By Greg Evans
When I grow up I want to sit behind a desk or counter doing work I don't really like for a boss I despise, walking into work Monday morning thinking how darn short the weekend was and how far away Friday afternoon is which seems like a light-year. I do my time collecting a lousy or decent pay check that may be enough to allow me to save up for retirement at age 75 and then I will sit around watching reality television and eating chicken fingers until my children can't take it anymore and put me into an old person's facility where I can rot away or God willing before being shipped off to such a place a massive heart attack takes me." How many children have you heard say such things when they are asked what they want to be when they grow up?
T.S. Eliot once said, "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." I don't know if it had anything to do with the spider bite, the exceptional physical reaction or the fear of the unknown having never been speared by such a poisonous creature before, but I have found myself thinking much more about mortality than I ever had in the past. That moment when the bells toll. I sat down a few days after the attack, my wrist at the time still aching and slightly itchy, the flesh still being devoured by the hellacious venom and I rudimentarily pondered mortality. What is the meaning of life? Of everything or anything? Most people don't want to think about it. It is a scary thought when you start to get down to the nitty gritty. We are born, live fairly normal routine lives and then we pass on. But in those short years that we are living and learning and seeing and loving and hurting and thinking and planning and working and saving and spending and healing and soaring, at that moment when you gasp that last breath will you think to yourself, "I wouldn't have done anything different," or would you say, "thank heavens this execrable life is finally over!"
One thing I came to realize is that too many people lose their ability to believe in their dreams. The hard scrabble life, irking out a meager living, trying to guide contemptible children in the right direction in a world so seemingly filled with attractive and lurid vices. Go after those dreams, doesn't matter whether you are 16 or 69. I heard a story one day about a man in his sixties who was nearing retirement decided that he was going to quit his job and begin a new career. He was going to pursue the dream of his youth and become a practicing attorney. So this man enrolled into a law program and found going back to school was harder than he had thought it would be but he refused to quit. He studied with students most of whom were 45+ years younger than him. Three years later he earned himself a JD. The next step on his journey was the state bar exam. This man took the exam and failed. He took it a second time and failed. He took it a third time and failed. It wasn't until his sixth try that he finally passed the exam and became a licensed attorney and went on to have a successful law practice that spanned twenty years. He finally retired in his mid-eighties. His story is one I think about sometimes when I think life has hit a lull or I feel as if I am in my early nineties instead of my early thirties. The point of the story is to go after it because tomorrow you could take a step and a bolt of lighting may come out of the blue sky and have your number. The beauty of life is that we are given a freewill to go out and make this life what we want to make it. I see it all the time, people who speak of and see themselves as being trapped. The reality is that you are never truly trapped, you just aren't taking the correct angle. There is no point in looking at another's life and wishing that you had their life because how can life have any meaning if you aren't the one to carve it out, to recognize your talents, dreams and go after them with your whole heart and soul. Each and every one of you who wakes up tomorrow and decides that it is the day you are going to begin transforming yourself into that curious dreamer you were when you were five. You can bet there will be plenty of people putting you down, telling you to get your head on straight, telling you that you are down right nuts. Artist Jackson Pollock was the worst drawer in his class. His own brother was a more talented artist then he was but Jackson's paintings today sell in the Hundreds of millions. Walt Disney worked for a newspaper but was fired and told by his editor that he didn't have any creativity. These people who are everywhere spreading their poison trying to make you feel small. The same people who cut you off in traffic and don't pick up their dog's business in your front yard, they talk on cell phones in nice restaurants and steal your morning newspaper.
Let me tell you another quick story about a Chinese playwright named Gao Xingjian who in 1983 was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. There was nothing he could do but wait to die. A few weeks later a second examination revealed that the cancer had gone away. Gao was given a second chance at life. Due to his inflammatory writing he was on the verge of being sent away to a prison farm because of the repressive government and he packed up a few belongings and took off on a soul searching journey. He traveled to ancient fortresses and climbed enchanting mountains. For five months he journeyed and took notes and upon returning to his home he wrote a novel called Soul Mountain that is a study as well as ponders the human soul. Gao went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. IT just goes to show you that sometimes taking a risk and wandering out to the edge uncovers things about you that you may not have realized or if nothing else creates satisfaction. Gao went in search of the meaning of life. I don't know whether or not he found it, but he "lived" and as far as I am concerned that there is the meaning of life. Get up tomorrow and really live.
