"O heart, such disorganization!"
At my computer after arriving at the office a second time this morning. My first arrival ended in the realization that I'd left the condo without putting on a belt. Would anyone notice? Probably, or they'd just sense something was amiss in my sartorial presentation.
As I pulled back out of the parking lot, I thought it was probably a good thing that the starter failed on the Columbia last Sunday. God saving me from myself. If I'm so distracted that I'm leaving for work semi-dressed, I really would have no business flying an airplane solo into one of the busiest airspaces in the world on Friday.
The trip along Beach Drive never ceases to amuse. A fellow about my age, who has at least forty pounds on me, chooses boldly to take his morning walk shirtless. I am way too self-conscious for that, personally. Another contemporary of mine strides in the opposite direction, slim and goateed and wearing Yoda sunglasses, complete with little green ears pointed along each side because, well, of course.
A pretty young lady almost merges with my bumper when the dog she's walking attempts to chase a squirrel across the street. Another couple contemporary to me, squared up and old and the color of a leather briefcase, stride along the water's edge in what one might call tennis outfits.
My truck tells me it's already 90 degrees at 8 a.m., reminding me of another very hot place I knew three decades ago, where the hum of the air conditioning units never ceased amid the desert stillness.
The classical music station reminds me of something I never knew, that Leonard Bernstein performed his final concert at Tanglewood thirty years ago today. Thirty years. August 23, 1993. Where was I? Teaching F-15 students at Tyndall, taking the LSAT, and planning my escape from the frying pan into the fire.
Back in August of 2023 my phone buzzes with a message from a client, expressing his condolences for my loss. I've grown to despise these well-meaning texts. How to respond?
"Thanks for thinking of my family."
"Yeah, me too."
"Go f*ck yourself. I'm fine."
Today I'm leaning toward the last one. I'll keep it to myself.
My first run at a homily in nearly five years was a bust. I ran it past a trusted friend, whose edits suggested not nipping around the edges but completely recasting the jumble, like melting down the dross used to create this vessel of disorganized thoughts and starting all over again.
Or maybe I'll try to salvage some of it. I've only got three days, after all, and still with one more piece to write for the memorial service. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, Donk.
But Mom deserves better than that. It's a dilemma.
The reference to a vessel reminds me of the conversation I had yesterday with the cremation center about picking up what's left of Mom on Friday morning and delivering it to the church. A tactile reality just over the horizon. And the thing has already been done, there's a box on a shelf somewhere in their little warehouse with Mom's name on it. All that remains.
This morning's interesting takeaways from the Times included the startling fact that Russia's marketing campaign for military service appears to be a relative success, insofar as there's been no second draft to refill the ranks they've massacred in typical Russian military fashion.
How do they convince these young men to throw away their lives in this latest stupid war (and aren't most of them stupid, when you come right down to it?)? Well, money for one. Getting blown up in Luhansk pays four times the average Russian's wage. Then there's the patriotic drivel, floating on a cesspool of propaganda that's convinced some of these sad young men that they're fighting to save the Fatherland (wasn't it "Motherland" in the last big war?). They also highlight the meaningless of life as a drone working in a grocery store, hanging around the gym, or driving a taxi. Better dead than bored.
But the tactic that struck me as the most familiar, as a military history guy, involved attractive women expressing their huggy admiration for these single drifters who were going to save the country, to save them. In an age where we actually have a word for young men who are involuntarily celibate ("incel", if you're curious), this brings it all together. I have no money so I can't get laid. I have a lousy job with no prospect of advancement, so I can't get laid. If I don this body armor and oversized phallic assault rifle (no one in those adds is carrying anything less), I may lose a leg, or even my life, but I also might get laid.
A tale as old as time. It sort of reminds me of the old "white feather" recruiting tactic in Britain during World War I, when attractive young women were hired to troll train stations, handing white feathers to young men of military age who weren't in uniform, shaming them into volunteering for likely death in an excrement-filled trench in Flanders.
As a former young man, I shake my head that they, we, never respond with the right question. Why are these guys so poor, and leading such empty lives, that wading into a mortar barrage seems like a better option? Why is there this sense, perhaps in error, that most can't work hard enough to build the sort of life some young woman (or young man--I'm not judging) would want to share? No one ever seems to inquire about those things, because to do so would turn our social order onto its head.
Time to get ready for my first call. I have five today, all with unhappy people I represent, sharing a little of their misery with me. I have a little I could share as well, but won't.
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