It’s like, at the end, there’s this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid?

-Richard Bach, writer (1936- )

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist
(1910-1993)

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

-Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

Big ones, small ones; I like all sizes and shapes. And now that I have your attention, doorbells are pretty cool too. At my house, you have a choice, the knocker or the bell. Here’s a picture of my knocker.

As you can see, it’s a bear. A gift from my brother and sister-in-law, on the occasion of my encampment here. I actually prefer that, if you visit, you use the doorbell. Leave the bear alone, sez I, and most people do. He’s behind a screen door. I just don’t want some loquacious asshat twisting off his little tail.

But what, you might wonder, set me off on this silly subject of door knockers and bells and such? By e-mail today I got this quote:

I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. -Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau died in 1862, so he was talking about people showing up at his house, engaging his bear, removing their hats and wiping their shoes and expecting to be “entertained.” Without so much as calling first, leaving a voice mail or sending a fax. And by company, he meant that he had the company of his imagination.

It reminds me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his claim that he woke up in a haze from an opium-enhanced dream, and was in the midst of writing Kubla Khan when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Hence, the poem is a fragment. I’ve always been skeptical. I think he just passed out and didn’t write any more. (This story was mentioned last night on the Studio 60 TV show, but they got it wrong. It wasn’t at 4:00am as the character said, because it was the postman who supposedly woke Samuel up, and they don’t come around at that hour.)

It’s interesting to me that it’s no longer the custom, at least in my part of the word, to come calling upon your friends at their homes. We never just show up around here. Do we? Do you have any friends who come rapping upon your ursine percussive? I have a neighbor who stops by now and then; in fact, he just dropped by while I was writing this post. But that’s OK. In fact, I think I would be rather lonely if I had no neighbors to talk to. I think it’s regrettable that the technologies of telephone and computer are isolating us to the extent they are. No man is an island, and it’s not like I’ve had a recent glimpse of Xanadu.

I’ve been working on some old journal files. Lots of things need to be put on computer, if I ever want to find out who I was. Plus there are perhaps hundreds of bits of poems, abandoned as larvae, in those old scribblings. Anyway, here’s something that struck me as interesting:

11:52 AM 8/21/2000 Monday
I saw a dead bird by the freeway, just as I was getting up speed to leave town. No hawk or seagull, this was huge; a pelican or heron perhaps. One wing still jutting skyward: Look! I came from there, from grace, and I am not one of you.

Welcome to your first Metaphorical post of 2007. This space took yesterday off to watch football with Dad. And wasn’t that Oklahoma – Boise State game a hootenanny? A real kick in the pants. Boise deserved it though, they really did. I’ve never seen a college team play with more heart.

Anyway, I need to get outta here, and go for a walk in the morning sun. Here’s your ponderable, to kick off the year. Oh, I almost forgot: Notice that the title hereof is Happy Year. Whether it’s new or not is up to us.

Evil is like a shadow – it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
-Shakti Gawain

Is it going to snow? It’s supposed to plunge into the low 30s tonight, 10 degrees below the normal temperature for December nights on California’s south Coast. It hasn’t snowed in Santa Barbara since 1932, but I remember making hail cones and a little hailman (cousin of the snowman) in the driveway in the late sixties.

Actually, it does snow here, on the foothills behind the coastal towns, but not down here at sea level. It doesn’t help that I’m 110 feet above the surf, unfortunately. I’m not high enough. Maybe you’ve had that problem too, from time to time.

Speaking of snow and ice, I’m really sorry the three guys on Mt Hood couldn’t be rescued. I’m sorry for their families. And I really hoped it would go the other way for them. But is there anybody out there who disagrees that there’s something fundamentally illogical about high-altitude mountain climbing in December? Why do some people want to take high risks with their fragile lives? What’s wrong with a nice hike among the trees? A good old September backpack trip, someplace pretty, would be good, don’t you think?

I’m just sayin’, life is short, all glory is fleeting, and there is happiness in a comfy chair. And while none of us has the promise of tomorrow, I have an appointment with my flannel sheets and down comforter.