, who has been divided from any of his fellows has thereby fallen away from the whole community. But whereas the branch is lopped by some other hand, the man, by his feelings of hatred or aversion, brings about his own estrangement from his neighbour, and does not see that at the same time has has cut himself off from the whole framework of society. Nevertheless it is in our power, by grace of Zeus the author of all fellowship, to grow back and become one with our neighbour again, so playing our part once more in the integration of the whole. Yet if such acts of secession are repeated frequently, they make it difficult for the recusant to achieve this reunion and restitution. A branch which has been partner of the tree's growth since the beginning, and has never ceased to share its life, is a different thing from one that has been grafted in again after a severance. As the gardeners say, it is of the same tree, but not of the same mind.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eleven

Once more Marcus Aurelius reflecting upon the human condition and the need to remember and focus upon the oneness of the human condition - and once again using nature as the fitting metaphor. I guess I'm thinking about this admonition this morning for a couple reasons. One of them I suppose is purely personal. I was strolling through the great idiotic wasteland of Facebook this morning and came across some shared post (those ones which are either generated by a company to get business or as a scam to steal your personal information; in regards to the latter, I'm always amazed by the posts that ask questions like, "What was your first car?" or "What was your favorite pet's name?", when they should just go ahead and ask for your passwords . . . but I digress) which caught my eye. This one asked your favorite memory from high school. I started to type, "When I walked across the stage at graduation and never looked back," which is true but also more than a bit of a self-serving snarky statement, so I didn't write anything. In this way I intentionally cut myself away from the tree, although, geez, it's Indiana, so it's no great loss. Still, it speaks to MA's observation. Of course, if I hadn't made a very deliberate effort to leave I'd potentially be watching FoxNews, voting GOP, and actively supporting the establishment of a racist and theocratic state. Sometimes you did need to cut the branch because the tree is rotten, and hope for a successful graft somewhere else. All of this then brought me back to Facebook and social media where it had begun, and where I actually came back into contact with many of the folks I went to high school with (at least the ones I didn't unfriend because of their very thinly veiled racist or homophobic or Islamophobic statements). The great myth of social media, much like the internet that generated it, was that it would be the instrument that brought us all together or back together. Actually, it does exactly the opposite. The illusion of connection and the reality of isolation and, at times, anonymity, actually pushes us apart and facilitates that separation. 

Stairway to Something or Other

 Naturally enough there was a 13th century castle behind our 13th century cottage in Lindoso. It was left open so you could walk in there any time you wanted, which is what I did every night (right before my routine walk amongst the graineries - more on that soon). Here's a picture I snapped one night after a wild storm (it was hailing sideways).

There are several versions of this picture, so expect this image to return several times over the next few months as I continue to unpack that amazing trip.

Tradition

 Here's a picture of my dear friend Cyndi, who brought the Wedding Key Lime Pie. I have a very long history of showing up at her house (and, well, many other houses) with key lime pies from Klinger's, so this seemed like a natural fit. We just treated it like a normal Wedding Cake and used it for the ceremonial cutting.

I'm so convinced of the brilliance of this option that I'm going to have Key Lime Pies at all my future weddings.

The View Every Morning

 Here's a view from the side porch of the 13th century cottage that we rented for our three weeks in Portugal. It's hard to believe that we woke up to this view every morning.

I'd always wake up first and clamber out to the porch with a cup of coffee to work on my Portuguese on Duolingo

Janet and G3

 I guess it's not particularly surprising that the blog future will be dominated by pictures from the wedding and the Portugal trip. Here's one of Janet and my son. She broke the cardinal rule of briding by heading out before the ceremony because she wanted to talk to my son. As a father - and soon-to-be husband - it was difficult to complain about that breach of etiquette.

Janet, unfortunately for her, ended up with the old, broken down version.

Meditations #36

 Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Two

As I continue to settle into our life here at the cabin this also seems like a natural fit. I didn't consciously decide to retreat from the world and look for a retreat like this cabin here in the woods, but it does seem to fit my current emotional state. As MA reminds us, like attracts like. It also, in a way, reminds me of the book I just finished, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Quiet, which I'll have a lot to say about, I suspect. It moved me more than any book I can think of in a while.

