Humor

Where did my mojo go-go?

Where did my mojo go-go?

Wow! My first post since January 8, 2025. What on earth has happened to me? Good question – I just don’t know.

Today’s painting, from the last day of 2024, is taken from The Idylls of the King, Tennyson. “The olde order changeth lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

This quote is used in my Old Boys magazine at the end of each school year when the students leave the college and go out into the real world. This happened to me in 1962 – 63 years ago. Certainly I changed, and for the better, without the college. Whether the college changed or not, in my absence, I really don’t know. I suppose it did. It became co-educational, quite the thing for a boys’ boarding school. It expanded into larger grounds. It tore down at least two of the old houses, including the one in which I boarded for four years. I read about these things, but I have only been back on one or two occasions, so I don’t really know. And living in Canada, I rarely see any old boys from the school. They don’t cross the pond to visit me.

I receive the old school magazine regularly, by e-mail. However, I no longer recognize faces or places, unless the places are totally unchanged since I was there. And not many of them are. The most important page for me has become the obituaries, and I study with care those who have passed on before me and those who remain. I grieve when I see the names of old friends. But I grieve even more when I see the names of people so much younger than me falling by the wayside.

As for that mojo of mine, well, I guess that writing on a regular basis has become more and more difficult. “Don’t sit with your head in your hands thinking of time past,” says the Spanish poet. Yet time past seems preferable, in many ways, to time future. I am beginning to feel a bit like a pin-cushion, on account of all the needles now being stuck into me. Perhaps that’s where all my mojo went? Still, for anyone interested, I am still here. Still happy. I am working on my latest novel and I have two books of poetry waiting to be published. So maybe my mojo hasn’t done a bunk, just my blog mojo! I shall have to kick start it. Or maybe I’ll get that little yellow duck who wears blue gumboots to stand on a brick and give me a hearty booted boost. Yup! That should do the trick.

And so, in the words of Dylan Thomas, “I’ll take a bow, and say ‘good-bye’ but just for now.

What is your mission?

Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
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What is your mission?

Let us begin, as usual, by asking, what do we mean by ‘mission’? Here are some examples of the meaning of mission. (a) an important assignment carried out for political, religious, or commercial purposes, typically involving travel. (b) the vocation or calling of a religious organization, especially a Christian one, to go out into the world and spread its faith. (c) any important task or duty that is assigned, allotted, or self-imposed. (d) an important goal or purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction; a calling or vocation.

I can happily dismiss (a) and (b) from the start. I do not consider an assignment to be a mission, not in my case anyway. I am not one to wander the world, good book in hand, heart on sleeve, convincing people to believe what I believe. That said, I can work with (c) and (d) because, as a life-long teacher, who was offered, at various time, an array of other jobs, I am happy to say that I was a teacher by vocation, by calling. Teaching was my mission. My mission was accomplished.

I taught, in Canada, from 1966 to 2009. Then I reached retirement age. On June 30, 2009, I was a teacher. On July 1, 2009, I was nothing. The shock was enormous. It took me a long time to recover and discover that no, my life was not over, and yes, I had many other things to do. Thankfully they all involved teaching, in one way or another. I used my teaching / research experience to sit on the editorial boards of various learned journals. I even edited a couple of them. I also translated, usually from Spanish to English, and worked with the translations of other people. I also wrote articles on teaching and on creativity.

Creativity gradually took me over. I offered workshops on prose and poetry, wrote and edited books, penned introductions for other writers, and even published some books by other people, usually my family or close friends.

There was never much money in teaching or in creative writing. I always did it for love – love of the subject, love of learning, love of the students, love of watching them grow and develop. When I work one-on-one with another writer, or with a small group of writers, that love is still there. Alas, as I grow older (much older!), I feel the ability to motivate slipping away. The will, the vocation if you like, is still there, but body and mind are growing weak, and that, my friends, is the saddest thing of all.

Dark Angel

He will come to me, the dark angel,
and will meet me face to face.

He will take all that I own,
for my wealth is only temporary:
health, wealth, possessions are all on loan.

My house, my wife, my car,
my daughter, my grand-child,
 my garden, my trees, my flowers,
my poetry, my works of art.
I use the possessive adjective
knowing full well that these things
are only on loan. I will never be able
to preserve and possess them.

I even rent this aching heart,
these ageing, migrant bones,
this death that has walked beside me,
step by step, every day
since the day that I was born.

My death alone is mine.
It belongs to nobody else.
It will be my sole possession.
It will soon be the only thing
I have ever really owned.

