Exotic Locals

Monday

• My parents loved Bing Crosby, so I grew up listening to his cover of “Faraway places with strange sounding names.”  It referenced Spain, and Siam, and a general wanderlust to be somewhere else.  Probably coincidentally, I have visited and lived in many places during my life.  By no means an inveterate traveler, but certainly not someone who always stayed in his native neighborhood forever.
• As I grow older, definitions change, a phenomenon I note not just in myself but in my peers.  For many of us, a mile or more from our houses has suddenly become “faraway places.”  We like our comforts, we enjoy the familiar, we get just a little peevish when we have to give them up for more than a few hours.  It is not that we are scared of travel, and even do it relatively often, but only if we can wrap a good deal of our usual environment around us like protective bubble wrap.
• Some days, even getting out of the house and walking a few blocks to the harbor can seem like heading for a faraway place.  Perhaps my memory dims, but each moment seems new, each view seems fresh, many things I notice I have rarely seen before.  I guess I should feel sad at my atrophying senses, but I am grateful that I can increasingly perceive that what others see as boringly normal I regard as exotic.
• There is happiness in sculpting local into distant.  Just as we never cross the same river twice, we never truly view the same scenery.  Waves, mists, leaves, clouds, animals _ always different.  The trick is to focus on the subtle and render it sublime.  Not unlike the purpose of art.  

Tuesday

• Tides go in and out, predictable with Newtonian mathematics and no requirement to understand Einstein.  Even so, they are complex, and vary with barometric pressure almost as much as with sheer gravity.  It is always a shock to those who live by the sea to visit a lake and see docks built just above water level.  The reward, of course, is the periodic exposure of mud, sand, shells, and detritus, not to mention the antics of fiddler crabs and squirting clams.  In winter, all the activity is less apparent, but it is there anyway.
• As I walk each day, I try to be as aware of the moon as of the weather.  Some spring tides are incredibly low and high, but sometimes planets and storms align and we have super slosh over the low highways.  Obviously, the level becomes a bit higher each year, in spite of the claims of those who screech we cannot know.  I imagine the fish, crabs, and clams hardly notice the tides _ it’s people who are the real enemies.

Wednesday

•  “The farther you go, the less you know.”
• To be aware, you need to stare.

Thursday

• If we visit somewhere just once, it is frozen in our minds for all time, with its good and bad, often shading to good because of our usual glow of nostalgia on, say, a vacation.  Locations closer to home evolve rapidly, but we hardly notice unless we make an effort to remember how things were.
• For example, just in our harbor, I have seen a huge barge delivering oil to large tanks,  red shacks decaying picturesquely on a pier,  lobstermen setting out and storing traps each winter, a lovely larch tree shedding needles each autumn.  All gone, like much else, although this has fortunately been an area all but frozen in time.  That too is changing, as old people die and move, their house torn away, and huge monstrosities built on tiny lots.  An awful lot of big old trees are being trimmed severely or cut down completely _ none of the new people want their harbor view obscured by branches and leaves, even though this clearing ruins landscapes.
• But on a daily basis, I have no trouble.  What is more shocking _ and sometimes prevents me from even desiring a new trip _ are the immense changes where I have not viewed them since my long ago visit.  Most of them, in my opinion, are for the worse.  Farms gone, open fields turned to asphalt, all the normal complaints.  Well, in all honesty, some of those memories bright in my mind are from over half a century ago.    The world moves on, whether I want to ride along or not.

Friday

• Chinese mountain landscapes rarely include pictures of birds, although somehow they always give the idea of being painted from a flying perspective.  On the other hand, their close studies of birds can be magnificent.  Waterfowl around here of the common type _ ospreys, gulls, several types of ducks, cormorants, swans and of course geese galore.  In the summer terns and egrets liven the place up.  Crows are hardly considered waterfowl, but they often crash the shoreline party.
• I rarely photograph them.  I’m not much of a wildlife photographer, even if I had proper equipment, which I don’t.  So by accident and laziness my photos sometimes have some of the elements of brush drawings.  

Saturday

Sun and wind take a break from beaming and blowing.  “How’s it going, Wind?” asks Sun.  “Ready for another contest.”

