Laying in a hospital bed, not making much sense, my dear friend M. brought me the first chapters of her novel to read and comment on. She knew, knowing me oh so well, that I needed something in my life to reboot my curiosity and that appealed on a bit more of an intellectual than Star Trek on a little hospital TV.
It was a slow process for me. Fatigue and pain often limited reading to a couple pages a day. Soon, however, I was looking forward to those pages. I read and reread her work. Criticism? That was limited, believe me. The novel was going to be good. It was true. It was her.
I have just heard that Harper Collins has bought the book. Yes! I am so happy. It really couldn't have happened to a nicer, more talented, more sincere person. Looking into my crystal ball I predict bubbly flowing this weekend.
Almost every bit of snow is gone, even in the woods.
Last Monday I was standing on the back deck and looking out when I noticed some red on the snow in the garden. Red? Well it turned out to be rhubarb poking through the last of the snow. This is a pretty amazing sight for April in these parts.
Yes, I am out and working in those parts of the yard where the snow has receded.
In the middle of the side yard I found these. As I took this shot crows cawed a warning and a hawk passed overhead. Everything is so alive.
Enjoy the change of Seasons!
An open letter to my family and friends,
Last Saturday was my birthday and wonderful it was.
I don't think I've had an organized birthday since I was a lad and we'd go bowling or to the movies. I had thought that we'd be about a dozen people but as it turned out there were fifty. It's seven days later and I am still amazed. The only unfortunate part was I didn't have time to spend with each and everyone there. All of them deserved it.
Of course there were many highlights, several of which I am not going to blog about. However there were some particularly special moments for me.
The cake. You should have seen the cake!. Huge. Handsome. It was a week's worth of effort and a wonderful surprise appreciated by all (I got to take the remainder home, of course).
There were the special messages from friends far away, and a cryptic note purported to be from "Ted Williams' Head".
My family and friends. You are a diverse lot. There were my special neighbourhood friends who have made me feel so welcome in our small community. There were my fishing buddies who I never see enough of. There were soldiers and artists, a carpenter, an opera singer, the lawyers, the chef, the stage dresser, the chum from Jr. High, a mill worker, students, teachers, mentors, moms, dads, daughters and sons.
Birthdays are kind of silly. They are inevitable and time is what it is. Just two years ago, in March, I was told I may not see my next birthday. Well, I'm here. Life is good. Take that and let's move on. That's what I thought as I recovered from blowing out my candles.
I looked around the room and saw not one person I didn't care for. I am one fortunate fellow.
There are some photos here.
With love,
jp
Well, I have just returned from the Vet. I just have to get this out of my system, sorry.
Carlos the cat didn't make it. Penny, the Vet who has taken over the village practise, was kind but direct. Poor Carlos could go at any moment but he probably was in pain. Something was given for pain relief and we were left alone. I gently scratched and rubbed Carlos' favourite spot until it was time to close his eyes.
Carlos came to us from the village coffee shop. This cat had moved in and they couldn't have it. When I saw him I realized he was a significantly larger version of my previous cat. That had been the finest animal, of any sort, I'd known. After a serious adoption interview with coffee shop owner, he came home perched on the truck seat as if he did this every afternoon. A couple days later the chef from the village pub was over for supper and spotted Carlos. "That cat was in my kitchen trying to steal nachos!" Ah, village life.
Soon Carlos settled into domestic routine and household dominance. Jessie the dog gave him his space. After all, he looked like the previous master of our home except at twice the size.
When I was at home for months and months with my illness I certainly got to know the pets better. Jessie watched over me, warmed my feet, and exuded a gentle peace. Carlos, obviously, had a cat-like attitude the situation. As I improved he became more and more vocal. "Feed me." "Give me attention." "Get up off your ass, can't you hear I want something?" At least that's the way it seemed at the time. I had my own four legged personal coach.
I will miss you Carlos. You were a good buddy, a fine companion, and a terrific coach.
"How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants."
Frank (Henry Fonda) Once Upon a Time in the West
"If man did not exist as a world-spanning receptive
realm of perception, if he were not engaged in this capacity, nothing at
all could exist. 'Being,' in its traditional usage, means 'presence' and
'persistence.' To achieve presence, and thereby being, an entity requires
some sort of open realm in which presence and persistence can take place.
Thus an open realm of perception like that of human existence is the one
being that makes being possible."
- Medard Boss
“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of
the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach
our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris
is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are?
We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a
marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has
never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever
fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a
Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you
are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is,
like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world
worthy of its children.”
Picasso
What would you like for Christmas? It is a delight, rather than a predictable event, when a Christmas suggestion is taken to heart and given.
It is in that context that I received the wonderful book "King of Infinite Space, Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry" by Siobhan Roberts. In a world where mathematics has chosen to forget the numbers of shape and dimension Donald Coxeter laboured with love and genius to both preserve and advance geometry. The telling of his tale is beautifully done by Roberts in it's own symmetry.
Around the dinner table with colleagues gathered for the American Math Society conference in 1981, he asked: " Did you know that apples do not have cores?" They thought he was pulling their legs, until the hostess, Marjorie Senechal, a mathematics professor at Smith College, procured an apple and placed it before him with a knife, as requested. He filleted the fruit into thin horizontal sections, demonstrating that there was no stem-to-stern core, but rather elongated pods of seeds within. The piece de resistence occurred when he reached the center of the apple and sliced through the equator. There lay it's secret symmetry -- not nature's sloppy attempt at spherical symmetry, as suggested by an apple's exterior, but rather perfect fivefold symmetry, hidden at the apple's heart: the apple seeds were arranged in a five-point star. Everyone around the table gasped when they saw it. "It just shows," said Senechal, "that he was looking everywhere, and looking deeply. Coxeter delighted in the geometry of everyday objects, and, because he was so curious and astute, he found symmetries and regularities in these objects that the rest of us never suspected."
On one level many of us have unconsciously been participants in everyday applications of Coxeter's vision. We have seen amazing computer animations, received an immunization, or have mined or been mined as data. What I have received from Roberts is a view into the beauty of this world as realized and expressed by a profound explorer of mind and matter.
This volume was a lovely gift that was truly appreciated and will have a lasting impact in my life.
