Category Archives: boredom

The Beginning of the End?

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My last post appeared here exactly one month and one day a year ago. The poem I wrote on that day pretty much describes what this past year has been like, filled with dental difficulties, lower back and joint pain, worsening my of hiatal hernia and GERD, and struggling with such existential issues as what the hell is the point of my being here at all at age 86.

Complicating my struggles even further is the fact that I fractured my right ankle badly four months ago, resulting in three separate surgeries and bouts in and out of rehab.

Currently, I am wearing one of those Star Wars-looking orthopedic boots on my right leg and a lift contraption on my right shoe to level out the length of my legs to enable walking. Yeah, right. It’s like trying to walk with a shoe box on each foot. So I have to use a walker to keep upright.

I have spent the past four months pretty much homebound with my foot elevated and my daughter taking on the exhausting role of caregiver — giving me my meals, my meds, and whatever access to the outside world that I need to have, including trips to the doctors and careful forays onto the deck in the backyard (weather permitting).

I can’t help looking at this as the beginning of the end, because from now on, it’s only going to be one thing after the other, as my assorted healers keep track of my chronic kidney disease, the damage to my digestive system, and the need for pain management of my back and knee.

In the past, I never thought about how long I might live, since my life was always filled with distractions from hard realities — fun hobbies, good friends, and variety of other interests. Now I often think about dying — when, how, why — and whether I’ll ever again have a compelling reason to keep the end at bay.

Right now, it’s like I barely exist on any kind of meaningful level.

Back in the old Blogger days, many of those folks made the point that blogging was a way to write themselves into existence.

So here I am, again, attempting to write myself back into existence, trying to find a point to it all, after all. Hoping to find a desire for desire.

ponderings on a typical April day

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NERO FIDDLED; TRUMP GOLFS

History says that the fall of Rome was caused by a number of factors, including internal corruption, trade issues, wars over expanding territories, and incompetent leadership. Legend says that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. History will report that Trump golfed while American democracy collapsed for those very same reasons as Rome’s demise.

BOREDOM
“A desire for desires.” That’s how boredom is referred to in Chapter 8 of Anna Karenina. I can identify with that these days. I wish that there were something that excites and motivates me, that fills me with a desire to create, to imagine, to become involved with. I desire to have a desire. Instead I watch a lot of tv and sleep. And play brain games on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Word Chums with a friend, and Words With Friends with one of my former college profs. But I have no energy. Even getting out for my African Drumming class has become a chore. I keep doing it because it’s the last thing I have that gets me out of the house, despite the lower back pain that makes it hard to carry my drum. I have no more interest in knitting or sewing or any of the crafts in which I engaged for decades. I need an adventure, but I have no idea what that might be. I am bored to the extreme.

ENTROPY
It looks as though this will be the year that parts of my body start falling apart. I just had a thyroid biopsy and will get the results this Friday. My sacroiliitis has flared up again, and so I’m off to the Pain clinic later this month to get re-evaluated so I can get another series of injections. I broke a clasp on my partial denture and have to get a new one, although it never is going to fit perfectly because of the location of my missing teeth. I need new glasses, unless I get my cataracts removed, but I’m not sure I’m up for one more medical procedure. I guess I’ll wait and see what the results of the biopsy are.

ADOLESCENT ANGST
I found this old poem I wrote when I was about fifteen. I guess I was depressed even back then.

I hear the dreary, mournful refrain
Of the steadily falling downpour of rain.
Not the rain of a wild and stormy night,
With furious streaks and flashes of light,
With tormenting winds of passionate force
And eerie outcries from an unknown source.
Not the kind of rain that rises from hell
And holds all the world in its magical spell.
Not the kind of rain that’s so torrid and splendid —
That you still stand in wonder even after its ended.
And still not the rain that’s mellow and mild
As sweet and refreshing as the smile of a child.
Not the shower that calls all of nature to waken
With gentle caresses that leaves all unshaken.
Not the rain that makes every creature feel new.
Not the rain that leaves the world sparkling with dew.
But a gloomy depressing curtain of gray
That covers and hides all the brightness of day —
A shroud of depression, a mist of despair,
A cloak of discouragement, everywhere.

“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”