Comment:

Dark Angel is from my poetry book – Septets for the End of Time / Poems for the end of Time. The lead painting in today’s blog is by my friend, Moo, and he calls it Storm-Me.

Do you play in your daily life? What does ‘playtime say to you?

Daily writing prompt
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
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Do you play in your daily life? What does ‘playtime say to you?

Poesía de juego y poesía que expresa la autenticidad del ser / poetry as play and poetry that expresses the authenticity of being. For me, poetry is play. However, it is far more than just ‘play‘ – because it is a play that expresses the authenticity of my being.

I write in my journal on a daily basis. As I write, I sometimes spot little gems, thoughts or word clusters that can be turned into poems. For me, playtime is when I start to elaborate the words (signifiers) and turn them into thoughts (signified). The meaning may be the message, but the words that carry the message are the building bricks of the poetry of play which sometimes, with a happy Midas touch, turns into the poetry of gold that expresses the authenticity of who and what I am.

But play is also what I do when I paint. And sometimes I sit beside my mirror image friend, Moo, and paint with him. While Moo is great with colours, he is sometimes at a loss for words. Then I help him by playing with words, shuffling them around, until he finds the title that he wishes for his poems. Sometimes I consult, on Moo’s behalf, with other friends, and they are the ones who join in the game, and settle the dispute by agreeing upon the name that Moo will finally choose for his painting.

But, speaking of painting, there is no play better than the game of making meaning out of color [does it really matter how you spell it? ] and shape while taking a line for a walk and turning it into something playful yet meaningful. Mix and match, and stitch and patch, and then add the lines and title that ease the metamorphosis of color into shape and meaning.

There are other games I play to help fill in the daily gaps that have entered my post-retirement life. Online games of patience, crosswords, chess games with their intricate patterns of red and white or light and dark. Then their [now it does matter how you spell there!!!] are mining games when I dig deep into other people’s poetry and search among the gems of Octavio Paz, Antonio Machado, Dylan Thomas, John O’Donohue, Milton Acorn, Valverde, Quevedo, St. Teresa of Avila, Gongora, Sor Juana, Cervantes, or many other friends, their voices now silences, with whom I speak with my eyes, in order to find something that inspires me to play yet another game – hunt the symbol.

Re-reading Rudyard Kipling is a game too. “Do you like Kipling?” “No, I never Kipple.”And in books like Kim, the great game of life goes on and on, and Kipling’s signifiers (words) turn into a signified (meaning) that is warped by my creative mind and changed into my ideas of a new game in which hunt the symbol turns into the game of Brillig where the slithey troves of new words, fresh words, are reborn into my game-world and emerge from their game-whirled into my own word-play conversation with my own thyme and plaice [or should that be time and place?] And long may Moo and I play that game!

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
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What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

A simplistic question in so many ways as so many definitions are needed. How long is long? 100 years? 200 years? Back to 1066 to watch the Battle of Hastings? 1588 to see the Spanish Armada sailing up the channel? 1815 to see the Battle of Waterloo and talk with Wellington and Napoleon – why not? I am Anglo-Welsh and New Brunswick is bilingual, French and English, so why shouldn’t I – or anyone else who wants to live such a long life – have a talk with both of them?

And does living a very long life include the concept of being healthy, and happy, and wise, and not living in squalor or poverty or in a permanent war zone? How about being kept in an incubator, or an iron lung, or on permanent life support? How long is long under those (or similar) conditions. And what about friends and family? In the Celtic myths, men who visit the fairies in Ireland and live and eat with them, come back to reality [now define that word in this day and age] only to find their friends and families long dead and gone. So what would the conditions of the ‘return’ be like if a long life meant watching the passing of everyone and everything you know or returning to a world you no longer recognized?

And change is so rapid nowadays. AI is developing so quickly, how can anyone keep up? I know that as I slow down (mentally and physically) I understand less and less about the machines I use, including my Nexus Rollator. Does a ‘very long life’ include sipping from the Fountain of Youth? Or does it consist of an enlarged old age – post molestam senectutem, nos habebit humus – after a troubled old age, the earth will have us. I am sure we all recognize Gaudeamus igitur, in Latin, and its theme of Ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere – where now are those lived in this world before us, and if we don’t, then how swiftly we have forgotten the power of Latin is with its memorable phrases and omnipresent seeds of memento mori .

For me the question is a clear one – do you wish for quantity (a very long life) or quality (a very happy and successful one, even if it is a bit shorter)?

