He was a baby then. Just before we got him. A couple months old.
He’s been quite the boy for us. Life changing. He’s not a baby anymore. Mysterious, loving, conniving, unpredictable, wise at times, pure cussedness at others, affectionate, mischievous, occasionally morose, stupendously vital, fun, and beautiful, in every way the larger than life lord Sir Walter Scott declared the breed to be.
But still a baby when he wants to be.
Like when he detects the package containing his birthday present.
Have you ever seen such longing?
Happy Birthday, my boy. You can open your present when Mommy gets home.
Wow has he grown. Did he get his own Big Mac?
No. Suspicious of that special sauce.
Whoa, but he is a handsome devil! Those eyes (when you can see them!) seem to possess all of the character and spirit that you describe, even in pictures. When you write and talk about him, the phrase ‘force of nature’ comes to mind, with all of its connected implications about beauty, potential to do damage, and the life-changing quality you mention.
My best to Raebert and his gracious Hosts on his birthday.
Happy birthday, Raebert.
Robert. Inspiration. RNC2016. KCMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7LmF8_Nw34&feature=youtu.be
Don’t get your ‘inspiration.’ Generation difference no doubt. But I can respond to your earlier comment about ‘grappling with stopping.’ True.
It’s the words the words the words the words the words. I transcended them long ago then returned to them because people couldn’t understand without the words.
Here’s the hard part. The impulse to become silent seems as if it makes people think you’re giving up.
Giving up is not part of my nature. I’m sitting on a post backed by a dozen links called “They’re All Insane Now.” Which they are. The words have all been destroyed. I haven’t posted it. What happens? Even the good guys seize on the one or two things that fire them up and ignore the rest. They embroider at the edges. Hey, hey, I know what’s going on.
They don’t, of course. The ultimate emasculation is the loss of pattern recognition. Push the right button and the testosterone kicks in. Let’s go kill those bastards or at least f**k them up.
I’ve been doing this for more than a generation. Words don’t work. You’re right. But what’s the alternative? I fall back on the need to leave a record. Yesterday, my wife accused me of hating everybody. I don’t. I have contempt for the ones who have no principles, no beliefs, no standards, no long sense of history, no understanding of the equivocal physics of an intelligent universe.
But my argument has always been about the whole, and there is nobody left who even wants to consider the whole in any terms.
It’s always, “Let me tell you about my corner of the universe and how outraged I am at the unfairness of things. Your post reminded me of this awful thing I saw yesterday or last week.”
That’s the fatigue. Over the years I’ve covered everything. It’s all one post, all interconnected, all requiring an alert human consciousness to hold it in mind all at once, not piecemeal and legalistically. “I agree with this but not with that.” Which from my standpoint is absurd. Grotesque.
Note that I’m doing this as a comment not a post. It’s not all about me. It’s about what I’m trying to do as a writer. Philosophy is religion is politics is art is personal experience is science is life is nature is cosmology is technology is history is music is sex is literature is mystery is meaning. I have failed in my mission.
But I am still loath to give up. You reference dreams. Most recently, I was in underground tunnels in Russia, having to navigate vast chasms to carry something, I don’t what, to the indentured who were working here, there, and the other place.
I was late for the transport, I was going to be late, and I didn’t know what to do. Then I woke up. And had coffee. And went back to work exploring the news and commentary.
I don’t hate everybody. I hate the ones who should know better and so clearly, pitifully don’t.