My daily writing generally has a flow based on what is going on in the world around me that most affects me on any given day. I have no quarrel with that approach since I long ago decided that I write for my own reasons and am decidedly not grinding any sort of axe with these blog stories. That said, anyone who knows me knows that I am a man of many opinions and am usually prepared to share them openly with most anybody, even though I do try to keep the peace around me while doing it (sometimes with only limited success). Not so startlingly, writing to me is self-expression and less about reshaping the worldview of others than reaffirming to myself my own worldview. I honestly don’t know if that is normal for most writers or highly unusual. I recall a conversation with my friend Steve, who is also a writer. When I told him I had never written anything specifically to be paid for it, he told me that he had never written anything that he was not being paid to write. That was very strange to me, but also very eye-opening. It had less to do with realizing that I was somehow missing an opportunity to earn money from my writing, and more about just how differently people can approach the same activity like writing. I have stayed true to my reality about what drives me to write, but, interestingly enough, Steve has spent a lot more time lately writing without financial objective. When he wrote his recent autobiography, My Heart Has Been In It From The Start, I sense from the stories he tells me and the promotions I get included in, that he has come out somewhere in the middle on these two opposing perspectives. There is a part of him that cannot avoid trying to make the book a commercial success, and yet the very title of the book implies that he really writes for other, more spiritual reasons.
When I formulated my blog, I decided to establish categories for my stories. That might have been to give readers a chance to pick and choose that they wanted to read or skip, but more likely it was just part of my obsession with putting my pantry in a neat and tidy looking array. I suspect there is meaningful subtext in my choice of categories, which I have not altered for the last seven years. They are: Politics, Retirement, Memoir, Love, Business Advice and Fiction/Humor. That was intended less as a comprehensive array than just a list of things I tended to write about. I can tell from the comments I get, which readers are more or less interested in my political views, but the rest is less prone towards any meaningful biases. I have had over 15,000 people read my stories and there have been more than 50,000 views overall of the 2,549 stories I have posted. For some reason, I can’t easily figure out how many of each category make up that 2,549, but I can see that the ones that are most viewed are the ones about Love and Fiction/Humor, where the least viewed are about Politics and Retirement. That surprises me for some reason because I tend to think that the stories about Love are more self-indulgent and the stories about Politics and Retirement are more general interest. But then, that just shows you how much I know about people.
In some ways I tend to think that when I am feeling most numb and unsure of what is on my mind, I write about love and my memories as well as my immediate surroundings. Like right now I am sitting in my living room looking out the east-facing picture windows at the sun shining boldly on the Palo Verde tree outside in my front garden along the path to our patio. Palo Verde trees are fascinating desert natives, primarily found in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. The name “palo verde” means “green stick” in Spanish, referring to their distinctive green bark and branches that can photosynthesize even when the tree has dropped its leaves during drought. In fact, I’m not even sure I would say they have leaves, but rather lots and lots of small long, fine branches that drape from larger branches. In spring (and apparently summer, since that is the case right now), palo verdes put on a spectacular show with masses of bright yellow flowers that can cover the entire canopy, creating stunning golden displays across the desert landscape. They’re popular in xeriscaping and desert landscaping like we have all across our gardens, because they’re drought-tolerant, provide filtered shade, and attract wildlife including birds and beneficial insects. The trees can live for over 100 years and typically grow 15-25 feet tall with an equal spread, which is exactly the size of the tree I’m pondering right now. The bright yellow flowers remind me of Katsumoto in The Last Samurai, when he says that all the cherry blossoms are perfect. I can honestly say that all the Palo Verde blossoms look perfect as well.
I decided when I sat down to write, to write about politics today because I feel like its been a while since I’ve done that. My review of my blog tells me that its been 10 days since I’ve done so. That alone suggests that I have been numbed to the bone by the political environment, because there has been no lack of grist for the political mill during that time. My current events guru, Heather Cox Richardson, is a historian and her posts are probably 90% about politics and only 10% about history. Even she has to take time out to smell the roses, or in her case, smell the coastal shores of Maine, where she lives. I meant my title to be about how disturbingly numbing I was finding the politics, but I got immediately distracted by how peacefully numbing nature was as it surrounds me. Yesterday I further numbed myself by taking my motorcycle ride up through the ranch country of Fallbrook, with all its tree-shaded roads and babbling brooks, over the Ortega Highway high above Lake Elsinore and down the hillside to the sparkling coast of lower Orange County. We stopped for lunch at the San Clemente pier and I couldn’t help but think of Richard Nixon finding peace in this tranquil coastal spot just as HCR does on the rocky shores of Maine. We all numb ourselves where we feel most peaceful I guess.
I cannot end this story without some politics, so let me mention our newest national hero, Sandwich Man. That’s the guy who is inspiring all the Subway-hurling memes since he threw his sandwich at a Trump enforcement goon (ICE, DEA, FBI, Secret Service, National Guard???…who knows) and got arrested and fired from his DOJ post for it. I almost cannot write about that without laughing as this pink-shirted guy gets chased down the street for throwing food at a guy’s Kevlar body armor. I will just let you readers figure out for yourself what political opinions I attribute to this act. It seems much like the bicycle gal who also lost her job for flipping the Trump motorcade the bird a few years ago. Instead of commenting, I will just remind you that I am numb to the bone and would rather look out my window at nature than read more about Trumpian politics.