I imagined dad as a ghost when he was alive, I thought about communing with him as a ghost, someday. I thought dad was unreachable. Did dad think I was unreachable? Were we both ghosts to each other, pondering ghosts? But then after he died I never found him as a ghost, or he never found me. I'm still pondering him. 

 In Ghost Stories I read about the kid Daniel writing a poem: I'm hiding. And no one will find me. I remember Holly telling about leaving the house in a heavy rain, walking on the streaming street that flowed to the river, thinking, No one will call me. No one will look for me. I hid many times with the same thoughts. I remember even when it was a game, hide and seek, feeling like no one will find me, they'll forget I'm hiding, and keep on playing.

 People say it's water under the bridge, but it's still the river.

 The small child is not his or her grown self, and yet the pains of early life may persist as patterns that over time become hardened.

Siri Hustvedt

Ghost Stories

 Here, a prayer here. Silent here, asking, a prayer. To learn who we are.

 There are things we'll never understand. There's something elemental we're missing. What are we afraid of? There is a deep sadness about the culture of death, the denial of life, the destruction of life. It is often too difficult to communicate. It's not possible to understand, but we can live with it. We don't have to deny it. We can live with it until we kick the bucket. 

 Sometimes I think about it disappearing. Where it goes. Animals disappear, leaving their ghost lives with us. Everything that went extinct is still here. I had a blog that hovered out of reach and then disappeared beyond retrieval. I refer to it sometimes in orbit, in space but not the space that lies out there. It's like a chapter of a lost book. It floats nowhere. I think about things while I'm here. I hope to leave without regrets. 

 Pema Chodron turned ninety, gracefully, graciously, wise. I'm halfway through Ghost Stories. Paul does turn into a ghost. Sometimes just as the smell of smoke. Pema said she has regrets but she has come to terms with them. There are cracks already appearing in the Obamachron since the Juneteenth opening. Cracks are opening. Life is sad and beautiful and we're lucky to be here withal the land theft floods wildfires and genocides. One day we hope to gracefully haunt this place.