I got a phone call from an old friend, Jim B., who I knew so well in our Austin days in school when he and I were both returned from the Army. This was in Austin. I leave his last name out of it because the Internet is, well, the Internet.
At any rate, I was under the impression that we hadn't been in touch for a long time, which is simply not true. It's been a while but not that long. So I sent him the note below, which will help me stay in touch with the here is now instead of everywhere else, especially instead of the evening news.
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Jim, it was so good to hear from you. Unfortunately, your contact had me remember how much we have been in contact in various times in recent decades and how I had misplaced that up in my head.
It is one thing to be forgetful; it is quite another thing to realize that “My mind has a mind of its own,” as Jimmy Dale Gilmore's wonderful, mournful song. I have somehow become present-minded in the very worst sense; disconnected from nearly everyone except Carole, Valerie, our daughter, and Steve and Cristen, near Dallas. That’s it.
It’s kind of spooky.
One thing I have never learned to do is to meditate, where this means to be present-mindedness, rather than “somewhere else.” A woman I see once a week who is teaching me to walk and move more fluidly through the Alexander Movement, a meditation through movement therapy. When I broke my hip about 2 years ago, and I subsequently had two surgeries, I have become something of a recluse, Carole is seriously worried about it and I say, well, shit, I am 81. And she says, that’s the last thing you should say or think. And she’s right.
I need to turn off the nightly news (well, maybe I will watch one hour) and start spending more time walking (gimping) a little, and spending time in a local restaurant or two, shooting the shit, at noon. I don’t do much of that anymore. My counselor said I should try and meditate and that really spooks me. I think I have become tired of my own company when that means simply being still and waiting for life itself to become present in my heart.
So that is what I am going to do, struggle to do.
P.S. As you can see from this email, I did find Alyson Krause and Union Station and they are wonderful. So I need to turn off the television and start listening and waiting for life itself to become present to me again.
Best to you and Lil,
Your friend.
Dan
P.S. I wish I could have said more about Pogue. I hope he is in good hands. His sister seems to have written him off. I frankly think he is slowly dying. God Speed.
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