The Old Man was out for a day trip. First, the walk in the woods, then the long wait for a grocery order. Why not see a matinee movie? I was amazed to see the theatre almost full. Not a customary sight in these halcyon days. ‘Backrooms is based on the internet-born liminal space phenomenon, the A24 Backrooms (2026).’ Backrooms is an endless yellow-walled labyrinth. The movie is supposed to capture the uncanny dread of liminal spaces. ‘Reviewers note the movie excels when it leans into the inexplicable and inexplicable horror of an infinite non-Euclidean wasteland.’

So, Backrooms was a weird movie. It was a bit like life; the more you looked for the reason and rationale to the fluorescently lit liminal yellow-walled space… There was another hall to enter. Furniture sinking into the floor, rooms that just are not correct, and the sound of footsteps. Backrooms, like all of us have been in, and yet our memories of them are fuzzy. Where are we going and where have we been? Have we reached the end, or is this the beginning?

Life is a mystery that is fun until it is not. I did not like the Hall of Mirrors at the Carnivale. I ran into too many mirrors. We have some of the Labyrinth Lover in us. The Shinnings Hedge Labrynith was scary. Life can be scary. Memories deep-seated in our souls harken to times we were in the yellow-walled, fluorescently lit, strange rooms looking for the door.

The little boy is running with his dog. He called out to his grandmother that it was starting to rain. Now the dog is in the house, and the little boy is playing unashamedly. The dog knows that a trick was played.

A frog chorus has arisen. Sounds like twenty full-throated singers or more. The summer evening is as it should be. The neighbor’s house is where it always has been. The Bullfrog Quartet is where it should be on Brooks Pond. The Writing Porch is not sinking into the ground or resting on a 45-degree angle. Tomorrow is another day to search for the path home. We must not get lost in the Backrooms forever…

The other day I sat down with my dog Mylo and watched a movie. Mylo is a full eight pounds of Maltese! He’s a good boy. Honestly, he wasn’t all that …

Mylo and Me Enjoying a Movie

Sitting on the Writing Porch reminds me of my youth in Eldorado. It is 7:30, and the Sun is setting slowly. The shadows are long on the freshly mowed grass. Another week has passed. The journey is quick, the moments are memorable. No one needs to do our thinking for us; we do that for ourselves. Life is quiet on a summer evening.

Neva J loved summer. She loved to play badminton. She was a good badminton player. Ivy and Bob, Steve and Susie came over. Steve put on a marionette show. Steve made the marionettes real human. He spoke in different voices and accents for each of them. They spoke to Billy B as if they had always known him. The marionettes were survivors. They came from Germany during World War II. They had been owned by a Jewish Family. They had souls, I swear. One had a cracked leg, another a broken arm. They did not smile; they looked like life.

Ivy and Neva J played badminton. Neva J was young and full of vigor and vitality. She read a book a week. She loved to read about Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet. Edgar Cayce diagnosed many diseases and their cures in his sleep. He also saw the future. Neva J was a seeker.

Brooks Pond is serene. The Great Blue Heron is fishing. Bullfrogs are practicing the musical scales for tonight’s performance. A frisky squirrel played in the Woods this morning. He ran up the tree and stared at the Old Man. Mr. Squirrel and the Old Man both wondered what the other was thinking.

There is talk of the 4th of July, with good reason; it is close by. Our nation is 250 years old. I remember the celebration for the 200th birthday of Uncle Sam. The high school male teachers grew beards to celebrate. I thought 200 years was long; now I am seeing the 250th! We Americans were once proud of our shared identity. We cared for the stranger and the refugee. We were the ‘lighthouse on the hill that overlooked life’s seas.’ Freedom of religion included no religion if chosen. We were the people who had escaped oppression and welcomed others to escape also.

The Sun is fascinating. When you see it set over the ocean, it will leave you speechless. We are active members in a pristine parade of life. Watching the Sun set over Brooks Pond is complete joy.

Thunder clapped in the early hours of the morning. It woke Mylo and me up. The sound of a summer storm. Today it is cooler. Not cool but cooler. Nice for meteorological summer. It is not the heat, it is the humidity. Some fellows from Texas, a couple of years back, wondered how I stood the humidity. They were not accustomed to such high humidity in Texas. We visited El Paso many times when Uncle Merle and Aunt Lauretta were alive. It was hot and hotter than anything in our neck of the woods. They had a Cooler on the roof of their home. It put moisture in the air. They shut it off at dark, and it was a miserable night. I asked Aunt Lauretta if I could borrow her fan for our bedroom, as I could not sleep. MJ welcomed the breeze, although she did not want me to ask for it.

