Illusion

A cat, a-warmed atop a car,
And then asleep, might travel far;
And peering open one dim eye,
Note the flora whizzing by;
But yielding to its eyelid closure,
Resume at once its former dozure.
At last at home, adventure done,
Returning where it had begun,
Our cat on waking might look down,
And on its face a puzzled frown,
Ponder all but fail to deem:
Was that real? Or just a dream?

Barnyard Personalities

Lucy Goosey, Turkey Lurkey,

Very nice but kind of quirky,

Not inclined to get real irky,

Happy with whatever worky.

Brenda Biddy, Brando Kitty,

Think them very highly sitty,

Strut about and look real pretty,

Like as not be in a snitty.

Rooster Dobby, Bulldog Bobby,

Manage things as if a hobby,

Like to know who’s in the lobby,

Shout real loud if see a robby.

Ricky Ratty, Charles Catty,

Pick and preen till very nattie,

Love to wear a little hattie,

Tend to be a little bratty.

George the Bow-Wow, Sally Cow-Cow,

Realists both, live in the now-now,

Think long term, make much allow-llow,

Worry not unstable Dow-Dow.

David Chickey, Patsy Piggy,

Very thin, they looking twiggy,

Comes from drinking, smoking ciggy,

Friday night, they getting wiggy.

Loon a-learing, Coon a-peering,

Wearing both a gypsy ear-ring,

Bring forth spirits in their seering,

Listen well to all they hearing.

The Southern Accent, Lesson 1.

To talk southern, you need to live in the vowels -

“Yall just need t’dway-ell they-a,”

is what I meant to say,

is that the best of life happens in that vast space between the continents,

where you can sail a whole sea, in the word “vi-yast”.

Work on it, until you can say the words “oh no” and convey

the tragedy and objection to circumstance that exists there -

(Lula, we gone haf t’sell) -  “ohhhhh nooooohhh.”

(Justin, the store’s plumb out a Hershey bars) -  “ohhhhh nooooohhh.”

Can you love the land, even when you don’t own any?

Can you love it so much that you love it that other people own it?

Can you love the owners of that land you don’t have?

Then you are on your way, to love that land in between the consonants;

reside there (excuse me - “r’sahhd they-a”), and happily dwell,

trying with all your might to extend your lifetime on the property.  Why, if you just stay there long enough, you might not ever have to leave!

Try ‘there’; or better still, “th’air” - that airy space? Between the continents?  Sprout your wings and fly, and think about visiting the relatives somewhere past ‘r’, but never quite get there. Fly right over that sea you used to sail, and that property you were trying to hang on to, and never come down; almost never; or at least only when you are trying to make a point.

Now, just between you and me? Those consonants?  Remember, when someone hands you a hot consonant, one of your options is to drop it; especially if it’s one of the sharp and prickly ones. 

And travelling there between the continents?  Why, you can trade one vowel for another, shamelessly, just as if you have the best reason in the world: use ‘eye’ wherever others would use “ay”; ‘ah’ where anyone else would use ‘eye’; substitute ‘owe’ for ‘oi’ – but follow the rules, now, the ones you grew up with - just remember your Mama’s voice, for the memory of her sweet voice is a code to live by.  

Feel absolutely free to turn it up and down, on and off – you have your hand firmly on the dial.  And always be soft; just dust those folks with your Martha White flour-words.  And just? Just use the word ‘just’ a whole lot.

Say ‘hey’ instead of ‘hi’.

Say ‘yall’ like you weren’t even thinking about it.

Just go on and live there, like you never want to even think about leaving.
“Hey yall!”

The Class That Was Never Meant To Be

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Unsung Heroes

It’s time we brought an end to all of this job-killing Wall Street regulation, once and for all. We are turning our backs on these unsung heroes, who quietly go to work every day and, risking everything, toil thanklessly in the world’s financial workplaces. The work is long, dangerous, and stressful, but these loyal men and women enjoy the satisfaction of knowing their work is founded on centuries of America-bulding, going back to the real saviors of the American Revolution, the financiers of 1776. Now they brave not bullets and cannon shell, but ridicule and suspicion. That we thumb our noses at these, the finest America has to offer, is a calumnous tragedy of the highest order.

