... a madman

So What Else Is New? muses journalist, author and social critic Harry Golden as he sits in his rocking chair on the front cover of his book by that title. Harry Golden, who styled himself "The Carolina Israelite" and published a newspaper by that name, taught me to love books whose chapters are individual stories, essays, articles. I have, or had, I think I’ve given them to Joe, and one to Kristen when she was studying Judaism in America, just about every single Harry Golden book. Maybe they’re in Joe’s room on the bookshelf that we try to keep loaded with titles we think he may enjoy; he likes to read when he’s here during his December and July visits.

So what else is new? Getting used to the idea of death, for one thing. When we're young, that old or older people die seems perfectly natural to us. When you get there, their dying around you brings grief, sometimes more than might have been expected, and one may find that it's not only because of the death of their life, but also and especially if it takes away part of your own life, even if it was just a dream, a memory, a hope, a door left ajar somehow, a light shining across the way. Death permanently turns off, even though the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock shines on. It wasn’t real anyway, was it, it was a dream, an -- idea. It was those neurons, or whatever, in the brain of one person among seven billion. So, when we die, do our dreams, the embers still glowing in our minds and hearts, just go out? They do? Just like that? Gone? Are you serious? As gone as if they never were to begin with, and as inconsequential? We can't believe that, we can't even imagine existence without us, which is why we have religions that look toward more beyond the veil.

If that -- Schleiermacher's "sense of the infinite" -- was imbedded by the Creator, fine, well and good. But was it conjured up as we wandered the wildernesses of our history and, fearfully looking up at the stars, wondered, "what the hell?" and "what about me?"

There’s no depression here, and sadness goes away in time, even grief, that’s our experience of living as humans. It’s just that I’m determined to work through some of this while the Church is still in Easter Season 2014. Anybody who is mad enough to read these musings of a madman is madder than the madman, so I'm not bothered about what mad readers may think. Just don't call the van. This is Thursday, a walking day like Tuesday. Tuesdays I drive home down Lisenby Avenue, turn west at 17th Street, then sharp right turn into the garden where friends live. Well, they don’t actually live there, do they, but memories do, my memories anyway. Memories can be visited regardless, even if some friends and beloveds live in other gardens. There’s a Jewish tradition that after we die we live on in the lives and memories and hearts and minds of those who knew and loved us. They are where there is no pain, neither sorrow nor sighing. We are still where there is. What started this? Easter? I suppose so.

What happens to us after nobody is left who knew or remember us, or even who remembers or knew the generations who did know us? To answer, wander Greenwood among graves that have been overgrown with weeds and vines a hundred years and more. To be forgotten is to no longer be. But by then it no longer matters, does it.

So what else is new? The dehumidifier in the front part of the house is removing a couple of gallons of water a day, restoring freshness. The Blu-ray disc player arrived yesterday but I haven’t hooked it up yet. There’s an HDMI slot to run it to the TV or computer though, so what could possibly go wrong? Whatever could will.

Where Rivers Change Direction arrived yesterday and I immediately read the first chapter “In Praise of Horses.” Mark Spragg is a gifted writer, much more to my readership style than Pynchon. From amazon.com, the book is the same as new, marked $15.00 U.S. and I bought it for fifteen cents U.S. plus $3.99 S&H. Spragg is author of An Unfinished Life which, if it’s the same style of short story essay chapters as Where Rivers, I may order An Unfinished Life next. Besides, the title rings bells at this time and moment of my life.

On the back cover of Where Rivers Change Direction a reviewer wrote, “Here is a book for women to read to learn the hearts of men. Here is a book for men to read to curse what they have lost.”

I know about that.