As I’m reading my book, Six Impossible Things, by John Gribbin, a tidy little book dealing with subatomic particles and their mysterious duality as particles and waves, I am struck by something. Every physicist mentioned has performed a thought experiment, oftentimes because technology has not advanced to a stage that would let them perform a live experiment, but usually just to prove a point about the mysterious quantum world.

I just read a book, Six Impossible Things, by John Gribbin. It’s a tiny book which is fitting because it deals with the mystery of tiny things, subatomic particles. They can be in two places at once, and act as either a wave or a particle, and there are formulas to prove both. No one to date has successfully explained why the particles behave as they behave, although several have tried and that's the subject of the book.

There might be forces at play in the world today that are beyond our understanding. And I might be willing to subscribe to a conspiracy theory if I could find one. At the moment I feel like a mammal in the age of dinosaurs, tiny, underfoot, and out of sight. The titans of our age are galloping across the stage, trumpeting like bull elephants, and the only thing I am to them is a number in a data set.

We have a new monument in my small town. A war memorial, courtesy of the Hill Country Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and American Legion Post #352. Actually, it’s the Blanco County Veterans memorial. It’s basically a plaza  with marble seats people can buy and dedicate to loved ones along with placards celebrating the various branches of the Armed Forces including Space Force. There’s a small piece of art that looks interesting, but I’m not sure it’s enough to draw the crowds. And there are flags because there have to be flags.

Here we go. A new day. No turmoil to report. No angst. Only the realization that turning over your life to algorithms is probably a bad idea, unless you know how to make the algorithm work in your favor. I’ve figured it out on most platforms, and some I’ve left entirely. But I still find myself responding mindlessly to the screen, making someone money I’m sure.

Long ago my arborist son brought home four cedar poles. “Let's use them to build a shed around the well,” he suggested. Holes were dug and the poles set, and there they sat. Four, forlorn corners waiting to be connected to one another. I toyed with all manner of materials as I pursued our rustic dream.Then came the hail storm and the roofers. Presto, I had tin, and old tin is a time-honored rustic material.

Interesting. I started down a writing path this morning, got one paragraph in and decided it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about, probably because it’s likely I’ve talked about it before although it’s difficult to imagine a personal topic I haven’t touched on in the ten years I’ve been writing this blog. Still, I stopped and started over. This is the result. It feels marginally better.

I’m building a door for my little pump house shed. I’m using recycled material. Mostly old fence slats. For the first time in my woodworking life I’m also using glue. I have no idea why this is the first time, but it finally dawned on me that almost every time I see a woodworking video the host is gluing something. It must work.

A good, odd thing happened the other day. I discovered I had failed to return home from my trip to Virginia with my knit hat, cashmere scarf, and lined leather gloves. I asked my daughter to check the house to see if they were anywhere to be found. When no word came to indicate a positive outcome, this is when the odd, good thing happened. I had no response to my loss other than acceptance. It was a thing that happened and I was good.

Clothes and cups are how I remember my trips around and across America. This morning I’m wearing a light, zipup sweatshirt hoodie I bought on a trip in 2015 to Rochester and it’s replacing my usual fleece jacket that I bought on a trip to Kansas City to watch my brother-in-law retire from the Air Force. Also, I’m drinking coffee from my Wall Drugstore Mug (South Dakota in case you didn’t know). The mugs are purpose bought mementos. The clothes are usually reminders that I was ill prepared for the weather, although to be fair, I do find clothes an appealing way to remember concerts and trips.

The sun came out from behind the clouds yesterday and that was a big improvement to the day, to the week, and to my psyche. I’m not a huge fan of the early months of the year. They’re just too dark, short, and cold. When I still worked, I can remember entire days without sun. I’d go to the office in the dark and come home after dark. Depressing.  Which I suppose is why in my retirement I try to clutter up the early months with things to do and places to go. I’m chasing away the blues.

Yesterday, on my blog about Jimmy Carter, I posted a picture of a flag at half staff. The flag in question stands in the National Cemetery at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Mayres Heights, the hill Confederates defended and Union soldiers attacked. It was one sided. The Union soldiers were climbing uphill over open ground. The Confederates with their cannons were well hidden in a sunken road. It was a slaughter.

It’s a national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter. I remember when he won the presidency in 1977. It was a breath of fresh air after the Nixon years. But it didn’t take long, however, for him to fall foul of the hell-bent-for-leather American psyche. In response to the energy crisis he lowered the speed limit on US highways to 55 and he suggested we wear sweaters rather than turn up the heat. His biggest crime, however, was failing to bomb Iran back to the stone age when they took our hostages.

On my recent trip to Virginia I visited the Civil War battlefield at Fredericksburg. It was the sight of another of those Union defeats attributed to poor union generalship and a failure to move in a timely manner. I’d read all about the battle, now was my chance to walk the ground. It was moving, and it's still hard to comprehend how they did it, how they faced the roaring guns and the bloody screams of fallen comrades to try and fight their way to the top of Maryes Heights against an entrenched foe.

I’ve been amazed at the response to the Bob Dylan biopic. Glad, actually, but I’m not sure if I want to see it, having lived it, if only at a distance. I sort of like all those characters keeping their place in my own movie, the one swimming around in my head, the movie in which they shaped my taste in music and my taste for life. Plus, I never much cared to know who was dating whom or how Dylan’s contemporaries felt about him. It was just gossip.

I’m home. And it feels good. Slept in my own bed. Walked out onto the porch this morning and looked at the pasture. Looked at the sky. Now for the rest of the day. I washed everything before I left my daughter’s home, so all I need to do is put things away, attach decals to guitar cases, and remember the good times.

In the first four Christmases after my wife’s death in 2020, I dressed myself and the house for a party in which one of the guests was gone. Children still came, friends still visited, but the missing soul was still missing. So, this year, when my daughter invited the family to her new home in Virginia, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to start anew, do something fresh and different. I made my plans and left town and the undecorated house.

It’s day two of the new year. Yesterday, I stepped out into the great unknown of 2025. One day. Relatively uneventful. The big news was the first day hike at The Great Falls of the Potomac. I have now seen the falls on four rivers – the Niagara, the Sioux, the Pedernales, and the Potomac. And I have walked along two named river gorges. The Potomac and the Rio Grande. Not bad.

In the early morning, on a fine summer day, just as the sun is rising there can be a moment when the beach is all mine except for the tide and the shore birds. It's a sight quite literally never to be seen again, and being there to see it, to be the one to see it, fills me with quiet pleasure. It’s been that way all my life. And that's how it feels this morning as I stare off into the first day of 2025.

Here we are. The last day of 2024. The year started with me fretting about the need for surgery, A big surgery by most measures to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Finally deciding on the date, then having the surgery mid-March. Seven stents fixed all the broken bits. In July, I was told everything looked good, and they’d see me next year. That’s half a year gone, while interspersed with thoughts of mortality..