GOOD FORTUNE

I manage the walk down the stairs rather well on this day and sit down in my once comfortable chair in my office, which I suppose could be called my library since one wall is mostly covered by three bookshelves that just about reach the ceiling, and the other wall has two bookshelves that extend its whole length three feet high. This “library” continues into other rooms: one bookcase right outside my office, one double one in the living room, one in the dining room, one in the bedroom, six in the garage, as well as some piles of books on the desk outside my office. I am here in the morning to check my stocks and to see if they might be up enough to sell and also to check if there are stocks low enough to buy, while also considering their dividends and their inherent financial strength as other integral elements. Once I dreaded this but now I enjoy it. I try to read the market as best I can, though I have often majorly misread it by buying stocks too soon in a big correction. Now I follow my wife’s good conservative advice of taking small gains rather than waiting for larger ones. Statistically, stocks will rise four or five percent far more often than eight or nine percent. Now I takes gains and then reinvest if the stock is still rising. The stocks that are more stodgy or have fallen, I hold and take dividends from them, some for years, for they were bought badly and stupidly when I once followed the advice of so-called “expert investor” reports, like Kiplinger’s, though they did give me good “tips” regarding “intermediate” bond funds. Now I hold those I cannot sell and otherwise “swing trade” with the rest. In a rising or steady market, it can work if you are able to pick the right “bottom feeders,” as they are called (though they all too often can feed on us). And like I said, I enjoy the detail work now. I went from reading “spiritual” and philosophical books to actively trading stocks and reading history, including historical novels, and good novels in general. I enjoy the trading as I once enjoyed the details of stamp-collecting, or, let me say it, philately, as a child. And I read at least two books at a time: one upstairs with my “upstairs” glasses which I read next to my wife as she reads and one downstairs with my “downstairs” glasses which I read in the bathroom, otherwise called “the reading room.” Right now, Roman history downstairs and Goya and Daoist meditation techniques upstairs.

From my chair here in the office, a designer office chair that my ex-wife had discarded probably twenty years ago, I look out at what is now a forest I have grown in our tiny back yard. My view of the suburban neighbors’ houses is totally blocked by trees of all kinds: three Italian pine Christmas trees I planted, a large apple tree (now producing some incredible Granny Smith/Pippen apples), a tall red bushy New Zealand tree, a lilac-like tree, a magnolia tree, a tall birch, five or six live oak trees, and an assortment of other trees, including two tan oaks. The night-blooming jasmine that I planted now wends its way among the outside of two live oaks. In the 6x6 sunny section, there are grapes and tomatoes growing now. When I say “I have grown” this, I mean that I have planted some and tended to the growth of the others through pruning, tying, and wedging 4x4s against them to help straighten them out. I remove the lower branches of the trees within the perimeter of the yard (which includes two pines, two live oaks, and one tan oak) so one can walk around beneath the canopy or sit out there in the shade on a hot day. The hot tub (spa) is on my deck in the shade of the live oaks, though I use it sparingly since the heat inflames my nerves. At my previous home on thirty acres that I bought from Dick Smothers of the Smothers Brothers in 1987 and sold in 2001, I nursed and protected what grew into a veritable forest composed primarily of live oaks and pine trees on a multi-acred hillside that was once a vineyard, which are now quite visible when I drive by the place. I love forests. To have “husbanded” one makes me happy. Even my little backyard forest gives me the visual sense of being in a forest right here in the ‘burbs.

My wife, in her high level of chronic pain from fibromyalgia, now sleeps and actually sleeps a lot due to the pain. Pain actually causes the body to shut down in this way. This gives me time, in addition to attend to stock trading, to writing and reading. Yesterday was our seventeenth anniversary of our commitment to each other (and the formal marriage came later). She changed my life completely and has been as a blessing to me in my life. Her life has become extremely painful for her to live from day to day, but she smiles through it, grateful to share it with me. When the pain started getting unbearable nine years ago, she wanted me to help her end her life, but I had too much faith at the time that she would “get better.” She never got better but only worse, to higher levels of pain, but she has in some way become able and willing to bear it. And so it is. And so we are always loving each other deeply and immensely, which, to me, is beyond my wildest dreams. I am most fortunate indeed to have Amy in my life.

I speak of myself and "my good fortune" but my life revolves around taking good care of Amy as well as my daughter, Sarah, who is now grown, and my step-son, Vic, also grown. Both kids are disabled: Sarah with autism, Vic with CP. While I am proud of my forests, I am more proud of Amy, Sarah, and Vic. "Others" figure strongly into my being; they and others like them are central to it. I am most fortunate because I have been favored enough by the gods, as I see it, to embrace that which has been given to me in my life. To find oneself responsible for others who cannot care for themselves--and to accept and appreciate the exigencies of such a situation--is one key to great happiness in life. Such is my good fortune, my profound blessings. Good fortune, in its totality, is not easy to bear, by any means. There is always irony and paradox to be recognized, and to quote myself: Too much irony makes one overwrought. But life is good regardless. We learn to be here now with the greatest of joy and sadness in our hearts. Kahlil Gibran, wrote in The Prophet:

When love beckons to you follow him, 

Though his ways are hard and steep. 

And when his wings enfold you yield to him, 

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. 

And when he speaks to you believe in him, 

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. 

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. 

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, 

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. 

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. 

He threshes you to make you naked. 

He sifts you to free you from your husks. 

He grinds you to whiteness. 

He kneads you until you are pliant; 

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. 

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart. 

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, 

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, 

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. 

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. 

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; 

For love is sufficient unto love. 

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God." 

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. 

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. 

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: 

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. 

To know the pain of too much tenderness. 

To be wounded by your own understanding of love; 

And to bleed willingly and joyfully. 

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; 

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; 

To return home at eventide with gratitude; 

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.