In Praise Of Ordinary Life

     Recently, I read the following from a supposedly sane and well-balanced young woman:

     “I want to marry the man who gets more excited about my birthday than I do.”
     “I want a man who plans little surprises to make my eyes light up.”
     “I want a man who never treats my joy as an inconvenience.”
     “I want a man who asks how my day is and actually waits for the answer.”
     “I want a man who celebrates my wins louder than anyone else.”
     “I want a man who is proud of me on the days I’m not proud of myself.”
     “I want a man who knows I like my coffee sweet.”
     “I want a man who warms up the car while I tie my shoes.”
     “I want a man who hears me talk about my dreams and then turns them into plans.”
     “I want a man who chooses ‘us’ even when life gets loud.”
     “I want a man who makes ordinary moments feel like magic.”

     That wish list drew a lot of negative commentary. Of course, wish lists are often impractical, but the impractical ones are usually materially oriented. This one demands a fantasy creature for a mate. But, as my favorite late-night TV philosopher has said, wait: there’s more.

     The fantasy mate is expected to deliver a fantasy existence as well.

     I can only speak for myself, but I’m unaware of anyone who enjoys a magical life. Even the very rich have fairly ordinary lives. Granted that they may do less housework than the rest of us. Even so they rise in the morning, spend their days dealing with the necessities of their lives, retire to bed in the evening, sleep through the night, and – if they’re really fortunate – rise the next day to do it again.

     And what on Earth is wrong with that?

---

     Many may dream of a life filled with adventure, excitement, and reward:

     I didn't want to go back to school, win, lose, or draw. I no longer gave a damn about three-car garages and swimming pools, nor any other status symbol or "security." There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be.
     Somewhere back in the jungle I had shucked off all ambition of that sort. I had been shot at too many times and had lost interest in supermarkets and exurban subdivisions and tonight is the PTA supper don't forget dear you promised.
     Oh, I wasn't about to hole up in a monastery. I still wanted—
     What did I want?
     I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, Then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur—I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilling of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.
     I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.
     I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be—instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

     ...but such are dreams. Such are the inventions of professional fantasists. Were it otherwise, there’d be no market for fantasy.

     Nobody promises anyone such an existence. A good thing, too. It would be next to impossible to deliver on such a promise.

     Some soldiers sometimes have excitement-filled lives. For a few years, anyway. Ask them what it costs. Don’t forget to factor in those who paid the ultimate price.

     Ordinary American life, with all its compromises, frustrations, and vicissitudes, is the best bargain going.

---

     The dreams of young women are often extravagant. The young – both sexes – are like that. But there’s a shortage of unmarried handsome princes just now. (Please don’t demand a government program to address the shortfall!) And even the handsomest princes usually come unequipped with magical powers.

     Time was, women – even young women – understood that. They aspired not to adventure, excitement, and the life of a fantasy princess, but to love, comfort, and security. They knew from the start that what they sought would demand work, prioritization of desires, and prudence in their choices. They thriller to the “demon lovers” they found between the covers of gaudily decorated paperbacks, just as contemporary American women – but they knew that between those covers was where they must remain.

     It appears that something has gone wrong with the upbringings of young American women. I haven’t raised any myself, so rather than discourse further on it, or prescribe a method for its remediation, I believe I’ll stop here.

Cadences

     Are there any former piano students among my Gentle Readers? Those of you who had to endure piano lessons in your youth will be familiar with a fiendish device called a metronome. That Satanic contrivance was supposed to teach us to respect the time signatures in the pieces we were learning. Get out of sync with the metronome’s peremptory beat and get rapped across the knuckles – usually those on your left hand – until you could catch up again.

     I grew to hate that device. I felt that it was holding me back. But then, I’ve always been in something of a hurry.

     The metronome’s beat was only the most obtrusive of the cadences we learned to respect. There were others that came more “naturally:” the rising and setting of the sun; the regularity of mealtimes; the start and end times of school, and later, of work; the schedule of TV shows; and so on. People have adapted to those cadences for centuries, and have seldom thought much about them. But just this morning one such cadence has been disturbed, which is the justification for this screed.

     When a habitual cadence “jitters,” such that one is briefly “out of step,” it can disturb other things as well. This morning I rose when my bedside clock said it was 4:00 AM. But upon rising I realized that today is “Fall-Back Sunday,” when the nation reverts from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time. Grumble; time to reset all the BLEEP!ing clocks built into all our BLEEP!ing digital devices. When will this madness end, anyway?

     But that’s just what got me thinking about this subject. What followed was a somewhat more unsettling question.

---

     Which of the cadences by which our lives are structured are inescapable? Which are chosen by those who prefer them? And which are imposed upon us by forces we cannot hope to oppose?

     Most people allow their lives to be rhythmically structured. Some, personally disinclined to be ruled by any metronome, refuse to respect any beat. World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker was like that: he declared himself unwilling to be “tyrannized by Time.” He ate and slept when he pleased, regardless of the hour. His disdain for all schedules caused him some grief during tournaments.

