Snowbrush

Synvisc

I had my second injection of Synvisc today, a lubricating fluid that is injected into the middle of theknee from just below and a little to the outside of the kneecap. I get three shots, seven days apart, and they are supposed to relieve the pain for six months. I’ve never had a doctor do anything that hurt half so much as to stick that long needle into my knee. I don’t flinch or even stop asking questions during the injection (she’s in and out of the room in the time it takes to stick me, so I have to take advantage of every second), but if the pain were any greater, I would have cried.

Peggy has a new bike, a hybrid between a street bike and a mountain bike. We took it and my bike to the mountains Wednesday, and rode nine miles on a gravel road while the dogs ran alongside. My hands tingled for the next three days. Yesterday I was unable to hold a glass of water.

I feel like I’ve aged twenty years since my surgery in February. I always thought I would hold up at least as well as my father—who could put in a hard day’s work in his mid-seventies. Maybe I got some bad genes from my mother.

Sleeping with magnets

I slept with hardware store magnets wrapped around my knee for the past three nights. I read that magnets might alleviate the pain and swelling, but the relief is more marked than I could have hoped for. Since the swelling is as grotesque as ever, I suspect a placebo effect, yet I should think that a placebo effect would require that I be deluded, but how can I be deluded when I can see the swelling in my knee and fully expect it to hurt?

Dream friends

Twice lately, in my dreams, I created friends who I knew would disappear when I awakened. Each time, I held them tightly and said, “You are real here, but when I wake up, it will be to a world in which you have no reality. There will be no house in which I can visit you; there will be no grave to mark a life that used to be; and there will be no one else on the whole earth who has any memory of you.” The thought that they were imaginary wrecked me because where can a better friend be found than in one’s dreams? For their part, they accepted their fate, telling me that they could not leave me because they came from me, and were me.

I knew this was true, but I wanted more. I wanted to see and touch and hold them, and the wrinkled face that met me in the bathroom mirror did not remind me either of myself or of them. The dream was the reality, and the face was the alien. Or so I wished it to be. In reality, I knew that the face was a constant (or at least as constant as anything in my life), and that the dream creatures were so ephemeral that I could not even count upon seeing the same one twice.

My last dream friend was a blind man. The previous day, I had consoled myself about my knee problem with the thought that things could be worse—I could be blind. That night, in my dream, a blind man took me by the hand and led me through many dangers. He could do this because he saw by wisdom while I only had physical eyes.

Oh, but I look so old when I get up! The face that first greets me looks ten years older than my normal face, which means that it will my normal face ten years from now. The years roll on despite my protest and disbelief. Only yesterday, I was a boy. Now that boy is like a recently remembered dream person who I can almost reach out and touch, but not quite because we are separated by realms rather than miles. It’s as though he exists in an overlapping universe that I can only see from the corner of my eye. When I was that boy, old people said life would be this way, but no boy would have believed them. If an old man appears wise, it might be because that is the only respectable role left to him; so it is to wisdom I aspire.

Oscar Schlegel

Oscar Schlegel, one of my Masonic brothers, asked me to take him to the barbershop yesterday. I often offer to do things for people but am seldom taken up on them. I had been craving beer for days, so I bought a case of Pabst on the way. I chose Pabst because the can looks like it did when I was a boy—and because it was on sale. Otherwise, I would have gotten Busch because I like the mountains on the label, and because that’s the brand that I drank when I was first married and considered it grown-up to come home and pop a cold one. I soon gave it up because I never much liked beer. My favorites are the ones that are as black as coffee, but they cost too much. Peggy says I should indulge myself, but I don’t enjoy indulging with things that are gone in a few minutes. If I were to indulge, it would be with hard liquor.

I am almost done repaving the patio; a hot weekend is expected; and I look forward to sitting outdoors with a beer or two. It will make up to an extent for our decision to stay home this weekend. Peggy suggested that I continue hiking until the knee wears out, and then get an artificial one. I agreed until I found out how flimsy artificial knees are. Then too, I can’t enjoy hiking when I am in pain and laboring under the realization that every step takes me that much closer to surgery.

I hope to at least make my knee last until winter because I have a lot of outside work to do this summer. If I can make it last a few more years, that will be even better. Despite my doctor’s pessimism, I hold to the hope that artificial cartilage will be perfected sooner rather than later.

