[Above photo: All the turkeys in a row.]
Yesterday I split the rest of the maple which we pulled from the woods two years ago. The second maul, which Linda was using last week, is double the weight of the one I was using. Hard getting it over your head but it really cracks through the wood on the downstroke. It’s a musical sound and very satisfying to pop off fireplace-sized chunks.
We made soap two days ago. Well, I watched as Linda made it. NaOH and olive oil/Crisco/coconut oil were carefully measured, mixed into a slurry, and poured into pans to “saponify”. Once solid, they were placed on a table to harden further. Oh, also lavender essential oil for scent. When hard, we’ll cut them into bars with a wire, she says, and wrap them for little gifts in her handmade paper—instead of the customary bottle of red wine at a dinner party, we can bring this. Will our hosts imagine it as a suggestion to bathe?
The noose is tightening. Little did I think I’d feel grateful to Michael Cohen for lying and then telling the truth. What a sea of sewerage DT swims in! Surrounding himself with chiselers and liars. How ever did we sink so deep as a people to elect someone so shallow? Maureen Dowd wrote in the NY Times today about the Clintons’ road show, how they’ve made $240 million from >700 speaking engagements since he left office. What of moment have they to say, at this point? Does it all go into the Clinton Foundation to do good works, I hope? I now feel wary of Hillary, even though she was in most ways the best prepared and most intelligent of our candidates. We all have feet of clay, of course. Since I’ve never had, or made, the opportunity of great wealth or vast public approbation I cannot understand the attraction of spending one’s days mining for money and fame. A miner’s life is, if not dull, repetitive. Like Mick Jagger at 70+ singing “I can’t get no satisfaction” or “I’m a backdoor man”. Kind of sad and irrelevant.
There is a must-read article in the Times today, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here”, about the collapse of the insect world. Since they, with their millions of subtly and not so subtly different species and tasks, form the very foundation of our natural processes, it is sobering to note that our degradation of the planet has yielded a 75-90% decrease in many species in a variety of locations. Since everything depends on their toils, it is pretty scary. EO Wilson, in his latest book, talks about how we must allow half of the planet, to revert to a wild state in order to prevent the eventual collapse of Nature as we know it. Of course, if we are gone, life will continue but differently. It makes me hesitate when I drive my car to the grocery or, even more so, knowing that when I’ll fly to Yangon, my personal atmospheric CO2 contribution will literally be tons. Multiply that by an immense number of planes daily and the mind numbs, aware of the implications. And climate-deniers abound, heading corporations and governments, chasing….money? And cod were once so thick in the Atlantic that schooners sailing thorough a school of them would be stopped. One of the author’s points is that we are like the frog in the gradually warming-to-boil pot: we don’t easily recognize the changes.
As I attempt to stave off the frailty, if not feebleness, of ageing—speaking of the frog in the pot—I put unreasonable faith in my daily 20’ morning exercise routine. It, along with regular hikes and walks, keeps me fairly limber and strong. But I can hear the footsteps behind me in the forest, as I race to outrun them. I cannot settle for a non-physical life; it may be forced on me, as it is on so many. I don’t mind moving through life more slowly. I just like to keep doing most of the same.
There is a decidedly morose cast to my mind today. It is reflected in the weather. As we awoke it was snowing vigorously, which I’d love. Now it is 34 degrees and raining. And grey. It is, however, amazing how one’s mental state improves with a fire in the fireplace, a warm onion tart, a glass of red wine, and lively conversation.
We went to a performance of a local choral group last night. It was a beautiful venue, the Saint Sauveur Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor. The guest music director didn’t exactly extract the most from her musicians so the Bach Magnificat was pretty lackluster. She had planned for the chorus and the audience to sing a few carols afterward but, even though the words for the 3rd and 4th verses were given us and everyone was enjoying it, she stopped us after two verses, saying, “I’d just planned for us to sing two.” I wondered about her parents’ treatment of her. Were they caricatures of rigid Lutherans, as Garrison Keeler affectionately mocks? I like amateur offerings if the performers are engaged with some passion. In two weeks we’ll hear the Bagaduce Chorale which is reputed to be special. It ain’t New York or San Francisco but I prefer living here.
As I assemble my curriculum for the Child Psychiatry course I’ll teach in Myanmar, I am amazed that I’m taking this on. Teaching an entire 9 month course covering all of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on my own. Generally there is an entire department of a medical school contributing to it. However, it is an opportunity to effect the course of child treatment in an entire country. Long on relationship, light on the medication. The power of talking/playing therapy. I’m warming to the task. Plus, weekends I’ll travel about the country, seeing natural and man-made wonders, eating delicious Burmese food. Pretty sweet. No turkey or buche noel for this man on Christmas day: green mango salad and mohinga for me, as I’ll arrive in Yangon at 11:45PM December 24. Perhaps a ripe mango or a handful of mangosteens for desert.
I hope that December is kind to you all. It can be a tough month in a Buddhist sense: more attachments and expectations than can be satisfied.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 