Incidental Bliss

[mallorys_camera]

Hey? What if our immortal souls are a design flaw, like the way styrofoam is accidentally eternal, and heaven is merely a landfill where we are all stored for eternity in a state of incidental bliss?



I’ve been drunk on this weather. Simply drunk. Running around outside just as much as possible. Long, long tromps along the river. Not even listening to podcasts. Just taking it all in – the trees, the meadows, the ripple on the water. The dusty flowers of the unassuming plants that put off blooming until the summer is two-thirds through. The critters. Deer, of course. And then yesterday, I saw a skunk careening crazily around in broad daylight. Rabid, I thought. And tried to find a park ranger. Went inside the old Vanderbilt Stables that have been requisitioned as a base of operations: cracked white tile with the Vanderbilt crest and the stone heads of the Vanderbilt lions, filled with John Deere machinery, but the rangers were all someplace else. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

When I finally go back inside, it’s like I’m brain dead; I can’t concentrate. Close my eyes, and the woods and the waters are painted in a kind of psychic tempera on the underside of my eyelids. Very pleasant. But very unproductive.

I can’t think.

I don’t care!

I should care.

But I don’t.

###

I binge-watched The Last Kingdom last night. Extremely well done TV drama about the British Isles in the Dark Ages when Danes and Norsemen were launching colonial expeditions against the Anglian kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Wessex every decade or so. (“Wessex” survives in literature as Thomas Hardy’s placeholder for “Dorset.”)

I like history in general and British history in particular, and this particular show was exhaustively researched, so I was captivated.

But the real reason I kept watching was because the actor who played King Alfred was a dead ringer for Steve ________ whom I loved and lost – wow! Two score years ago.

“You know, I think Steve was the great love of your life,” Ben told me once.

To which I ought to have replied, “No, no, no, my darling – you are!”

But I didn’t.

Comments

[lifeinroseland.livejournal.com]

Omg styrofoam lol! I see the birth of a poem.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to write poetry. My mind is too prosey! :-)

[lifeinroseland.livejournal.com]

Well, know that at least I'm gonna be telling men that my love is like styrofoam.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

if that was the case, then one day the excess residue of our souls would be fodder for a future generation's industry in the manner of X*.

*The trees developed cellulose so they could get very tall. For about 100 million years before termites appeared after there was nothing that could digest cellulose, so for 100 million years the earth was just trees, ferns and insects. This had two major impacts. 1) the earth's atmosphere gained enough oxygen to rise up to about 15-20% leading to the possibility of gigantic insects and huge dinosaurs existing changing the path of evolution and 2) this allowed the development of all of the earth's major oil repositories for our use.

Option two is what might happen to our souls. Our pollution (introduction of lose non-organic materials into the environment) might be the catalyst for the development of the super-aggressive post-organic lifeforms to rise up.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Or possibly some new technological advancement has replaced old-fashioned souls with biodegradable souls. And that's why nobody believes in the afterlife anymore. :-)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Why should you care? What have you got to think, that's more important than reveling in the glories of the season while they last?

I'm the same way; haven't read a serious book all summer, nor written anything but a few journal posts, because Outside is so pretty:

I meant to do my work today—
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand—
So what could I do but laugh and go?

~Richard Le Gallienne

.... it'll be Winter again all too soon; gather ye rosebuds and let who can, be clever. (^^)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Lovely poem! :-)

I have various projects I'm always hatching, and if I don't work on them somewhat regularly, I lose momentum. That's the reason why I care. :-)