Instability

Monday

• Weather predictions are often wrong, seasons disappoint expectations.  The whole world beyond a narrow local environment seems out of control.  Some seek stability in scientific certainty, some in spiritual foundations, some in calm infinite vistas of eternal nature.  But science revises conclusions, religions reinterpret revelations, and nature itself mutates and shifts.
• A rock is stable.  People are not, and probably should not try to be.  A perfect couch potato is a poor example of human possibility, though it has achieved a state as still and certain as death.  We were probably born from thunder to ride the storm, and whatever we may do will involve change and catastrophic lightning. That is the truly inconvenient truth.

Tuesday

Inconstant illusions enliven dreams

But when awake

Foster madness

Wednesday

• Unstable life on Earth is based on water, which is weirdly unstable in its own way.  Within our “normal” temperature ranges, it can be solid, liquid, and gas at the same time.  As a vapor, it surrounds us at all times, mostly invisible except when condensing to form clouds, but can congeal to magically fall as liquid or solid.  As a solid it floats _ oddly compared to many other substances _ and can when thick enough deform, flow, and carve channels through rocks.  As a liquid its weird properties _ such as ionization, ability to dissolve almost anything, tendency to deconstitute into its elements under certain conditions _ are too numerous to mention.  Nothing lives without it.
• We just take it for granted.  Hey, it’s water, all over the place.  Maybe it will snow soon.  I need to drink a glass.  On and on, just thinking it is one of the more normal eternal things we can possibly encounter in the universe.  As stable as we may wish our chaotic lives would be.  But if water were an inert substance, we would not exist.  I should learn a lesson from that regarding what I am and ought to be. 

Thursday

“Ah, this is so nice,” exclaims Joan, sinking into a bench at the Arboretum greenhouse.  Flowers are in bloom, the warm air is filled with semi-jungle scents, we have yet to explore the wondrous rooms of orchids.  “Too bad everywhere can’t be like this.”

“It takes a lot of work,” I note.  “All of this could get destroyed in a day or two if the heat failed.  And somebody has to trim and water and keep the insects down.  It’s beautiful, but not natural. “

“This time of year,” she continues, “I don’t really care for the natural.”  She gestures at the bare trees beyond the glass windows.  “Unless, of course, we were in Florida.”

“Oh, they have their issues too.  The whole world does.  It’s one unstable, inch-away-from-disaster, beautiful mess.”

“I guess,” she looks more closely at the bird-of-paradise next too us.

“That’s what I don’t like about the political slogans this year,” I continue, ignoring the fact that she is ignoring me.  “Make America great again implies some kind of golden age.  This is the golden age.  Make America greater I might be able to support.”

“Oh, relax and look around, this is wonderful.  What’s that?” she points at a tree.  I read the label, but she does too.  “Ah, coffee.  Interesting.”

‘We’re all hothouse flowers now,” I grumble.  “If our heat, water, food, electricity, police, social services, or anything else we expect fail, we will be dry and dead as quickly as anything here.”

“Stop it,” she commands.  “Unstable or not, we are having a perfectly wonderful time, and at least this afternoon the flowers seem just as happy as we should be.”  As usual, she has the last word.

Friday

• Long Island is probably no older than modern humans _ it was underwater when North America’s crust was pushed down by weighty glaciers not much more than fifty thousand years ago.   It’s composed of all that is left from those frozen bulldozers.  Mostly just sand mixed with clay _ which is just sand ground finer.  In such a short time were inland mountains worn away.  A hundred years from now, parts of this land may still remain, for a while, above water after Florida submerges in the rising seas.  The way things are going, it may outlast people.
• Soil is even more recent.  I sometimes contemplate the long view and mistakenly think the natural world stays quiet and stable as our lives flicker briefly and vanish.  But that is not so, not for rocks, nor mountains, nor entire large islands.  For that matter, most of these mudflats themselves are composed of the decaying remains of not-so-ancient trees, fish, and birds.  I may regard my existence as brief, but everything else that I love also has a surprisingly short role in this world.