“Oh, not that tired old thing with getting a traveler to take off his coat,” replies Wind.  “And the last time we tried to get them out of their automobile nothing worked.  They seem to just ignore us.”

“We could team up, I guess,” says Sun hopefully.  “You know we have a good combination in drying out crop lands.  That always gets them stirred up.”

“Or freezing the oceans and rivers solid …” remarks Wind.

“I don’t know,” notes Sun dubiously.  “Those pesky devils seem to be doing something to the planet.  Not easy to chill it down enough any more.”

“They sure annoy me with those itchy scratchy things they keep flying through me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sun agrees.  “They’re even starting to throw stuff at me.”

“Even big storms don’t do what they used to …”

“Too clever for their own good.”

“Well,” declares Wind, “just a little more clever and they’ll leave the planet to us.  I’ll miss them sometimes.”

“Not me.  Oops, there’s another sunspot I have to take care of.  Later….”

“Woosh!”

Sunday

Unusual views

Water, hills, houses, sky

Overflowed people

Home

Weird as anywhere

My Selfish Tao

Monday

• “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”
• It’s odd for a religious book to declare at the beginning that the words which follow can be ignored.  Most religions have holy script directly dictated from gods, through visions, dreams, magical tablets, trances, ancient stories _ and it is assumed that such holy writings are exact and perfect transcriptions.  But the fact is words can never exactly describe experience _ love, happiness, fire, a tree.
• Our intelligence is centered on discovering useful patterns, whether deciphering speech out of sounds, or guessing at what our vision glimpses, or connecting cause and effect over time.  Naturally we have a “religious impulse” that seeks the pattern of our lives, of our meaning, of our future.  People usually find something to believe in _ and honest ones understand that the true core of faith cannot be described in words.
• The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu continues, improbably, with more words. Its very nature encourages one to make their own protestant version.  I would call it a kind of selfish Tao, something only useful for me, my own interpretation of words translated from ideograms translated from an old man’s wisdom.  What I tell you I believe is not the eternal what I believe.
• Over the years, spelling has changed.  I hold fast to my own printed relics which have ancient meaning for me.  Spelling matters even less than words, and words do not matter at all.  Take Yin and Yang, the clash of dualities orbiting the core of the Tao.  I have also come to the belief that the universe is constructed of tensions such as gravity vs. momentum.  The words are different. 
• But I like the selfish Tao.  It is not about telling anyone what to do to satisfy the gods.  It is about living in a useful and common-sense manner.  It is very much about meditating on life, and being mindful of all that is around us, and trying to find our place in the world without disturbing the center of that natural harmony too much.

Tuesday

• Traditional Chinese wall paintings are often heavily influenced by traditions of the Tao.  In them, mountains and forests rest peacefully in mists, as scholars wander paths or sip wine in pavilions, while here or there a boat or deer accent the landscape.  It’s a benign world, devoid of grizzly bears and snakes, filled with the awesome but tamed power of nature.  Quiet contemplation is the goal. 
• Until recently, Western painting was far more about individual people and religious or historical mythology, filled with blood and struggle.  I appreciate these various viewpoints.  I continue to see scholars in mountains as older satisfied folks, and I regard struggle as a proper pastime for youth.  Elders thrashing constantly, youth indolently bored, are both perversions of biological destiny.

Wednesday

• Some Taoists desperately sought immortality.
• Unaware, we experience eternity each moment.

Thursday

• Religion is one of the strangest human impulses, at least in its manifestations of trying to gain mind control over others.  It is relatively easy to understand and even justify people who fight because they want or need what other people have.  Introspection reveals that each of us might seek personal power or unleash anger against others.  But to struggle bitterly, even to the death, to force an abstract and unknowable philosophy on everyone around us?  That is incomprehensible to a sane logical mind.
• The clearest justification given is that religion provides social glue, making tribal members conform to normal and acceptable standards.  Yet there are societies which do not need the strong whiff of authoritarian supernaturalism to thrive. 
• I prefer my own version of contemplations such as the Tao, simply because it does not contain a lot of odd rules and strictures.  It is good to understand I am a small part of something greater, good to be advised to study the deeper harmonies of the world, good to be encouraged to seek what is right.  I accept all that, and mix in whatever else I may desire. 
• But I would never force you to accept what I think in this nebulous realm.  I resent all those who try to do that to me.  I don’t care if they are sincere, or charlatans, or worse.  If a god has not spoken to me directly, I do not particularly want to hear what someone else’s god thinks I should do.

