Sunday winds down

 

After church this morning (we went to eight o'clock, we may vary between eight and ten-thirty from Sunday to Sunday) and then treated ourselves to breakfast at Bayou Joe's where we both had the catfish and eggs, for long years my favorite there along with their fried grouper sandwich. 

Mostly good experiences at Bayou Joe's over the years, and it feels home for me because I grew up on Massalina Bayou. Along with Apalachicola, living in the condo there at Tarpon Dock Bridge, or Cove Condo on Cherry Street, were on the short list, along with three possibilities across Hathaway Bridge, until we realized the super convenience of the underground garage with elevators here at Harbour Village, united with my lifelong ties to St Andrews.

As Sunday winds down and I realize that I'm older than I've ever been and older than I ever expected to be, what's on my mind? That some things are more important in life than others. Besides love, and those I love and have loved, 

There's a Mary Oliver poem, sent by a dear friend, that I've had on my computer desktop for months. Mary Oliver was just my age, born four days before me, on 10 September 1935. It's amazing how some people add so much to Life and most of us are just here for a while and gone. Who are the great ones? The poets, the musicians, some philosophers, and that's it. What does one do to enhance creation? Not to make a name, but to add life and beauty. Some authors who are gifted artists themselves, such as Salman Rushdie, Mark Helprin and countless others. A very few people like Ruth Ginsburg, and Winston Churchill whom crisis raised to greatness. But I'm sticking too much to my own Time and not giving thought to prior generations of humanity, eh? Jesus. Marcus Aurelius. Mark the gospel writer, and whoever consolidated Genesis into its wonderful stories of a people's origins and history with their God. And, oh, 

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core,"

so, Yeats. And always Robert Frost,

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference,"

 

somewhat confirming Hannah Arendt on existence and Being, that we do not have an essential self, but rather that "it is only the choices we make in real Time when confronted with decisions that determine who and what we become, and are, and will have been, and determine the kind of world that we will help to shape."  

Arendt writing about the banality of evil, living in a Time of terrifying political reality, from which we should eternally learn, and which we should never forget.

+++++++

But I ramble. Furthermore, if +Time is not a food blog, neither is it a political blog, and so I fully intend not to get into this afternoon's news, and the greater news of the year, and so forth and so on - -

+++++++++

Sunday afternoon, for supper, looking to a bowl of cabbage cole slaw mixed with ranch dressing and sprinkled with Linda's leftover catfish from breakfast.

RSF&PTL

T88&c