     We the Cadenced view such individuals as disturbances. Those such who are important to us seem to compel us to conform to their atemporal idiosyncrasies. That’s not really the case, of course, but the way our cadences bind us can distort our perspectives.

     Yet there are lessons to be learned from the clash between us who strive to keep to the beat and those who disregard it.

---

     Today is All Souls Day, the third day of the All Saints Triduum. Today, Catholics pray for the relief of our departed who, at their passing from this life, were deemed to require purification in Purgatory before they can enter heaven. I have no idea what percentage of souls ultimately bound for heaven must suffer for a time in that “waiting area.” At a guess, it would be nearly everyone who dies without mortal sins on his soul. We are sinners, after all, and even those of us who manage to avoid (or expiate) all mortal sin probably die carrying some spiritual burden. Those who loved us in life are supposed to pray that our term in Purgatory will be short, for once we’re there, we cannot pray for ourselves.

     That’s only one of the reasons to cultivate the love and good will of others while we live, but if you’ll pardon the phrasing, it’s a damned good one.

     All Souls Day comes regularly on November 2 each year. That’s the Church’s decision rather than our own. It’s only a reminder, really. Why shouldn’t we pray for the release of our departed into heavenly bliss every day of the year? But of course, human memory is fallible. The living are compelled by so many “important” cadences that something discretionary like prayers for the souls of our departed loved ones can “fall off the back of the stove.”

     Even so, it’s something to ponder, and not just on November 2.

     I’ve lost people I’ve loved. I have so many things on my mind that even remembering my morning and evening prayers can be a struggle. So my departed loved ones often go “unserviced.” And every year on November 2, I’m reminded – painfully – that I’ve promised to pray for them yet have failed to do so all year long.

     Once again in this Year of Our Lord 2025, the cadence of the liturgical year has reminded me of that promise. And once again I’ve resolved to do better than in previous years. Perhaps this is the year I’ll finally make good on that resolution.

     Now if Congress would only put an end to this damned clock-shifting business! Please!

Backing Away

     Beware: I’m furious. I’m about to launch a “rant.” It might turn ugly. All the same, I’m not going to hold anything back. Consider yourselves forewarned, Gentle Readers.

     Large-scale conflicts all have the same genesis: the politicization of some idea or practice. I’ve said this. So has my beloved colleague Linda Fox. We gave the subject our best, but too few of you have taken it to heart. A saddening percentage of you have adopted politicization tactics, not understanding that it will make you indistinguishable from the Left.

     As I’ve made it a working assumption that the politicization of an issue will bring conflict, I’ve been trying to stay clear of such things. Another working assumption is that he who politicizes knows what he’s doing; therefore he seeks the conflict it will bring. And we have no more room for conflict in this conflict-ridden age.

     So I’m distancing myself from politics and political advocacy.

     What? That distresses you? Come on! Surely you don’t read my interminable tirades just to get your glands in a lather. Who needs the agita? I’d rather believe that I’ve made you feel better. I intend to set my fingers to these BLEEP!ing keys with only that in mind henceforward.

     Feel better, Gentle Reader. Feel at ease, at peace. “Peace on Earth and good will toward men,” as the angels sang to the shepherds at Bethlehem. To get that precious feeling, you must back away from anything and everything that’s been politicized. Make all things private, as they were before that noxious nonsense that’s called The State started throwing its weight around.

     Even if you can only do so for yourself, think and act as if no such lunacy as some people ordering others around (and jailing or killing them for disobedience) had ever arisen among us.

---

     Ten years ago, I wrote:

     Virtually every op-ed writer currently blathering has chosen to align himself with some political ideology. Virtually all such persons routinely cheerlead for one or the other of the two major political parties. They might well be sincere in their convictions. They might well be benevolently inclined toward the rest of us: they might sincerely believe that the political agendas they promote and support would be for the best, and that once they’re in place, we would all be as happy as kings.
     It doesn’t matter. They’re pushing politics – the pursuit of power over others – as the cure for everything that ails us. Even those who argue solely for the repeal of this or that oppressive law are pushing politics.

     I was echoing another brilliant thinker and writer:

     This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
     Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing."
     True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.

     “Great men.” Have you reflected on the inanity of that phrase lately? What qualifies a man as “great?” Is it personal achievement, or is it the ascent to political power? Time was, we honored the first sort; we endured the second, as men have done since States first emerged to bedevil us. Today it’s rather the reverse.

     George Herron had something to say about that:

     The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of power and to those over whom it is exercised. And the great man of the future, in distinction from the great man of the past, is he who will seek to create power in people, and not gain power over them. The great man of the future is he who will refuse to be great at all, in the historic sense; he is the man who will literally lose himself, who will altogether diffuse himself in the life of humanity.

