Monday, April 22, 2024

Lake Forest: surfers; stuff; the poet’s delusion


You may have seen the above photo taken during a surf competition in Western Australia.  I like to believe all the surfers are feeling the same joy.



Stuff oppresses me.

As is known I have twice lost all my physical possessions.  

When I drove north from Key West in a rental car to buy a boat and try to put my life back together nine months after sinking RESURGAM all I owned then in the world fit in a single duffle bag.

I have long thought that the best size boat for two people is between 35’ and 40’.  I have owned and lived aboard with the then woman in my life on a 26’, a 35’, a 36’, and two 37’.  I have said that if something will not fit on a 37’ boat I don’t need to own it.  Now, by proxy, I own or half own, much that will not fit on a 37’.  

For myself alone I would now say that if it does not fit on GANNET I don’t need to own it.  Part of this is due to technology.  I need books and music and what a few decades ago would have taken up considerable space no longer does.  I have four or five hundred books and seven or eight hundred albums of music on my phone alone.  But I can live ever more simply..

There is too much stuff.



I finished reading the thousand mostly very short poems in AN ANTHOLOGY OF CLASSICAL JAPANESE POETRY.

Here is one.  I have sympathy with Monk Saigyo’s delusion, but I don’t share it.  On the other hand, his words have lasted, however faintly, more than a thousand years.







1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the surf pic Webb! As a life long sailor and surfer I can say that ALL the surfers in that pic are enjoying the ride! Some of my best moments on waves have been shared with dolphins, sea rays and even in the air by pelicans catching the air currents at the top of a wave!
    I also align with your sentiment about too much Stuff!!!

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