Walking Solo

Anything you fully do is an alone journey.


Natalie Goldberg
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Hello Sandy
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I recently read an article written by a man who had found his marriage falling apart and what he did to save it. He and his wife had two grown children and a comfortable life. But it seemed to them that the romance and adventure were gone out of their relationship, they were bored with each other and felt divorce was imminent and unavoidable.

He began to think about what he wanted in a marriage. He thought about companionship, sharing of interests and ideas, respect, compassion, moral and emotional support, a sense of adventure, affection, comfort, admiration, love. He determined that he possessed many of those qualities himself and didn't need to go looking for them in someone else. He further determined that since he had those qualities he could express them. He then saw himself as a man who would make a good husband for some lucky woman.

He made a list of the qualities and abilities he thought were the best about himself and began trying to express them at work and at home with his own and soon to be divorced wife.

Unknown to him his wife was also making a list of her own. She reasoned that after the divorce she would probably be looking for another love affair and maybe a marriage. So she began to describe to herself what kind of a man she would be most attracted to, what qualities he should possess and how he would behave toward her.

They were both on their individual, alone journeys, but the wife began to realize that the man she had been describing to herself as the ideal husband was more than adequately realized in the husband she had. and because he was trying out the good qualities he found in himself on a trial basis at home, his wife began responding to them. Voila. A new love affair. No divorce.

It became a sharing of him with her and of her with him. That's a big secret. The pursuit of happiness is an alone journey. It may include other people, but happiness doesn't come from them it comes from us. And we can share it.

One never knows what the future may hold but this Vagabond Journey of mine is an alone one. There is no one else involved except an a once-in-a-while basis. But I have qualities, abilities and talents tht put a smile on my face whenever I think of them. And that's good enough for me..

Dana Bate - The Vagabond
No. 1,898
Never Give Up
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Wedging

Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning.

Natalie Goldberg
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How can we tell where one thing ends and another begins? We build curbs to show the difference between the sidewalks and the streets. But those are man made things. How can we tell where the shore line is? The tide goes in and out, the waves splash on the beach. We draw a line on a map, but it's imaginary. The shore line is in constant flux.

Drawing the human figure is a difficult task because of the uncertain beginnings and endings of various parts of the anatomy. Some people like to think of them as blocks. There's one block sitting on a smaller block and underneath that is a large block that spreads out and has longer, thinner blocks hanging off of it. That may help someone trying to understand proportions. But the human figure isn't made of blocks. There's another, better theory where the parts are seen as wedges connecting with each other. It's a much better idea I think because it allows for one muscle connecting to a bone underneath another muscle and making its appearance as the other muscle recedes. It makes for a fuller explanation of the human figure, and it is also closer to the way things are, naturally, in other areas of life.

I think of igneous rock wedged into stratified rock. I think of the roots of a tree wedging into the earth. I think of the song moving into its accompaniment. I think of the words of the poem moving into and pushing up its rhythm. I think of adolescence wedging into childhood and adulthood into adolescence. I think of the affairs of our nation where new theories and practices are wedging out the former, no longer useful ones. I think of a great idea originating in the bare bone thinking of some philosopher and gradually wedging its way into society and history. I think of the future working its way into a past that hasn't finished yet.

I think the wedging analogy is the truth about existence. When we reach the end of something, the beginning of the next has already formed itself from its primordial bones and is wedging itself into our lives.
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Never give up.
DB - Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION

It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.

Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

12 answers so far.

You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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The Pilgrim

All those hours of our lives are our own. We have to figure out what to do with them, but having our feet on the ground is a good beginning.

Natalie Goldberg
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I wish I was a sample man. I wish I had a simple life. I sometimes wish I had never seen the backstage of a theatre, the inside of a radio studio, or the handle of a drum stick. I wish I didn't know about ontology, cosmology, semantics, ethics, metaphysics, sociology, politics, history and religion. I wish I didn't know about Bach, Mozart, Wagner and Schoenberg. I'm often tempted to discard all my books and magazines and never buy another one.

I wish I had lived a simple life with a steady job doing something mechanical or educational; a grammar school Phys Ed teacher. I like kids, That would have been a good one.

I would have liked to have a simple home with a wife who liked to smile and keep her house and her garden, while I fixed things up around it. I would be happy with simple food: franks and beans, burgers and potato salad, pea soup, Once a week I would take her out to dinner: Chinese, Italian, steaks and chops.

In the evening we would watch a movie or two. I would get my news from the TV and not think much about it. I would enjoy a good ball game and have a favorite team. Once a year we would take a vacation and go to the shore or to Disneyland.

And if I wanted to be creative I'd paint pictures of flowers from her garden and not worry if they were any good or not.

I would enjoy a good joke and share it with my buddies over checkers, while she was with her ladies sewing circle talking about whatever ladies talk about.

I would be reasonably healthy, well fed and sleep the sleep of a grateful and contented man.
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But I can't afford to properly feed myself. The TV news irritates me. I've been a Yankee fan since I was a child but I don't follow them now. I cherish my books even though I have to read with a magnifying glass. I love music and won't stop hearing more and more into it. I fret over every one of my paintings. There is no woman here, smiling or otherwise, no kids, no garden. I sleep in short spurts of time. And I am angry and distressed that illness has taken me away from my career.

The sound that you hear is my silent, fundamental, existential scream of rage and sorrow.

Come and sing with me, all you who are dissatisfied, even to any degree, with the conditions and limitations of your life. Come sing with me and we will raise the spirits that have ignored us and call them to account for their neglect. Come sing with me the song of the struggling pilgrim.

DB - The Vagabond