Ribbit

Winter has always been associated with discomfort. If not the discomfort of cold weather, then the discomfort of having to wear a lot of clothes to stay warm. That means washing clothes, and if you do it by hand, take my word for it youngsters, its a real drag. Particularly where the river you go to in order to wash clothes ain't got no rocks in it to beat the dirt out. Like here on the coastal plains. Rocks no bigger than my balled-up fist are such a rarity we pick them up and take them home to be treasured. I have a quartz river rock that's been smoothed and rounded like any other river rock that's been there long sitting on my coffee table. My visitors can't not pick it up and look it over, and turn it in their hands to feel it's texture.

The coastal plains in the United States is not a small area. It's just specifically located below New York City down on the Jersey shores and continues uninterrupted by rock outcrops all the way down to Florida. The Gulf of Mexico has a coastal plain, but some of it is coral rock. Once you go north of Tampa, though, you're back into the mud and swamps of the bayous until you get to Texas, and the entire gulf coast of Texas has a deep coastal plain that can run hundreds of miles inland in places. It seems like anywhere you have a real coastal plain, there are also off-shore islands made of shifting sands. Padre Island off Texas looks almost exactly like the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

Not only do old men like to gather and sit in the sunlight all over the world, but there are folk tales and myths in most cultures about the winter solstice blues. The holiday blues. Short days and cloudy skies. Seattle during the rainy season where people put up special lights to keep from getting the blues.

There is also the myths and legends about getting too much Sun, and illnesses like heat stroke. I personally know all about that. I've written several times about passing out unconscious while plowing in a cotton field with a mule. The mule might have realized I was having a heat stroke before I did. I could have laid out there in the open sunlight for as much as two hours. My family said I never was quite "right" after that. How would I know? I was me the entire time. I still am.

In the same way that I'm a docetic spirit attempting to make an immortal physical body to live in while I'm visiting Earth, I'm a human being trying to make itself into an immortal spirit that will live for eternity in God's heaven. Double bind. I've been trying to develop a rap for that, most recently using Sartre's terms and expressions to see if that might help. I like it okay, but many of the people I converse with ain't exactly buying it. They go along to get along, I suppose, but while their mouth is smiling and their head is nodding, their eyes don't shine with understanding.

It's not like I'm gonna give up on Sartre's stuff. After all, my take on his thoughts had to come through an interpreter. A translator, who probably did the best they could in making his French into English. I'd probably still have some difficulty if I studied and became fluent in the French language. Besides, I don't know if I"m trying to say the same thing Sartre said. I could be, I just don't know.

I created the clumsy metaphor yesterday about a blind date and going to the restroom to think about my situation, and to strategize about the most polite way of getting out of the blind date without anybody's feelings being hurt. I had a point in generating that metaphor, but I'm not sure I made it.

I identified with Sartre's metaphor about what happens when you're sitting alone in a room, and somebody shows up for some reason, and intrudes on your private moment. I experience that everyday I receive a visitor here. I spend 95% + of my time alone in my house or out in my yard that's not visible to the public. I'm a year shy of 70 years old, and I've spent a great deal of my life either in the company of others or out in the public view. I know the difference between what it's like to be alone and unwatched by others, and being out and about in the public arena.

I don't know if I'm a person who spends a lot of time contemplating the condition my condition is in because I like the very idea of "being" that kind of person or whether I really am a contemplative sort of person. I'm certainly capable of thinking that's the coolest type of person to be and forcing myself to be alone by an act of self-discipline, but that's not why I do it, but I would say that wouldn't I?

The whole point of me spending so much time alone is that's the onlyest way I can perform certain tricks of the trade. It's the only time I can enter the subjective state of being-for-myself. Your milage may vary.

How would I know? I can only project my idea of myself upon your behavior and call it macaroni. I have to let go of your presence in my subjective space to not project who-I-think-I-am-is upon who-you-think-you-are. The easiest way is to send you on an errand. Sometimes I'd almost swear that with a little bit of luck, I can send the entire population of the Earth on an errand, just so I can be allone to do what I need to do for-myself. Conversely, I can't enter a state of being-for-the-other without you around, so don't go wandering off outta sight and outta mind without properly notifying me or I'll turn you into a frog. A frog like me. A tree frog. A female tree frog if I'm horny or maybe I'll change myself into the opposite of who/what I "think" you are. It's gonna be a long day, isn't it?