Hilton Head Island: an apology to the twenty; the damned; and the thing itself

Just after 7 pm.  I am sitting on the deck.  I like being on the screened porch, but I like being out here exposed to the air and sky more.  Above is what I am looking out upon.  Not spectacular, but beautiful.  Live oaks.  Spanish moss.  Skull Creek.  An overcast sky.  The marina.  And serene and quiet.  Far better than being in any city, although those who own condos costing tens of millions of dollars overlooking Central Park would not agree. I have lived a different life. When I came out here I intended to play music, but realized for now I prefer quiet.

I am not always certain what I have shared here, so had to check to see if I had said that Carol has left.  I see that I did.  She will be back in four weeks and then on July 11 I will fly with her to Illinois and be there until around Labor Day.

A low that the media hysterically cry may become a named storm is moving over south Florida.  It will pass south of us, but leave a hole in the wind behind that the latest GRIB shows should fill in on Wednesday.  I have no desire to go out and drift, so will wait until then to go sailing.  Maybe even longer.

I owe an apology to the twenty or so who read the post I later deleted last week.  It was open to misinterpretation.  I am completely at fault.

I have heard from several of the twenty who were disturbed that it seemed a suicide note.  It was not.  

I am not opposed to suicide.  Were I a certain kind of scientist I would investigate whether there is a suicide gene.  

If I were to get a diagnosis of some cancers I would at my age not be willing to undergo severe treatment to linger a few months longer, but would if I could crawl down to GANNET and go out to sea.  I do not look Japanese, but I share their values about suicide which are of course un-Christian.  

As a side note suicide is I believe an unforgivable sin to the Catholic church, yet my grandmother was given consolation after my father’s suicide by a Catholic priest who was perhaps a better man than a church official.  

But that was not at all what I intended in that post.  I pride myself as a writer, but here, not wanting to make a suggestion of something I may never do, I failed.

Of what I might do, most of you would be pleased.  Carol will not, but then she won’t read this.  But I am still trying to reach forward.  We will see what time and chance permit.  I have outlived any imagined Ulysses and would happily die one night in my sleep.  I don’t think it will be that easy.  It must have hurt getting in here, though we do not remember, and it will likely hurt getting out.

I was looking for something to watch last evening and found trending on Netflix a 1960s semi-western, THE PROFESSIONALS, with an all star cast of Ralph Bellamy, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster. Robert Ryan, Jack Palance. and one of Italy’s more voluptuous exports, Claudia Cardinale.

I am not going to give the plot.  This is not a great movie, but of what it wants to be it is good and to me entertaining.

In one scene Burt Lancaster says, “Well, I’ll be damned.”  And Lee Marvin relies, “Most of us are.”  Indeed.

I have been watching some of the French Open tennis.  Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic both have net worths of more than $200 million.  The money no longer means anything.  Yet they both want to win so much.  Ego?  The desire to make their mark on history?  To be the best ever?

I wrote a piece about Joshua Slocum returning to the love of the thing itself.

https://www.inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/thingitself.html

I am not sure that Rafa and the Joker are returning to the love of the thing itself, but maybe they are: seeking the pure maximum fulfillment of their abilities.

I understand that.  So am I.  Money is not the measure of all things.  

Rafa is 36.  Novak is 35.  They are getting old for their sport.

I am 80.  I am just old.

Today I went to the 100 level on my workout for the first time in a long while.

I am still trying to understand and I am still trying.