Backyards of Success

-2, and a clear, cold day in the darkest time of year. Christmas came and went, a blur of another year. 

COVID and a pinched nerve, allowing me to isolate without a flood of questions, disrupting my role as butler for a dynasty, an infectious virus.

Children here, young adults now, figuring out their roles as the next generation of whatever makes sense in an absurd world: Dreamer; rigid, superficial survival; meanness embodied, projecting poison, easing the tension of another. Understandable defenses--I know there's much more. But the harshness is killing me. Childhood objects disintegrating in the backyards of success. 

 

January 2025

 The first month of 2025 came and went. A flash. 

A few highlights:

• Participated in a daylong zazen retreat with the Anchorage-based Upright Noble Zen. I joined my son for the practice period.
• Three days after the retreat, I dropped him off at the airport for a flight to England. He is studying humanities at Oxford in a Middlebury program. 
• On the 18th, I returned to my childhood home in SW Arkansas to see my aunt before her exit. Alzheimer is vicious. As I sat with her in silence, the three unavoidable realities--old age-sickness-death-were in full view. She died the day after I returned to AK.
• #47 was installed in the Whitehouse on the 20th. Hateful authoritarian edicts undermining democracy, promoting racism, creating anxiety and chaos across the nation and beyond.