Friday

• Wandering the many tame woods and meadows of local parks always presents stunning vistas, unique close ups, and strange juxtapositions.   A feast for the eyes, relaxation for the body, enchantment for the soul _ even without pavilions in which to rest or a servant carrying plum wine and writing materials.  Utilizing and protecting these treasures has fortunately become a priority of nearly everyone.
• When strolling about, I find myself in one of three moods _ careful examination of things I may not have noticed before; mindless soothing surroundings as I follow internal trails of thoughts; or a passive but enriching meditation which I only with difficulty later recall.  All are important to me in their own way; all relate to my conception of the Tao.
• My Tao concentrates on similar aspects of being:  The Universe is infinite and has been around a long time and has done quite well without me.  I should understand interrelated patterns of the whole before attempting to master specialized details, no matter what I am trying to do.  And I should always be consciously attempting to think out of the box and not take my ancient preconceptions for granted.  It is a wonderful privilege to be alive and conscious _ no matter what, I should appreciate everything.

Saturday

Well I came upon a Chinese monk, he was walking along a horse trail

When I asked him where he was going this he told me ….

“I’ve been asleep some thousands years, discouraged at the ways of man, and I hoped to find relief in this new century.”

“Ah,” I understood.  “Master Lao Tzu, this is a smartphone.  I can show you …”  But he needed no instruction, of course.  He perched on a cold bench in deserted Caumsett, cruising the internet for an hour or more, with not a sound. 
Finally he looked up, sadly discouraged.  “I see it is no better, in spite of your many advances into the world of things.  People still kill, still fight, still hate and still waste their lives in ignorance.”

“But we have electricity, scientific understandings, biological wonders, grand entertainments.”

“All true,” he replied.  “Yet I find this park a more refreshing place than your entire electronic world, this tree more real and yet even now not contemplated correctly.”

“So you will go to sleep more thousands of years?”

“Not at all,” he murmured.  “It appears that not long from now there will be not much of a world to return to later.  I shall wander and experience as I can, and treasure these memories for the burden of my coming eternity.”

Sunday

Shall I compare Tao to a winter’s night?

It rests more quiet, more to contemplate.

Purest velvet pricked with points of light

Draining cares and worries about fate.

Sometimes too wild our will to action cries

And oft we helpless wrestle with despair

As all around iced shards of failure lie

Wrecked by chance, or from mishandled dare

But Tao drifts healing into all and out

Always was, is now, and ere shall be

Nor can it fail so long as mind’s about

Beyond the reach of time or what we see

I feel alone, bewildered, small,

But Tao insists, a part of all.

Janus

Monday

• According to Wikipedia: in ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus.
• Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The doors of his temple were open in time of war, and closed to mark the peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping.
• -
• As we are arrived at moments of great transitions, not to mention issues of war, peace, and trade, perhaps we should revive some reverence for the old guy.  In particular, how the past must be faced equally with the future to understand change.
• An interesting fellow.  What were his powers?  I’m not sure what you’d pray to him for.  I don’t recall any ancient myths in which he was involved even peripherally.  He is one of the few Roman gods which had no Greek counterpart, and I suspect few if any of the regions conquered by the legions contained an equivalent within their own pantheons. 
• Well, we are each our own Janus.  We are only in the moment, filled with amazement beyond comprehension,  but we simultaneously recall massive threads from the past, and wide projections of possible futures.  We live in that very transition as time flows around us, or we flow through it.  So perhaps we should reconstruct Janus as our god of time, plop him into the books alongside Einstein, and compose a few stories.
• In these interesting times, I doubt it would hurt to do so.