After his haircut, I brought Oscar home for lunch, and then he took Peggy and me to see the assisted care facility where he lives. He said he will die soon without heart surgery, but his doctor won’t operate because of his age (92). Every time I see him, his lungs are a little more congested and his breathing a little more labored. Otherwise, he is in good shape. I assume a significant lessening of the faculties in old people, so it’s disconcerting to speak loudly and in simple sentences to someone who looks back at me like I’m an idiot. I told him yesterday (as if he needed to know) that aging challenges a person’s creativity because he has to find new activities to replace the ones he used to enjoy but can no longer do. Oscar agreed. I hope he will call on me more.

I might have preferred cancer

I just got the results from my MRI. There were some areas where bone is scraping bone and other areas where bone is almost scraping bone. That was the bad news. There was no good news. The doctor suggested that I walk as little as necessary and that I not hike at all.

I said I had heard of people who climb mountains and run marathons on artificial joints, and I asked if any of those joints were knees. She said artificial knees are good for easy walks on flat ground, but that people who use them for more than that wear them out fast. Since there is less bone on which to attach each successive knee, a man my age would soon run out of options. She said I can do far more now than I could dream of doing on an artificial knee. I told her that the knee feels so fragile that I worry about it collapsing sideways. She said this is indeed possible and that it would most likely be the end of the knee.

I spent the afternoon enlarging our paving stone patio, and the work kept my mind off my knee until I stopped, and the gloom descended. Hiking is more than a hobby to Peggy and me; it is a way of life. I thought about my beloved trekking poles that I have used for fifteen years and for which I just bought a new tip. I thought about the mountaintops I have stood upon that I will never stand upon again. And I wondered what we will do the next time we have a few days off.

Then there is our vacation in August, the first long trip we have made in years. We had planned to hike in eastern Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho. Now what? Admire the scenery through the windshield? Visit a museum? Me read while Peggy and the dogs hike?

Later, I looked briefly at mountain bikes on the Internet, but carpal tunnel causes my hands to tingle during short trips on my town bike. Maybe I should have surgery for that.

I would have preferred a diagnosis of cancer if my odds of recovery were good because the terrain is all downhill from here as far as my mobility is concerned. The most cheerful thought I can come up with is that people have survived worse and become better for it.

Back home

Back home. I couldn’t sleep last night for sharp pains radiating down the outside of my leg. If avoiding hikes would enable my knee to heal so I could hike later, the tradeoff would be worth it, but my surgery was four months ago; I have cared for myself exquisitely; and I have given up hope that I will ever be as fit as I was the day I walked into the hospital. Meanwhile, spring has come to the mountains, and the lengthening days will become shortening days in two weeks.

Making things easier for my knee might save me for other things. The problem is that I value none of those things nearly so much as I value what we did this weekend. Peggy and I talk from time to time about how we might get around my limitation. For example, I could bike alongside as she hiked remote roads, or I could even ride a trike so as to better match her speed. The trouble with such things is that they represent a willingness to settle for less than I want, and I’m not willing to settle anymore than I already have.

A few days in the Cascades 3

We climbed Grasshopper Mtn (5,642 feet) today, or at least Peggy did. Within 150 vertical feet of the top, the going became so rough that I decided it would be idiocy for me to continue. The rest of the trail had been bad enough. It had traversed steep meadows where the ground was uneven from moles and frost heave. Oh, but the beauty! The air was clear; the view expansive; the sky musical with birdsongs; and the earth vibrant with flowers, butterflies, iridescent beetles, and streams that ran in and out of the ground. As usual, we hadn’t seen another person in days.

I can but assume that most people are able to survive without such beauty because it is unknown to them. True, one can see Mount Hood and Yosemite Falls from parking lots, but the experience is in some ways inferior to seeing them on IMAX. At least, IMAX does not pretend to offer an intimate experience of nature, and this leaves the viewer to marvel as much at the cleverness of his species as at a glimpse of another place.

While Peggy summited, I enjoyed the peace of the sun-dappled shade. The thick forest debris was dotted with windflower and vanilla leaf, beings far more beautiful than I. Our great brains and our physical frailty have so separated us from nature that we are all like people who see Yosemite Falls from crowded asphalt. We are a part of two worlds, one of pure being and one of our own manufacture.

A few days in the Cascades 2

We camped where the sun would hit the van early. My coffee brewed, we drove to the Sardine Butte (5,214 feet) trailhead. The road was not only uncleared but outright abandoned. The trail itself being short, we didn’t object. Sour cherry overhung the roadbed, and the air was charged with the scent of their flowers. Wednesday’s cortisone shot helped my knee, but I still found myself carrying on a running dialogue. “How ya doing knee?” “Not great, but maybe I can hold out if it’s not too much farther. Just spare me any lateral pressure lest I collapse.” Other times, it would say, “I’ve had enough. We will both pay dearly if we continue.” I would respond, “Be patient—I’ll walk carefully.”

