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Yesterday seems anticlimactic after realizing I had summarized my entire outlook on life with one well-formed statement. "You are the only human being you gnow." I figure that's true universally, but since I don't know anyone but my own idea of myself I have to keep the door open for others to see things differently.
It's cooler than it was when I first woke up. The weather forecast predicted it. A cool front dropped down over us and the wind changed direction from the southeast to the northwest. Not cold, but cooler. Yesterday it got up to 77° (25° C) with clear skies, and that was very comfortable. Because of the clear skies the temperature dropped quickly when the sun went down. The supper given for the visiting kinfolk was outside and I didn't stay long after eating.
Like a lot of people, I suppose, the tsunami that struck the Pacific Rim looked horrifying on TV. The newscasters talked about how Japan was probably the most prepared political entity on Earth for such an event, but I don't see how much could have helped deter the natural forces that struck the coastline.
The hurricanes that strike the southeastern United States are bad enough. Even the hurricane's worst damage is done by the surge that arrives with the eye of the storm, but it's constrained to a very specific area around the center of the storm whereas a tsunami strikes the coastal areas of any landmass it approaches. The rescue workers don't know where to begin. No blame.
It was warm enough yesterday to lay out half-naked in the sun. I was more than half-naked. I only wore my underpants in order to expose my body to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. I've read that exposure helps with the psoriasis that is part of the rheumatoid arthritis disease I suffer from. Maybe it does help. This morning the redness seems less pronounced.
The last time I shopped at Lowe's for plants I saw what looked like a well constructed sun-bathing chair that can be adjusted for different heights. Normally, it seems, these types of chairs have plastic webbing that eventually gets torn up for all kinds of reasons, but this one has metal slats that are welded into place.
It's not cheap. $100. That's a lot for what amounts to a glorified lawn chair. If I'm gonna be out there a lot to get the ultraviolet rays it will be worth it. I plan to put it out on the second-floor deck just outside this room. Nobody can see me out there in a state of dishabille unless they drive up directly to my house, but from there I see them coming and duck inside real quick.
It makes me sad that I may have to stop playing the scales on my digital piano. I've already had to give up on playing my guitar. Of course, I stopped playing my guitar several years ago in favor of the piano, but the idea that I can't play it because it's too painful is the point. As I get older there are lots of things I may not be able to do any more. It's when I can't take walks that might be worse. Currently that is not a problem.
I didn't do much walking yesterday. The supper my brother and his wife gave was unexpected, and it came up when I thought I'd get out and go. I admit to some curiosity about what this man would look like. He came from my mother's side of the family. I had only met his grandfather a couple of times over the years.
That's how it is with families that grow up in poor places like Mississippi. Everybody has to leave to make a living when they grow up. My mother and father came east to North Carolina because my father got a job offer to teach here along with other teachers with a degree in agriculture from all over the country when N.C. passed a law to have one in every high school.
His siblings got involved with the petroleum industry starting in Arkansas when my father was a little boy. His oldest brother was eighteen years older than him, and found jobs for the husbands of his sisters out there. They worked for Texaco, and eventually most of them moved to Texas to retire. I hardly knew any of them ever. Too far apart. Too little time.
My mother's brothers followed my grandfather into dirt work operating heavy machinery doing road-building. For that reason they went to New Mexico around Albuquerque. Eventually, many of them and their children returned to Mississippi. Like the boy visiting here currently. His grandfather, my uncle, returned to Hattiesburg and raised his family there. Interestingly, my mother's family, the Johnson's, will have their annual reunion here this summer.
My sisters and brothers have all been to the Johnson reunions down in Mississippi before. I've never attended one. I've avoided them to do my go-ye-therefore trip. A lot of them, as I understand it, are fundamentalist Christians, and do not approve of living like I have. I hope I don't have to sacrifice their children to appease the nature gods I also follow. That sort of thing don't seem to fly with the fundies. '-)
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