Tuesday

• To study nature is usually to be concerned with life.  The environment which contains the theater of the living also includes the land itself.  Understanding the changes in the land over time it is possible to develop a deeper appreciation of what it now is or may be.  This park, for example, was once primal forest with access to immense food in the bay, sheltered from the north wind, watered by nearby clear streams, a perfect home for native Americans.  Then it was cleared and houses constructed and a pottery works dug into clay pits up the hill, next to the busy town docks.  Over a century ago, it became a pleasant park from which to picnic or bathe at the northern terminus of the cross-island trolley.  Once a whale beached here, and had to be cut and carted away at great expense.
• Right now I walk to find it decaying, slightly sad, underutilized, all but forgotten.  During my thirty years residence, large trees have died and been cut down, docks have fallen to rot, bulkheads have cracked,  and pavilion upkeep neglected.  Through all that, living nature has changed and adapted, tiny wildflowers managing to fill straggling grass, pokeweed thick along the boatyard buildings, ubiquitous ragweed near the shore.  All that, and surely much I do not know, in less than four hundred years.  My mistake is always to see something interesting, and because I see it now, assume that it has always been so.  

Wednesday

• “Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it.”
• Those who do study the past are doomed anyway.

Thursday

• Life is active transition, seeking to perpetuate itself from the past to the future through this present.  It differs from rocks and other elements only in being locally anti-entropic _ building complexity instead of decaying into a lower state, as normal matter always does.  We have refined transition into exquisite beauty, and are aware of past and present and not only real but possible futures and not only the actual but the imagined.
• Some transitions are slow and hardly noticed as they pass.  I wonder at the loss of my years _ when did my aging occur?  As the days passed, each was almost identical, but suddenly I look back and all has become strange and weird.  Trees are there as always,the sky.  Yet the sky is more filled with smoke, some favorite old trees are gone, some new ones have come from nowhere.  I am a traveler from a remembered past, a stranger in this strange land.  And I never saw it coming.
• Other transitions are more sudden.  The birth of a child, the onset of an affliction, all the many local shocks in life, and of course the cultural effects of grand players and events.  Those we are well aware of as they break our lives into parts, and we struggle to survive and recover. 
• Through it all, I suppose Janus smiles.  Or maybe he sighs.  Who can tell, with a god?  I always felt that, with the exception of the classic Greeks, being a god was a constrained, boring, and sad existence.  You don’t get to play much, as a typical god.  You are responsible for right, and justice, and making the world run the way the world runs.  At the beck and call of priests and rituals for all sorts of stupid stuff.  Never allowed to go beyond your special area of expertise.  Kind of like a perpetual retail clerk, keeping the universe ready for the human customers.
• This year, I am afraid I have spent too much time looking back, not enough forward.  As always, the drumroll of each day will call me into the present, where I actually belong.  I am my own Janus, and thankfully I do have the ability to laugh and smile and enjoy the whole shebang.

Friday

• Fog settles as a perfect metaphor for time.  Farther away in past or future, one can make out nothing even if certain of surroundings.  It is prone to sudden clearing when nearby objects startlingly materialize, and to random thickening when all sense dulls.  Sounds are muffled, directions lost, indistinct forms cause randomly incorrect interpretations.  Fog may suddenly vanish, or become mist, drizzle or heavy rain.  And although a secure poet might find it magical, most travelers and sailors are properly terrified by its onset.
• Unless caught on a highway, I tend more to poetry, finding fog a refreshing change from crystal vistas and clear thinking.  As I’ve aged, I’ve come to feel the same way about time itself.  Knowing less about the past and nothing about the future no longer bothers me, as long as I am conscious of this present.  Perhaps I feel less a traveler than in my frantic long ago youth.

Saturday

Joan is carefully wrapping and packing the last of the Christmas decorations in the living room, for another year of storage somewhere in the garage.  She sighs as she takes yet another candle and places it into a labeled box.  “It’s so sad,” she notes, “that these are up for such a short time.”

“Well, I suppose,” I reply, “but after all, just having them out for a little while is what makes the end of the year so special.”

“I love Christmas,” she continues, ignoring me, “but it makes me sad too.  My parents and brother no longer with us, and all the family scattered.  It’s not like when we used to have the family parties when the kids were little.”

“I think that remembering is part of the magic,” I muse.  “Every decoration you have out here is attached to some event in the past.  And we still have the boys visiting and reinforcing our own family.  And the new baby, of course.  Someday they will be doing the same thing you are.”

“I guess,” she says half-heartedly.  “I just wish it was all like it once was.”