We stand on the precipice, looking out at the valley of Change. None of us likes it, and all of us need it. We can not grow if we do not change. Change arrives in house slippers or combat boots. At times we have a while to acclimate ourselves to the new digs, while at others we are thrown into the malestrom. Our weather is changing in real time. To deny it is to throw rocks at the Sun. The Earth is not flat, we really landed on the Moon, and Climate Change is real.

I watched a fascinating movie the other night where a psychiatrist is counseling a little boy. He is obsessed with drawing pictures of future events that transpire. The psychiatrist is professional in her understanding that the boy is troubled until the pictures he drew about her came to pass. The boy’s former psychatrist before her had attempted to set himself on fire and had succeded resuting in burns across much of his body. He was under supervised care and cautioned the female psychiatrist that she would either have to kill the boy or the boy would kill her. The boy tells her that he is god and that what he draws comes to pass. He goes on to explain that he puts the words she says and the thoughts she has in her mouth and head. The female psychiatrist is speaking with another psychiatrist, who is analyzing what she is saying as she tells him that they live in the boy’s mind and have no existence outside of it.

We live in the mind of God, do we not? Are our steps preordained, or are we free moral agents? Are we the products of nature or nurture? Is Schrodinger’s cat in the box if we do not open the box to see it? If a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it, did it really fall?

Political life in the United States has changed dramatically. Change is happening all around us. Does a red hat make us better, or must it say, ‘Make America Great Again?’

The path we are on is enjoyable and arduous. Some of us are happy with the results of the New Normal, while others are troubled. Christ’s heart was for the poor among us. His message was for the marginalized and those who have no voice and who are unseen. There is a through line in the midst of change.

‘We have little since your Dad left, but we will survive,’ Neva J said. ‘I am going to take classes in photography at the Lincoln School on State Street,’ Neva J continued. ‘It will be powdered milk and split pea soup for now, but better days are ahead,’ Neva J danced an Irish Jig.

So, we thought we would try a different hotel in St. Louis. We had stayed in one with the same name several years ago and liked it. It had two rooms and a kitchen in the middle. Clean with nice amenities. Last night’s hotel was not the same. I harkened back to the Great Southern Vacation we took with Neva J and Earl in the mid-90s. Earl was paying for the lodging, and he had a very low cap on what he was willing to pay. The television was fastened to the wall with an elaborate metal shelf with sharp edges. MJ got up in the night and hit her head on the immovable metal TV shelf and uttered words thus far hidden from our son’s ears. It was a Motel From Hell. Yesterday’s motel was worse. When we entered, there was a large bag of trash in the middle of the dirty floor. The room had a sink and a stove, but no cookware or dishes. No coffee anywhere. A broken recliner, the phone was broken, and a thin mattress upon the spartan bed. The air conditioner worked well, but we were cold all night. I imagined a story regarding the hotel from hell, akin to a Twilight Zone episode. I told MJ at one point what if this were Heaven and this room was our big surprise? MJ said that if that were the case, she would accept the leftover eggs in a carton that the cleaning lady offered us as she cleaned out the food someone had left in the refrigerator tomorrow.

I reflected on our one-night accommodations. Many people would love to have what we had for a roof over their heads. Indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and a bed with a duvet would be heavenly compared to their meager circumstances. Surprises await us around every corner. We do not have the preioscope of my youth, where, due to a bend in the plastic design, you could see a little around a corner if you held it just right. Suspense is our master. What we think is going to happen and what really happens can be quite different. The difference between a luxurious two-room suite and a Hovel from the Twilight Zone.

We set our hopes on how many dollars we can accumulate. Money is a gentleman’s agreement that paper or coin has value because we all agree on its value. The Great Depression of 1929 illustrated the vaporization of our love for money.

So much of our lives balances on the tightrope of capitalism. Certain hopes and security can be wiped out quicker than riches. Faith is a bulwark against surprise. Believing in the eternal is important to us spiritual creatures. We take a step at a time. Patience preserves our souls. Paul of the Bible said he knew the feeling of abasement and abundance. My life story.

MJ and I stopped by Paper Source today. We bought more cards. I love going to Paper Source and thinking about upcoming birthdays and Christmas. Surprises that I know are around the corner. Oh, the joys of the simple life and coffee in my hotel room…