the date has changed by one, but it actually has been two days since i last wrote in this blog... monday morning (midnight)... and now, tuesday evening. for some reason, i was struck with exhaustion in the middle of the day. i had just finished one of my last official iep meetings, and it left me feeling pretty tired. so i collapsed into the sofa while the rest of my family ate some dinner.
i'm awake now (obviously) having gained some sort of second wind. but i must admit, i lost a lot of time. and there was a kind of afterglow to my nap, in which my mind sort of meandered to this and that (unproductively). i made some unnecessary comments to stories on facebook... one detailing the grading issue for public schools in hawaii (to an article about the problem educators are facing with grading in the time of covid-19)... another about the problems of opening up apple stores (i think apple stores are particularly problematic, due to the endless touch screens)... random stuff like that.
i also put up a posting about the devastation of my more recent tomato plant. i looked at images of various tomato plant diseases, and found one image in particular that matched some of the things i had seen. in both my current tomato plant and its predecessor, there were these nodules on the stem, near the roots... they didn't quite look natural, but i had just assumed they were supposed to be there. but it turns out that they were "adventitious roots", that is, roots that the plant was attempting to create because there was a problem. so the disease is called tomato pith necrosis, and it's a monster. it's actually caused by a bacteria, pseudomonas corrugata or something. and it can be passed on through the grow medium, whether that is soil or clay pebbles... so i guess after the previous plant died, i should have either grown this new tomato plant somewhere else, or completely cleaned out the debris and detritus from the previous plant. but i didn't, so i'm here...
someday, i would like to document the varieties of plant diseases... and pests... and simple nutrient deficiencies... so that someone starting up an aquaponics or hydroponics system will be able to identify maladies, and hopefully address them. but right now, i'm too busy/lazy...
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billy collins spoke about the "turn of the poem." again, i like how he explains things, but i often feel he is a bit too formulaic (read, conscious). i often like to imagine that poetry is a largely unconscious (read instinctual, spontaneous) process... and to make too much of the form of a poem runs the risk of converting the process into an assembly line... that's my take, anyway.
*****
still despairing of writing formal fiction (or anything much, for that matter). it seems so far downstream. i think right now, i'm more interesting in realizing some sort of epiphany. of breaking through the planks. of drowning in the deepest ocean, swallowed by impossible monsters... and shat out filled with dreams on some naked shore. then, maybe i'll have something to talk about. maybe then i'll have no choice but to write and speak poetry... like a madman.
*****
what is a life, really? a brief opening (emphasis on brief). it pretends at things. pretends at eternity. pretends at stability. pretends at happiness... no, scratch that, i think- i know- the happiness is real. but somehow the happiness is always tied into the notion that it is fleeting. i remember the happiness of my young children, listening to them prattle... and even in that moment, i KNEW this was happiness... even while we are always planning on the next moment, taking care of things... i knew it was sufficient. that this was what it was all about... but time keeps passing, and things keep changing. my daughter now is not what she was, or what she appeared to be. neither is my son. for that matter, neither am i. maybe we are all like plants. tomato plants, or whatever. we have such promise, and innocence. but who knows what we will grow into? what blights or diseases we may face? what sun and light we may chase? what turns and tangles we may get into? the fruit we have, or lack? we can't know, we can never tell. but i love it all the same. i love my children, all the same. the only constancy that exists in life, is the constancy that we provide, that we create. and i- thank god- am still able to return to my life with a sense of love and appreciation... it is a good life. i still don't know what a life is, but i understand, viscerally, that what i have had so far has been good.
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