I stepped
out of it a long time ago.
I grew weary
of it.
All the
wrangling. All the taking sides. All the hard and harsh feelings. All the
name-calling and accusations. All the never ending struggling for prominence
and dominance in the Right versus Left, Liberal versus Conservative, Religious
versus Anti-Religious. All the divisive inter-religious bickering and all the
finger-pointing issues that seemingly have no end. All the constantly having my
innards in a turmoil. All of the doping frenzy fueling frenzy that keeps people
emotionally intoxicated and stirred up.
I concluded
that there is pitifully little that I can do about any of it. So why let the
mess consume me and keep constantly wrecking my personal peace and serenity?
The
conclusion was liberating and life-changing.
It was,
thinking back to those earlier years, the generous spans of interest, time, and
involvement that I invested in studying several Eastern and Western monastic
traditions that began moving me out of the frenetic fray. Their practice of disassociation
from the events of the world allowed them to more fully embrace and focus more
intently and objectively on life and its most essential elements.
I still
cling tightly to several of the monastic puzzle pieces. This particular
disassociation piece is a jewel to never be parted with.
It was this
piece of the puzzle that helped me rediscover and reconnect with that almost
lost interior part of me that was, as a child and youth, cultivated and groomed
by the familiar woods, creeks, overgrown fencerows, and meandering cow paths
where I spent enormous amounts of time during my formative years. This piece of
me, like the jewel mentioned above, is a piece that will never be parted with
now that it has been rediscovered and reclaimed from beneath the assorted layers
of life that kept it hidden for so much of my adult life.
I am approaching
my 65th Birthday. I am, at this point in my trip from start to
finish, simply an older version of that young kid and I am still out roaming
the woods, creeks, and other natural wild places that feed my sense of peace
and serenity.
There is
something that my mom would say of my dad once his mind began to go.
“Once a man, twice a child.”
I watched
the development of his senility. It was sad to watch.
I think the
sadder thing to watch, particularly in retrospect and now that I have joined
the ranks of the Retirement Club, was all the years he spent from the time he
quit farming and up to the time the senility began to take him.
He did very
little.
He did not know
what to do with himself, so he became immobile. His days were spent eating and
napping in his chair before turning in to sleep all night. That was his daily
routine for close to two decades. Perhaps he never rediscovered and reconnected
with his inner kid. Perhaps his formative years, as the last-born son of Czech
immigrants, were so traumatic that he didn’t want to reconnect with his inner
kid. I can surmise but I cannot say with any certainty what was going on in my
dad’s head. He kept a closed latch on a lot of things.
I can say
what is going on in my head, though, and one of them is that I have better
things to do in retirement than waste away in a recliner waiting on senility to
take my mind. There are entirely too many fun and interesting things for us two
oldering kids to do.
Our
miserable summer heat and humidity is about behind us and our Fall Camping Tour
is about to begin. There are places to go, sights to see, backroads to travel, trails
to blaze, and campfires to be kindled.
Where will
we be off to first on our Fall Camping Tour?
We are
thinking about Arkansas.
There are a lot of roads.
Just pick one and go.
