alive and kicking and D.O.A.

.
Today, I was invited to lunch by Michael Erard, the fellow who wrote the account of his experiences as an army medic during the Vietnam war and I posted several days ago. Assuming I can find his house in Belchertown, several miles from here, I look forward to the food and the company: Michael is a nice person. Perhaps too nice, but still, nice.

For Michael, as for others, the talons of the past reached and reach out and tear at the flesh of the present. Not everyone is as riven as someone who has experienced combat, but still ... the talons of the past reach out and tear at the flesh of the present.

More politely, the past, whether joyful or horrendous or just plain boring, reaches out like some early-morning fog -- ravening or bright with deliciousness, it makes no difference -- and fills the day, the present day, the right-now day, the right-now right-now. It is as compelling and impelling as a malevolent creature on "Night of the Walking Dead" or as beckoning as some bathed-in-light saint pictured on a Hallmark calendar. Nudging or flesh-eating, still the past dances or nips its way into the present.

And the strange part about the past is that for all its force, for all its impact, the past is always D.O.A. -- the impersonal notation on a police officer's report to indicate the subject was "dead on arrival." The past cannot be held or remembered with perfect accuracy ... it is gone and yet here it is, both D.O.A. and very much alive and kicking.

In Zen Buddhism, some traditions make use of koans, the intellectually-insoluble riddles that force the mind to confront its own self-serving ends. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "What did I look like before my parents were born?" or just, "What is this?" In Zen Buddhism, such things are neat and tidy in their offerings. There are, by some accounts, 1,700 formal koans and yet it is hard not to wonder why anyone would bother with a formal koan when there are so many koans already facing a man or woman in a perfectly ordinary, walking-around life. Oh well, I guess if you want to build the Golden Gate Bridge, you might start with Tinker Toys.

The past is invariably D.O.A. and yet as alive a spry and sassy as Usain Bolt.

In my neighborhood, there is a chipmunk which has made an appearance. S/he skitters and zips from one place to another, hidden at one moment, apparent in the next. Whoa mama! What a speedster! Beautiful and silent and not at all D.O.A.

What an adventure.
.