After our descent, we read at the edge of a quarry. The sun was too warm, and the shade too cold so, like the Indians who once followed the seasons up and down these mountains, we migrated back and forth. Oregon boxwood was in bloom, its small purplish brown flowers remarkably beautiful to those who take the time to notice small things.

Later, we drove to the Grasshopper Mtn trailhead, and camped in a quarry with a view. We hiked the road for an hour and a half, but saved the summit for tomorrow. My knee was hurting, and I reflected that this year marks the first time that I am limited by what I can do rather than by what I want to do. I am not a person who will bear disability well. In fact, I don’t aspire to bear disability well. When I become too old or infirm to function halfway normally, I always thought I would have someone drive me to a remote wilderness where I could take my pills, drink my whisky, and fire my gun. Last night, I read that older people’s organs can be successfully implanted, and I reluctantly decided that I should do myself in at the door of a hospital.

I was thinking about this intensely while feeling hopeless about my knee, and it moved ever so slightly in the direction of taking over my thoughts. I remembered Hemingway trying to throw himself into an airplane propeller before blowing his head off with a shotgun. I want suicide to be a means to maintain dignity rather than the frantic act of a desperate man.

A few days in the Cascades 1

Peggy and I were the first people to drive to the Indian Ridge (5,405 feet) trailhead this year, as evidenced by the rocks we had to move and the limbs we had to saw to clear the road. Some snow remained, and mosquitoes flew about drunkenly in the chill air.

The four-hour hike over steep, uneven ground was not the best exercise for a man with a bad knee. For much of the distance, clumps of bear grass threatened to snag our feet, and mountain beaver holes to swallow our ankles. We camped at the trailhead with five prominent Cascade peaks in view. It being too cold to enjoy a fire, we went to bed early and read—Peggy, Murder on the Orient Express, and me a botanical field guide.

Indian Ridge

Old rocks and paradoxes

The oldest earth rocks are 4.2 billion years old; the piece of Oregon andesite on my desk is 40 million. How old is that in human terms?

We count a human artifact as an antique at 100 and as almost unbelievably old at 10,000, which is the age of some sandals that were found in an Oregon cave. So, how long is 10,000 years compared to 40 million? It is 1/4000th.

The human species only originated 150,000 years ago, which means that my rock was already 39,850,000 years old when homo sapiens first walked the earth, and 39,999,943 years old I was born—it is 701,754 times older than I, yet it is devoid of wrinkles and liver spots.

I wonder from time to time what would happen if I stored a rock in conditions that eliminated all external causes of alteration. How many years would pass before it looked any different than it does today? Surely, it would eventually assume a different form, but what number would represent the amount of years that this would take?

I have another puzzler. Numbers are said to be infinite, yet between each whole number and its successor, there is only one other whole number—as in 2+1=3. But how many fractions are between the numbers 2 and 3? An infinite number, right? But this would mean that the infinitude of fractions is larger than the infinitude of whole numbers!

Zeno posed a similar paradox. To wit: To cross a room, a person must first cross the one-half point. But to cross the one-half point, he (or she) must first cross the one-quarter point. Ah, but before the one-quarter point comes the one-eighth point. Because the number of points can be halved infinitely it is obviously impossible to cross a room.

I attend a Master Mason degree

I attended a Master Mason degree last night. The candidate fainted twice (he hadn’t eaten much that day), which caused the degree to last so long that I had to leave early to pick Peggy up at the airport. As I left through the kitchen, I sorrowfully eyed the homemade pies that awaited everyone else, and would have had a slice had I known that the plane was going to be two hours late due to thunderstorms over Colorado.

Most of the people who gave me the Master Mason degree are dead. One of my most vivid and imposing memories is of the master of my lodge approaching me out of the dim light, “by the step, with the sign, and under the due guard of a Master Mason.” If, when I come to die, my final vision is of that moment, I will be content. Robert Medill was his name, and I attended his funeral a few months after I completed my degrees. He was one of two men who served as my teachers.

The other was Bud Stump, a professional leather craftsman. I learned the degree as he worked—and smoked—in his tiny shop with its low roof. The smoke was a torment, and I seldom visited Bud after I completed my degrees. I regret this because I was very fond of him. I did complain about the smoke, and he did promise to cut back, but I couldn’t tell that he did. He had been a chain smoker since World War II, and he still limped and was in pain from that war. When he died, his wife soon followed. I knew of her devotion to him, and was not surprised that she could not survive alone.