The Audrey and Theodor Geisel School Naming Rephrasal

There once was a school
Midst New Hampshire’s tall spruces,
Where cows were the teachers
(but the accountants were gooses).

One day all the gooses
Came and honked to a cow,
“The money’s run out!”
“We need funding right now!”

“We need money somehow!”
Honked the gooses that day,
“We need money, right now,
And brook no delay!”

The cows rumined hard
On this worrisome claim,
And chewed and debated
On who was to blame.

But blame is not fruitful,
And the cows were perplexed;
So they met to consider
What options were next.

All day the cows thought;
All night, did the same;
But could think of none aught
Than to sell the school’s name.

Now this school was for study
Of bodily juices,
And nostrums, and things
Of diagnostical uses;

And the surgical specialties,
major and minor;
And therapal strategies,
Coarser and finer.

So the cows thought of names
From this noble profession,
But those names were all boring!
They lacked good impression!

"Don’t need a lame name!"
Honked the countable gooses,
"Want a name with some fame,
That really produces!"

"No Johnsons or Rileys
Or Martins or Luces!"
"Get a name with some kick!
For instance, the Seusses!"

The cows pondered long
What the gooses had said;
It seemed silly at first,
But it rang in their head.

At last in the end
They all thought the same:
The money was good,
And so was the name.

No honking, or mooing,
Or painful excuses!
They would just claim the name
Of the doctorly Seusses!

"Hooray for the name!"
Shouted all who had heard,
And even the gooses
Put in a good word.

And that's now why they call it,
From Durham to Portsmouth,
The A & T Geisel
School of Medicine, Dartmouth.

On Michael's Picture

Deep in woods our wet steps fell
All quietly in cold,
Until we came into this dell
Where fallen trees grow old.

Brown reddish leaves lay resting there
And white from melting snow;
And lovely green in places where
The moss had thought to grow.

White birches standing all around
Walled off the worldly din,
As we stood now without a sound
And looked outside and in.

Our quiet room goes with me now
A place I sometimes go;
Where fallen trees lie silently
In peace, and age, and snow.

How it’s going to happen

graph from: http://tmacktrading.blogspot.com/
You should know, because I’m going to tell you, that there is a lot of hype in the money press about something called Elliott Waves. This is a theory of market movements developed by a Ralph Elliott, while convalescing from an illness in the thirties.
Boiled down to its essentials, it’s a three-up two-down model. But each cycle of three-up, two-down, is a component of a larger scale three-up, two-down, and each cycle is also composed of smaller three-up, two-down cycles.
The industry has corrupted this rather simple and elegant theory into a complex set of rules of movement. Pundits suggest that they, and only they, have done the right reading of the ‘waves’ and can predict future movements.
So, that is why some financial pundits are predicting doom, that we are on the verge in 2011-2012 of a catastrophic depression. Except, the catastrophy keeps not happening.
The reason for this is that the pundits have, in my opinion, read the waves incorrectly. Elliott waves are, or should be, pretty simple in concept, and shouldn’t be made into something more complex than they are.
If you look at a graph of the stock market (either the Dow Jones or the SP500, doesn’t matter which) and blur your eyes a bit, it can easily be seen that 1942 to 1966 constitutes a big swing up (up #1); 1966 to 1982 a long lateral flat (down #1); 1982 to 2000 (or maybe 2008) another big swing up (up #2). So, in my view, we haven’t seen the big ‘third wave’ yet, that ends this particular cycle.
Of course, this particular counting of the waves assumes that the Great Depression of the 1930’s was a momentous enough event to have constituted a proper ending of the prior cycle, and the beginning of a new one. Many pundits are saying the Great Depression was down #1 of a new cycle, and not the super crash that makes up the ending of a cycle. But I think this is a misreading of the waves.
I think that the current recession will go on a bit longer, maybe even take a dive for the worse, but it isn’t the big one. For one thing, Wall Street is obviously not contrite, and fully prepared to continue with its shenanigans. We will probably enter a fervid period of speculation more wild and crazy than what we’ve just seen. Frankly, it just isn’t time yet for a major unraveling of ‘business as usual’.
SO, how do things look moving forward?
If you look at a chart of the markets beginning March 2009 (a major low point), and again blur your eyes a bit, you can see two upward movements (breaking at April 2010 and April 2011) and a final third unfolding, in which we are currently riding.
After this third wave (remember – three up, two down), we will see the beginnings of a recessional crash that will probably go lower than the point in March 2009.
But it’s not the big one. That’s coming much, much later, after the third up cycle begins and ends. So when is this recessional crash going to occur exactly?
My guess (looking at April 2010 and April 2011 dips) is, April or May of 2012. We have already seen up[ wave #1 (ending October 2011) and down #1 (Thanksgiving 2011) and are currently in up #2. My guess, somewhere around Dow 13500 the medium-weight crashola will happen.

