Three twenty.
My dream was probably inspired by reading A Swiftly Tilting Planet more than a month ago. The mail has arrived… My D vitamins were there, so I took one. I hope for a difference in mood very soon. I learned that the next food pantry is not until the 14th. Band practice is this Saturday at three o’clock. Maybe I can get to the laundromat this week? No other engagements I know of. It’s really only a time investment. A while ago I unwrapped a clock that belonged to Mom. It is small and white, electric, and analog. Made in the USA. It runs a little fast, and it varies in speed here and there, but it’s a good souvenir of my mother. The sun, partly confounded by clouds, is beginning to decline for the day. Calls to mind the Greek myth of Phaethon’s ride. I don’t remember what became of him after he lost control of the chariot. Was he punished? Or did he simply drown in the sea?… He drove the chariot too close to the earth, so Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt, according to the internet. But I’d like to get it from Ovid myself. It was in seventh grade English class that I first saw a film of Greek mythology, and Phaethon was part of it. Mr Olson’s class, way back in 1980. In the days of film reels, with an analog projector on a pull down screen. The lights were turned off, and after the focus was adjusted, it was showtime.
Quarter of five. I feel more serene now, at peace, and equal to a challenge. Yet I wonder why my family can’t get along together. My mother wouldn’t have wanted it this way. My sister thinks it’s a sin to desire anything like knowledge or wisdom in this life. Book learning is against her religion because of a few stories in the Old Testament. I don’t know. I just can’t reach her in her redneck land. She has a hard time even forming original sentences in English. She doesn’t try, and never applied herself in school…
Eight fifty five. The New Testament also derogates human wisdom as opposed to divine, and Polly seems to have adopted this attitude as law. Some versions of scripture have it as “not philosophy but Christ.” So that if you spend your whole life with your nose buried in only the Bible, all other books in the world will seem forbidden and taboo. They are unworthy to be read and understood, let alone applied, for being mere human information, when only Christ knows what is important. Polly’s religion is so watertight and closed that all her hopes are pinned on the afterlife in heaven, and that’s a gamble she is willing to take… but not me. Do I admire her devotion, or rather mock it as foolish? Many people will scoff at her beliefs, including my brother. I can only shrug and leave her alone, for I don’t share her worldview, or rather her view that renounces the world. It’s very puritanical, like Anne Bradstreet or another throwback to 17th Century America. The best I can do is respect my sister’s right to believe, as long as the respect goes both ways. More likely, what seems like respect is really aloofness for incomprehension of each other. It’s too bad, but that’s life.
robgradens 