Adam Blatner

All has been a-flurry! We sold our house in Sun City Texas and are planning to move to mid-coastal California, San Luis Obispo, half-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The railroad stops there, and we hope to use it more. So much “stuff” to pack. It’s our precious treasures! It’s our crap! It’s mixed.

My mother-in-law fell and hurt but did not break her hip. So moving her, making arrangements, all adds to the complexity. There are myriads of occasions marked by Grace, unexpected and unearned goodness from many people and in many ways. Allee is being a hero, but I seriously do not want her to go through this again.

So many things to do: Make sure the packers are happy and not packing what they shouldn’t pack. Make sure our room has a change of towels. Tomorrow Mom’s stuff gets packed and shipped. The list of things goes on and on. Moses had it easy? Or maybe it was vastly more complicated than they had room for in the Bible. Make sure our books are packed.

I’m a bit depressed by the current trend in politics, and hopeful that the public will “catch on.” But there’s a song I sing to myself, one of the verses of which is “Oh nations are warring and business is vex’d; I’ll just stick around and see what happens next.” It’s a song about ageing, and I feel it’s been happening to me, in so many ways. For example, I’d rather be writing on this blog than attending a performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors. Or indeed most performances.

Soon I’ll toddle off to bed.  My darling and I will reunite tomorrow at 9:23 AM. The bulky movers are coming tomorrow too. I’ll go see Mamala and say goodnight. So many touches of grace from so many good people.

I am reminded that I am shifting ages, according to Shakespeare’s "Seven Ages of Man" speech, which I’ve discovered is a highly complex process! So, shifting from the fifth age, the Justice, "…in full round belly with good capon lin’d, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances,  and so he plays his part…” —I’ve been in this role for a- couple decades, now. But, Shakespeare writes in As You Like It (Act 2, Scene 7):
…The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
   His youthful hose well sav’d,
   A world too wide for his shrunk shank,
   And his voice, shifting to childish treble,
   Pipes and whistles in his sound….
      … and so he plays his part.”

Parts of me are still 5th age, wise, teaching, but it’s clear as I move to mid-California to be with my daughter’s family, that it’s changing; it’s far more multi-faceted, gradual, and I’m in the thick of it. A time for philosophy.

A-Flutter Plus Grace

Moving to San Luis Obispo, California, not so far away. My daughter lives there and her teen daughters and her husband. Ah, family. I don’t take it for granted. All has been a flutter, sprinkled with Grace.

Meanwhile, I’ve found God. No, not that version! At that level, technically, I’m still an atheist! But at a higher level… no, one higher.. now, get on a figurative step-ladder, peer over the metaphorical transom, see! There under the symbolic card table: A glow! I intuitively knew! Hey, you’re God! And the glow sorta kinda said, "Ya got me!"

I knew it was the glowing  symbolic finger of the uncountable hands of the uncountable arms of God, sure, but still. In other words, at the level of thinking about thinking about thinking, plus one—intuition—there’s the one mind, according to what for me was a strong intuition.

Note that I wasn’t even looking for this! And I realized that this cannot be explained. Everyone seeks something higher, senses something higher, and then insists on their interpretation of what they sense—if they do sense it—as the real thing. But finally I found what satisfies me. Not that the glow IS the real thing. In fact, I know even the intuition would satisfy very few people; but it works for me.

This all is modulated by the fact that I am afflicted (blessed?) with pronoia, which is the distinct sensation that "They’re trying to Get You" —but in a good way, to make you happy and enlightened. It happens not infrequently to me, thank the Angels. Those angels are projections of God like your fingers are projections of you.