Peggy was sick the whole time she was gone and for two weeks before she left. She has seen two doctors and had a CAT scan, but still there is no diagnosis. I was so anxious for her welfare and so eager to see her again that I very nearly didn’t go to lodge last night, but, after I got there, I realized that lodge was exactly what I needed. It is truly an altered environment, unlike anyplace else.

Grand Lodge No. 150

I little enjoyed the annual meeting of the IOOF Grand Lodge of Oregon, but my home lodge votes to send me from time to time, and I feel compelled to go. This was its 150th session.

Most people dress formally for the social events, but I only wore a suit. In all my 57 years, I have yet to wear a tux. As for the dinner utensils, I knew that I was supposed to work my way from the outside in or the inside out, but I couldn’t remember which, and then there was that fork at the top of the plate. I find my ignorance of such things to be more amusing than annoying.

My father never wore a tux either, and I never saw him in a suit except when he was in one of his churchgoing phases. He would not have joined a lodge; but if he had joined, he would not have attended Grand Lodge; but if he had attended Grand Lodge, he would have masked his social terrors with anger before he stomped out. I am very glad that I am not like my father.

When I went on antidepressants in 1996, my own social fears greatly diminished. When I stopped taking them thirteen months ago, I worried that my fears would return, but they have not. I have two explanations. One is that I have declared myself too old to stoop to the indignity of worrying about what people think. The other is that I don’t consider people sufficiently important for their opinions to matter.

I went to work on household projects within an hour of getting home, and have scarcely stopped in the three days since. I did attend the Masonic Philosophical Society on Saturday and my regular Masonic lodge tonight. Tomorrow night is Odd Fellows, and then there is a Master Mason degree on Thursday. If I didn’t allow myself such indulgences, my time would be taken up almost entirely by chores, and I would become resentful. This house is already like anvil tied to my neck. I tell myself that I should appreciate it. After all, I could own nothing but the clothes on their back and not enough of those. Yet, as I stood looking out the den window today at the far corner of the house, it seemed as distant and demanding as the hull of a large ship.

I.D. Day

Saturday, I went to the Natural History Museum for I.D. day. I showed a boxful of rocks to two geologists, and was confounded by their inability to identify many of the same rocks that had stumped me. I knew that chemical and microscopic analysis was sometimes necessary, but I had no idea how often.

I also showed a box of arrowheads to two archaeologists. I didn’t expect to learn much because some of my collection came from Georgia and some from Mississippi, and I didn’t even know which was which. To my delight, I was told that I had only a few arrowheads but a great many spear heads, and that this dated much of my collection to before the invention of the bow and arrow, making it thousands of years old rather than hundreds as I had believed.

I find it hard to accept that really old objects don’t always look really old. Of course, I pick up rocks that were formed tens of millions of years ago all the time, yet who would know it by looking at them? Clearly, rocks age better than we do.

A Dream Within a Dream

I dreamed last night that I had just awakened from a nightmare. Later, I awakened from dreaming that I had awakened. This wasn’t my first such experience with dreams within dreams. Once I gave myself the pinch test to verify that I was awake. I passed the test, but later awakened. Such dreams leave me confused about what being awake means.

I heard a former South African political prisoner say that he survived prison by “becoming a zombie,” and was overwhelmed by such simple things as color when he got out. Noting that people who had never been to prison were practically dead to color, he concluded that they were like the zombie he had been in prison, and that he was one of the few who were awake.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allen Poe

George and Bessie

I helped with IOOF degree work at Junction City last week where I again saw Ed, the black man of whom I am fond. As fifteen of us dressed for the ceremony, Ed looked out from his long robe with its pointed hood and mask and said in his best redneck voice, “Let’s burn ‘em all out!” I was the only one to laugh, the others being too shocked.

There is a very old and feisty woman at the Junction City lodge named Bessie (the only female member) and a slightly younger and soft-spoken man named George. George nursed his invalid wife for years and, after her passing, found himself with little to do. Seeing that Bessie was so palsied she could take no better care of herself than a baby, he began caring for her as tenderly and intimately as he had for his wife. As I watched him gently grasp her wrist and guide her hand toward her mouth so she could eat a doughnut, I wondered if male tenderness exceeds that of women, or if it is simply the more remarkable for being the less expected.

