Amorella among the scavengers. Moody October. What does this photograph remind you of orndorff?
The circling birds reminds me of a scene in Melville’s Moby Dick where the birds follow Ahab’s white whale as he is large and island-like except in this photo we are on the shoreline. I am also reminded of a scene of Death playing a game of chess with Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. (Thank heaven for Google as a memory fact reminder.) It is such a wonderful scene that I am borrowing it from Wikipedia. I don’t know if it is proper to include the thumbnail photo in here but the film had such a powerful impact on me in the early sixties.
I doubt there will be repercussions from your ‘borrowing’ such a small photograph from the film especially as you have given credit where it is due. Sometimes though your timidity is alarming. It is no wonder that I have to do the writing. You would have perhaps put all to ink if you had had the gumption to work it out of your head, which you still do not, but you would have let it set in boxes under your desk in the basement with many other notes and not finished works.
That is not fair, Amorella. Just because I like to write does not automatically mean there must be a reader beyond myself. I have my few kind friends who read and they should be enough, yet here I am hanging myself out on blog, open to the world. What you see as timidity is really only politeness. It does not seem proper to ‘sell’ myself. In fact, I would not do this present online business if at first I did not desire to give the Merlyn books away for free online.
Even my first blog of information on the books was written a year ago in part to prevent people from buying a book they weren’t going to read, and I always advertise that the books are available at two Ohio public libraries (Westerville and West Chester, part of Middletown) that can be borrowed via an intra-library loan system so all a reader has to do is go to herorhis local library and ask for it.
Thus, you are timidly polite or politely timid.
This has nothing to do with one’s spiritual nature.
* Hello there, Richard. This is Grandma Earth, the personified mother of your physical and mental human nature. You are indeed timid and you have developed ‘politeness’ to cover for this affliction as you see it. For instance, those who know you personally can testify to the fact that at times you apologize needlessly. It is as though you apologize for being alive. Do you understand me, boy?
Yes, Grandma. I do sometimes consciously feel like I should not be here. The titles of my first trilogy attempt, Stuck, Home, On Earth, imply something of that nature. We are all stuck here on Earth. That is the existential element. And Earth can easily be the world in its grander meaning, or the galaxy or even the universe at large that allows our physical nature to exist. Earth is home. I am no alien, but if you look at the natural universe as such, then I should not have survived my premature birth.
Only science kept me here originally and has done so several times since. The thinking is always in the back of my mind. I am here, stuck and alive until I am not. I would rather be as the air, invisible and used for something beneficial than just sitting here taking up space.
Writing allows me to be at least self-deluded into thinking I may make a difference by existing, that the core of the tiny thought always in the back of my head. Thinking of ways to make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren and equally for all the children in the world is a challenge for me. Now, the ways may not be practical, but perhaps someone else can come along and make them more so. I am basically a dreamer, Grandma, and writing allows me a way to communicate my dreams.
I loved teaching for allowing me to use literature and reason and grammar and writing exercises to stimulate individual thinking and personal consciousness. I know I made a difference to a few of my students over the years. Now I am spending the time trying to teach myself to be more conscious of our human nature and our world. It is a good way for me to spend retirement.
The more I learn about myself the more I am conscious of these aspects in other human beings. First, we are mostly story tellers. We tell stories to ourselves and to others. How can we be forgiven for what we are? With reason we can separate the story telling from what we really are, from our individual realities. From our realities, we learn something, at least I attempt to learn something that I can take with me when I die.
You speak more openly with Grandma.
She and I have an understanding as I am of her. You are more imaginary, more unworldly, Amorella. It is more difficult identifying with your voice. Grandma is what-you-see-is-what-you-get, she is black and white and of the earth like I am.
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