“The past lives in our thoughts,” I try to console her.  “And this helps us mark the transition to what we hope will be a wonderful future for our children.  That’s what makes it all special.”

She doesn’t answer, and goes to take down another glittery ball from the mantle.

Sunday

We think time flows, but we are wrong

Through frozen space, we sail along

Our consciousness reviews this realm

Facing backwards at the helm

We love, remember, laugh to be

Cosmic senses overwhelmed

By life’s infinity of song

Unfit to know reality

Lash of Fortune

Monday

• Life is unfair.  The universe is remorselessly cold.  An end of all is in sight.  In cosmic terms, nothing we do matters.
• Maturity is to a large extent learning to deal with those facts.   Overcoming adversity, moving on from disappointment, treasuring this moment and not worrying too much about hours to come.  I’m not sure we can ever program machines to be so illogical,  but our own biological nature provides surprising happiness and delight except under the most extreme conditions.
• On the other hand, we are needlessly cruel if we leverage the misfortune of others.  Charity exists partially because we ourselves might need it some day,  but mostly to thumb our nose at harsh reality itself.  Anybody can hope for a better moment if we merely help them.   Compassion will not necessarily create a better tomorrow, but it can expand our special bubble of meaning beyond a fragile need for self-preservation.
• Cassandras cry that civilization falls, and wealthy Cassandras blame those not so well-off as they are.  They screech at individuals for not trying hard enough, for making the wrong choices, for giving up too easily, even for accepting moments of joy on a hard and nasty road.  They intone that only the hopeless joy of their grim prophets should be accepted as real, and those grim prophets themselves claim all is lost without constant vigilance.
• A strange philosophy for an Earth potentially overflowing with abundance.  But our masters have come to wield the lash of fortune, and to inflict wounds on the afflicted, and to proclaim doom for all that is not savagely ripped from the web of existence and hung on the wall as a trophy.  

Tuesday

• Lloyd Neck is a small peninsula into Long Island Sound.  It is covered with what, for this area, is old forest, none of it original growth.  On the property of Caumsett State Park sits the 1711 cabin of the original Mr. Lloyd, who with the help of his slaves cleared all the magnificent logs and sold them along the East Coast and into Europe.  Many trees have grown large and wonderful in their own right since then, of course, but lots of those were toppled in the catastrophe of superstorm Sandy.  With the lash of fortune driving such unpredictable events, what is meant by “survival of the fittest”?
• Our biology textbooks and popularizations give an impression of nature having a workout and getting in shape for some grim game.  The former idea that evolution was aiming for intelligence _ particularly us _ has fortunately been shelved.  But we are still somewhat stuck, I think, in seeing life as some kind of race where the early bird gets the worm, and the strongest live until another day.  What Darwin actually noted was that evolution involves immense overbreeding by the luckiest.  Sometimes a slight advantage can give better odds, but _ for example _ the luck of many species of trees has nothing at all to do with competition in the environment, but the merely fortuitous chance that they are of some use or pleasure to people.

Wednesday

• Infused with the spirit of his age, Alexander Pope rhymed “whatever is, is right.”
• Alexander Pope is full of shit. 

Thursday

• If people cloned or bred true, if life passed with invariant rules, comprehensive insurance would make sense.  However, the real world dictates that people are different, situations are different, risks are different.  Insurance assumes that a pool of folks are very much alike, but some will be unlucky.  Within a self-selecting pool, this can be true enough to be very useful.  The standard example is a group of homeowners in a small town self-insuring against fire damage, or a church congregation supporting its own long-term members.  Insurance allows us to handle the fog of future visions in a rational way, based on simple probability computations.
• Comprehensive insurance, on the other hand, admits everyone whether in a similar pool or not.  And then everything goes badly wrong.  Some homeowners are far riskier than others.  Some homes are not well kept, some people smoke in bed or play with matches, and some areas are prone to forest fires.  Suddenly, the pool of prudent policy holders feel they are carrying a bunch of lazy idiots on their backs.
• Technology  exacerbates the problem, for two reasons.  On the one hand, it allows more and more risky situations to exist _ people kept alive beyond normal lifespans, houses built beyond common sense.  On the other, it also permits a far more detailed projection of the risk level of any given individual based on past behaviors, genetic patterns, and data analysis.  Some people are, for one reason or another, just really bad risks for car insurance.  Rational economic response is to put such people into isolated pools, and charge rates accordingly.  But with technology, even isolated pools are rapidly reduced to consisting of just one person, and probability of risk becomes useless against true fortune.
• It may be that insurance as an economically viable way of handling risk is about to become obsolete.  Such paradigm shifts do happen.  There was no insurance as such in the middle ages in Europe, nor anywhere else for most of history.  In the meantime I can only chuckle as definitions clash with definitions and goals clash with goals as politicians try to stuff a very square huge peg through a very tiny round hole.

