A Poem by Duke Miller

You’re in a shitty African hospital with wet, moldy walls or is it bombed out Bosnia
No it’s somewhere on a bad road, and you are hurt and have lost track of time
You make it out of bed and throw up on the floor
Lean against the wall
You’re dried up like fish fillet in the sun
You notice somebody in the hall looking at you.

His face is twisted and blank like he’s looking for a mask
He walks away with a sheet covering his body
You think it must be Halloween
Then you leave your room and see a light at the end of the hall
You walk in the dark, a candle or two around, and the place is quiet
The night is hiding from the war
At the end of the hall there’s a room and you look inside and see a new friend
A companion in this fucked up place

He raises his head and his eyes light up
You are hope for him, a way to get better, a conversation about something peaceful
You touch his arm, he’s burning up, and he mutters backward words, echoes swirling away
You see things in his face … his parents, a town, a girl, a different life
They are in the very back of his eyes, living in soft light, like the softness of your heart, and it is all there at the back of his eyes, and you know he is never going to get out of bed

You are hollow, tired, an old man beating his fists against the wall
You walk back to your room, step in your vomit, climb into bed
You dream, as if you were someplace else and things are soft, grey mush, and you attach your hand to the soft beat of your heart and the soft breathing of the guy down the hall, and in its own way, the dream is timeless, formless, and unlike him, you will live another day

A poem by Duke Miller … pictures by Jan

As I’ve mentioned before, for someone who’s not religious I have in my possession, a lot of Bibles. I know how I obtained most of them. But this one just kind of dropped out of the sky:

In case you’ve never seen one before, this is a Gideon’s Bible. A Gideon’s Bible contains only the New Testament, Psalms and a WHERE TO FIND HELP, When section. The actual story of Gideon is in the Old Testament which is a little strange but whatever.

The initial goal of the Gideon’s (a group of Protestant men who must be over 21 and either a businessman or a professional) was to distribute these bibles to hotels, hospitals, jails, reformatories, schools — any place where there might be a soul who needs saving.

The Gideons were founded in the late 1800s by a couple of traveling salesmen or so the story goes. Their purpose was to provide solace for those far from home and on their own. I could applaud their efforts except for this:

Why is the American Flag inside the cover? I’m one of those folks who firmly believes the United States is not (and should never be) a “Christian” nation. We should adhere to certain core values of Christianity – charity, honesty and compassion – but those are the core values of most other religions. I wish they would have said “The Bible was written by groups of men claiming to have had revelations from a supreme being who’s called by many different names. Many people find comfort and strength from various passages of this book. May you be one of those people.” Not “you’re a sinner but here’s your chance to be saved.” The Gideon’s are still around but there aren’t too many of them. I suppose not allowing women, Catholics or union members to join might have something to do with that!

Meanwhile we are having a brief break before a string of storms (the atmospheric river) moves in. When the sun does break through and hit the green hills, it’s gorgeous. However, those hills are closed to hikers … too many mudslides. I hope wherever you are the weather is a wee bit dryer! I feel like I’m about to sprout gills.

My refrigerator is almost thirty years old. In human years, that’s over one hundred at least. In terms of fancy features, it does have an ice maker but it’s kaput. When we had the kitchen remodeled about twenty years ago, I had them build the cabinetry for a large, modern fridge as I was certain the Kitchen Aide’s days were numbered. But alas, it just keeps chugging along.

Old Faithful – doesn’t everyone have flamingos, angels and the alphabet on their fridge door?

I dream of one day purchasing a refrigerator that can at the very least:

• Locate the Dijon mustard that’s somehow gotten lost in there
• Tell me which food items are spoiling and need to eaten or tossed
• Order eggs and butter from the store when we’re running low

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you? After all, they make refrigerators these days with wi-fi

This one tells you the time and the temperature. You can also surf the net. And you can see who’s at the front door. Really?

Refrigerator to visitor: “This is the Amanda 4000. Please state your name and the purpose of your visit. Your photo has been sent to the local crime stoppers brigade so don’t even try to steal the garden gnome. I have special skills. I will hunt you down and I will squish you.”

No, that’s a bit too much. Just a magnetic surface and the ability to tell me where I left my glasses, that’s all I’m asking for. And no Zuul inside. Am I tempting fate?

Anyone undergoing an extensive rehabilitation process can tell you, it sure does distort time. I feel like I’ve just left the physical therapy building with a new list of exercises when it’s time to return again. It’s kind like that movie Groundhog Day. Wasn’t I just here a moment ago? Didn’t I just do this?

