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Raging Patience.

April 25, 2014 by Exangel

by David D. Horowitz.

“David, I need to know what time it is!”

“Mom, it’s four a.m. I was asleep before you called!”

“Four a.m.? Are you sure? Aren’t you supposed to be here now?”

“Yes, it’s four a.m. I will visit you today at seven p.m. Seven P.M.!”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Oh, what’s wrong with me!”

I sighed. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be over later today. You’re confused because it’s dark. You probably think it’s late in the day, but it’s before dawn.”

“Today’s the tenth?”

“Yes, but before dawn. I’ll visit in about fifteen hours. Okay?”

“Okay, I think so. All right. I understand, I think. Oh, I’m so confused!”

“The a.m. hours are the first twelve in the day, and the p.m. hours are the last twelve. Do you understand that much?”

“Yes, but why does the clock on my phone sometimes say eighteen or twenty o’clock? I’m so confused!”

“Your cell phone represents time without a.m. and p.m., so ‘eighteen o’clock’ is the equivalent of six p.m. When looking at your phone’s clock after noon, subtract twelve hours to determine the ‘p.m.’ time. I’ve explained this before. Regardless, I’ll visit tonight at about 7 p.m. Okay?”

“Okay. One other thing: when did Winston Churchill die? 1941?”

“No, he died in 1965, Mom.”

“Really. How could I be so stupid!? What’s happening to me?”

“Mom, I need to sleep and…”

“Sure, go back to sleep.”

“I’ll see you later today, Mom, at about 7 p.m. I won’t forget.”

“Okay, my little darling. 7 p.m. One other thing: they’re fiddling with my cell phone clock.”

Again I sigh. “Mom, you’ve lived at that assisted living home for over five years. I’ve checked your clock often. No one’s fiddling with your cell phone. It’s fine. Trust me. I’ll check it tonight, okay? For now, it should be fine.”

“Okay. You I trust.”

“Okay, Mom. See you at 7 p.m.”

“See you at 7 p.m. Bye-bye.”

My mother cannot prevent Alzheimer’s Disease from damaging her memory and sense of time, but when she calls at crazy-early hours I struggle to maintain self-control. It’s not for nothing language commonly features phrases like “volcanic rage,” “quake with anger,” “wave of resentment,” and “roar like a lion.” Humans are of nature, and that entails the volatility we see in earth’s geology and wildlife. We humans, though, evolved in nature to live together, and so I cultivate my seed of empathy to yield patience. I work with one group of natural forces to balance a different group. Call it the golden mean; call it yin and yang. It all adds up to balance. Disease might reflect chemical imbalances, and rage might represent visceral frustration, but in nature we can learn to navigate a path past whirlpools, rocks, reefs, storms, volcanoes, illness—and our own rage. Daily I trust hunch and habit to help guide myself past dangerous eddies of temptation, temper, and torment. I rely on yoga; prayer; walks; consuming fruits, vegetables, juices, and whole grains; reading great books; writing; and conversing with friends—not downing martinis and Prozac. Working with one group of natural forces can help restrain a different, more destructive set of forces. Rain can help tame a wildfire.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Natural and Un., Spring 2014: Disasters

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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