upstairs hall

Yesterday, my older son pretty much completed painting the upstairs hall. It looks good and fresh and clean and what flaws there are remain pretty much camouflaged by the overall newness.

The rugs are where they had been and the pictures likewise. He scrubbed up the paint zits. He vacuumed.

Much to my gnawing dismay, my physical contributions to the project were limited, though I did have 13 years of experience in the past to call on and kibbitz with.

The upstairs hall is painted.

Now, as with all efforts that require actual and sometimes extreme effort, there is nothing left to do but forget about it.

Forget the unforgettable.

designer frock

A woman wearing a dress of fresh flowers designed by Zita Elze poses for photographers in the M & A Centenary Garden during media day at the Chelsea Flower Show in London May 20, 2013.
REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Bowatte Indaratane sets himself on fire in Kandy May 24, 2013. According to local media, the monk had set himself on fire in a form of protest against the slaughter of cattle.
REUTERS/Stringer

15,185 lanterns

In the Philippines, a record number of paper lanterns were released into the night sky under the sponsorship of the Middle Way Meditation Institute, a Thailand-based organization. The organization said Friday's event celebrated "world peace through meditation".

The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that the previous lantern-release record of 12,740 had been broken.

Wouldn't it be nice if peace were as easy as a record-breaking beauty in the night sky?

what is reliable

Living a life in accordance
With the successes of others --
How reliable could that possibly be?

Living a life in accordance
With the failures of others --
How reliable could that possibly be?

It's not my call, but relying on the successes or failures of others, however popular it may be, sounds like a recipe for uncertainty and dis-ease.

Courage and patience and doubt strike me as the tools most likely to winkle out what is reliable.

Applause and catcalls won't cut it.

access to intimacy

"Intimacy" is one of those $5 words that can arouse a sepulchral hush ... this is deep, this is important, this is meaningful, this is the me that is the rich soil of me.

Intimate stuff is not often every-day stuff. It arrives unbidden -- sometimes in wonder, sometimes in horror. Like as not, it whispers ... which is not to deny its enormous power. Lurking or open-as-the-sky, it infuses ... whatever it infuses -- perhaps a friend, perhaps a thought, perhaps a feather on the sidewalk. And whatever it infuses is richer than what it does not infuse.

I guess I was thinking about this stuff in somewhat the same way I think of Internet activities like Facebook, which, if I get it correctly, allows one individual to "friend" another -- to assert a connection and relationship electronically. And it occurred to me not so much that such friend-ships were pretty thin when compared with the real-life friends that might take years to make, but that if a person created a lifestyle that depended on an intimacy that could hardly be called intimate, it would be pretty crippling.

I'm not trying to imply that relationships or thoughts or emotions need to be hushed and thin-lipped with seriousness. I am as big a fan of the superficial as the next person. Giggling is a lot of fun. Stupid conversations can be salutary ... though personally I have a hard time with long discussions of the weather or baseball.

But I do think it's a smart move to find an access to intimacy -- some framework in which to acknowledge and honor and perhaps till the rich soil. Imagine the emptiness and uncertainty that might exist if "friends" existed solely on the Internet. Or if god were merely "God." Or if a homer were only what other people hit. Wouldn't the lack of intimacy eat anyone alive?

What framework? To each his own. When and where and how to slip into a personal intimacy is a personal matter. My thought is simply that that framework deserves to be acknowledged and cultivated, not because it sounds kool in "Psychology Today," but because good friends are hard to find and are worth the effort.

Turn the volume up; turn the volume down ... it's the music that's important.

"May I become the person my dog (which I don't have) thinks I am."

Johann Strauss Jr.

On a grey and gloopy day, for those like me who may like to wallow in a little schmalz, Johann Strauss Jr. wrote one version of a prescription:

"As Good as It Gets"

A nice, slight 1997 movie ... "As Good as It Gets" with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear and Cuba Gooding Jr.

The premise is small, but the characters are, for once, credible and interesting.

I liked it and wondered, not for the first time, why fictions shy from the weird and helter-skelter qualities that human beings can exhibit. What's wrong with a symphonic truth ... even in fiction? One-note characters may be consoling, but they are exhausting.

let's assume

For those who travel in the Buddhist countryside, one of the central arteries is "everything changes." Intellectually, this is somehow satisfying, as if noticing what had not been noticed before conveys on the visitor an improved understanding and ease. Intellectually, it's kool because it calls into question assumptions that were previously given an elevated or even not-so-elevated status.

Intellectually kool.

Palpably true.

It is as if, but quantifying the truth, there might be some immunity from it.

Assumptions ... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

In the state of Washington,  a portion of a bridge over the Skagit River, disappeared in "a big puff of dust," according to driver Dan Sligh, who, together with his wife, was unable to stop in time and ended up in the drink. The assumption that the road was smooth and reliable ... poof.

In London, there is shock and horror after a young soldier was brutally slain Wednesday, apparently by

Lee Rigby

two men wielding knives. "Terror" aficionados have gone into high gear, but generally the assumptions and their fallout went unchanged:

Britain's terror threat level has remained unchanged at "substantial" - the middle of five possible rankings.

(An AP story, linked above, was so intent on the "terror" aspects that it failed to mention the name of the young man slain, Lee Rigby.)

When has the quantification of "terror" ever adequately addressed the problem? Yes, you can frighten people; yes, you can support an amorphous bureaucracy; yes, you can pretend to understand (and thus, maybe, sidestep) the reality ... but in a large group of individuals, terror, so-called, is an option no matter how much money is spent. Where peace is gift-wrapped, war is sure to follow.

Assume change.

Assume dissolution.

Assume terror.

Assume love.

Assume joy.

Assume sorrow.

Assume the rug is there and, when that doesn't quite work, assume it will be pulled out from under you.

Assume that there is safety.

Assume that there is danger.

Assume that assumptions are good or bad, right or wrong.

Building up or tearing down, assumptions seem to form a Miracle Glue that holds "it" all together.

I assume you're old enough to know the usefulness of miracles.

religion ... the proof

How much of what passes for religion is little more than an effort to prove to others what anyone might lack the courage and kindness to prove to themselves?

Perhaps the question points out in some measure why religion is called -- often with a swirling and lubricated smugness -- a belief system.

It's not a question I can answer, but to the extent that it might be true, I think it's a pity.

Courage and kindness are nice.

Boy Scouts vote

The Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to accept homosexual youths into its ranks, but made no similar provision for gay scout leaders.

Total youth membership stands at about 2.6 million. BSA's adult leaders and volunteers number about one million.

The many organizations that support BSA -- most notably churches -- were sometimes painfully divided on the issue.