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Photo by Jay Hagan,
7/12/08 Burbank, CA
A Thought for Today
Never mind what is, think about what
could and can be.
TO BEGIN WITH
It will come as no surprise to those who follow my work that I have a
special affinity for autumn; as a season of regeneration that signals
winter in the wings and a time when much of life is behind us and less
remains up ahead.
My first book published when I was barely out of my teens was titled “.
. . and autumn came” and my latest all these years later is “Rusting in
the Rain;" in between there hasn’t been a single book without at least
one poetic reference to this third in the quartet of seasons that make
up every year. So, I got grabbed by autumn early and I’m still hanging
on to it.
While I go on extolling autumn I probably couldn’t explain it better to
myself than I did with the first six lines of the poem I’ve selected for
today:
Autumn as a season
and autumn as a life
are different
than I first expected.
The first, an abstract;
the second, a subtract.
Here are some current thoughts on the season that begins today.
NOTES ON A LIFE IN PROGRESS
ANOTHER AUTUMN
Earlier this month I wrote a column about the clutter in my life and
despite it’s title, Optimistic Voices, some of you seemed to greet it as
a death rattle. My friend Jay Hagan wrote to me and said:
“I made the following post on the MB this morning
after reading the FP:
You get the impression from today's Flight Plan
that Rod feels he is running out of time.
If you were in the same situation would you say "F*** It" and go out and
enjoy the rest of your life and let someone else clean up the mess or
would you knuckle down and try to clean up the mess yourself?
So far just a few people have responded but both of them suggested that
the "retired fanatic" would be the most likely person to help you out.
I volunteered to come out years ago and live in The Dungeon until we got
everything organized but you never responded to the offer. That offer
still holds. I even made the following suggestion on the MB this
morning...
"To make it easy on him... he and Edward could catch a jet to some
far off place and just leave me the keys to The Mansion and I would lock
up after I am done."
"Mansions & Dungeons?” It sounds like a cheap knock off video game.
For the record Jay I’ve had the feeling that I’m running out of time for
as long as I can remember but I didn’t answer your first thoughtful
request years ago to go through my assembled junk for the same reason I
haven’t addressed the dozens that came with my latest grumbling about
what a lousy housekeeper and inept file clerk I have always been. I
wasn’t sending out a distress signal then and I didn’t mean what I wrote
to be interpreted as one now.
I was merely speculating on what someone might find in my stuff/trash if
they were hired by my estate to clean out the place after I was gone. I
don’t plan to be gone anytime soon but when I do the junk goes with me.
Frankly the thought of anyone, including you my good friend, going
through my private papers while I’m alive or afterward is to say the
least a little creepy.
As you know I haven’t visited The Message Board in years so I don’t know
what other comments your posting solicited.
Summoning the adage physician heal thyself, if I can’t get around
to sorting my own haphazard set asides files and flypaper to mine them
for something worth keeping there probably isn’t much worth keeping in
all those drawers, cabinets, boxes and stacks that threaten nearly every
room in the house.
Yes, as autumn approaches again ones mortality tends to pop up on the
front burner but a pot of pasta atop the fire puts it in perspective
pretty quickly. Besides if in sifting and sorting I came across a few
ideas that jogged my memory and mind, ideas take time to develop and
that brings us back to autumn.
Perhaps I am nostalgic for nostalgia or as Simone Signoret put it with
the title of her autobiography, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. It
really isn’t. I can remember when I opined for Times Gone By or sang The
World I Used To Know and no one sent me letters edged in black.
The first frost and the turning of the leaves is bound to make us
question whether whatever we’ve done this year –– never mind in a
lifetime –– with the hours and days we’ve been allotted was enough or
good enough. Relax, you are probably in the plus column. Me? My own
verdict on what I have accomplished or contributed to my fellow human
being is still out. This is not a plea for e-mail pro or con, only a
September 2008 view from the California observation deck.
Excuse me, with the last of the September tomato’s simmering in the
saucepot I’m off for a plate of pasta. The most important choice I have
to make in the next few minutes is Farfalle or Riccioli. Farfalle is
feathery amid tomato and basil and Riccioli holds the sauce better.
Whichever one I choose by the time the water boils and the added pasta
is aldente it’s a two-martini effort.
RM 9/21/08 First Publication.
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