     That is greatness. That is humility: the great and underappreciated Christian virtue. It’s required that a man be humble, if he is to submit himself to the will of God. And damned near no one for whom the trumpets sound their fanfares exemplifies or exercises it.

     I shan’t claim to be an exemplar of humility. I know better. My tendency to think myself superior to others has caused me most of the grief I’ve known. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate its importance; rather the reverse. It’s one of the hardest-learned of all my lessons.

     Paradoxically, for Smith to tell Jones to “be humble” usually has the opposite effect. It produces anger, even fury. Imagine telling any of today’s “great men” that they should be humble. What sort of response would you expect? “Guards! Throw this person down the steps. Make it hurt.”

     Time was, it was actually a crime to tell a “great man” to be humble. It was called lèse-majesté. It could get the offender summarily beheaded. Don’t take my word for it; look it up. Look into the history of monarchy; you’ll find it.

     Tells you something about the relationship of humility to “greatness,” doesn’t it?

     Draw the BLEEP!ing moral.

---

     I’ve known a genuinely great man. He was my friend, for a time. He’s passed away, one of the most painful losses of my life... and indeed, one of the greatest recent losses of this world, though the world be unaware of it. Yet his greatness went unrecognized by nearly everyone. That’s as he would have wanted it, too.

     He didn’t care what others were doing. He didn’t care what others said or thought. He simply lived, loved, worked, and created. He made a specialty out of the employment of “obsolete” technologies to build useful, even innovative things. He joked that his mantra should be “There has to be a harder way to do this.” Really, I attach more importance to something else he said once:

     “I have my wife and my mountain. What else does anyone need?”

     As far as I know, he had no political involvements, beyond talking to me – and I’ve often regretted the time we wasted on political subjects. He wanted nothing but to create, to build, and to be left alone with the woman he loved and the few men he held as friends. By dint of great intellect, great imagination, and great labors, he got his wish.

---

     I could go on, but I’ll spare you. I’d originally had a specific example in mind of how the politicization of some phenomenon – i.e., turning it into an “issue” that requires mass approval or disapproval – destroys our peace, but I’m worn out. I suppose I’m sparing myself, too.

     I wish you peace. It’s rare and precious today, like freedom. But they’re complementary assets; each, once achieved, brings the other. Their common prerequisite is the abjuration of all political involvement, however well-intended. The implications are for you to draw.

     Happy Hallowe’en. Feel free to leave the candy corn for me. I like it.

In The Beginning...

     “Live fast. Die young. Leave a good-looking corpse.” – Originally from Knock on Any Door. Also, motto of the Pagans motorcycle gang.

     ...there was a lot of scurrying around and trying to “look busy.” But apart from that, we’re told that God instructed Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:28) If He ever countermanded that dictum (“Okay, that’s enough multiplying. You can stop now. Please!”) the Bible doesn’t record it.

     It doesn’t really matter whether you take the Bible literally as the Word of God. (I don’t. It was written by men. They may have been divinely inspired, but they weren’t God Himself.) Reproduction, like survival, is hard-wired into our natures. It takes a lot of disincentive to suppress that impulse.

     Youth culture plus feminism have provided that disincentive, in quantity.

     Youth culture strikes me as the ultimately self-defeating agenda. It literally cannot be fulfilled. Except for those like the persons in the quote at the top of this screed, we will get old. Our bodies will age and weaken. Our faces will wrinkle. And of course, one way or another, we’ll die. All of us. (Yes, you too, Gentle Reader, though I hate to think it.)

     Feminism, once severed from its Susan B. Anthony / Elizabeth Cady Stanton egalitarian roots, coupled to the perversity of youth culture with a tragic synergy. It made women neglect their characters and personalities in favor of obsessive concentration on their bodies and faces. Though it’s seldom labeled as such, that is actually a variety of gluttony.

     It also made women averse to child-bearing.

     This is of particular interest to me just now, owing to my current novel-in-progress.

---

     The possibility of a complete worldwide cessation of child-bearing was broached by the late P. D. James in her quasi-apocalyptic novel The Children of Men. James narrates the consequences for Britain in her usual adroit, subtly gripping manner. It’s a powerful story, well worth reading, though the premise that one day human fertility just ends is rather fanciful.

     Dreams of Days Forsaken revolves around two core ideas: a worldwide decline in birthrates, partly due to a plague of infertility; and the invention of a wholly automated artificial womb. The personal, institutional, and geopolitical consequences would be dramatic, to say the least. I hope my tale delivers on them.) Though I don’t go very deeply into them in the novel, I’m mesmerized by the incentives The Womb would offer to women:

• Those whose marriages are endangered by infertility, whether voluntary or otherwise;
• Those determined to protect their bodies and careers from pregnancy and parturition.

     For there’s no question about it: child-bearing changes a woman. It changes her body, of course, but it also changes her drives. The new person in her life must become a part of her priority structure. Other individuals in that structure will be affected. So will any organizations in which the new mother is a participant.

