Year of The Plague, Entry 10
This morning we are getting some much-needed rain and therefore a much-needed rest.
A little over three weeks ago we realized the cooler weather, Patty’s departure from the clinic, and the quarantine finally gave us the opportunity to tackle the cancer which is the grounds of Gein Manor. We had become hemmed in on three sides by massive thickets of honeysuckle, most of the dogwood trees had been killed by anthracnose, a number of wild cherry trees had either reached the end of their life cycle or been choked by euonymous, and damage wrought by several heavy snows years ago had finally done in a small grove of flowering crab trees. Patty has been attacking the ground cover from below while I have spent my days playing with chainsaws. My sisters and former work colleagues who have bought into the image of me as an accident-prone nerd are horrified by the thought of me playing with power tools and dropping 40 foot trees, which amuses me to no end. The only downside to this entire enterprise is what I have to pay to have the carnage hauled away. There will also be hefty costs for the removal of limbs too close to powerlines and the house for my skill level and refusal to work on a ladder with chainsaws, but this is the price of my neglect due to the job and various avocations these last 30 years. There have also been great rewards- after hacking through one particularly stubborn jungle of honeysuckle I found some sprigs of Himalayan rhododendron that had miraculously survived the drought of 1999.
On The Plague: we’ve had 5 deaths from the virus here in Monroe County and I’ve known 3 of them. I was also sad to learn that Matthew Seligman, the original bassist for The Soft Boys to name but a few, passed of the same cause last week. Our very red governor is talking about opening some businesses in the coming weeks and isn’t looking past the 1st of May on closures just as we have learned that the state board of health was tracking virus cases in Indiana before they even announced we had cases. Thanks, guys.
This morning Sid the Second woke me from a dream that I was hunting through a bookstore for a new biography of an artist named William Ryland. I could not remember who he was and upon looking him up, I did recall reading 45 years ago about William Blake’s prophecy that Ryland would hang, his hanging at Tyburn in the Newgate Calendar, and seeing an engraving of Ryland trying to kill himself when he was arrested. Why that name popped in a dream is one of those delightful mysteries of the brain. The only clue I have is that we are, for equally unknown reasons, bingeing Outlander, so perhaps images of Great Britain of the 18th century have excited long forgotten yesterdays. Aem will be happy to know we alternate Sexy Kilts (as Patty calls it) with episodes of Better Call Saul to save our IQs from the turgid bodice-ripper.
In the quieter moments (mainly when Patty is dealing with her private practice since I have agreed not to play with chainsaws while she’s not here) I have been taking stock and continuing to explore how much one can change one’s brain at this relatively late stage of life. This process is part natural byproduct of retirement, another part of a writing project I am considering, and yet another part resulting from weekly Skype sessions I’ve been having with some friends from the Zen Center. These include an 85 year old retired electrician who happened to be working on the building in San Francisco in which Suzuki established his group in the 60s and inadvertently fell into a practice with the hippies and dropouts who were following their Beat predecessors into Zen, as well as a 70 year old monk who began practising in France with Deshimaru. For reasons I cannot fathom, I have been working through a line from the Heart Sutra (“beyond all inverted views”) and a line from Dogen’s Genjokoan (“even though we love flowers, they fall; even though we hate weeds, they grow”). It is, for me at least, eminently weird to reach the mid 60s and realize how short-sighted and self-serving my perspective has been. I would be embarrassed and full of regrets but (a) it’s been fun and (b) embarrassment and regrets only drag one down. Just need to keep plugging along.
Speaking of which, time to get started on red beans and rice for dinner.
Stay healthy and best wishes.