Yearnings of an Old Man
Always keep a box of kittens nearby...
Took the above photo a couple of months ago at the Loxahatchee, not far from my home in Delray Beach. I publish it here and elsewhere because it evokes in me (now well into my seventies) a yearning for simpler, quieter moments — and hope it might do the same for others. I would like for it to restore a sense of calm and proportion.
Not that my life is all that raucous these days; only that my thoughts seem at times much louder and more chaotic than external circumstance might otherwise justify. Those are the times when I want to hang out the metaphorical “Gone Fishing” sign…
Best advice for those moments (from an old man):
Go fishing.
Turn off the TV.
Set aside your smartphone.
Immerse your bare feet in a box of kittens.
P.S. All of my photos are for sale at jeffeinsteinart.com.
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
— A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
- William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
Inner yearling-yearnings probably mostly do not quiesce until the contralto lady sings the contrition away.
“…in the October 17, 1872 edition of The Daily Picayune, it states, “As long as the organ is playing, church is not out.”
And the Church Commission organ still plays.
As much as I like Otis’s ode, & as true as it is that relief from the tension it sings may not have come until his plane went down in WI (where SRV’s helo went down, too) - OR was just 26 years old - I like the dock in your photo better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug
Isn’t it ironic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jne9t8sHpUc
Ron Johnson - cue the applicable line from Redding’s observation - is from WI.
https://yandex.com/video/preview/5824341986746426421
And I like this, at the end of A River Runs Through It:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk
The Music of Chance echoes-echoes-echoes down & off the canyon (Nietzsche’s eternally recurring abyss-sssounds?) walls of time. Hard to find, but somebody put the whole on yt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYZT5ftJDmY
PS Puppies, of any age, are good, too.