Sausage

I’ve taken to habitually cooking a pot of spaghetti every month. Then I doctor some tomato sauce and add hot Italian sausage and onions. I hear the gasps .

In this age of internet prudes,”ultra processed foods” are the quick road to death. Sausage hovers near the top of the list, although with a bit of guilt lots of people continue to consume lots of hot dogs and cold cuts. Actually, what I use is no more processed than unfrozen hamburger – raw pork bits with spices. Not claiming it’s a health food but …

Sausage, of course, is famous as a metaphor. Turning nasty parts that nobody wants of a dead animal into a formless chunky mix of whatever stuffed into cleaned intestines. The results – cured or merely cooked – became staples of the diet. In days before refrigeration, a very useful way to store meat. Back then, of course, no internet fanatics .

Language use extended to describing it as the same methodology by which legislation in a democracy is passed. “Sausage making” is uglier than “log rolling” and both terms are left out of elementary simple civics texts. But for better or worse pretty much true .

Me? I’m already too old to worry about consequences. I savor each food I like as a marvelous gift. I’m even willing to chew it slowly and be very thankful for the flavor.

I do turn off the internet when doing so .

Wild Rodents

For the last few weeks, as I walked down the driveway to retrieve the paper and bring in the trash can, I’ve noticed a scene from an old Disney cartoon playing on the front lawn. Grouped in the shade of our large Japanese red maple tree, a gathering of local cute wildlife. Three chipmunks, two squirrels, a small rabbit for all the world appearing to enjoy a quiet tea party .

As they see me, they scatter, each in their own ways. Chipmunks scurry into nearby underbrush, squirrels scramble chasing each other up the tree trunk, the rabbit more sedately hops to the far end of the yard. Kind of neat .

Squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits are not much of a problem around here, even if they eat a few flowers. Most of us would certainly rather enjoy them than find a snake, mosquitoes, or raccoon. A lot better than a rat pack. Not quite as astonishing as a brilliantly colored bird .

That any wildlife survives and even thrives in crowded suburbs constantly amazes me. I’m grateful of course, and happily use each sighting as a point of current contemplation. It’s important to not treat such miracles as a boring commonplace. I’m quite happy to share the planet, (at least with the ones I like, most of the time. Mea culpa) .

Our environment is a much better place with a certain diversity of life forms. Probably a little less machine ubiquity .

Socialists

The conventional political world is terrified that “socialists” have won some recent American elections. It might be useful to understand that these economic and political labels belong to a bygone ignorant age. 

Before 1850, when most of these terms came into vogue, the conceptual environment of the modern world was just beginning. Chemistry, physics, biology, geology, psychology, electricity, all were in chaotic transition from classical imagining to modern theory and experimentation .

Labels are useful. An eye is not a hand. Stopping at labels is, however, medieval. The eye is functionally and inherently different than the hand, but related in infinitely complicated ways. A politician who stops at a label like “socialism” without going into complications is a lot like a physician who claims he doesn’t believe in all those newfangled ideas about cells, germs, hormones, evolution, and genetics .

We need to understand the uselessness of political name-calling, where puerile unique identification is the be-all and end-all of knowledge. “Socialism” means almost nothing, beyond a system that believes that wider wealth distribution is important to civilization. Details are not provided – but the details are what’s important .

In culture and politics, in civilization and human society in general, we are still at the stage of medieval physicians. We recognize problems but are clueless as to how, why, and what to do .

If we survive the current crises, our descendants will doubtless look back on our ignorance with the same stunned amusement as we do those Venetian doctors warding off plague with beaked masks .

For all I know, computer technology may actually prove helpful in our awakening .

Omnivore

We had friends over for an afternoon lunch. As often happens when people in their late ’70s gather, talk tended to center on ailments and medical attention. Lately an awful lot of medical discussion – and not just for the aged – relates to diet .

When I grew up in the ’50s, there was much less concern. We ate anything we could afford. Our parents, having lived through depression and war, were grateful for simply having enough to eat. So maybe there was a little too much meat, and not much worry about new snack foods except cost. 

Now – oh how different. Diet is life for so many. How they begin the day, what they must include, what they must avoid. Not only the obvious like salt and fat, but hidden issues like pesticides, GMOs, hormones, bacteria and a host of issues concerning invisible components like vitamins and fiber .

I’m slave to my upbringing, and still tend to think I can eat most anything in moderation. Humans are omnivores, after all. Our ancestors ate anything they could find when they had to. Additives, like high salt content, have been around since ancient times, and massively present not long ago. “Fresh” during most of the year in winter was a fairy tale until the late 1900s .

We talk and dream and think that at least by controlling our food we can control our health.

But. omnivores are tough creatures, well-equipped by evolution to handle almost anything. 

We should always remember that .

Locally Infinite

I’ve always admired William Blake’s poem “To see the world in a grain of sand”. Although it has helped guide me through life, I find it more and more useful right now. How heaven, I discover, really is in that dandelion brilliant yellow in my lawn .

Our consumer culture has few advocates for common local miracles. No money in that! You must buy some exotic bloom, visit some distant garden, watch a feature on TV. The farther you travel, the more you spend, the more rare something is, the more the universe will smile on you.

But that grain of sand is composed of star stuff, the end result of billions of years and massive forces, just as much as any mountain, however high. In the proper frame of mind, just as inspiring. With proper regard, just as beautiful and meaningful .

And importantly for elders –  more confined than we were in youth – that dandelion and that grain of sand are right here, right now. I need go nowhere. Simply open my mind and appreciate existence. The best things in life may not be free, but the definitions of both are flexible .

I’ve gradually become able to focus on the local. To be grateful for anything I can sense or think about. To truly appreciate “eternity in an hour” .

Mortal Moment

In a Roman triumphal procession, a slave rode the same chariot as the honored general, constantly whispering “remember, you are mortal”. Useful tradition. Perhaps we should reestablish it for our politicians and plutocrats. Death is still the great leveler .

I have both elements residing inside me. Logic is my general, domineering all it surveys, proud and glorious and quite imperiously smug. My body, on the other hand, plays the part of the slave and constantly reminds me of my true condition. Sometimes, like those slaves of old, it rises up in revolt to make me take notice .

For example, yesterday I had a couple of small bowls of potato chips for lunch, breaking my normal diet. The grease and salt combined for excruciating pain in the afternoon. These days, If I overdo a bit too much, I will strain joints, pull muscles, ache, lapse into a tired semi-consciousness.

Logic plans brilliant maneuvers and says “why not?” Body has the tragic answer .

I’ve learned to accept it all as part of the messaging of my universe. An easy (or relatively easy) way to control dangerous hubris. Even painful reminders can sometimes help put other good things into perspective .

The battle of the potato chips is over. Perhaps not a victory, but a good lesson in strategic dreaming .