A close friend of mine, one of the most honest and courageous people that I have known, suffering in a horrific way from terminal cancer, asked for, and received, MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying). It was a long legal and medical process to get MAID, involving famiy members, lawyers, doctors, and many other things. As the Romans used to say mors omnia solvit – death resolves everything. My friend and his family preferred to shorten life – on their own terms – rather than prolong it under such prolonged suffering and torment. My friend, I salute you and your family and commend you for your bravery.

So, define the terms within which that very long life would be lived – and then ask yourself the question once more. Because as it stands right now, with no further understanding, the answer should only be “depends”. And remember, lives are like swimming pools – they have shallow ends and deep ends. All too often when you talk about life and the end of life, so much depends.

Comment:

I must thank my friend, Moo, for his depiction of the fireworks from New Year’s Eve. Sky Flowers, he calls it. The fireworks have gone already – but – vis breve, ars longa – his painting still survives.

When are you most happy?

Daily writing prompt
When are you most happy?
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When are you most happy?

What on earth does that mean? When? Are we talking time of day, or time of night? Are we talking a season of the year? Are we talking mood swings – happy now, oh dear, mood swing, not happy now? Are we talking Hen Wen, the magic white pig at the feeding trough? “I am at my happiest, oink-oink, when I am eating a big burger from …” – and here you name your favorite burger outlet. None of that Hen Wen nonsense applies, of course, if you are vegetarian, vegan, or have an allergy to burgers or buns!

I can tell you when I am least happy – 7:30 am, on a wet, damp, cold, icy, snowy winter morning, when I have to get up, get dressed, and go out in the mush and the slush to have an early morning blood test – no food or drink for 12 hours – at the local hospital. Last time I did that, I couldn’t find a parking spot, and drove round and around until eventually one opened up, as far away as possible from the hospital of course. No, I was not a happy camper on that occasion. Especially when I slipped on the ice, returning to my car, and then found someone had driven into my side while I was parked there. Oh, that made me so happy and so jolly, I laughed until I cried. [I do hope you can recognize sarcasm when you see it.]

So, let us reverse the question and reframe it by saying that I am perfectly happy when the things that make me miserable do not happen. No fender-bender in the ice and snow – I am a happy man. Caught speeding or jumping a red light – totally by accident, of course, – and the man in blue asks me for my license, sees that it’s my birthday, and lets me drive away with a verbal warning and a jovial ‘happy birthday”! Ah yes, reverse psychology, that sort of thing does make me happy.

So, above all, it’s the little things in life that go right, and not wrong, that make me happy. This morning’s boiled egg, boiled to perfection – not too hard, not too soft. My coffee a perfect blend designed to bring joy and happiness. Marmalade on blue cheese, the Welsh equivalent of Chinese sweet and sour – oh yes, and actually making someone laugh or smile when they read this nonsense I write. Even Hen Wen grunts with joy – oink! oink! – at that one. So if you have enjoyed this post, please take the time to send me an oink or two, and I will be happy. Thanking you in advance is, yours sincerely, Hen ‘oink!’ Wen ‘oink!’ Wink, ‘oink!’

What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you did for play or fun?
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What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

I guess it depends on how you define ‘play’ and ‘fun’. The first snow storm of the winter left us without power for 39.5 hours. That should have been horrible – the temperature outside dropped to -7C overnight, and the temperature inside fell to 58F. Rather than sit and suffer, we turned it into a fun time. A candlelight supper, a bright log fire burning in the grate, reading by torchlight and candlelight. The flames flickering across my beloved’s face and making her countenance softer and more beautiful than ever.

When we lose power, we lose everything, except our fireplace and our cell phones. Recharging them was fun. We have a portable charger, and we also recharged them in the car while driving around. The roads were good – and driving was warm – so that was fun as well.

When the power came back, we called the local tree company (Treecological) and they took down the trees, young, bendy birches, that had bent onto our power lines. When we lost power, a second time, exactly a week later, it was a much shorter power loss. While the first was a power out[r]age, the second was a power outage. Both times, when the power came back on, that first buzz of energy renewed really made us happy.

In between the two storms, we had some warmer, sunnier weather and cleaning the snow with our trusty snowblower was much easier than we expected. Mind you, it is always difficult the first time, when the body is unaccustomed to the machine and all the old tricks must be learned once more. Luckily, you can teach new tricks to an old dog, well, to this one anyway, and I managed to cut a few corners and had fun doing so.

