What the Hell!!? 


Jim falls off the bicycle of life. 

These blogs must by necessity be contrived. Just think about it. Here one is, potentially writing to the whole world. No great philosopher of the past had such an opportunity. But on the other hand. To think that both Kelly Ripa and Queen Elizabeth could be reading your words, wow. Now I admit that is a grandiose fantasy. But there is something to the point, namely that nearly all of us aren't going to be advertising to the world with what we consider to be our worst sides. So what is the point here? Well, for one thing, there is a certain hypocrisy inherent in spending four weeks, as I just have, proclaiming on the nature of the Christ Child, on the one hand, and being the miserable human being that we all know that I can be on occasion, on the other hand.

Today was such a miserable day. Let me take just a TINY example. So, my sister has gone out of her way to make a lovely dinner for the family: mom, brothers and their assorted kin. She lives out in the country on a beautifully landscaped nine acres. I am driving my aging mother and spouse out in a rented Taurus, and mom needs to be driven fairly close to the door. In the process of this finegaling of the car, I back over her lawn to make a colossal yard divot, drag mud up the driveway and into the garage. That is how I make my entrance. (I, of course, apologized profusely.)

And it was a lovely day, with both Vicki and Jerry's family putting in a showing. She made SAUERKRAUT BALLS, my favorite, after I thought she had sworn off ever making them again. All kinds of goodies and drinks, it was fun, catching up on news, watching the many wild birds from their deck, surrounded by her phenomenal collection of Pfister and Possible Dream Santas.

But I digress from falling off the bicycle. Maybe it was the dream that followed the one the night before. THIS TIME I am in Stephen's and my condo and I happen to notice that one of his barrels of bird feed has a mouse living in it. But as I look closer, I see that the mouse has built an enormous tunnel that goes back into the building. Exploring this, I end up in the basement of this condo. There I find a bizarre assemblage of realtors having a wine and cheese party and hawking these and other condos. They are so engrossed in their schmoozing that they are oblivious to the fact that above them are many huge mouse tunnels weakening the entire foundation of the condo. The dream progresses from bad to worse. I cannot find my way back to my own condo. I keep ending up in front of this and that strange condo complex. And others are having the same difficulty. So a few of us ask a woman just entering her unit if she will drive us a couple of blocks to where the condo surely must be. She is irritated, and after disappearing in the unit for a few minutes, she shows up with a street person named "Jerry," who she informs us will take us there for $5.25 a person. I could add details, but you get the picture.

You may recall that the night before, I dreamed that I had neglected a puppy of mine until it nearly died and then tried to hug it back into life. Clearly I am experiencing loss here. I have lost my way in the dream, and the feeling carried over into the day. I kept experiencing Stephen and mom as being really irritated with me. And on top of that my niece had to make a trip to the emergency room. Despite the marvelous feast my sister had prepared, it was a very wobbly and shaky day.

At first I thought I had no business writing a blog entry on a day like this. "I'm out of balance," I thought, "and I'm sure to say something that I will be sorry for later." Ah, but then I realized that I don't have to publish every blog entry that I write. So I could take the chance. I suspect most of us have these falling off the bicycle days, and sometimes bruised knees and elbows or even broken bones.

So tonight I am admitting to myself and the world that despite my high-blown pretensions of understanding spirituality and friendship, I am fairly joyless. I don't see a way back to joy. This is not cool. I need to work on this. I have lost the joy of my youth for one thing. My mom was reminding me today of how I was always running everywhere when I was a kid. One time, shortly after we had moved to a new house I ran out as usual and jumped off the porch, forgetting that now it was a 9 foot drop instead of a three foot drop. I survived of course. But it is getting harder and harder to jump off the porch.

I'll talk to you later. 

Posted: Fri - December 30, 2005 at 09:50 PM          

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