Hungover Moan of Greetings from a Tamarindo Futon and a Borrowed Computer.
My grandpa died the other day. He was 88 and old age got him. I'm happy I got to see him in February when I was home for the Birkie. I won't be making it back for the funeral.
My defining experience with my grandpa, Harold Mogren, is eating lunch together at Perkins Restaurant in Winona... just the two of us. Mostly he talked, telling stories... his role in WWII... ice fishing... regular fishing... my dad's childhood hi jinx.
Had I known better at the time I would have been more charmed and savored his expression as he happily passed on his memories.
I remember hunting for nightcrawlers in my grandparents garden as a kid and adding fistfuls of worms to the huge styrofoam container full of loamy dirt in the garage. I remember the 8 track collection there. I remember their cellar. I remember their junk-filled attic. I remember their front porch. Many times, their old white house with green trim, has been the setting in my mind's eye's vision of a book being read.
So, I'll remember bits of him until I die too.
The biggest lesson learned in college I took from my year as a full time nurse's assistant in the St. John's Abbey Retirement Center... wiping old monk butts. The Benedictine's try to keep the possibility of their own death in the forefront of their mind's... and since then, so do I.
Death: it's the spice of life.
The French call orgasms the little death... and all my self-endangering skiing, climbing, kiting, surfing, sailing, and other risky business has simply served up little morsels of mortality... glimpses of death... a deeper appreciation of LIFE.
I continue to exist.
Fuck yeah.
Thank God.
Hell,
despite what the kiddies at the bar think,
despite what my complexion is starting to show,
I'm young!
I walk straight and tall.
I can climb trees better than almost anyone.
I can swim deep and far.
I've flown weightless down countless mountainsides.
I ride waves of PURE energy spawned by distant storms.
I look to the sky and smile
cuz I get to bear semi-conscious witness
to the most interesting period in the history of the planet.
I'd rather be me than paleozoic pond scum.
I am grateful.
I remember to be grateful.
MEMORY, well, without that life ain't worth living. I learned that too cuz many of those old monk's had lost it. So don't you forget, in fact, make a point to REMEMBER.
All this digital graffiti is my attempt to remember myself and maybe even be remembered... by you.
I think people have gotten a bit too forgetful for their own good... letting the computer do their thinking for them.
How many phone numbers can you dial by memory? I've only got 4 but they're all sacred to me:
(507) 452-6094
(507) 453-6314
(616) 633-4693
(712) 273- 227... shit...
I must have pickled the wrong part of my brain last night because I can't recall a very important digit.
And hence the dilemma... see, I spent the last two days with the LPH gents from Miami, sailing, surfing, and eating well. They're classic characters interestingly navigating their early 40s in a world gone mad... they've lost love... they've lost money... and, most importantly, they've lost the desire to return home.
I tell them to RUN LIKE HELL and they almost changed their return tickets to NEVER. Meanwhile I am wishy washily preparing to reintegrate myself into the American Dream.
The American Nightmare.
And sailing through the twilight, my hypocrisy disgusts and I come to know that I can't go back...
I crave love.
I miss my family.
I miss my friends.
I am scared because I have so little power...
...and so much uncertainty.
But I can't go back, because, frankly, all this was the case BEFORE I left... going back would bring weeks of bliss, a year of culture shock, and a lifetime of mediocrity.
See all the happiness and all the paranoia I've encountered... turns out it all originated in my mind anyway... as long as I'm not locked up or broken down or lost at sea I'll be OK, no matter where I am.
Turns out there's TREASURE everywhere, you just need to look.
Hopefully those that love me will continue to do so. I still love all of them.
So the boat is now permanently for sale... it gives me a reason to keep her clean... and I'm still sailing north to Nicaragua...
I'll spend September surfing, writing, and trying to make money there. I need to buy a new motor.
Then I'm going to pay someone a few hundred bucks to pull Sinny from the Pacific and plop her in LAGO NICARAGUA... a downriver daysail (with rapids!) from the MAR CARIBE.
The Caribbean Sea!
Waves and wind in the winter!
Argentina is right around the corner!
SALSA BRAVA!
BOCAS DEL TORO!
ISLAS SAN BLAS!
CARTAGENA, COLUMBIA!
KITING'S GOOD IN VENEZUELA!
BRASIL!
BRASIL!
BRASIL!
Which brings us to the lyric of the day...
___________________________________________________
At night, when the bars close down
Brandy walks through a silent town
And loves a man, who's not around
She still can hear him say, she hears him say
Brandy, you're a fine girl
What a good wife you would be
But my life, my love, and my lady Is the sea.
-The Looking Glass, Brandy__________________________________________________________________
Pura Vida, Putitos!A very lonely old man in the making named...MAX