In Spite Of Which
The last few hours were eventful with travel, rental car return, receipt of boarding pass, TSA check in, and then boarding for the two hour flight to Chicago. Nothing outside of normal expectations. That is how life sometimes is, except when it isn’t.
I am sad for my sister two years younger than I. She has a debilitating mental illness. Medication only does so much. And then there is the inexorable wasting of the passage of years. There is nothing that can help that.
Also I reflect upon the wild beauty of the Eno River. The park adjacent to the riverbed shows the scars of the overflow from the recent deluge when hurricane Florence passed up the coast on September 17. The restored Gristmill is closed. Yellow plastic warning tape bars entry to the locked door. Will the mill be reopened?
T. S. Eliot has said it well. These lines are excerpted from the forth verse of East Coker.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
