“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” -Czeslaw Milosz

This is my time to write what I want, mostly observations of living where we do about 5 to 6 hours south of the US-Mexico border. The border is a truly contentious place, giving those with vigilante dreams the opportunity to pretend they can make a difference and live out their separatist fantasies. Not much of that happening here, we are on the Pacific Ocean side of the Baja peninsula and our climate is so similar to San Diego’s that we can use their weather reports, handy. We do have to live through the May Gray and the June Gloom to get the next 5 months that are splendid. The ocean water started warming up in June so for me it is no longer like swimming in the Artic or requiring a really thick wetsuit to swim and not get hypothermia, that is a huge plus.The really cool thing is that I frequently get to swim with the dolphins and pelicans, however when the first dorsal fin comes out of the water, even though I know it is rounded and dolphin, my butt puckers just for an instant before knowledge kicks in. Mostly I can appreciate the gift of that in my life and the gift of life.

Have been re-reading books that I read years ago but don’t really remember (at least not well), right now reading the Paul Theroux travel books, in particular at this time, “Dark Star Safari” his trip from Cairo to Cape Town and his trenchant observations on NGO’s and missionaries as he traveled through Africa, “evangelicals: pudgy, cookie munching, christ bitten peoples out to destroy another culture”, not what one would call charitable, however if one looks at what evangelicals are trying to do to American society then it seems to be a salient observation, as they work diligently to interject the church into state in direct contravention of what I believe the constitution and founders intended. I sense that their motivation comes from fear and, surprisingly, a lack of faith. Though I may paint with a too broad of a brush it does seem to apply to the majority of them. .

“The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can’t change your mind, because God sure isn’t going to change His.” -Roger Ebert

The other Theroux book is “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” where he followed his own trail from “The Great Railway Bazzar” thirty-three years earlier. Good thing he references his travels from the earlier book since I sure as heck don’t remember them, though I remember really enjoying the book at the time.

Just finished reading Emily St John Mandel’s newest book “Sea of Tranquility” a really good observation on impermanence in the firmament of time. This book gives me hope after the watching from afar the destructive swath of the Supreme Court as it attempts to tear apart the constitution. Thank god progress is inexorable despite these hiccups, it certainly is getting the voters to come out and try to preserve a democracy.

Heard someone say that they don’t think they will have enough money when they retire, like anybody thinks they do. It certainly has caused some people to work long enough to die in the harness, not something one should aspire to is my thought. I remember one of the people I knew back in Salem, he worked 6 days a week to “have enough” when he finally retired, and then he died running on the beach in Puerto Vallarta 6 months into his retirement, an indelible lesson imprinted in my mind. We certainly didn’t have enough but have managed to survive and live a pretty good life, We can’t do a lot but our necessities are covered, there is never enough for those afflicted with the disease of more. In the same vein I was reading an article about the illusion of the bucket list, people become so focused on peak experiences that are completely transitory (if we didn’t have camera phones would we even remember them) and they miss living the life they have been gifted. Mary and I have got to do a lot of things but only in hindsight were they any type of bucket list material. Had we planned them it would have totally altered the time and the memory, life is what happens when you are busy thinking about making plans.

“It’s like, at the end, there’s this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid? “-Richard Bach

“People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I was looking at some of my old writings and posts and found this from about 2010. (The isolation that I sometimes feel is not that I don’t like people or don’t like being around them it is I am simply tired, tired of keeping up with the world in its current form, tired of people constantly fighting over ideologies that will be moot in a year, tired of  a world that constantly chews up good people and spits them out while letting others get away with corruption on a level not seen since the Roman circuses). So much has happened and so little has changed from this observation, there really is a ton of news, to much really for any one person to begin to comprehend so we all begin to prioritize and those priorities soon leave me barely looking at any news. I used to really enjoy the “News of the Weird” but now it all seems to be that, just perusing headlines can give you a sense of living in the wrong time on another planet.

Mary has gotten back into painting rocks after taking some time off to recharge her creative instincts. Good to see her back active doing her thing. I have done the same with the chairs and tables that I was making, actually just got tired of doing them so decided to go back to something I used to do and that is making walking sticks, which I really don’t make but take sticks to fashion them into walking sticks, some are more successful than others. This time around I am attempting to learn to carve figures and animals on the sticks using dremels and knives, hope I am not too old to learn a new trick or two. Mary just wants me to keep me from cutting up my fingers. How did we learn anything before youtube anyway? There are some really talented people out there doing some amazing things and technology lets us follow along.

Have been getting to swim a couple times a week in the open ocean which is pretty cool and then biking once or twice a week in the mountains to the east, we have a diverse habitat here to enjoy. Mary and Phoebe generally walk, though we have noticed that Phoebe’s beginning to slow down and doesn’t seem to walk as far nor with as much vigor, she never really recovered from the poisoning last year. It is tough to see mortality in those we are close too, and to have a bit of grieving over the way they used to be. For us that is the new normal, We still wear masks and keep our distance when it seems appropriate, I am not sure I believe we will ever get over the pandemics, I sense one after another and we will simply fend as best we can under the circumstances. Everyone has there own safe zone and each to their own, far be it for me to try and impose my choices on someone else, as they say in hiking, hyoh (hike your own hike) but don’t judge another for theirs.

“One can be ignorant without being bigoted, but one can’t be bigoted without being ignorant.” -Dale Robert Greenley

take care and may you all walk in beauty

Tony