The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

“there isn't enough of anything as long as we live.  But at intervals  a sweetness appears  and, given a chance,  prevails.”   - Raymond Carver I unleashed the dogs and sauntered over to the usual concrete block -it makes do as a seat amidst the sand and dirt. Additionally, it’s large enough to lay back on and have a complete panorama of nothing but the sky. I think it’s a drain cover of some kind. Part of an abandoned development. There are unfinished foundations a few feet away. The architectural ghosts of COVID. The skeletons of over-frivolous excitement. Laying on my back, I escaped the twitch of anxiety, or perhaps it was a soft sort of existential dread, that I had been feeling earlier. The distance between the rolling thunder and I put me at ease. An ambulance and two police cars had driven past me earlier in the day. I messaged my wife to make sure she was okay. Many of the drivers here are reckless, and there seems to be little conscious thought for the...

“Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being,  but by integration of the contraries.” - Carl Jung At the risk of sounding conceited, or perhaps even self-acquitting, I have been wondering around the idea that our hostility towards ourselves and the world around us might, in fact, be the very same thing that is essential for carrying ourselves in a way that has us setting examples worthy of following. I am exceptionally tired today, incapable of cooking the day's final meal. I have been waking up at 5am and running with the dogs, eating breakfast, then going to the gym. That is my morning. My afternoon consists of eating again, taking a nap, walking the dogs again, and by that time I'm a few hours shy of slumber. It is in these last few hours that I have been meaning to write something, but I am often too hungry or entirely uninspired. There is a stillness to the mornings that I regret not spending more time with, and there is a sense of solidarity and self...