After four consecutive days of snow blowing – one does it bit by bit when one is eighty years old – otherwise no, it isn’t much fun. But bit by bit, step by step, and the job gets done. So there we were, playing in the snow and having fun. Mind you – once in a while isn’t too bad. But for this to happen every day, over a series of years, that would not be fun. And doubly not in winter, with the cold outside and supplies inside running out or down.

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite form of physical exercise?
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What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

As the arthritis gets worse and the pain grips more and more, I am not sure that I have any favorite form of physical exercise. Perhaps getting in and out of the whirlpool bath? Getting out after a half hour or so soaking, is easy enough. But getting in, after a couple of days without one – well, that can be a bit of a pain.

Then there’s getting up in the morning. That is exercise in itself. Hauling myself out of bed. Limping to the bathroom. Doing some s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g when I remember too. Painful to do, but I usually feel usually a bit better afterwards. Don’t forget the obstacle race of making it, half-asleep, to the bathroom during the night. Then there’s getting dressed in the morning and that’s always an interesting exercise. Sometimes I need help with socks, or shirt, especially after a bath. Shoes are always a wrestling match, as are shorts and jeans. What used to take me about 90 seconds, now takes closer to ten or fifteen minutes. Hardly aerobic!

And speaking of aerobics, physical exercise can also refer to anaerobic and an / aerobic with lactic acid build up. Lactic acid and the ensuing cramps have never been anyone’s favorite form of physical exercise, unless they are masochists instructed by a sadistic coach, as sometimes happens.

The stairs are always a great physical exercise. Easiest is walking safely downstairs in the morning. But there is always the fear of a fall, especially with the turn round the Newell post at the bottom. And then there’s climbing up again safely at night. That takes longer and longer, one painful foot lift at a time.

Cooking has become a physical exercise too. Peeling the vegetables and cutting them up can be quite vigorous. Standing at the stove cooking, gently stirring the food, that is good exercise, as is setting the table and serving the food.

But perhaps my favorite exercise is what the Abulenses call El paseo de la nevera. This is to get up, to walk to the fridge, and to grab another can of beer or open a new bottle of wine. Maybe that is my favorite form of physical exercise, that and the repeated elbow lift and flex that is necessary to drain the can or the bottle or the glass. And don’t forget, there’s always the pinch of salt and the over-the-shoulder salt throw, always necessary with this style of blogging, where everything you read should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

Daily writing prompt
Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?
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Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

How on earth do you define a lazy day? If a Lazy Boy is a chair, what is a Lazy Day? Is it something like a Lazy Rocker? Or a Lazy Twister? ‘Come on, let’s twist again’! Is it no more than a lazy, hazy, crazy day of summer, as the song would have it? In which case, is it possible to have a lazy day when summer has gone, the days grow cold, and autumn is on the way? And who is having the lazy day, anyway? And is that a lazy painting I see before my eyes?

Enjoying retirement, as I am, busy or not, I feel quite rested, most of the time. As for being productive or unproductive, well! I feel productive when I post an answer to a blog prompt. So today, I am being productive. Ipso facto, I suppose I am not being lazy, though the sun is shining outside, the leaves are actually staying on the trees, after the overnight frost, and are not hurrying and scurrying and busying themselves in falling to to the ground. It’s a lazy leaf day – they are definitely not being productive. If they were, they would be littering the yard for me to tidy them up and then they would be productive by making me labour, and I would not be having a lazy day, because I would be busy picking up the leaves, putting them into piles, then waiting for the busybody wind to stop being lazy and to interfere with my work and scatter leaves around the garden again.

So, back to the original prompt – Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive? Let us give a totally non-committal, political answer – after all, it is the election season – and say – “It depends”. It depends on the multiple meanings of a lazy day, rested, productive, or unproductive. If the hen doesn’t lay an egg, is she being lazy and unproductive? Or does she feel fulfilled and rested? I could ask any one of the dozen or so eggs I keep resting in the fridge. Oh boy, do they have a restful time, lying there, eggs-in-waiting. And what are they waiting for? That joyous moment when they appear in public, are cracked open and whisked into omelets or scrambled like the brain – rested, rusted, busy, productive or unproductive – of anyone so twisted that they would write anything like this in response to a simple prompt. A simple prompt, you say? Now that’s a great departure point – what do you mean by a simple prompt? Answers on an egg-shell fragment please!

Ah yes, it’s another busy, productive day and my scrambled brains, like the scrambled eggs I devoured for breakfast, are all as busy as little bees can be, even though the bees are now out of season and there are none left in the garden. And with that I bid you farewell, au revoir, or is it adieu? I’m too lazy to care? Please choose whichever buzz word suits you best!