Today, with the rain pummeling down soft and insistent, there seems to be some small return to 'normalcy' -- a more ordinary craziness in which I do wish I had the capacity to wish the rain on the western part of the United States where desert conditions are no joke and, unless I am very much mistaken, the waxing of dry-dry-dry may easily lead to a war that, like any war, will kill black and white alike.
I don't mind losing the days of the week, but the nearness and dearness of water, the protruding ribs of this cow or that and the crackling tan beneath the farmer's foot ... it simply cannot be fixed with that perfectly-coiffed hair the TV advertises every three or four minutes. A time and place without thunder and small, muddy rivulets .... it may not frighten others, but....
There are three or four-hundred paper-backs shelved around the first floor. I've reread six or seven as I play the lie-down-on-the-bed-game. Even second hand, they're OK -- time passers, better than most TV and with an occasional bit of literacy... not too much literacy, just a little will do.
My younger son is almost finished with his two-week first stint with the National Guard out on Cape Cod ... running around, making loud noises, I assume. The world comes back into something resembling serious focus. On TV's C-Span ... there was a serious conversation or at any rate something that drew me in ... into something that sounded serious to me....
A friend sent along a phrase I haven't quite got the nerve to consider ... "value neutral."
Bit by bit .....
Coming off of this brain injury, wearing a halo, easily drawn into lines of thought bordered by fear and anger, i’ve shelved the history books i was working on previously in favor of old friends. Rereading All Creatures Great and Small for myself, and reading a star trek paperback to Felisha. Light reading to distract and not challenge my abilities. Take me away calgon kinds of moments are treasured now, rather than the excitement of learning.
ReplyDeleteMy early childhood was in swamp-east Missouri, where rain, thunder and the smell of ozone through a screen door were the most wonderful things. California doesn’t have these events generally, and lately not at all. The central valley bread box is threatening to upset the national apple cart i hear.
From www.oxofrddictionaries.com…
value-neutral
Syllabification: val·ue-neu·tral
Pronunciation: /ˈvalyo͞oˌn(y)o͞otrəl/
ADJECTIVE
Not presupposing the acceptance of any particular values.
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I can’t find any application outside of sociological applications. Nothing in science, math, or nature. I strikes me as a fantasy that any human could lack a bias of some sort. Maybe there’s a way of applying it that i’m too lazy to explore. But at this point i’m thinking that it’s human arrogance expressing that superiority we apply to our governance over nature and reality. And to me, that’s a real fantasy.