Empty Chairs

Livin’ large at that time of life when every Christmas there is at least one less friend at the table than there was last year. It’s a perfect time of life for a natural melancholic. When I was twenty and walked around brooding about things even I recognized that I was a fraud, and that I hadn’t lived long enough to be wearing such world-weary garments. But now there isn’t any need to pretend. I ran out of fingers and toes to count the rings on my trunk a while back.

One problem is that when you achieve geezer status, and have all that experience to share, no one wants to hear about it. The young can’t relate to anything emanating from something as ancient as you, and your older friends simply wait for you to take an in-breath and then they break in with their own stories before you can finish your own.

I find myself gravitating toward the wistful music of the world more than I once did. Not exclusively, but more often. Like this one.

******

From The New Yorker

******

As a general pediatrician, I was frequently called in to stand by at the delivery of a child whenever there was a possibility that the baby would need more than the usual support and care. Gowned, gloved, and masked I would stand over in the corner of the room by the infant warmer, making sure that it was ready to receive the infant. Since I had nothing to do when things went well, I stood there, hands clasped in front of me so I wouldn’t inadvertently touch something and contaminate the gloves.

After one such delivery where the baby was just fine and needed no help from yours truly, the exhausted mother was giddy and thanking everyone in the room for their help. At the end of her litany she said: “Oh, and thank you to the priest over in the corner for coming.”

That masked clergyman in the corner, of course, was me.

******

Even though it’s not really about Christmas, and only mentions the holiday very briefly, I still have it in the corner of my poorly assorted mind as Christmas music. YouTube served this up to me this to enjoy on a December morning. One of Joni Mitchell’s beautiful tunes done beautifully.

******

Tuesday friend Joe and I went fishing at Pa-Co-Chu-Puk State Park, near Ridgway. It was a bluebird day, temp in the lower 50s. Right now the river water flows are down at winter levels. I managed to do three things that morning: catch a nice rainbow, get a nasty aircast that cost me half an hour to straighten out, and come within a hair of dumping myself in the Uncompahgre River.

If it hadn’t have been for a convenient boulder that I fetched up against, my spirits would definitely have been dampened (the water is low enough that all that would have happened is that I would have become cold and wet and used up my curse word allotment for the entire month).

At one pool we could see 8 large trout just hanging out together in some slower water. Seeing us didn’t spook them at all. Nor were they enticed by anything we tossed at them, but for one moment when a trout the size of Jaws wandered slowly over to my fly, took it in his mouth, and immediately spit it out again. Too quickly for me to react.

I never take my camera/phone while actually out in the river. Eventually I know that I will make a misstep and stumble into the drink so I don’t carry anything that wouldn’t tolerate being immersed. Therefore, I haven’t any photos of my own of the river in this location, but here’s a handful that I borrowed from the web.

******

Just got a seed catalog in the mail. An odd time of year for such a thing, you might say, and I’d agree with you. Since It’s snowing here and the temp is 40 degrees, it’s hard to put myself into an agricultural frame of mind.

I received it because I ordered two packets of seeds from them last Spring, from their website. After last year’s poor experience I wasn’t even sure I wanted to have a garden next year, but hey, mebbe I will.

Here are scans of three sample pages:

So if any of you would like to grow your own wasabi to clear your sinuses with, or cabbages that weigh 25 pounds, here’s the address.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

2278 Baker Creek Road

Mansfield, MO 65704

(Disclaimer: I get no remuneration from manufacturers of products that I might mention in this blog. Although several of them have offered to pay me money if I promise never to mention their wares ever again. Apparently they fear being associated in the public mind with substandard literary endeavors.)

******

From The New Yorker

******

And here it is, the full-bore, two-hanky weeper from Les Miserables that you might have known was coming, had you taken the time to think bout it. Here is Marius returning to the tavern where he had spent hours planning a revolution with his comrades, who then perished while he was saved.

******