Saturday

• Human intelligence and consciousness is probably rare or unique in the universe.  I’m sure life exists in many places, but the peculiar circumstances that led to homo sapiens and the extinction of other hominid lines are unlikely even at gazillion to one odds.  Nothing else on earth _ not anything ever in the sea over billions of years, not dinosaurs who roamed and fought for hundreds of millions of years, not even other mammals and primates,  have more than a glimmer of the toolmaking,  learning, logic, and multigenerational culture that people possess.  And it is all based on climate instability.
• Dinosaurs, like sea creatures, lived in unchanging and almost static environments.  Land mass configuration led to stable climates just about everywhere _ what changed, changed slowly.  Specialization led to dominance, but also to extreme niche sensitivity.  It remains an open question what might have evolved from dinosaurs were they not wiped out by a meteor, but even the next age of mammals was rather sluggish until the ice ages began.
• Then, suddenly, came a time of ongoing slow-motion catastrophes.  Rising or falling oceans, extensive floods, extreme extended droughts, periods of freezing cold, areas of tremendous heat.  Over and over, never exactly the same way in the same place twice.  Hominids began to despecialize, out of desperate necessity, but nevertheless were ruthlessly slaughtered by unexpected climatic anomalies.  Many lines failed, our own branch survived by the skin of its teeth, apparently at one time reduced to a tribe with only a few thousand individuals, if that many.  And it did so only because of a set of genetic accidents which allowed the development of _ yes, exactly _ toolmaking, learning, logic, and multigenerational culture.
• Our core being remains animalistic, our drives are ruled by hormones and sensation.  We can apply logic and learning to our situation.  We are conscious of the contradictions.  Nothing else we know of comes close _ not whales or dolphins, or dogs, or cats, or rats, or parrots or anything at all.  We are unique on this planet, now, because we handle instability.  We actually enjoy instability and are bored without it.  When deprived of change, we retreat into dreams and entertainment to keep us happy.
• So _ what are the chances that life anywhere else went through _ and survived _ such a phase?  The Goldilocks and Anthropocentric view of the universe _ our universe _ seems more and more likely.  I’m kind of sorry we won’t get to meet space monsters and their foes.  But that just seems incredibly unlikely.  And, never forget, we ourselves have not yet survived the ice ages.

Sunday

• Speaking of ice ages ….  A blizzard yesterday has left almost two feet of snow everywhere.  There could hardly be a greater difference between two days ago and this morning, when leaving the house is difficult if not impossible.  So fragile is the equilibrium taken for granted that a shift of ten degrees one way or another determines if precipitation will be relatively harmless water, or annoying and sometimes dangerous snow. 
• We fortunately live in the electricity age, when such vast storms are almost inconsequential novelties.  We stay warm, we watch news, we have light, we cook, we even drive and push snow where we want.  No other civilization has had such benefits.  If we conquer instability, at least to make it a harmless relic like the cheap thrills of an amusement park ride, it will be because we adjust fully to the use of limitless electricity.  The word power is often thrown about as if it is synonymous with our “industrial age,” but none of it goes to the heart of our being like our casual use of all that is electric _ a harnessing of the unstable shells of electrons in atoms _ to gain control over a completely unstable world.

Off Season

Monday

• Properly speaking, Huntington is not a resort community.  However, the harbor itself is a resort-type recreation area, filled with beaches, moorings, and artifacts which support summer leisure activities.  Those are largely abandoned and ignored in the heart of winter each year, although depending on the actual weather some hardy souls continue to use boats when possible.  Furthermore, as the temperatures continue colder, many of the older residents migrate south for a while, to be joined by families in a month when recently culturally iconic “winter break” arrives.
• My own happiness with such a fallow period is limited to enjoying silence _ leaf blowers have been stored for a month or so.  Once in a while I will head for an empty town beach, or _ if snow cover is limited as it is this year _ to empty fields and woods in other parks.  Pedestrians have also been culled to the hardy few, hardly recognizable in heavy attire even though I have seen the regulars almost every day for a long time now.

Tuesday

I love to go where crowds avoid

Beach in winter, woods in rain

Meditate or just enjoy

Nature singing pure again

Romantic poets felt the same

Artists wandered empty hills

Mountains, seacoasts, blasted plains

Freed of shallow cultured ills.