Simple Life
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
STOWAWAY TO SALZBURG
By Greg Evans
Nearly a month has passed since we sat in an astral medieval music room in the 900 year-old Hohensalzburg Castle and listened to an ensemble performing the enduring compositions of Mozart, Hayden and Dvorak as the sun set over the most beautiful and romantic city in Europe, Salzburg. An enchanting Baroque city on the banks of the Salzach river and the northern boundary of the Alps, it remains an absolute gem to those lucky enough to wander the ancient cobbled streets and speak with the kind and curious locals.
Almost every night I find myself dreaming of having coffee with Mom and Mary at the Cafe Tomaselli and eating fried fish and chocolates on the Getreidegasse stopping into small shops to chat with the pretty Salzburg girls working behind the counters. I strolled with the ghosts of Leopold and Wolfgang, shared communion with St. Rupert and scribbled lines of poetry in Mirabell garden while the sound of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21 floated through the warm balmy air. The sweet scent of blossoming flowers, that I longed to pick and place on the hotel window sill, carried in the breeze. Along the river we rode on a square barge against the racing green water flowing down from Bavaria, as the city, stoic and alert passed by eyeing us suspiciously. The ash gray stones of the old cathedrals, worn and tired, history written in the dust collected on the rafters and the echoes of the haunting organ. We sipped Austrian wine and dined on bread and soft sweet cheeses thinking slowly and speaking of music and Mozart, admiring the view from the Straatsbrucke, the padlocks placed for posterity clinging for dear life above the raging water. On the 26th exchange downstream is where ours is located, there forever. There for some great, curious mind to stumble upon one day and stare at it and wonder of the lives that were once lived, tired hands that placed that rusty lock there so many years before.
I have never in my life stumbled upon such an endearing place as Salzburg. Never have I left a city I only just met and experienced such terrible nostalgia. Never have I gazed into the eyes of a local population and felt as if I had known them somewhere before. The angle at which the fading light strikes the city and the eye, the manner in which the aromas catch the breezes and how the music of the people and the past ricochet off the stone walls and steep cliff sides, tales told by candle light and every day a new experience, a new emotion and a new memory. It is the last pure place on the planet and forever etched in my mind that first moment I stepped foot into the old town and for a minute I wondered if I was flying. Soaring over the rooftops like a sparrow, exploring the new town with the wistfulness of a young child, grasping a hold of every scent and sight, sound and sensation of touch and timeless dreaming. Humming The Sound of Music and dancing in the moonlight with a beautiful girl in a green Dirndl with green eyes and braided blond hair, soft hands and a gentle smile. A silver brooch glimmers in the lantern light, and the scent of a freshly lit cigar lingers.
Nearly a month has passed since we sat in an astral medieval music room in the 900 year-old Hohensalzburg Castle and listened to an ensemble performing the enduring compositions of Mozart, Hayden and Dvorak as the sun set over the most beautiful and romantic city in Europe, Salzburg. An enchanting Baroque city on the banks of the Salzach river and the northern boundary of the Alps, it remains an absolute gem to those lucky enough to wander the ancient cobbled streets and speak with the kind and curious locals.
Almost every night I find myself dreaming of having coffee with Mom and Mary at the Cafe Tomaselli and eating fried fish and chocolates on the Getreidegasse stopping into small shops to chat with the pretty Salzburg girls working behind the counters. I strolled with the ghosts of Leopold and Wolfgang, shared communion with St. Rupert and scribbled lines of poetry in Mirabell garden while the sound of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21 floated through the warm balmy air. The sweet scent of blossoming flowers, that I longed to pick and place on the hotel window sill, carried in the breeze. Along the river we rode on a square barge against the racing green water flowing down from Bavaria, as the city, stoic and alert passed by eyeing us suspiciously. The ash gray stones of the old cathedrals, worn and tired, history written in the dust collected on the rafters and the echoes of the haunting organ. We sipped Austrian wine and dined on bread and soft sweet cheeses thinking slowly and speaking of music and Mozart, admiring the view from the Straatsbrucke, the padlocks placed for posterity clinging for dear life above the raging water. On the 26th exchange downstream is where ours is located, there forever. There for some great, curious mind to stumble upon one day and stare at it and wonder of the lives that were once lived, tired hands that placed that rusty lock there so many years before.