Meditations # 35

 To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

I guess this seemed like the appropriate MA passage as I began to mentally and emotionally unpack the experience from my recent mad dash to Indiana. It sometimes amazes me how little I actually have in common with my father, especially since way too many people somehow think we are exact copies of one another. My Dad one time cracked that it was a good thing he existed because that allowed me to figure out what to do and think: that is, exactly the opposite of what he does and thinks. I guess all fathers think things like this, although it's especially true in regards to my father's solipsistic nature. It doesn't seem that I consciously made a decision to do and think exactly the opposite of my father, although I suppose I wouldn't recognize that even if it were true. Here's the thing, maybe if I had stayed in Lawrenceburg, Indiana I would have ended up thinking that way, as also seems to be the case of everyone I went to high school with who stayed there (if Facebook is any judge).

Family

 On the trip I was able to spend some time with my Aunt Connie, which inevitably (and happily) always leads to various and sundry members of her side of the family showing up. They all live pretty close. It was wonderful to see her, and I wish we lived closer. Sadly, my Portugal souvenir for her is still locked up in my still-missing suitcase.

A nice shot of my Aunt Connie and, to her left, my cousin Nick. On the other side of the family is Amy, Pat's wife (he was working, but we did get to face time), and her kids Andrew and Lucy.

My Aunt Connie, my source for Rising Sun swag. She read that one of my Rising Sun t-shirts was in the missing suitcase, so, naturally, she drove over to RS to pick up replacements.

Yes, more Rising Sun swag, which should last me until I pass out of this realm of pain, or foolishly leave them in a suitcase . . .

Dad and Joanie

 Three days after the wedding I made a mad solo dash to Indiana to see my Dad. I was also planning on spending a couple days with my friend Dave and my brother Eric, but both of them came down with COVID while I was on the road so it ended up being one of those trips where I actually spent more time driving than I actually spent in Indiana (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). I'll have more to say about the trip once I've unpacked it.

My Dad and his wife Joanie at our traditional shrimp and grits meal in Aurora.

Philadelphia Story

 Something about this shot reminds me of the last scene from the classic movie The Philadelphia Story, although there was absolutely nothing about the wedding itself that mirrored the movie (except for a lot of great lines and laughter). Instead we had the most low-key and natural wedding you could possibly imagine, as the bride walked out of the back of the cabin and onto the platform on the edge of the forest. 

Here we are cutting the wedding key lime pie.

Quiet Rainy Morning

 It's been quite chaotic lately - getting married hard on the heels of three weeks in Portugal - and school coming along in a month - and somehow I/we are headed to Indiana for a short visit - but first KLM needs to track down our lost luggage (which has left everything in limbo). But here's a nice shot from the cabin, sitting on the porch, early, on a rainy morning.

Again, I'm feeling awfully blessed at the moment.

Minha Mulher Doce

 I posted a picture of Janet on our recent trip to Portugal on Facebook with the title minha mulher doce. That means "my sweet woman" in Portuguese, although Google translation quickly turned it into "my sweet wife," which is, technically, correct as well. Of course, this caused a mild uproar among my friends because they felt that we had spirited ourselves away to Portugal and eloped. I calmed everyone down, although we did in fact get engaged - and then married three days after we landed in the US. Obviously, much more on on this - and the Portugal trip - coming soon.

Oh, and I'm feeling very blessed.

When you forget the bouquet but remember the scrunchy.

Meditations #34

 Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Ten

I mean, well duh, but at the same time it is one of the most profound things Marcus Aurelius ever said. Not to be too pedestrian, but are you going to talk the talk or walk the walk? All too often we, and intellectuals (or pseudo-intellectuals like me) talk endlessly about what a better world might be, but do little or nothing to make it a reality. Steve and I have this conversation at the Food Shelf all the time: that's another box of food loaded into another person's trunk, and that's the best thing I'll do this week. I'm not saying I'm a good person, because I'm obviously not, but the point is that we tried to do something tangible, even in a small way, to make someone's life a little better. There have been times at division meetings when we'll be talking about the efforts of Techdren to bring laptops to Zanzibar, and one of my more effete colleagues will sniff about White Savior Complex, to which my response is something like, "Look, paraphrasing Archer, you need to shut up and keep shutting up." Actually, my response is usually angry and profanity laden, but . . . Anyway, the point is, what are you doing to make the world a better place? Do something, try and be a good person, that little action means more than all your philosophizing.