Symbol Rock

Peggy and I hiked up 4,081-foot HeHe Mountain (an Indian word for “home of good spirits”) this weekend and might have scrambled up Symbol Rock (used by the Indians for ceremonial vigils) as well if my knee were better. Peggy did climb a short distance, but pronounced the stones too loose and the moss too slippery. From the safety of the bottom, I felt sure I could find a better route, but resisted the temptation. This was harder than it sounds because, even before I got home and looked up the Indian history, I had all but convinced myself that Symbol Rock had the power to heal my knee. It soars hundreds of feet in curved, six-sided columns, and could scarcely be more impressive if it was the throne of God.

After driving several snowless miles at the 3,500-foot elevation on our way to HeHe, we thought we might be able to return home by a different road, but were stopped at 3,000 feet by snow that was deeper than our bumper and stretched as far as we could see. We have often observed snow depth anomalies that defy explanation in terms of slope, drift, exposure, or available sunlight, suggesting that some areas simply get heavier snow than do other areas in the same vicinity.

At 1,500 feet, numerous plants that had been leafless where we had just been were laden with flowers and/or greenery, while other plants that had not existed at all were likewise leafed and flowered. Dogwoods bloomed overhead while coltsfoot, violets, trillium, monkey flowers, manzanita, skunk cabbage, and wood sorrel colored the ground below.

The woods are so wondrous as to seem like a dream. As always, we picked up other people’s beer cans and shotgun shells, but even these looked as if they had been touched by magic just from over-wintering in the forest. Nature might exist everywhere, but is harder to appreciate where it has been paved over.

Masonry 101

People are generally confused about the levels and organizations within Masonry. My father, for example, thought that an uncle who was a 32nd degree Mason had reached the pinnacle of the order. He had reached the pinnacle of the Scottish Rite (except for the 33nd degree which is rewarded for meritorious service), but not all Masons go into the Scottish rite.

I went through the York rite, which itself contains three lodges (the Royal Arch, the Cryptic, and the Commandery); but many Masons never go beyond the basic unit of Masonry—the Blue Lodge. The Blue Lodge only has three degrees, but, unlike the York Rite and the Scottish Rite in which the candidate simply has to take certain oaths, the Blue Lodge degrees must be earned through extensive memorization. Since the material to be memorized is unwritten except for the first letter of every word, candidates work with tutors. I gave back the proficiencies of my three degrees in the short space of two months. In the wording of Masonry, I was “initiated an Entered Apprentice, passed to a Fellowcraft, and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason.

Most people know that Shriners are Masons, but are unaware of the relationship. The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine is not a lodge but a recreational and philanthropic organization that exists in some Masonic jurisdictions (grand lodges) and is banned in others.

The various grand lodges hold the highest authority within Masonry. Some countries have one; others have many. The U.S. averages one per state. If a grand lodge should stray too far from the accepted tenets of Masonry, it will be shunned, and other grand lodges will start a new grand lodge within its jurisdiction. No member of a shunned lodge is accepted as a Mason except within his own grand lodge.

In this country, the Prince Hall Lodge was a Negro grand lodge that was unrecognized by most if not all of the traditionally white lodges. Shortly after I became a Mason, the Idaho Grand Lodge recognized Prince Hall. Oregon did not, and this created hard feelings between them.

Another matter about which there is much confusion is the letter G that appears in the middle of the primary Masonic symbol, a compass laid atop a square. Most assume that the G stands for God, but it also stands for geometry, which makes more sense when the setting is considered. Masonry uses architectural tools as metaphors for building a good life.

Finally, there is the question of why Masonry is officially known as Freemasonry. The reason is that the medieval guilds from which Masonry sprang were originally for working masons only. When they began taking in members who were not working masons, they referred to them as freemasons.

I was honored tonight to have my name mentioned as a possible candidate for junior warden next year. This would put me on track for being "worshipful master" in two years. Twice, I was "noble grand" of my Odd Fellows Lodge, but since few Odd Fellows memorize their offices (I was one who did), the demands are lower. I returned to Masonry because I wanted to have much expected of me. I doubt that I could ever love it as much as the IOOF, yet it offers a striving for perfection that they have abandoned.

As membership drops, many lodges lower their standards. This seldom gains them a significant influx of fresh blood, while it does degrade much of what they stand for. For example, when I was on the IOOF officers’ installation team recently, I visited lodges in which the members looked like bums and acted as if they had never seen the inside of a lodge hall. It was this experience that led me back to Masonry.