Worried Chicken

If I were a worried old chicken,
Thus prone to angst if you may,
I'd pace up and down in the henyard,
and ponder and grimace all day.

what if a coyote came near?
what if a snake in my way?
what if jumped from the rear
by a rooster intent on a lay?

Troubles I’d hold close to me,
frets would be dear;
worries my best friends,
with so much to fear.

A life spent in worry,
The heart pitter-pat;
It’s an unhappy story
For a chicken, at that.

Here Am I

Mary stopped. There it was, again. “Mary” it said. Slightly louder than the last time. Or, it was quieter here. Less noisy. But, maybe louder. OK, louder. Definitely, it was louder. For – several days now, a few times a day. Mary counted back. Today is [the Hebrew word for Wednesday]. It was – [the Hebrew word for Monday] night. Very low. Could barely hear it. Oh! Maybe it was going on for longer? And I just couldn’t hear it? Mary considered that, and while she was thinking these things, kind of over and over in her mind, starting with ‘how loud’ and moving on to ‘when’, and then back again; the room, it was the inner room of the house, became very still indeed. Whatever makes noise in a house, the kind of low background living hum, quit making any noise whatsoever. Mary, already stopped, let herself be very still. “Be still,” a thought said, echoing her body. Mary just let her mind go blank, and listened to the very, very quiet…

“Mary” it said again. Mary just listened… and… feeling the emptiness of the house, and filled with an urge to respond, she spoke aloud amidst the heavy stillness of the room: “Here am I.” Not the Hebrew “here I am,” the response of the spouse or friend, but the Hebrew “Here am I,” the response of the child or servant, hearing a summons, or a command. The intense quiet of the room absorbed her words. Here am I...

The voice spoke! “Mary, greetings! This is a joyous day, for God counts you among God’s very favorite persons, and your goodness will be rewarded!"

The words stirred Mary in a way she could not quite understand, and her face suddenly flushed, turning a very bright red. Her mind raced. Something very important was happening, she must get control of herself! Afraid of shutting off the voice, Mary barely breathed. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

The voice spoke again! “You will bear a boy child, who will be God’s own. The boy will grow up to be a king, a great king of the Hebrews, and even of humankind everywhere!”

Mary’s hand moved up to her mouth, covering it. The voice seemed to be waiting. All Mary could think of to say, was ‘Oh,” out loud into the room. Again, the room seemed to soak up her words. Oh...

Deep within her, Mary now felt a question: was this going to be alright with her? She felt, rather than heard, that she had a choice to make. She could agree to be the mother of a boy king, or decide not to. But Mary also felt a rightness to what the voice had said, as if her whole life up to this point were directed to this matter. It was not a question; it was an answer.

Astoundingly, in the midst of all of this import and news and attention and relief and understanding, technical questions intruded. Mary knew all about the facts of life, as they were, from things overheard and discussed with friends her age. The love between a man and a woman, the quickening, the gory business of childbirth. There were, indeed, no secrets in a small village like Nazareth, even of life’s more intimate details. She knew, there was something missing in the equation.

The voice seemed friendly enough. Mary blurted out her question. “How is this going to work, exactly? I mean, I’m not seeing anyone right now.“ And, one other thought: “My mother won’t let me get near enough to anyone for something like this to happen!”

