Filling In The Gaps

 My back gave me trouble yesterday. What I was supposed to do lost out to me sitting in this chair as my back tightened and tightened. I finished Netflix's Night Agent. A session with the vibrating heating pad got me mobile enough to go to Payless for supplies. That is the most traveling I had done since Saturday, when I went to Walmart for a new belt and a few groceries. Which had been the most I had been out since Friday when I went to the group session, which was the most time I had spent in public since my birthday when I treated myself to lunch at The Downtown Farmstand.

Notes from group therapy 2/28/25 (fifteen minutes)

Making a container

made of way to put in & takes out container within container.

exercise: relax, close eyes and think of a container, then draw it.

A fishbowl came to my mind and that is what I drew.

At some point something distressful practice putting in container.

There is little I find distressful - not like the old days when I got so angry, bitter, and depressed. What happened yesterday, I work hard to not let fester. This came from reading my Bible back in prison, from reading the Desert Fathers and secular philosophy, and from looking at my life and coming to grips with the decisions that led me into the self-destructive ways that put me in prison, instead of the planned-for grave.

Not wanting to do any dishwashing on Friday, I got a pizza from Domino's and a sandwich from Jimmy Johns. I was a regular spendthrift.

 I managed to work on "Lessons From a Green Meadow" over the weekend, but not as scheduled, I finished my revisions last night. My email is full of places for submissions. That was the work I was to do Saturday morning.

No church on Sunday. I think makes a difference. The Zoloft can do only so much.

I got thinking about family in this long gap period. The Downes are all gone, as far as I can tell. The same with the Livingstons, but that was known for some time. The Hyatts died out, too. Jasper Grimes' should have some grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, living, but I have no idea how to reach them. The Joyners are a name - I think the connection between my paternal grandfather's mother's family and himself frayed a century ago. The Days faded away. The Williams and the Harveys disappeared into America when my great-aunt Elsie died. The Finholts went into history last year when my cousin Paul died last year. The Haslers are doing quite well - done in Greene County, but when my sisters and I die, so do the Anderson Haslers. I have two Shafer cousins left from my mother's family, only we were never close. Too many people moving away from one another for work, too many marriages without children, too familial resentments and feuds. I do not talk to my younger sister and she returns the favor. Her children disowned me, and I have done the same with them. I have not seen my oldest sister's eldest sone since I have been home; neither does he return my calls. My eldest niece has been very quiet these past few months; I know of her having an upcoming surgery only from her mother. The youngest nephew, my eldest sister's son, communicates with no one. There is the same lack of communication between the nieces and nephews. They will become meaningless names in a couple of decades; then complete blanks to succeeding generations. My parents wanted a close family - their own families were dysfunctional in their own ways - and their hope will never be achieved. This is America.

 One thing I think no one ever talks about divorce is the break-up of the family in the sense of history and as a thing beyond the nuclear family. Grandparent visitation may solve some of that problem. Still, what remains after marital discord is not a larger family, but two competing camps.

It feels like the world atomizes the larger family into the nuclear family and then into its individual components. Purely supposing, it seems to make marketing easier.

And with survival in a capitalist system becoming starker and harder during my lifetime, there is little economic aid that can come from the wider family. We go out to find our own means of survival. In that regard, I have been of little use to my family.

What I know is that it feels is that my world has gotten smaller and smaller,

I still have dishes to wash. Netflix has provided me with too many distractions - and I am easily distracted!

Trump cut off military aid to Ukraine. The Europeans are stepping to protect themselves from Putin - and us. Putin has to be happy; Trump's stunning string of Putin-friendly moves (Axios)

President Trump's decision to suspend all military aid to Ukraine is the latest in a string of moves that could have been plucked from Vladimir Putin's personal wishlist. 

I need to get back on track, as I promised myself last week.

As with Warren Zevon, there is disorder in the house.

 Wish me luck.

More inspiration from Warren by way of Bo:

 

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