Alone so happy, yet compelled

To soon return where I belong

I seek companionship as well

Madness balanced by the throng.

Wednesday

• Restrooms locked.  Picnic area cleared.  Lifeguard chair removed, toll booth vacant.  Mostly, sand and playground are devoid of people as well.  On nice days, or if cabin fever has built too high, small children very bundled run around the open beach.  Every day _ rain, shine, sleet, snow, bitter wind, or raging storm _ someone will be in the parking lot, often not leaving warm dry car, letting their dog or dogs experience the outdoors.
• Off season even in truly seasonal places has permanent residents.  I may fantasize that they are even more deserted than here, but actually recreation areas are all equivalent.  Better outerwear has made outdoors year-round activity accessible to everyone.  I know that is a good thing. I wish more folks would take advantage of it for our collective mental sanity even as I gripe about how there is nowhere to be alone except in my own house.

Thursday

“I wish we were going away again this year,” grouses Joan, for the millionth time.

“I’m perfectly happy to stay here,” I reply.  “Besides, it’s been mild.  Certainly better than last winter.”

“I can’t stand the cold.”

“Dress warmer.”

“I miss flowers growing.”

“Get some more indoor plants.”

“It gets dark too soon.”

“No different than anywhere we would go on vacation in the Northern Hemisphere.”

“I can’t believe all the people who are still here.”

“Me neither.”

“I hate winter.”

“I kind of enjoy it.”

Irreconcilable differences.

Friday

• In spite of modern materials and paints, marine life such as barnacles still manages to cling to or thrive on submerged hulls, cutting efficiency.  High tech engines need service and recalibration.  Birds and dirt manage to coat exposed surfaces.  An expensive annual off-season ritual involves hauling craft out of water, power washing everything, wrapping tightly in shrink wrap, and stashing them somewhere safe until spring.  This reduces shoreline land, but waterfowl probably approve more open water and flyways. 
• I know I approve more open water.  Summer harbor can resemble a junkyard, filled with odd detritus that people convince themselves they might want to use sometime, but rarely do.  Winter’s crowded storage lots are an inch from actually being junkyards, sometimes literally if anxious owners who have finally had enough are unable to unload their “investments.”  

Saturday

• Greatly simplified, until a few centuries ago, Northern Hemisphere civilization was organized by season.  Agricultural production forced sowing, growth, harvest, and fallow at certain times of year.  That other favorite activity _ war _ was generally bounded by when the peasants were available and when the ground was dry _ which usually meant it was only waged in summer.  Washington, after all, went into “winter quarters” at Valley Forge, as did the British at Philadelphia and New York.
• Less than a hundred years later, with mechanized agriculture providing possibility, the American Civil War inaugurated our current era of any battle any time _ today from climate-controlled machines.   Rural populations the world over have migrated to cities that know no season at all.  There is no universally valid cycle of planting or harvest, nor on-season, nor off-season for anything else. Tropical bananas, or tomatoes and strawberries grown in greenhouses almost anytime anywhere, are harbingers of what will come.
• My wife, for one, would not care.  She’d love to live in a spaceship or mall at a constant 72 degrees exposed to exactly 12 hours of sunlight each day.  Humans evolved in relatively climate-steady Africa, so any yearning for seasons is hardly instinctual.
• I wonder, though, whether our 24x365 world is corrosive to civility.  Until civilization itself adapts, I think many people miss enforced down time.  Being constantly needed and always on call is possibly necessary and rewarding for parents of young children.  It is hardly a benefit when working for a faceless corporation.
• I’m not trying to bring back a golden past.  Good riddance to days of slaves and peasants chained to land and sun!  But I do not believe our individuals and institutions have yet come up with the right replacement for us to live relatively happy and balanced lives.  