The voice spoke to her again. “You will not have to do anything different; you are truly one of God’s favorite people. God’s shadow will come over you, and the baby will quicken inside of you.“ Again Mary sensed, rather than heard, the question hanging in the air, unspoken by the voice. This was going to be a choice for her, or not.

Mary didn’t know quite how to say her answer. So, she repeated her first words. “Here am I.” The room: very, very, still. Her words: absorbed by the quiet. Here am I…

The noises of the household began again, making a low hum.

Mary took a deep breath, and found a broom.

Tiny Pecans

Three weeks I left you lying there
On the ground alone
Thought I’d wait for larger fare
Fat pecans that had grown

But I began to have some doubt
On the wisdom of the wait
Because of summer’s lengthy draught
Four weeks might be too late

There might not be that fatter fare
A-waitin to fall down
Could be the small stuff ‘s all that’s there
Already on the ground

So I bent down and picked you up
Two buckets in one day
Tiny shells to fill my cup,
I’m grateful anyway.

Black-eyed Beauties

The heat of mid-July
Becomes a hot and heavy anvil to carry
Starting from eight-thirty to seven o’clock,
A distance in time reaching all the way to the county seat

And the almost-rain after noon, taunting us,
Swearing on its heart something that will never happen,
With the sun finally peeking out again
And the clouds riding away, laughing.

One hundred days of dry blue sky
and forty-nine of almost-rain
and the corn is short and yellow
and everything else, just about, dead

Except for the black-eyed peas,
Bushing with bright green leaf,
Hearty, reaching down and mining
The water from the very bottom of the earth

Grasping in dirty fists the moisture
Wherever it can be found, molecule by precious molecule
Until long double pods thrust into the fetid air,
Each pair a two-fingered V for victory

I pick them now in the heat of mid-July,
buckets of leathery pods full of green peas ready for boiling,
And the brown pods, dry and crisp as a potato chip,
Good for storing.

I feel for ripeness and then pick each pod,
Knowing we might well freeze this winter
But we surely won’t starve,
Feasting on these peas, these black-eyed beauties.

Conversation with my Dad, #1

I was cleaning out the smokehouse, one of our outbuildings at the farm, which has been used until now as a deep repository for things unexplored. Amidst old rusting unidentifiable tools and parts, and an extensive collection of my own newer tools, I found the brace-and-bit that belonged to my dad. This is a tool for drilling holes, with a wooden top-handle that you lean on, and a wooden mid-handle that you swing around in a circle to make the drill bit go around. I want to pause now, because I have deep images of my Dad using this tool to drill big holes in wood, calmly, surely, with the steady confidence of someone very familiar with wood and wood tools. And, the splintering sound of wood giving way before the bit. (pause). OK. This tool has my dad’s finger oils, and sweat, embedded in it. The wood shines from his natural oils. I can barely hold it, because it hums with his essence and his being. For all I know, he was looking down on me as I regarded what must have been one of his favorite tools. I held it for a while, in the midst of sorting many tools and objects from the smokehouse, wondering, in the logic of sorting, what should I do with it? Should I save it with my own tools? Like, with the planer and the few other manual, non-power tools that merit keeping in the ‘current’ box? Or put it with the substantial collection of rusting barely-identifiable tools from the ‘30s, to be hung up for decoration? I just stood there for a while, holding this tool, which was eerily like holding my Dad’s hand, having this conversation in my mind. Like, OK, this ‘thing’ explains a good part of him, but not all of him. Does it explain his drug addiction, for instance? Does it explain how he could do AA for years, off alcohol but on hydrocodone? Does it explain how he could transform other people’s lives in a totally meaningful way (in AA), while doped on painkillers? His essential discomfort as an organism satisfied only by drugs? Does it explain my illogical love for him? The only answer was no. I put it in the rusting-display pile. But now, writing this, I think I will rescue it. Somehow, it does explain him.

