D. Julius Loeb
Sooner or later even a semi- literate conscious mind contemplates life from the perspective of the grizzled face staring back from the bathroom mirror. “How did this happen?” “I was having fun and all of a sudden. . . “
Reece Roth, the main character of this work of fiction is a fifty something guy who found that mirror. Recently divorced again (he has lost count of how many times) he has enough life left in him to scream back at his reflection: “Hell no, not yet!” Obviously this last bit of hubris generates much laughter among the gods, as well as a humorous commitment to show him who’s boss.
This book is nothing more than an offering to all those who cling stubbornly to their own sense of dignity. As in particle physics, energy manifests and extinguishes a thousand times in the blink of an eye. As in Nature, fairness seems random and detached from mankind’s childish notions of justice. As any old person swaddled in blankets sitting by a window at an old folks home will tell you, life itself is a side slapping illusion.
D. Julius Loeb alternately lives and works on islands in the American Pacific Northwest and the South Pacific. An oil painter and builder, Loeb has successfully avoided meaningful work most of his life. He did succumb to multiple relationships (marriages and otherwise) with some of the world’s most remarkable women. Loeb has the great fortune to leave his mark on the planet through four wonderful children who luckily all take after their mothers. Lately Loeb, the ever-lucky rouge, has been further blessed with grandchildren and the promise of more. Life, he says, is too important to be taken seriously.
There certain are times that come to pass for each of us. We will know those times. They happen at the end of a day of honest hard labor. It is being perfectly still. You are tired beyond despair and not sure of your future. Anything could happen next. You believe that life had kissed off this kind of suspense long ago. You remember the anticipation of fun surprises. You were young and foolish enough to get excited by endless possibilities. If some possible outcome to the movie we were writing ourselves into turned out to be less than we hoped—even downright dangerous—ah, what the hey. If anything was certain to be too certain, there would be no suspense. No one is watching us now. Experience could still crash the rocks in this way. Listen to the air. Dogs are barking, but they are a million miles off somewhere. The moment—this moment is that infinite and special particle of light. Or is it a light wave? Oh, well. We’ll get back to physics later.
Sometimes it’s a time of unexpected serenity—say on a Saturday morning, with a first cup of coffee, watching mist rise from cold ground of early spring. It occurs only when you are quiet enough to hear the fluids flow through your body parts—when perfectly alone, a man and a woman sit quietly reflecting. They could be together and married or they could be separated by death or distance. The man and the woman may have never met in this life, although they were supposed to and things just somehow went wrong in the celestial planning department.
There’s nothing in particular you need to think about today. The frantic motions required of the living are quieted for now. It’s time to remember our friends, that one man for a woman and that special woman for the man, and the best friends we shared subliminal pop cycles with when our mothers were mad at us both. It was a day like the day one described here. At what point in our lives did getting older mean something negative? It happened softly, as mystical events always seem to unfold. We were having fun, and it went off in our hands. Now wrinkled and graying, we sit alone, enjoying our own company more than we ever could have believed. Where does my story end? How did it begin?
Don’t Start Me Talkin’