Sunday

• Hecksher Park also has its off-season, although this winter it may seem more like off-weather.  This playground being deserted probably has more to do with wet and clouds on this relatively mild day.  In any case, at almost every park, people have decided they will be happier and healthier if they get out and jog or run or walk or ride.  It remains a rare day indeed when there are no people in any given open space.
• People driven by media fads are as much fun to watch as any ducks responding to instinct.  While I recognize that I am just one of the herd, I always manage to maintain some spirit of detached observer.  I mean, I may make gentle mock of obsessed overweight seniors grimly striding their triple rounds of the pond, but here I am obsessively taking pictures and writing obscurely.  The duality of being in and out at the same time _ whether as part of a crowd or as part of nature _ is one of the grand joys of the game of life.

January Frost

Monday

• Last year, rosebuds had been blasted black by mid-October, permanent snow-cover settled in shortly thereafter, and by now everyone was fervently awaiting a January thaw that never arrived.  In contrast, Huntington Harbor’s first hard freeze is predicted in the next few days.  Roses, weeds, birds and squirrels take it in stride.  People worry.
• Averages, like the Equator and hope, are useful imaginary mental tools that help us make sense of and survive in a chaotic universe.   But meteorologists, mathematicians, physicists, and digital wizards who mistake their equations and models for reality are as dangerous to our mental health as any other completely certain religious fanatics.  We need to live as squirrels or birds, not as models.  We ought not waste too much time (although some time may be useful) worrying about  temperature and rainfall variations or limited projections of possible futures.   

Tuesday

We dream first flakes, white whisper, settle soft

Instead sleet sting, cold chop, deep drift

Incongruous

Wisdom’s beauty simmers slow

Reconciliation

Wednesday

• Even at twelve degrees, underlying ground remains warm.  Only a skim of newly-formed ice coats the sweetwater pond. Tender green weeds and leaf buds have been flash frozen but so far show little damage.  As with many fatal trauma victims, the full effects of injury will only show up later, either when plants wilt and shrivel in the first thaw, or later in spring when blossoms and leaves fail to develop.
• I admit that although I enjoy seasons, this unusual late onset of winter suits me.  Although there is still plenty of time for cold and snow, days are already notably longer as spring rushes closer.   Both artificial calendars and solar activity increasingly signal more benevolent weather in the future.  I snuggle into my parka, content with the way things are going.

Thursday

Joan and I watch bandit pigeons and more desirable cardinals, bluejays, and woodpeckers diving, strutting, and chasing each other for a chance at the birdfeeder.  “There were a lot more birds when I was young,” she remarks.

I groan sarcastically.  “Oh, yeah, and the winters were harsh, the summers long , and spring filled with fresh flowers and no showers.”

“Well, I remember deep snows.”

“But that’s the trouble with the past,” I note.  “Since we have sixty-odd years of seasons, we select out the few that made an impression.  And that’s before we begin exaggerating.”

“I guess.  But winters were colder, I know the snow was intolerable even to my parents when I was little.”

“I’m sure you remember it that way.  But the last two years just now have been no picnics.  Our kids will surely remember them as being as bad as anything you can think up.”

“With global warming, that may be the only snows they remember anyway.”

“There you go again.  Why does everyone always want immediate apocalypse?  I doubt our immediate descendants will live through either an ice age or a fire age.  Things change a bit more slowly than we expect.”

“I don’t know,” Joan says stubbornly, “last year to this year is a pretty drastic change.  And the storms around the world seem to be getting a lot worse.”

“I’ll agree with you there,” I admit.  “Who knows?”

We turn back as the birds suddenly scatter, frightened away by the neighbor’s prowling old yellow cat, which seems not to notice the cold at all.

Friday

• Each season has nearly unique lighting effects.  Winter light is affected by dry atmosphere, ice particles in high transparent cloud layers , and low sun angle.  The lovely pastels which result are easily contrasted with stark bare branches.  Real photographers capture it better, but anyone can observe just as well by simply taking some time.
• We each choose how we wish to focus our spare moments.  Some try to connect with the electronic networks, being aware of sparrows falling in far off lands and wondering what it may mean.  I prefer to force myself into the cold, enjoying solitary moments at a deserted beach with only gulls for company.  Well, it is true that there is a scattering of cars back in the parking lot where people eat lunch or talk on their phones _ Long Island is a crowded place.  But I had the sands, the shells and the sky to myself for a few delicious moments.

