Deer

I came home today after working very hard, tired and sore, yet inspired enough by the beautiful weather to mix a drink and sit out on the screened-in porch.

There in the back yard were two young deer.

I’ve seen this sight before, but this afternoon it was particularly sweet and engaging. I quietly sat and watched them scrounging for morsels.

This ain’t New York City....but it is in the city. I live on a busy four-lane road across from a college. Not so long ago it would be almost unimaginable to see deer roaming around this yard. But their habitats have been so vastly destroyed for housing development that seeing them today was no surprise.

But it was still a lovely moment to take part in.

ISRAEL

My oldest friend Danny is passionate about Israel and most importantly the ways in which the media misrepresents the situation there. I’ve always been more concerned about my land of birth and especially the way that compassion has become a dirty word in some quarters in the U.S. - most notably amongst so-called Christians.

I asked Danny months ago to send me links to articles he’s reading about Israel. Many of them come from the Jerusalem Post. Many reflect a society in turmoil, unsure of how to proceed, with a burgeoning faction that wants conciliation as opposed to those who see hypocrisy and lies on the pro -Palestinian side mostly ignored by worldwide media. He sent a link to a documentary that reveals Palestinians faking attacks by Jewish military...handy ambulances showing up to pick up “injured” Palestinians who are shown later to have been acting. He sends links to articles showing how most Palestinians and Arabs want Israel destroyed, links to articles speaking to how the world seems to blame Israel for hostilities but mostly ignores the relentless rocket and mortar attacks from Palestinian groups.

I look at this map and I see a tiny nation, a homeland for the Jewish people, surrounded by so many larger and hostile nations.

Danny reminds me that the Arab nations have the power and wealth to help the Palestinian people but over decades have chosen to leave them hanging in the balance, a useful propaganda tool against Israel.

I had a dream the other night where I was in some German town and at the end of the dream I was with my sister and I said to her something like “just imagine if we had lived here then....”. And we both started to cry and I woke up with tear-stained eyes.

Hesse

When I was my daughter’s age - 16 - I was enthralled by the writings of Hermann Hesse. Stories of life-altering travels, internal exploration, philosophical and Romantic pondering...the forces of nature always present as sources of awe and wisdom.

I have thought recently of re-visiting these books but haven’t for fear that I might be disappointed. Their romanticism would likely no longer have the eloquent soul-moving reverberation it once had. I have not even shared them with my daughter, thinking they might be too much of another time.

I’m not a total cynic. But so many thoughts left by so many long-passed people now ring truer than ever...at this point in my journey. Life is short. The grass is always greener on the other side. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. On and on. The world looks ever grimmer even as so many truly magnificent, gracious, inspiring and life-renewing events continue to occur.

We haven’t changed all that much - we humans. The Death of this and that is always announced. Like Painting. But humans live and die and time passes and so pass the things people want to do. Totalitarianism is the attempt to stop this process and we see how well that works. Entropy prevails. Death and Birth prevail.

Empires come and go and the present decline of the American empire reflects the same dramas as empires past. Greed, selfishness, jealousy, hypocrisy, lack of empathy and self-control - it spins forever on.

Maybe I should re-visit one of those wrinkled old books.

Thank You Life

Four days home and I am still struggling to climb back on top of the old beast of burden, namely the things I’m obliged to do out of responsibility and survival. After the first two-week vacation in twenty years, I remain relaxed and somewhat more absent-minded than usual.

The perfect vacations are the ones without specifics, timetables, or the necessity of meeting someone’s expectations. This sojourn was a gem. Myself and my companion. Sitting, reading, walking on the beach or in the pine forest, sipping wine while painting on the porch, lying in bed with the cool lake breezes cradling the room.

Leisure time is time to reflect, zone out, sleep, dream, ponder or not. It is a time to re-experience innocence within the broad parameters of nature and the human visitation.

Thank you life.

Two Weeks

The European idea of at least a month of vacation every year seems to me eminently sensible. Of course, who the hell can afford that. Not me. Those “active” vacations - scheduled daily to the hilt...with lots of things to do, places to see, people to talk with - are anathema to me. I can’t think of anything less like a vacation. I conjure up notions of rest, reflection, timelessness (at least being able to not care about time), quiet joy.

Now twenty years since I had a two-week vacation - lots of 5 or 7 day journeys but not more - I leave in the morning for two weeks in a cottage on Lake Michigan. It sits behind a tree-lined quiet lane right on the beach. Best of all I traded labor with my friends who own it in exchange for rent. There is no TV and no internet, no computer, no dvd player. Hallelujah.

I take books, camera, lots of paints and things to paint on, and my cheap guitar. My gal and I are also taking along some pleasant wine, enough to last.

This is a blessing and a thrill and brother I aim to enjoy it.

A Moment in Time

Two weeks ago I returned from my brother’s home in South Carolina with the family slides - missing for possibly fifteen years and only recently found to be stored in box of my nephew’s stuff. I still have not managed to put them in some order and get them transferred to digital disc. Some of them are faded or turned a reddish hue that suggests long ago times.

I don’t even own a projector so I randomly draw one from the small green box and hold it up to a spotlight. There, magically before my eyes, is a scene at the dining room table in the house I grew up in. My mother sits at the center, looking almost girlish in her thirty-something style. She looks so damn young! At the left her sister Marlene sits with a casually raised arm holding a cigarette. Everyone smoked then.

My grandpa Saul stands behind them in the living room casually listening in on the conversation. His easy and elegant style is drawn from a time before my generation changed all the rules about casual dress. Amazingly, I have to imagine that he must have been then about the age that I am now. I don’t know the date of this photograph.

To the right my Great-grandma Schneider holds court, making her points more strident by that expressive wave of her arms. I can hear her thick Polish accent and, more likely than not, an account of something with which she disapproves.

A moment in time. 

DS

I give thanks to this televised entertainment show - The Daily Show - and to John Stewart and his comrades for providing relief, remedy, comfort and laughs in lieu of the steady stream of corruption, greed, arrogance, stupidity and narrow-mindedness that passes for much of what we call Congress in these here United States in the year 2011.