     Herewith, three vignettes about women whose thinking is being altered, none too subtly, by the prospect of The Womb:

---

     Susan read the employment contract carefully. Her prior experiences with such things had convinced her that they deserve special scrutiny.
     She found herself willing to accept its terms until she came to the clause titled Standards Of Performance. It didn’t take her long to find the scorpion’s sting. She looked up at her interviewer. The gray haired matron’s face was impassive. Her hands were steepled before her.
     “What about pregnancy?” Susan said.
     The interviewer raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”
     “The performance clause makes no provision for it. A gravid woman could never sustain the kind of performance specified here.”
     The interviewer’s nod skirted the edge of perceptibility.
     Adam wants children.
     So do I.
     “I think…” She paused. “Under current labor law, this contract is challengeable at the very least.”
     The interviewer’s smile did not touch her eyes. “Perhaps.”
     But I’d have to sign it and commit to its terms to find out, wouldn’t I?
     “I don’t think I can agree to this, Ma’am.”
     “A shame,” the interviewer said. “Your experience and references made you one of our top picks for this position. But the contract is a condition of employment. Best of luck with your job search.”
     The interviewer rose and held out a hand. Susan passed the stapled pages back to her, rose in her turn, and slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
     “Well, thank you for your time.”
     The interviewer did not offer to shake hands or see her out.

#

     Adam was nonplussed.
     “Really?” he said. “I thought contracts like that died with the Nineteenth Century.”
     “Apparently not.” Susan sipped at her rapidly cooling coffee. “They wouldn’t back away from it, either.”
     “‘They?’”
     “Sorry, my interviewer. An older woman. Perfectly polite and pleasant, but there was no give in her at all.”
     “Damn. I know this was the one you wanted.” He refilled his mug and took his habitual seat at their kitchen table. “Well, what’s next?”
     She shrugged. “Keep looking. Engineering shops don’t all require labor contracts. Anyway, this is the first one I’ve hit.”
     Adam didn’t answer. He’d gotten the faraway look she knew meant that he’d gone into problem-solving mode. She clamped her lips tightly together.
     Wait it out, Suzy Creamcheese.
     “Do you really want that job?” he said at last.
     “I… did,” she said, “before I read the contract. I don’t think so now.”
     “But what if we could finesse our way around the contract?”
     She peered at him. “What are you thinking?”
     “The Womb.”
     Her hackles went up at once. “Nope. Never.”
     He frowned. “Why not?”
     “Think about it! No pregnancy means no antibodies for the baby and no lactation from me. He’d be vulnerable to a thousand nearly extinct diseases and bottle-fed from the instant of his, uh, birth. Plus, I wouldn’t get the health bonus women get from going through pregnancy.”
     Or the maternal bond from having him inside me for nine months. Peg said it’s real, and after five kids she’ll know. And I want it!
     Adam’s expression had gone flat. “There might be ways to compensate.”
     “Do you know of any?” Despite her effort to control it, her temper had risen. “This is our child and my life we’re talking about. I’m already thirty-two. He might be the only child we’ll ever have!”
     For sure it’s the only life I’ll ever have.
     “Besides,” she continued, “I want to be home with a new baby. The performance clause didn’t mention any reduction in standards for the post-partum period. The mandated leave is only twelve weeks. I could return from maternity leave and get fired for substandard performance a couple of weeks later.”
     “A lawsuit…” he said, and trailed off.
     “Forget it. A company like that will have lawyers up the wazoo. They might even have fought this battle before.”
     Her husband appeared stricken. She could sense the but on his tongue, barely restrained by his lips.
     She blinked and bore down to fight off a sudden rush of tears.
     “I have to chalk this one up and keep looking,” she said.
     “You don’t have any other possibilities lined up?”
     She shook her head. “Not yet.”
     “What about that place back East that cold-called you?”
     “You mean Arcologics?” He nodded. “We’d have to move and you’d need a new job.”
     “Don’t they have a marketing department?”
     Not if Iverson is as smart as everybody says.
     “I don’t think so.”
     “Damn.”
     Adam’s gaze remained hooded for the rest of the evening. Susan knew The Womb was still uppermost in his thoughts… as it was in hers.
     Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

§

     Laura’s three years as the Hanford Agency’s top model had not prepared her for Bill Hanford’s explosion.
     “Are you out of your mind?”
     She gaped at him, all the words blown out of her.
     “I can’t believe you’re even considering it,” he said. “It wouldn’t be ‘just for a few months,’ stupid. No matter how carefully you restored your figure, it would change everything. Your tits, your skin tension, your posture, the way you move and hold yourself. It would ruin you for anything but fully clothed, and we have practically no demand for that. Are you willing to throw away the rest of your career for a baby?”
     “My career…” She faltered.
     “Indianapolis might not be the big time, but damn it, girl, you own this city. This state!” He turned away and started to pack up his equipment. His movements were staccato, jerky and angry, uncharacteristic for such a poised photographer. It was plain that she had unsettled him. “You want to leave all that on the table for some other girl to pick up just so you can have a baby?”
     She could not answer him. But I want a baby was the only thought her mind could hold. He fulminated silently as he packed the rest of his equipment. She shed her bikini and resumed her street clothes. They left the studio silent and empty behind them.