Saturday

• No day is absolutely average, no season repeats exactly.   We think our perception of time is reality, and our lives are the measure of normal.  But nature moves more slowly than any of us.  Except, of course, for its occasional massive demonstrations.
• From the standpoint of seasons, and years, and centuries, humankind is like those speeded pictures of scurrying ants, rushing about building mud mounds, fighting, and moving on.  Once in a while the mound is flattened by buffalo, or flooded, or attacked by an anteater, but generally it comes and goes regardless of monsoon, snow, and chill.
• We consider our works as mighty and potentially eternal.  We proudly point to the Pyramids or to the ruins of the Colosseum as proof.  Yet we could as easily remember drowned Alexandria, volcano-choked Pompeii, and the vine-covered ruins of the Mayan peninsula.  All destroyed, all deserted, all irrelevant to the humans that came afterward.
• That is why most scenarios _ especially psychological scenarios _ of the future are wrong.  People may or may not fight to preserve Venice, Shanghai, or New York.  They may simply move inland a bit as the seas rise.  They might even move undersea as the temperature and winds rise.  They will look back at the ruins and think it applies to them as little as the Pyramids do to you or me.
• We are aware finally that the climate itself changes faster than our ancestors thought, even though they lived through such events as the Little Ice Age.  Only the perception of average stability is completely false.  A big volcanic outburst will chill the world for a while, unusual sun activity may heat it, and a flip of the magnetic field would wreak merry hell on our comfortable illusions.
• So enjoy the media comparisons of today to the average, worry about lack of rain or too much wind if you will, but none of it really is as it seems.  And the future is as unknown as ever it was.

Sunday

• Short sharp January freeze thawed already.  Seems strange to see the harbor so empty, prepared for bad weather that seems perpetually predicted next week.  People are equally confused, some in heavy coats, others jogging in shorts.  Plants as uncertain as humans, but ducks are probably just happy to have so much open water.
• Weather announcers try to scare everyone, particularly with wind chill factor.  Since there is always some kind of breeze along the shoreline, I mostly ignore everything except a howling gale, and base my outerwear protocol on absolute temperature at the house.  I find that dressing properly, no matter what the season, is required for maximum enjoyment of my daily stroll.

Resolutions

Monday

• Reality simply exists, without volition nor plans.  Perhaps “simply” is a poor choice of wording for something so infinitely variable.  Sky, clouds, water, all things on above and below this thin shell of habitat which confines life.  Another day, another year, another bit of imagination applied. 
• Resolutions are traditionally made once a year.  Usually one vows to be better (never worse) in some way.  And sometimes that intention is kept for almost a week.  Our lives are momentary and constructed of complete instants one after another.  If I am to be better, I must be so each second.  The sky, clouds, and water may not care, but I should.

Tuesday

Resolutions seem so strong

Don’t last long

A wish is just a wish

To really change

We must exchange

Instant soul for soul

Become another

But why bother

What should matter

Is more laughter

Joy creating joy

Love inflation

Appreciation

Day to better day

Strive and cope

Live with hope

Wednesday

• There are people who cannot figure how to enjoy a “nasty” day.  Fog and drizzle following sleet with about the first average temperature of December.  Ducks don’t need resolutions to handle weather.  Most waterfowl have already followed instinct to migrate to appropriate locations.  Others _ not this little bufflehead _ have further retreated to some leeward cove to escape misty wind.
• My resolutions no longer follow years, or even seasons, and are more limited to each day.  Mine was “get out of the house, take a walk, snap some pictures, and think about what to write tomorrow.”  If I am lucky my resolutions may harden into a schedule that is nearly instinctual.  Then, hopefully, I can be more like this tiny creature and apparently frolic about no matter the clouds and temperature.

Thursday

Joan and I out with friends, finishing up salads, nibbling bread.  “Any resolutions?” asks Janet.

“More exercise.” “Better Diet.”  “Spend time with kids.”  “Travel somewhere.”  And, to laughter, “Make it to another year!”

“But that’s what it does come down to, isn’t it?”  I ask.  “Our resolutions get a little shorter and more precise as we get older.  More personal, less idealistic.”