The uncertainty of mathematics

I was the doorman for a funeral at lodge this week. When various people began showing up with flowers, I assumed they were for the funeral. I let them in, and they headed off downstairs. This puzzled me because the funeral was upstairs. I soon learned that the Eugene Orchid Society was meeting in the basement. I (jokingly) began asking people if the bereaved might not borrow their flowers for a while.

I only slept two hours last night because of sharp pains in my leg. I spent the rest of the night reading from two of my books about mathematicians, and am wondering if their authors presented the most extreme cases or if great mathematicians really do tend to be superstitious and prone to mental collapse and suicide. They also appear to have an inordinate fear of aging due to the fact that mathematicians hit their peak early. As in the case of the orchid fanciers at the funeral, I am seeing the opposite of what I expected, having assumed that people whose lives were characterized by clarity in one area would be more likely to possess clarity in other areas.

Another troubling outcome of my reading is that mathematics is not the bastion of certainty that I thought it to be. If I were asked to name a great mathematician, the first name that would come to mind would be Bertrand Russell, the co-author of Principia Mathematica, a three-volume work that, for decades, was believed to have put mathematical thought on a firm foundation. Yet, he later wrote:

“I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith….. But I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant on which the material could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.”

My limited exposure to math didn’t prepare me for this. I didn’t even know about irrational numbers. I was told that pi was an approximation that could not be carried out to the last decimal point, although I never asked why, and had no idea how many such numbers there are. For example, if a square measures one foot on each side, the length of a line drawn diagonally across that square will equal the square root of two. Only there is no square root of two, at least not one that can be brought to a final decimal point. When a student of Pythagoras discovered this, Pythagoras had the man killed. He apparently needed truth to be more than it was.

Alberto

I went to the library for more books on mathematics today, and was annoyed to find someone standing in front of my section. He was thirtyish, olive skinned, well dressed, and had a heavy accent. His name was Alberto, and he said he was from El Salvador. He spoke with a child’s enthusiasm about his love for learning, and we discussed the various books he was perusing. After awhile, I shook his hand and went to run another errand.

As I rode, I couldn’t get Alberto out of my mind, and the thought came to me that maybe he was a gift—or at least a lesson—from the universe. I was tempted to go back, but since I don’t believe in a purposeful universe, I refrained, albeit it with the thought that I would always regret my decision.

After my final errand I did return to the library. It was my way of making a token effort to cooperate with a universe that I don’t believe requires cooperation. I found Alberto in the language section. He said he was interested in Greek because he had seen Greek writing on campus, and didn’t know what it meant. I said that the writing had probably been on the front of fraternities and sororities. He had not heard of such things and asked many questions.

Later, he told me of the prejudice he experiences in Eugene because of his accent, and I told him that I have experienced the same. We talked until the library closed. Alberto had just finished a cup of coffee, and I asked if I could buy him another. He said he was supposed to go meet someone, but would call to see if the person could meet us instead. The line was busy, so he offered that we might have coffee another time.

I have known people who believe that every event carries a lesson. Such people often see individual objects, events, and creatures as facets of one inseparable entity, and they say that the lessons we encounter come from the wisdom of that entity and are meant to awaken us to our true nature. For those who persist in this belief, it is a source of comfort, but I have not known anyone who was so convinced that he approached life impartially.

I picked up a library book at random today. A certain page was marked, and I opened to it and read:

“On a cold indescribable day,
When it does not want to become dark and not bright,
The eyes neither want to open nor shut
And familiar sights don’t remind you of your old familiarity with the world…”

This describes life in the Willamette Valley since last fall, and the thought hit me that maybe the universe didn’t bring me to the library to meet Alberto, but to read this poem. But if the universe is, in reality, an indistinguishable whole, and all lessons exist within that universe, then are not all lessons likewise indistinguishable in terms of priority? I continued:

“Where does the last contradiction survive?
Where is the sight to revive you?
But all questions have become rhetorical,
routine memories of real questions…

from Nonsense and Happiness
by Peter Handke

One problem with seeing the universe as a series of benevolently taught lessons is that I can never know for sure what the lesson is. I can tell myself that, like an onion, the lessons contain layers within layers, but I find no comfort in guesswork. What I do find is reproof for my need that there be more to life than there seems to be. Could this be the lesson?

Those who believe in the oneness of the universe and in the illusion of separateness, say that how we interpret things makes no ultimate difference because we all came from a unified whole and we will all return to it. This is true, I believe, yet if that whole lacks awareness—and I see no reason to think otherwise—what is the difference?