Friday

• No birds at the feeder in the back yard this morning.  Not many for some time.  A hawk or an owl or both have discovered that birds gathered at a convenient feeding spot are also easy prey.  In spite of these swooping raptors crashing into our windows once in a while, they have managed to succeed enough to chase all the feathered guests away.  That makes for a less lively view from the window, although it has also cut down considerably on the cost of feed.
• Unintended consequences are the backstroke of the lash of fortune.  I thought I was doing something fine _ fattening little songbirds, cardinals, jays, even doves against the coming chills.  But I was merely setting them up for carnage.  That so neatly illustrates much of the best laid plans of our lives that it is almost a parable.  I know what I think I am doing when I do it, but I am always wrong about the exact outcome as the future extends.  I wish our society would contemplate its own hubris, as we hurtle on with innovation and construction everywhere.

Saturday

Hundreds of birds jostle for position where sweet water trickles in rivulets into the salty marsh.  Pecking order must be set between the flocks, within the flocks, one on one.  Following furious screeching, honking, mock attacks, ruffled feathers, things finally settle down and the serious business of gossip can begin.

“Did you hear about poor Holly?”

“Holly?  No, what happened …”

“Smashed on that weird endless strip of rock up there last night.  Another monster slashing by.”

“I always hear them.”

“Apparently you couldn’t hear this one.  Some of those monsters have gotten really quiet.”

“Jeez, now you’ve got me scared.  What are those things, anyway?  They don’t even stop to feed after the kill.”

“I know.  Poor Holly, such a dear.  So young.”

“Any kids?”

“Nope.  Engaged though.”

“Well, I for one plan never to alight on anything but sand ever again.”

“Fine, but I hear some of the monsters have even adapted to cruising the beach ….”

Sunday

Ode On Solitude by Alexander Pope

“Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
…
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.”

How boring such a life t’would be

Full harsh unending miserie

None to know nor aught to care

Of sadness, joy, achievement, dare

I’ve oft such weary dust bestrode

Grim or cheerfilled empty road

Sought loud companions, boisterous rude

And only sometimes solitude.

Flawed Visions

Monday

• As a new year begins, we love to make predictions of what might happen next.  Strangely, unlike the stock market, “past performance is a good indicator of future results.”  What has happened before, especially for decades before, will most likely continue, as surely as day dawns or night falls.  The grand and great trends and situations are just as likely to repeat as the tiny triumphs and annoyances.
• Human nature loves to embellish this, less with fact than with interpretation.  Will things be good, better, worse, bad?  Everyone is, in their own peculiar way, a Delphic Oracle when the ball falls.  Just as right, just as wrong, fully as ambiguous.
• We are most drawn to a comparison with the events of the passing year, which necessitates that we enumerate and evaluate what can be remembered.  That provides our baseline for what we hope or fear may occur instead.  We make vows that we mostly know will be broken, especially if they focus on change of habits.  Easy to keep a resolution to eat breakfast every morning, if that is what we already do.
• But all this is being said, and has been said, because one certain prediction is that a vast reservoir of words will pour forth on various media.  This too has happened since humans first strode across the African savannah in distant ages.  We’ve merely extended the campfires to a bonfire that encompasses the entire world.