Men Working

My life has entered a strange path, centering around some workers we hired to expand the upstairs of the farmhouse and put on a new roof, a year ago. We got some bids for the roof, were unhappy, were riding around, and finally spotted a pickup truck with an ad on the door – general roofing and contracting. We jotted down the number and called it that afternoon. James, the fellow that came out, took one look at the house and the roof, and said: “Cedar shakes with at least four roofs on top of it – right?”. Yup. Linda and I took a look at each other. Sold! So ensued an relationship with James and his crew that lasted all summer and on into September, as they slaved on our old farmhouse and we watched as James’s situation deteriorated financially. James paid in cigarettes as well as money, and the crew lived totally hand to mouth on meager cash budgets; and had problems making child support payments, to say the least. At one point, two weeks in, we realized they stayed longer and worked harder if we fed them a good breakfast around 10:00. Duhh! Somewhat later I was filling James’s gas tank just so he could run around and pick up crew the next day. And finally, I ‘lent’ James $2700 to prevent repossession of his truck. James died at age 50 a year later – did I mention they each had some kind of health issue and (of course) no health insurance?
Anyway, the resulting job was beautiful – absolutely lovely roof, incredible job on the upstairs, and a new (surprise!) front porch roof made from boards scavenged from the attic. Doug, the carpenter with the crew, was a creative genius who easily transformed our (often changing) thoughts about the upstairs into a pleasing reality.
Finally they finished and left; but this summer Doug and Linda were facebooking and we decided to have him start on the Garage, which was in danger of collapsing. Thus began phase two of Farm Renovations. Doug decided to just flip the paneling boards of the garage, which saved us $800 – money that I was happy to give to him as wages instead. I worked alongside Doug and watched as he read the lean of the building and gradually corrected it, corner by slanting corner. We had Doug work on many other things this summer, culminating in a massive list of preparations for Linda’s brother’s wedding this October, all at $12 an hour. Our lesson having been learned from the summer before, we tried to feed him well and kept his gas tank full. Frankly, this man was an answer to a lingering prayer – so many things here falling down! So many of those fixed! So, my retirement took on a different flavor – instead of killing myself working on awful projects, I’m managing renovations at a reasonable rate of cash outflow. And, I’ve acquired some insight into our working neighbors of Newton County – financially these are truly desperate folks, but they carry that amazingly well. I’m glad we could keep a few of them (barely) afloat, with the work to do around here.

In the Navy

I was at Navcommsta Sidi Yahia from August 1969 to December 1970, as a CT ‘T’ brancher working in the ops building and living in the barracks. My first four months were spent messcooking, and staying with 5 other guys in the GenSer barracks in a room of our own; we sort of had our own private Navy for a time as no one bothered us there (!). I really enjoyed cooking and took over the salad bar, where I learned how to make a mean coleslaw from the salad cook. I still think about the bus stop in Kenitra, the crazy banter between the Marines and the street vendors, and the wild bus ride back to base in the dark. In the Ops building we stood a 2-2-2-80 watch schedule which meant we had about three days off every five days. I took regular train trips to Casablanca and Rabat, just to walk around and soak in the eastern ambience. Bought into a car with Paul Cheek and Dan Niblack and travelled regularly to Tangier, where we stayed at the Residence Bahia. We were cautioned not to eat the local food, but all of us did , feasting on bread, brochettes and tomatoes, and no one got sick. I arrived just after Woodstock, and while I was in Morocco things were changing mightily back in the states – Kent State, etc. – and there was quite a bit of generational friction on base. I was reluctant to leave, and in some ways still have a mental foot planted firmly there in Morocco. I have never seen brighter stars at night anywhere.

Christmas Gift!

