October 27, 2006

• Odd the Way Perspective Changes

  
  First Snow

  This is not my favorite time of year.  I don’t have a single
  favorite season, but this one doesn’t even make the list of faves at
  all.  It hasn’t always been that way for me.  When Doug was
  in school and we had to walk about half a mile before dawn to the
  school bus stop, first snow brightened the place,  made the road
  easier to see, and provided contrast for any moose there that we might
  have needed to avoid.

  I’m feeling satisfied and virtuous for having gotten out there during
  recent weeks and gleaned all the stray firewood that had accumulated in
  the yard for several years.  It’s too late now, with everything
  covered in snow, but that’s okay because I got the last of it hauled
  inside a couple of days ago to begin drying out.

  

  The feelings from having made a water run yesterday are just as
  satisfied, but not so virtuous because this was something that just had
  to be done, a routine task.  I was weak, wobbly and uncoordinated
  from the aftermath of my recent wood chopping, so Doug did the heavy
  work and I just recorded the event.

  

  There wasn’t much to differentiate this run from any winter water
  run.  A lid was stuck on its bucket with ice and Doug tugged at it
  until, in frustration, he swung it around and mimed smashing it onto the
  outlet pipe.  Then he tapped it a few times and pried off the
  lid.  Nothing unusual in that.  One thing that was a bit
  different was that cold weather hasn’t been here long enough to have
  built up a mass of ice on the freight pallet platform.  It was
  just a semi-slushy crust.  Doug stomped around to break it up,
  then kicked it away.

  

  Bleak, isn’t it?

  ---

  In the news:
  Corpse worship rears its ugly skull.

  Two German Soldiers in Afghanistan have been suspended
  for being photographed “playing” with a human skull.  To me, and
  to Greyfox with whom I discussed the story yesterday as well, I am
  certain, as to Doug with whom I don’t need to discuss this latest
  incident to know his stance, this is absurd.

  If it had been the inert remains of a horse or a dog, for example, the
  photos would have passed without comment.  But because that skull
  might have belonged to someone’s granny in a past now gone, these
  supposedly formerly adequate soldiers are disgraced and unemployed.

  Garbage!  Refuse, cast-offs, more durable than flesh but not quite
  as permanent as rocks:  that’s what bones are.  A lot of
  false and limiting beliefs, probably originating in the far prehistoric
  past from well-founded fears of contagion, have endured and expanded
  into superstitious reverence for mortal remains.

  If you disagree with me, I’d be willing to discuss the matter further.  Otherwise, enough said.

  

  • 1:42 pm
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