“Sure, I’m not about to change the world,” smiles Joe.  “I doubt I’m even about to change myself.”

“Agree with that,” I add, “sometimes just getting out of bed and doing something is about all the resolution I can actually do any given day.”

“None of us are that bad, yet,” protests Joan.  “We still stay active.  I have projects and I know Janet has some as well.  There’s gardens and dinners and …”

“Yep,” agrees Joe, “Lots and lots of chores.  Don’t sound much like resolutions to me.”

“Well, I guess people who made it this far are pretty much in the groove they want to be in,” notes Janet.

“Or have to be in,” adds Joe darkly.

“Well, I don’t care much,” Joan insists.  “There’s lots to do, that’s the point.”

“Don’t you want to change anything?”  Janet inquires.

“Nah, not much,” say Joe and I almost simultaneously.

“Well, you should.”

“Maybe, but we’ve put in our time.  No guilt.  Just enjoy the year and hope we get a few more.”

“Yeah, exactly,” I say as the entrees arrive, “Carpe diem because we sure don’t know how many more diems we’re gonna get to carpe.”

Friday

• Shiny new year, bright with promise, filled with hope, casting off old fears…  But tides roll as always, sunset and sunrise cycle as before,  darkling season remains.  Individuals and entire species do what they must to survive, one day at a time. Plants and animals know nothing of new year, or promise, or hope.
• Real magic is not in artificial calendar resets, but in the very fact that there is continuity.  Life rolls on through tides, days and nights, seasons without end.  We alone perceive the connection, and assign imaginary demarcations of years or eras or eons.  Our magic is in creating intertwined stories all the way back to an imagined beginning of the universe, or, for that matter, to this same calendar day,  exactly one arbitrary human year ago.

Saturday

• God and the universe need no resolutions _ what was, was; what is, is; what will be, will be.  Only a sense of alternative futures leads to plans, fears, hopes.  Some life may dimly sense choice, but most is blind existence, instinct, or training.  No rock, tree or bacteria resolves to change for the better or worse.  Only in human imagination do rabbits swear to outwit hunters.
• We are deeply identical to all life in chemical composition, genes, attributes.  Objectively, our differences are trivial or nonexistent.  Yet we are quantitatively and qualitatively removed from nature, in infinite ways.  “Higher” animals may know fear, but I do not believe they are aware of beauty.  A mighty list of such anomalies would include art, writing, engineering,  good, and evil.
• So I study the natural world, but what should I learn, what should I apply?  I am so like and  so unlike a blade of grass, an insect, a clam, you.  What does a gypsy moth _ fighting for survival against terrible odds, decimating forests, threatening its own species by destroying its necessary ecology _ teach me?  Is such doomed behavior inevitable?  What could one moth do?  How much do I resemble that moth?
• My contemplations realize that no answers exist, for answers, like choices, are human constructs.  There is only tension, resolution, outcome.  Preserving balance is a game of which only we are aware.  Does that make it less real?  I think not.  Appreciating the game may be one of the higher goals of our consciousness.
• I am most unnatural.  In all the universes that ever are or might be, I am unique.  In my self-absorbed being, I feel important.  I may understand that feeling to be wrong, but just by understanding it is wrong, I prove it is true.  A lovely, illogical game rolling in syncopation with our magnificent perception of time’s tapestry.

Sunday

• Nature continues brimming with infinite wonders.  Sun rises unnoticed, winds blow evoking only wishes that they become more mild.  Crows flap from branch to branch with raucous calls, above squirrels chasing each other ceaselessly.  Only the scents of the activities of people remain.  Thus it seems it was always and will always be.  Yet this entire world is a fragile slice of time with nature and people appearing briefly on a tiny stage.
• I dare not resolve to spend more time in wonder.  Part of the mystery is that I cannot.  There are practical things to do, limits to meditation.  I am a microscopic part of the moving pageant, and if I stand still regarding how magnificent the show appears I will only be trampled by the passing parade.  But once in a while, each day, I must try to find a quiet space and continue to marvel at all there is, and be grateful I can continue to do so.