I’m not quite sure how it started, but my wife’s family (in Newborn, Ga.) is totally over the top with this ‘Christmas Gift’ game.
In our thirties and forties we engaged in elaborate schemes to outwit whatever portion of the family was at the family farm already – we typically had to commute down to there Christmas morning with the children, and that year’s devious scheme would be hatched during the hour-long drive down. Over the years, this escalated into a philosophical ‘art of war’ discussion on the merits of quick frontal assault vs. establishing some sort of diversion and sneaking in thru some (thus) unguarded quarter.
One year we let everyone out of the car early, to scamper through the rough fields from multiple directions, while the car driver (typically me) was sacrificed to the inevitable ‘Christmas Gift’s from those inside the house. While so engaged, the house people were themselves ‘Christmas Gift’ed from multiple persons swooping in from various points of the compass.
Another year we arrived Christmas Day at the farm house, having hatched some plan, but when we got inside, the house was eerily empty – not a person or sound in evidence. I was elected to feel out the upstairs – and saw no one there either. As I turned to go back down, the house people burst out of the upstairs attic doors and ‘Christmas Gift’ed me right then and there. Then they ran downstairs and got everyone who had just arrived, stupefied.
This is not to say there was not a lot of gaming also going on over the phone – and it is axiomatic in our family not to answer the phone near midnight unless prepared to answer the phone with a resounding ‘Christmas Gift’ of our own. New electronic options merely serve to open up new avenues of pursuing the game.
‘Christmas Eve Gift’ leaked in as a surprise attack element one year and that has stayed in our tradition, also. But doesn’t have the lasting cachet of having bested other family members on Christmas day.
This year we were the house people in question. Expecting my wife’s brother and girlfriend to arrive late Christmas Eve, we turned all the clocks in the house back ten minutes. Then when were all in the kitchen near midnight visiting and finishing up some cooking, we got them! Christmas Gift!

Anybody There? Hello?

Once again I am troubled by a major loss of life in an instant - 150,000 dead in the Haiti rubble - and that I, in myself, had no way of knowing that that was happening. I remember similar aftershocks to my faith after the southeast Asia Tsunami that killed 200,000. How can that many souls perish at once, and there not be a detectable 'disturbance in the force' as Obi-Wan Kenobi would put it. How can there be an Interconnectedness of All Things, and then a tragedy like this happen, and us not know it? Thinking this way, I find myself refusing to accept an indifferent, untramsmitting Universe. And what about God? Let's say that there is not an Interconnectedness of All Things (a major step down for me). Are we not still connected somehow through God? If I can't know through the Universe, wouldn't God let me know that 150,000 souls perished in a single instant? God is curiously silent to me on this point. I am left with this unsatisfying conversation with God: "God - I WANT TO KNOW when something like this happens." And God says: "It is good that you want to know. It's the first step."

On the Manner of Death, Part II

With my mother we were caught off-guard. Caught between intractable abdominal pain and her risky status as a bad surgery candidate, surgery was eventually decided upon in something like the 10th day at the hospital after another painful episode. The surgery was very hard on her and then suddenly in an afternoon she was drowning from fluid in her lungs - the resident asked me about the respirator and I said yes - but the explanation was in the context of: this is temporary and will help. So, in my mind I had defined this as: therapeutic respirator; but I think personnaly I was just not ready to see her go! Then she was stuck on the respirator in the ICU and it was a week of politicking via chaplain's office before I could get her off of it; but a week of working through my own feelings and thoughts about her directives; then she died right away after removing the respirator. With time, I have become less hostile-feeling now about this experience and more thoughtful about my own lack of readiness as a caregiver to manage my mother's death.

With father it was a progressively more confusing picture as the diagnosis progressed from heart attack to sepsis. He went into afib late the 2nd night in ICU & they were able to bring him out of it (eventually) using IV drugs, amidst almost constant checking with me about his directives amidst the urgency of treating him. I decided a medical cardioversion would be permissible, but shock with paddles if he went out would not. A less sophisticated person would not have been able to make this choice. They were pressing me for a bronchoscopy to diagnose his infection, but I temporized, having learned the year before that this would surely have led to his being on a respirator. The morning he died they brought news to him that he had pneumonia, and I could see in his eyes the psychological blow that this news had for him - oh GOD, not another 6 months in rehab! Hank and I had a conversation in which he was able to express how very tired (of the whole thing) he was. Later that morning the team wanted to know what to do - I took the Fellow aside and with her I had a very good conversation about his age, quality of life after pneumonia, and how I didn't want to torture him with horrible procedures. She was very understanding, and they called in Palliative Care. Without medical support and with the (Palliative Care) nurse's permission (!!) he left pretty quickly.