I have never in my life stumbled upon such an endearing place as Salzburg. Never have I left a city I only just met and experienced such terrible nostalgia. Never have I gazed into the eyes of a local population and felt as if I had known them somewhere before. The angle at which the fading light strikes the city and the eye, the manner in which the aromas catch the breezes and how the music of the people and the past ricochet off the stone walls and steep cliff sides, tales told by candle light and every day a new experience, a new emotion and a new memory. It is the last pure place on the planet and forever etched in my mind that first moment I stepped foot into the old town and for a minute I wondered if I was flying. Soaring over the rooftops like a sparrow, exploring the new town with the wistfulness of a young child, grasping a hold of every scent and sight, sound and sensation of touch and timeless dreaming. Humming The Sound of Music and dancing in the moonlight with a beautiful girl in a green Dirndl with green eyes and braided blond hair, soft hands and a gentle smile. A silver brooch glimmers in the lantern light, and the scent of a freshly lit cigar lingers.
BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER ATTACK
By Greg Evans
I was lying on the floor playing with my daughter when I felt a strange initially mild sting on my right wrist that quickly increased in intensity. Then a fairly intense burning sensation could be felt around the spot of the wound. I thought at first it was a wasp sting but the burning then began racing up my arm and into my chest area and back down my arm and the tips of my fingers began to tingle. My arm then felt extremely heavy and I looked at the wound and watch it morphing into different shapes and colors. It looked like a rotten fried egg, similar to a mosquito bite surrounded by a redness and I knew then that it wasn't a wasp sting but some kind of spider. I could see venom drainage being discharged by the wound and I washed it away with cool water. At first I feared angina pectoris and I phoned my mother-in-law and asked her to call me back in fifteen minutes and if I don't respond than I would probably be dead and to come pick up the kid. I searched the area of the attack for the culprit but I couldn't locate the wretched arachnid. For hours a mild burning and itchy feeling continued and the wound swelled considerably and then the venom began eating away my flesh at a rapid pace. Over the next three days the venom continued to feast on my wound and began eating into my wrist. Finally feeling frightened after a night of nausea and dizziness I went to the doctor and was prescribed a strong ointment. I have been using the cream now for multiple weeks and the wound is doing much better. I think one day it will heal completely but there will be at least a 1/2 inch scar in its place.
For those who think they may have been mauled by a similar demon the first thing to do is get ice directly on the wound but don't leave it on too long. You also want to try and remain calm because the anxiety will help the venom to travel faster through your system. Then get to a doctor as soon as possible. I should have also and because I didn't I will have a noticeable scar. The one thing I am thankful for is that I was gorged by the monster and not my daughter. After doing research on the creatures I learned that there are around four species of the spider and not all the attacks result in the horror stories their reputations carry. Most recluse attacks are mild and must be cared for as any poisonous spider attack but it is rare for it to be fatal in healthy adults unless you have some pre-existing condition. They live in dark undisturbed areas like closets, in unused beds, log piles, crawl spaces, etc. Stay vigilant my friends!
I was lying on the floor playing with my daughter when I felt a strange initially mild sting on my right wrist that quickly increased in intensity. Then a fairly intense burning sensation could be felt around the spot of the wound. I thought at first it was a wasp sting but the burning then began racing up my arm and into my chest area and back down my arm and the tips of my fingers began to tingle. My arm then felt extremely heavy and I looked at the wound and watch it morphing into different shapes and colors. It looked like a rotten fried egg, similar to a mosquito bite surrounded by a redness and I knew then that it wasn't a wasp sting but some kind of spider. I could see venom drainage being discharged by the wound and I washed it away with cool water. At first I feared angina pectoris and I phoned my mother-in-law and asked her to call me back in fifteen minutes and if I don't respond than I would probably be dead and to come pick up the kid. I searched the area of the attack for the culprit but I couldn't locate the wretched arachnid. For hours a mild burning and itchy feeling continued and the wound swelled considerably and then the venom began eating away my flesh at a rapid pace. Over the next three days the venom continued to feast on my wound and began eating into my wrist. Finally feeling frightened after a night of nausea and dizziness I went to the doctor and was prescribed a strong ointment. I have been using the cream now for multiple weeks and the wound is doing much better. I think one day it will heal completely but there will be at least a 1/2 inch scar in its place.
For those who think they may have been mauled by a similar demon the first thing to do is get ice directly on the wound but don't leave it on too long. You also want to try and remain calm because the anxiety will help the venom to travel faster through your system. Then get to a doctor as soon as possible. I should have also and because I didn't I will have a noticeable scar. The one thing I am thankful for is that I was gorged by the monster and not my daughter. After doing research on the creatures I learned that there are around four species of the spider and not all the attacks result in the horror stories their reputations carry. Most recluse attacks are mild and must be cared for as any poisonous spider attack but it is rare for it to be fatal in healthy adults unless you have some pre-existing condition. They live in dark undisturbed areas like closets, in unused beds, log piles, crawl spaces, etc. Stay vigilant my friends!
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