It's Never Too Early . . .

 . . . to start thinking about the winter in the #YankeeHellhole.

And five cords of wood later.

Winter Is Coming.

Papaw

 I was cleaning out my apartment before the big move and found this picture of my grandfather, aka Jum, aka Papaw. I miss him so much.

As I've said many times before, he was the only Scudder, including me, who was/is worth a damn.

Meditations #33

 Without an understanding of the nature of the universe, a man cannot know where he is; without an understanding of its purpose, he cannot know what he is, nor what the universe itself is. Let either of these discoveries be hid from him, and he will not be able so much as to give a reason for his own existence. So what are we to think of anyone who cares to seek or shun the applause of the shouting multitudes, when they know neither where they are nor what they are?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eight

For several reasons, none of them particularly surprising, this passage from the Meditations jumped out at me this morning. At several places in the Meditations Marcus Aurelius discusses the city and the individual, or, to think of it another way, the macro and the micro, or maybe the external and the internal. Last night we were watching the first public broadcast of the January 6th Commission. As the committee members laid out the treasonous actions of Trump and his followers it provided more proof (or, as Sandy Zale would opine, as if we needed more proof) of a nation that has clearly lost both an understanding of "the nature of the universe" and also of "its purpose." As I said to Janet last night, for probably the thousandth time, it's not simply the actions of one deranged, sociopathic leader, but the one hundred million Americans who are completely cool with his actions - apparently democracy is just one of those quaint ideas from the past, or simply something that happens to other people. Now, on the smaller, more personal, more internal level, these words resonated with me as well. Yesterday I finally, officially, physically, moved into Janet's cabin in Calais. Obviously, to get to this moment I've needed to devote time to trying to understand both the nature of the universe and its purpose, but it's also clearly just the beginning of the process. Every time we cross a boundary it is the perfect time for that manner of self-reflection, and this is no exception.

The Cabin in the Woods

 Yes, life continues its dizzying and illogical run. In November I was hard on the heels of being dumped, twice, in the space of a couple months (with the big dump increasingly a thing of distant and indistinct memory) and grinding through a difficult semester - and facing the end of the year and the thoughts that maybe I was just meant to be alone. And then I met a girl (and how often, good and bad, has that been the precursor to major change). And now six months later I'm moved into her cabin in the woods. Obviously, much more on this later. In the meantime, a few pictures.

Hanafuda

 So many rabbit holes, so little time. My fascination (thanks to the Criterion Channel) with Japanese film noir has not only led to a junior-level class that I'll be teaching next fall but also to a series of games based on the handfuda deck. I was telling Janet about Mirahiro Shinoda's great 1964 film Pale Flower, starring Ryo Ikebe and Mariko Kaga in iconic roles. This led to a screening and a tumble down a rabbit hole to figure out the gambling game played by the yakuza in the film. This led to to the handfuda deck - and the many different games that you can play with the deck (although we still haven't sorted out the actual gambling game they play in the movie) - and the purchase of several different hanafuda decks. Apparently I've found a good partner for rabbit hole spelunking. 

Pale Flower is highly recommended! It will be featured prominently in next fall's class.

Our initial hanafuda deck, which we tracked down, like everything in the universe, on Amazon. This also included the purchase of a couple supplemental books as we try and figure out what the hell is going on with hanafuda. Koi koi!!

I think this has turned out to be our favorite hanafuda desk (although, as a purist in all things, I have an affection for the original one).

I mean, with the exception of the extra symbols that would allow you to use the deck in a "regular" card game (again, as a purist I disapprove), how could you not love these cards? The Japanese love their supernatural.