I think we are given an inadequate context and language for making these decisions. The official forms deal with the situation of being in a vegetative state - or, resuscitation after having died already - but this leaves absent the patient's wishes for things like horribly uncomfortable diagnostic tests vs. age vs. likelihood of continuing life in something approaching happiness. So, we need a 7 - point scale that lets people indicate the level of aggressive or palliative treatment they will want, based on ICU scenarios and not nursing home scenarios.

With directives from both parents, I understood that if in a vegetative state they wished not to be fed, and not to be on a respirator indefinitely. Unfortunately, both parents were lucid, not vegetative, the scenarios were acute care with death as the consequence, and I had to kind of make things up as events unfolded. As a caregiver without directives that matched the scenario, I had to mediate internally my own conflicting feelings about my parents, some of those feelings lingering from past history ( EVERY child will wish their parents gone at some point!), and my status as an adult manager of my parents, and factor in emotional vs. objective criteria. NOT an easy process. No wonder this rips families apart.

In perspective, both of my parents died violent medical deaths. My wife's parents died in peaceful settings surrounded by family and soft music.

Why?

I am still asking this question.

The sound of ZH

What if we invented an alphabet? How to proceed?
I would ask someone to talk, a sentence at a time. Then I would halt, sentence by sentence, and invent symbols for the sounds within each word of the sentence. After not very long, this process would probably derive an alphabet suitable for representing most words in English.

But we would not come up with a character for soft-z-soft-j, the sound of 'zh', because this sound does not occur in an English word. As children, we all made this sound by pursing our lips, pressing the sides of our tongue against the inside sides of our lower teeth, keeping the tip away from the front teeth, and blowing softly. It was one of the motor sounds for cars in the sandbox.

But it is a sadly unused sound in English. Which came first, the language or the alphabet? If language first, then there was indeed no need for a 'zh' character in the English alphabet. If alphabet first, then our creation of new words was influenced by the practical necessity to represent them with letters in our alphabet - so, the 'zh' sound was avoided, or perhaps even experimented with but discarded.

All of this seems very odd, given our extensive experience with this sound as children.

Russians have a special character for this sound, as well as some others. The French simply use 'j' for 'zh' ('Jamais!') and avoid the hard 'j' familiar to us English speakers. But, not in English do we speak this sound, at all.

What if we indeed had 'zh' thoughts and needed to express them? But not the alphabet to carry it through? Then our 'zh' thoughts would remain bottled up, rattling around within our souls, unexpressed. How tragic…

Having a moment

Yesterday we were moving about the house gathering our things, preparing for an outing in the fields in our 'mule', Rusty. Linda became gone for a while. I finished my list, and Linda came back into the kitchen, with an apologetic 'Sorry, I zoned out for a minute'. I mentioned that it happened to me, too, down here at The Farm. Both of us lapse into a meditative stupor at times, feeling the house, sensing the fields arcing off to the horizon, remembering Pop and Mama, remembering Hank and Evelyn, remembering our own times here, or just listening to the quiet.

I like to call these 'visitations', because that is what they are for me. Pauses, commas in the day, where we have these conversations with - who? Certainly The Farm has always been a healing place, a place to come to experience recovery and renewal; so the people who have loved The Farm have also spoken often about the 'good spirits' or 'good vibes' that they encounter here.

Maybe this place is some kind of wonderful crossroads, a juncture in the switchbox, a warp in the timezone, where anyone who is here can easily be with their ancestors, connect with the Universe, merge with their unconscious, feel Jesus, know God. Being here at this faucet in the metaphysical pipeline, we get to sip as we need to during the day, pausing as the woods animals do for a bit of water in our rounds.

This is most strongly felt in the mornings. Both of us join after waking, on the Porch in the summer or the Living Room when the mornings are cold, for coffee and breakfast. We bring something to read, and sometimes have a conversation, but more often we both end up with a blank stare, pausing, having a long meditative comma. This goes on for 2 hours some days, until 10. Have some coffee, have a read, pause. Visit.