#

     Carlos was not pleased.
     “He’s right,” she said. “I asked around. Models don’t… come back from pregnancy.”
     “So no son,” he muttered. His arms were crossed like swords over his chest.
     She hung her head.
     “We have to choose, love,” she said. “Besides, without my income—”
     “Is that what matters to you? More than a family?” His Salvadoran accent became more pronounced.
     I don’t want to go back to the escort service.
     “We wouldn’t be able to meet our bills without it.”
     He scowled at her. “Yes we could. You know it.”
     I don’t want you to go back to dealing, either.
     “Carlos,” she said, “I want a baby as much as you do. But we have to be practical.” She rose from her seat at the kitchen table, but she did not dare to approach him. “You came this close to going to prison. The cops had you dead to rights. You were lucky that they were so sloppy. The chain-of-custody issue the D.A. missed was the only thing your lawyer had to work with, even if that was enough to spring you. Don’t you think the cops will have their eyes on you now? I may not want to end my modeling career, but I want to raise a baby alone even less!”
     He glared, but he had no comeback for her.
     A protracted, tension-laden silence ended when he muttered “I must think about this,” grabbed his windbreaker, and stalked out of the apartment. She wandered loosely around their home, uncertain what to do next, until the phone rang and Jill Timman invited her to join her at their favorite after-work watering hole.

#

     “He’s furious.” Laura swished her swizzle stick idly through her pina colada.
     “He’s a tough cookie.” Jill smirked. “But so are you. Stick to your guns, girl. It’s your body and your career.” She looked up and scanned the other patrons in the crowded bistro. “I don’t see anyone who has more right to make those decisions than you do. Not for you, at least.”
     “What if he decides he wants a son more than he wants me?”
     Jill shrugged. “Then you lose him. So?” She paused for a sip from her Cosmopolitan. “You’ve been together what, eight months?” Laura nodded. “Don’t you think you’d find someone else fast enough?”
     Laura swallowed past her fear.
     She doesn’t know. Keep it that way.
     “I know, Jill. ‘Always more fish in the sea.’ I could find someone else. But it’s hard. It’s tiring. I’m tired all the time as things are now. And…”
     Jill nodded in sympathy.
     “And you love him.”
     “I… think I do.”
     “So?” The model-turned-event-planner grinned. “What about The Womb?”

§

     Helen stripped off her apron and tossed it into the back seat before slumping into her car. Ten hours on her feet left her exhausted. It would have done the same to anyone. But her tuition was due at the end of the month, and she’d be damned before she’d let the water and electrical utilities send her any dunning letters.
     She cranked the engine, waited for it to settle into a smooth purr, pulled onto Grand Avenue, and drove through the darkness toward her Amherst Estates apartment.
     At least I know I’ll come home to a clean flat and a hot meal.
     Alicia was a clean freak of the best kind. Rather than see a domestic chore done imperfectly, she’d take it upon herself. She’d assumed their apartment’s cleaning and cooking duties immediately upon moving in. It was a great part of why Helen was happy to support the two of them.
     Well, that and that she thinks my stretch marks are cute. And how good she is with her tongue.
     Theirs was a no-bullshit relationship. They liked each other well enough, but there was no love talk between them, and no mutterings about marriage. Alicia stayed for Helen’s support, and would do so as long as Helen would maintain her in an acceptable style. Helen was willing to pay the bills, and would do so as long as the sexy Latina’s attentions to her needs remained enthusiastic and unflagging.
     It’s just these down periods between surrogacies that spit in the soup. But I have to have them. The agency wouldn’t have it any other way.
     At first, surrogacy had provided Helen a more-than-comfortable living plus substantial savings. With Alicia’s arrival, her lifestyle had swelled to include luxuries and pleasures she’d never before indulged. Helen suspected that an attempt to return to her prior, more modest standard of living would endanger their arrangement. She was too accustomed to Alicia’s services to risk that.
     I can’t take another contract until March. I can hardly wait. Until then it’s short skirts, high heels, “Are you ready to order, sir?” and “Is everything satisfactory, ma’am?” Ten hours a day, six days a week. Dear God.
     Well, my feet haven’t fallen off yet.
     As she turned into the parking lot for the residents of the two Amherst buildings along Arnulfson Way, she noticed that Alicia’s car was not in its assigned spot. She frowned.
     Did she go shopping?
     She unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside. Her gaze arrowed to the answering machine nestled in the entryway bookcase. The messages light was flashing steadily. She pressed the Play button.
     BEEP! “Miss Riordan, this is Marion Michaels at Dreams Fulfilled. Due to recent technological developments, we’re experiencing a retrenchment in our in-vitro and surrogacy operations. In consequence, we don’t expect to engage you as a host mother this coming year. Thank you for your services to this date. You have our best wishes for your continued success.” BEEP!
     The messages light went out and the machine fell silent.
     Helen was still gawking at it when Alicia returned.