Tuesday

• Average temperatures this time of year in Huntington are 41 high, 26 low.  Ducks, squirrels, oaks, frogs have adjusted to that, enabled by natural selection over eons to endure what may happen next and to survive today.  The consistently varied length of daylight is an astronomical certainty, although the actual amount of sun energy received is hostage to average cloud cover.   Wild animals react to temperature and moisture while vegetation hovers, but neither “expect” anything.  Blizzards, warm spells, rain, drought all come and go, as the sun maintains its stately march towards spring.
• People are different.  We expect conditions to closely match the past _ winter weather, good or bad.  Unfortunately, any average can hide an awful lot of extremes, which is where we fall into error.  The old saying is “if you have an icepack on your head and your feet are in boiling water, on the average you’re pretty comfortable.”  In our controlled universe, we mistakenly believe that average is certain.  So I expect the thermometer to each a high near 41 every day without fail. When it doesn’t I think something has gone drastically wrong, and call on scientists, politicians and the gods themselves to rectify the problem. 

Wednesday

• Much of our wisdom may be encapsulated in popular songs running through our minds, perhaps modified a bit by experience.
• Meet the new year, same as the old year …..

Thursday

• This January, more than most others, Americans are contemplating what will happen in politics.  How much remains the same, how much will change.  Many are scared, others euphoric.
• The United States has been governed recently by idealistic intellectuals who hoped to bring a better world into being, while restrained by those who feel no better world can exist.  Before that it was ruled by “realists” who clearly saw the evil in everyone but themselves.  For a while, technocrats attempted to apply scientific rules developed from a logical universe to the illogical  process of government where each person consists of infinite laws unto themselves.  All succeeded, or failed, in one way or another.
• Now it is the turn of the plutocrats, with their entourage of narcissistic apologists and pocket generals.  They may succeed or fail, but they will certainly discover that trying to govern a country is not at all like running a business or an army.  There are no simple goals, no clear win or lose, no applicable financial yardsticks. No solutions, only outcomes. 
• My poor pessimistic prediction suspects that this will become the greatest kleptocracy in history _ the rich piling the trough higher and higher for each other.  Conflict of interest hardly begins to describe the most likely scenario.  Whether that leads us into becoming a banana republic where we peasants are repressed or a socialist state when the peasants revolt will be the most interesting, if unpleasant, storyline to observe over the next four years.

Friday

• Husks of water reeds are everywhere, still mostly sturdy against wind, rain, tide and a quick slushy snowfall last week.  Until ice becomes thick and shifts with the water, they will remain mostly so, often until spring.   Then there will be thick mats decaying along the bottom, or cast ashore on sands, annoying bathers but providing a haven for flies and other insects.  This happens every year at this time, although roots shift with mats over the season, and seem scarcer as waters continue to inexorably rise.
• Almost the first thing Europeans did around here was to drain the “pestilential” swampy wetlands.  The only thing that saved any of the original landscape was that it was too low to bother with _ not even fit for mowing salt hay.  But wetlands form the basis of much local ecology, and harbor and bay are much poorer for the “improvements.”  Reeds hang on, adapting, but of course the key question now is will rising oceans drown them faster than they can move and drift to new locations.  I will never see what happens in the long-term, so I guess it should hardly personally matter.

Saturday

Bright flash, deafening sharp bang, Bing jumps and almost loses his footing on the old split rail fence.  His world fills with more noise, sirens, pops, lights, screams and yells.  He races along the wood and scampers into a tree, “What the hell?” the squirrel asks the once darkly quiet night.

“Hoo-mans” comes a low call from above.  “Just hoo-mans.”

“That you, Ben?”

“Just me, Bing.  And all those crazies.”  Another firework display streaks high above.

“What do they think they’re doing?”

“Scaring away evil spirits, as I understand,” replies the owl.

“What spirits?”

“I told you hoo-mans were crazy.  They think invisible masters rule the universe.  Some are good, some are bad, some are ….”

“But there’s just now.  What is this good and bad business, anyway?”

“Too complicated for our little brains,” says Ben.  “I prefer to think they are just crazy.”

“Well, they sure scared the evil spirits, whatever they are, out of me.  I nearly had a heart attack.  How long do think this crashing will go on?”

“Almost over, as I understand.  Hoo-mans do it every year.  They never learn.”

“OK, Ben.  Have a good night’s rest, anyway.”

“Not I, not I.  Working night shift, you know.”

“Sleep well tomorrow, then.  Happy new year.”

“Say the hoo-mans, so they say.”

Sunday

One potato, two potato

Three potato, four

Many piles of memories

More on more

People vanish, decades flee

Remember, wonder,

Am I me?