My days begin with sketching exercises for both the ankle and knee which I do laying down on the bed. Then come a variety of balancing exercises after which I stop to ice both the knee and ankle for at least fifteen minutes, with my feet above my heart. I’ve tried watching news during this time but I don’t want to add heart attack to my list of things to recover from. So I watch My Lottery Dream House. In case you’ve missed that “home improvement” show, the host is on happy gas.

You might think that’s the end of my travails, but they want me to repeat this exercise and icing routine at least two more times. By the end of the day I barely have enough energy to climb into bed. Forget writing; forget cleaning the house; forget anything else but eating. I’m lucky in that, according to my husband, I do not properly do the dishes or wash the clothes otherwise this place would be condemned by the health department.

Physical therapists are angels, there’s no doubt. Anyone who has fallen and broken an ankle or a knee or both (like me) and had to spend a couple of months waiting for the bones to heal will have serious doubts about ever walking unaided again. We need a lot of encouragement. And we also sometimes need a kick in the fanny. But I’m stubborn. I want to climb stairs again. I want to dance. Even though it seems like each day is an unending slog through an ever-growing list of exercise routines, I persist.

By the way, these days you can track your exercise routines online through … you’ve guessed it … an app. The app lists the routines you need to complete and, if you’re a good little girl, you can mark them off as you go along. Other than just the thrill of checking off all those boxes, I don’t need another way to waste the few minutes I have between routines!

For those of you with kids, who’s the one performer from your youth that your children cannot bear to listen to?

This mild mannered Scot drove my two children bonkers. His name is Donovan Leitch but in the mid sixties and early seventies he was known merely as Donovan. His song, “The Tinker and the Crab” gave me the idea for this blog’s tagline “Saying Nothing in Particular.”

On the windy beach the sun is shining through with
Weather fair
White horses riding on the seas pasture onto the
Sand
Over the Dunes came a travelling man
Sack on back
Wild flowers in his hand
Old rusty cans, pebbles ‘bedded in the sand stand
And stare
Scratching his beard through the grass he steered
His sandy shoe
Disappearing in the dips pondering and wandering
Along
Nice as you please comes the travelling man
Drinking a bottle of milk in his hand
Speaking to no one in particular but happily
Down where young gulls dance driftwood lying drying
For the fire
Yellow beak and sleek now the gulls are crying
Flying higher
Out from the sea came a little green Crab
Taking the Sun the morning being very drab

Old rusty cans, pebbles ‘bedded in the sand stand
And stare

The Tinker and the Crab

In the days of superstar rock performers with their entourages and groupies, Donovan seemed downright approachable. The shy boy in class who wrote poetry and played the flute. Indeed, he once stopped a concert to kiss a shy, awkward teen who was a friend of mine. It was the thrill of her lifetime.

His songs often didn’t make a lot of sense. They were strings of images which many critics felt contained an undercurrent of weirdness. Ancient civilizations rising from the bottom of the ocean, witches taking over the streets, hurdy gurdy men selling their deadly wares. Perhaps that’s why my children threatened to jump from the back seat of the car to their deaths if I played one of his CDs.

But I loved the other worlds he created on his self-described quest. Especially when he teamed up with another writer of weirdness, Edgar Allan Poe.

Enjoy! Unless, like my children, you find Donovan a bit too weird!

Only someone who has had to spend two months using a walker can understand the excitement of graduating to a cane. Don’t get me wrong — today’s walker is an engineering marvel. They not only fold in seconds for car rides but can be flipped into service at the blink of an eye. But contrary to what I thought, people do not put tennis balls on the back support legs in an attempt to make a fashion statement. The rubber feet the walkers come with will wear out, fall off, scratch floors, etc. Definitely replace them with tennis balls asap.

Of course my first cane will be one of those medically approved jobbers and I will have to prove to the therapist that I know how to use it correctly. (Who knew there was a right way and a wrong way to use a cane? Ah, the things you learn in rehab!) But once I’ve mastered that skill, I’m moving onto the posh canes. Maybe I’ll even get one that serves a purpose other than to steady my pace.

I’m not a magic nanny, a mad scientist or a fighting Irishman. The only writer I can think of who used a cane was Oscar Wilde.

Oh dear. All these canes have a back story or a purpose. What shall mine be? Gored by a rhino during a safari? Fell off the cliff while climbing Everest? Certainly it can’t be tripped over my own feet and face planted on a slate floor! That hardly warrants a fancy walking stick now does it?

*** Photos are from Bing Images