#

     “It’s the Womb, babe.” Alicia forked up a bite of roast beef, chewed and swallowed. “If it works as advertised, host mothers will go the way of buggy-whip factories.” She glanced at Helen’s untouched plate. “Aren’t you eating?”
     Helen forced a smile. “Waiting for my stomach to settle.”
     “Oh. It hit you that hard, eh?”
     Helen nodded. “Second semester tuition is due soon. It’ll clean me out. If I can’t bag a surrogacy, I don’t know how I’ll pay for my junior year.”
     Alicia shoveled up some peas. “Can’t you promote your services on your own?”
     “I’ve never tried it. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
     “Ah. Could you use social media?”
     Helen shook her head. “They don’t accept ads about anything related to sex.”
     Alicia grinned. “But there’s no sex involved.”
     “They don’t see it that way. They nix anything that even hints at it, to stay out of trouble with the law.”
     “Well…” Alicia laid down her fork and sat back. “You have other things to sell.”
     “Hm? What are you—”
     “If the Womb really works,” Alicia said, “new industries will spring up around it. New markets. So think sideways. You were selling space in your uterus. What else have you got that the Womb might make marketable, you gorgeous five-foot-nine, hundred and fifteen pound blue-eyed blonde with a killer figure and a one-forty IQ?”
     Helen started to answer, bit it back.
     “Maybe the genes that gave you that stuff might prove marketable,” Alicia said.
     “Maybe…” Helen pondered it, shuddered. “But I’d have to let a man put his thing in me.”
     “Not necessarily, babe.” Alicia’s expression turned sly. “You’ve got plenty of eggs, don’t you?”
     “Yeah… wait a minute! If they’re so valuable, how come Dreams Fulfilled never offered to buy any?”
     Alicia shrugged. “Did you ever hint that you were open to the idea?”
     It stopped Helen’s thought process for a second time.
     Is it legal to sell ova in New York? Was Michaels waiting for me to suggest that mine were available?
     “You… might have something there.” Helen picked up her fork to address her dinner, set it down again. “Maybe the first move has to be mine.” She beamed at her housemate. “Thanks!”
     “De nada. Eat!”
     Helen chuckled and picked up her fork again. “Yeah.”
     She’s smarter than I realized.
     How did she know about my IQ?

---

     We don’t have The Womb today, but it’s in prospect. There are teams working on developing one as you read this. Don’t kid yourself: feminism plus youth culture would play into the reactions to such a development. If it were to be made price-competitive with the costs of pregnancy plus childbirth, it would be a powerful influence.

     And with that, we return to contemporary reality.

     There’s been a resurgence of interest in what might be called prewar femininity: i.e., the model for female decision making held up to them by their mothers, which was followed by most. Marriage, wifedom, homemaking, and motherhood are becoming freshly attractive to some number of young women. What’s propelling that resurgence is, in part, the failure of feminism to satisfy many of its adoptees. They’ve reached middle age; they have careers but no kids; they sense that they’ve “missed out” on a critical feature of the female experience. (Some of them don’t have men, either.) That makes the alternative denigrated by militant feminists decades ago loom large in younger women’s thoughts. But what if the young aspirant to “tradwife” status confronted the prospect of remaining unaltered physically by pregnancy and childbirth: i.e., the prospect held out by The Womb?

     Just some early-morning thoughts from a novelist trying not to think about his novel.

The Storyteller’s Revenge

     Each of us should do what he’s best at. Hearken to one of my best-loved characters:

     “You know how new I am to all this. I understand about one word in twenty.” Holloway suppressed an urge to fidget. “Most of it goes right over my head. Like how the responsibilities get distributed.”
     Redmond flicked a hand. “We each do what we’re best at.”
     “And you’re best at this.”
     Redmond nodded.
     “It doesn’t bother you to get your marching orders from people who could never do what you do?”
     The young engineer’s grin became wider. “Should it?”
     “Well...”
     Redmond chuckled and rose from his chair. He studied the gray fabric wall of his cubicle for a moment, then leaned back against the edge of his desk.
     “They can’t do what I do—well, maybe Rolf could—but I wouldn’t do what they do. In business, people are placed both for their skills and their willingness to accept responsibilities. Rolf accepts responsibility for the productivity and well-being of the whole Simulations group. For that, he gets a title and a bigger cubicle than this one. Joe Brendel accepts responsibility for the whole Software department. For that, he gets a bigger title, a secretary, and an office with a door.” Muscles quivered in the young face. “Your uncle accepts responsibility for the whole Engineering division. For that, he gets a really big title and wood furniture. I might disagree with some of his decisions, but he takes the heat for them, not me.”

