I woke up this afternoon thinking about frequent disturbances. If it were not for the frequent disturbances, you couldn't get me to leave. I would not "go gentle into that good night." I would wrap my arms and legs around the nearest tree trunk of the right size (say, a medium) and hold on for "dear life!" For life is dear, wonderful! "Choose life!" Indeed! I would! But I also remember those migraines. No drugs could touch them. I would go outside and walk at three a.m. just because it hurt too much to lie down. I ended up in the hospital once because of the pain. Whew! But they are gone now, thank (er) God?
Good, right? So fill the fridge with beer and Chobani raspberry yogurt! And see, what is that little mark on the page after raspberry? Nothing ever seems to work quite right or it breaks or the second law of thermodynamics takes over and "things fall apart"; the center really can't hold. Just turn on the news!
You build a nice house, your wife makes a magnificent garden to stroll through or rest in and what happens? You try to hunker down there, after strolling or sleeping and the wind rises and branches start falling and breaking things, and you call the tree trimmers at ninety dollars an hour and they find a nest of angry hornets in the top of one of your trees and everyone scatters, rapidly, and the fee goes up. The tree trimmer was stung only eight times! Eight! I would still be screaming!
If not hornets, then the snakes arrive in the early evening and climb (who knew they could climb!) the tree and into the wren's nest and eat the baby wrens. I saw it happen. Apparently the snakes (rat snakes probably) watch where the wrens go regularly during the day, and under the cover of darkness, they go there too. Diabolically clever, they are. Frequent disturbances!
Flannery O'Connor uses as an epigraph for one of her novels embodying our image of journey: (quoting from memory, and we know what happens with memory!) We go to the father of all souls but the dragon sits by the side of the road. Hmm. And we all must pass by the dragon. That sentence doesn't sound quite right, but it gets at the basic idea: life is a journey to our real home, which is heaven, but we are continually menaced by the dragon who is Satan or Sin. Good luck with your journey. Where is Saint Michael with his sword when you need him?
Just when I got my pay to a decent wage at Berea, the neuropathy struck, vicious stuff, and I had to take disability. Guess what happened to my decent salary! Insurance restored some of it but the loss was somewhat disheartening! One of the good things was that I got out of somethings, like faculty meetings, that I just could not sit through. Listening to my colleagues ramble on about nothing much would only make me aware of how much something hurt. And since some of them invariably rambled on at each and every meeting, I thought enough was enough. That was a disturbance I no longer needed, at all. The dean or president at the time agreed. No faculty meetings.
Then, of course, there are the joys of old age and the delights of a life and retirement well earned. Right, except that the second law has caught up with my body too. I love to walk the little dachshund who loves to be walked, but rheumatoid arthritis has attacked my joints making it difficult to walk. Never mind that, what is a little pain after years of having been conditioned to go on in spite of it. (I never missed a class in grad school and never turned a paper in late!). So, now we walk, always fifty yards behind the others, and with a cane, but we are still moving, usually.
I used to be able to pick up the little guy's poop when we walked in town, and I still do, usually, but now I run the very great danger of toppling into it. Fortunately, there was a telephone pole handy to lean against, and I didn't go all the way down the last time that happened. I also find that Simon looks over his shoulder more often now to see whether or not I am still coming. "Still here, little brother! Still here."
I have noticed that lately, Simon sometimes pretends (?) not to see the squirrel so he doesn't have to struggle against the end of the lead to chase the little bugger. I've seen him look the other way till we pass the danger. Joan Weston was walking two versions of Cerberus yesterday when they passed us, and Simon was quite happy not to have to go anywhere near them. Close shave little buddy, close shave. You should see little Schuster though. He will bark and roar and pull against the lead no matter how many or how big the other dogs are. "Cerberus? Let me at him, or them. Whatever!" I suspect he will get us all killed someday, and there it is. Schuster, one more frequent disturbance whom we love dearly, even though he still does not quite understand what a walk is truly for. Yesterday, for example, we no sooner got home than he ran upstairs and peed on the living room rug. What on earth did he think all that wilderness was for? Goodness, little guy. Let it flow out there!
I see all these old people (seventies and eighties) on TV dancing and carrying on as if their bodies were in peak shape. Maybe they are. Maybe God hates them and lets them live without torment. Who knows? Who can understand? All I know is that when the grim reaper knocks on my door, I will probably still hide behind the sofa and send Schuster out to bite his bony ankles. Seriously.