     A storyteller should stick to what he’s good at: telling stories. (This assumes that he is good at that, of course.) In our division-of-labor economy, that relegates certain other components of the business of telling stories to other persons with different (hopefully complementary) expertises. And in accordance with this distribution, some persons will adopt the guise of expertise and hawk themselves to us storytellers as the promoters we need.

     Trouble is, storytellers have a hard time distinguishing the con men from the genuine articles. The con men outnumber the gems by about ten to one. I’ve recently been targeted by several. All of them claim “years of experience.” All of them present skeletal promotional schemes designed to exploit the storyteller’s credulity and hope.

     Seining out the real thing from the con artists is a protracting and emotionally taxing process. An “administrator’s approximation” would be to assume that they’re all con artists, and to proceed on that basis. I’ve made that my working assumption.

     Of course, that assumption has implications that must be frankly faced. If an arbitrary writer – let’s call him Fran, for convenience – is confronted by a come-on from a con man, what’s the most appropriate response? From what response would Fran derive the most benefit and endure the least suffering and cost?

     Right! Fran would tell him a story. I’ve been doing exactly that. And it doesn’t feel like a waste of my time or energies. In fact, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun.

     It’s especially fun when you just know that your solicitor is “working from a template” and hasn’t the least sincere interest in your oeuvre. I have a slew of cold-contact emails in my “Promoters” folder that look as if they were generated from a template, perhaps with the help of an AI or a Microsoft Visual Basic for Word Adapt-o-Gram. I respond to each of them with a freshly generated tale of woe, in my best idiom.

     I told the first of them that I’m a church mouse, that my little family subsists on Scraped Icebox and Dishrag Soup, that we have to feed our dogs mice, squirrels, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could never justify spending a small fortune on her eminently worthy efforts! That didn’t quite do the trick; she came back with “Well, what could you afford?” I let her think I was considering it.

     I told another that I’m indifferent to the American market – that my books actually sell quite well in translation. That one wanted to know which nations, of course. I told her Iran, North Korea, and Papua New Guinea. I haven’t heard from her since.

     I told the most recent one that I’m not really the author of the books published under my name. In actuality, I said, I’m a “cut-out;” the author is a crazed Albanian dwarf with a harelip who avoids all publicity for obvious reasons. The dwarf doesn’t care whether his books sell. Indeed, the revenues from them go into a trust for his as-yet-unconceived grandchildren. I expected her to call me out on that one. To my surprise, she didn’t. Well, there’s time.

     They get a politely worded decline-of-service; I get a little exercise for my imagination. It works out for both of us... though I’m sure they’d have preferred a “Where have you been all my life?” response and an offer of riches beyond all avarice. Yes, it also means that if there were an honest workman in the bunch, who really, truly could and would apply himself to promoting my tales, I’ve turned him away all unknowing. Well, there has to be a downside for everything. But as a preservative for a storyteller’s sanity and bank balance, I highly recommend it.

Many Shadows: A Sunday Rumination

     Thirty years ago, in writing On Broken Wings, I faced a difficult challenge: how to explain religion in the abstract. The explainer was a religious man, though not exactly in the way one might expect from his habits. The explainee was a young woman who knew approximately nothing about the subject, except that her interlocutor was both admirable and religious.

     Here’s what I came up with:

     “Scientists study the properties of things all the time.” He set the pan down in the sink and turned back to her. “They look for patterns in the way things behave, and then they test their understanding by making predictions. When their predictions work, they gain confidence that they’re on to something. When their predictions fail, they junk their theories and start over. Mostly by little steps, sometimes by big ones, always building on the learning of those that came before them, this is how scientists come to know the world.”
     He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms against his chest. There was something in his demeanor she hadn’t seen before, a kind of all-pervading delight that transformed him and made it impossible to look away from him.
     “Scientists always look for the widest, most comprehensive patterns they can find, and then they try to explain them. And they’ve noticed that, the wider and deeper they go, the simpler the explanations seem to get.
     “The great discoveries of the past three centuries have all pointed toward the existence of an enormous central fact, a single law for the whole world and everything in it. All the little patterns we see in things, like legs only being so fast, or arms only being so strong, or water never rising past two-twelve Fahrenheit, are just special cases of that central law, like the differently shaped shadows a statue will cast depending on how you turn it in the sun. Does that suggest anything to you, Chris?”
     It took her a moment to register the question. She began to think. He waited in silence.
     A million million details. A single truth giving rise to them all. Human reason sifting the details for the patterns that hid in them. Human knowledge of the patterns accumulating over the centuries, gradually reconstructing the statue from its innumerable shadows.
     “The more you know, the simpler it all gets,” she whispered. “The parts might be confusing, but it’s made to be understood whole.” The thrill of discovery was coursing through her like an electric current. “Louis, it couldn’t have happened that way by chance, could it?”
     He folded his hands and looked down at them.
     “Some people think it could have, Chris.”
     “Do you?”
     “No.”
     “And that’s religion?”
     He nodded.

     Some readers liked it; some didn’t. Not everyone felt it did the subject justice. But it was my personal take on the appeal of the religious premise: i.e., that there is a Creator behind it all. And this morning, after reading the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, I started thinking about those shadows yet again.

---

     Some brilliant fiction has employed shadow metaphors. The one that comes to mind just now is Ursula Le Guin’s award-winner The Left Hand of Darkness. Le Guin used the shadow of a man as a metaphor for his personal stature and qualities. She gave the men of Gethen the rather serious “game” of shifgrethor to express its importance.

     You cast a shadow, at least when the light hits you just so. But as you turn, your shadow changes. Anyone watching would see those changes. They might bore him or mesmerize him... but unless he’s unusually stupid, he wouldn’t attribute the changes in your shadow to changes in you.

     Thus it should be, anyway.

---

     If you live a more or less normal life, you’ll cast many “shadows:”

• As a child;
• As a student;
• As a young person;
• As a husband or wife;
• As a practitioner of your chosen trade;
• As a source of guidance to your progeny and theirs.

     Those are just the big ones, of course. Within those shadows will be a multitude of details, formed out of the experiences you’ve had along the way. Imagine the degree of vision and concentration required of an artist who attempts to capture all those details. And imagine how hard it would be for you to hold still long enough for him to do it!

     But your shadow is not you. You are much more. A good thing, too, considering how your shadow keeps changing.

     In Jesus’s parable, the Pharisee praises himself for being “not as other men are.” He recounts his pieties as if he were competing for a job opportunity:

     The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

     What kind of prayer is that? Contrast it with the prayer of the publican:

     And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

     The Pharisee boasts about his pieties. The publican asks forgiveness for his sins, implicitly saying that he knows he should do better. Jesus tells his audience that the humility of the latter is preferable: “for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

     Both men are aware of their shadows. The publican hopes that his will change. His prospects are better than those of the Pharisee, who thinks his practices confer a permanent state of grace.

---

     Jesus also told us to “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” That too is about our shadows. For we all sin: some more frequently or grievously than others. But those deeds are acts in time, and time will continue to pass. If the stain of sin lingers, nevertheless if the resolve to repent, atone, and improve is there, it can be erased. Its shadow is impermanent.

     The publican in the parable may have coerced or intimidated those he taxed. He may have stolen from them. He may have embezzled the proceeds rather than transmitting them to the state. And were his crimes to be discovered, he would justly be punished for them. But those are all acts in time, as impermanent as any other facet of his shadow.

     God will not judge us on our shadows, but on the state of our souls when we stand before him at the Particular Judgment. Did we repent of the sins we knew we had committed? Did we strive to atone and improve? When given a chance to behave better, did we take it?

     Time is given to us as a medium in which to grow and improve. But God stands above time. He’s less concerned with how your shadow looked at any instant than with whether you used the time He gave you to improve in His sight, in keeping with His Commandments.

     Have a good Sunday.

The Bear

     [A reader asked me to repost this. It first appeared at the V2.0 site in August of 2024. New residents in an old, well-established neighborhood must observe the customs of the place. If they want to be accepted, that is. — FWP]

---

     Andrew stepped out of the dense thicket of trees and into a clearing of sorts. A little distance ahead stood a row of willows, regularly spaced. The intervening space was clear of any other woody vegetation. He approached cautiously and found that the willows lined the bank of a small river.
     He strode to the bank and gazed down at the stream.
     The river was only a few yards wide. It flowed westward through a respectably deep gorge. In the dry September weather, its flow was serenely quiet. Its opposite bank was lined by a similar row of willows. The trees stretched eastward and westward to the limits of his vision.
     The uncanny orderliness of the scene, amid such untamed woodland, made him smile.
     Nice.
     He sat by the bank, pulled his notebook and pen out of his backpack, and made notes.
     Andrew had inherited the land a few weeks earlier. It was only the third time he’d set out to explore it. It would take a while before he could feel that he knew it well, for there was a lot of it: more than a square mile of wooded New York wilderness. He’d resolved to cover it all, to familiarize himself with all of it, and to make a record of its salient features. The river certainly qualified as such.
     It's as pristine and gorgeous as the rest of this place. No wonder they fought so hard to keep it out of the state’s clutches.
     He still lacked an explanation for why his parents had purchased the land in the first place. They’d bought it when he was a teen. Three years before their deaths, they’d paid to have a patch cleared and a large rustic cabin built on it. It had to have been a considerable expense. Yet he could not remember either of them ever announcing that they were headed to the cabin for a weekend, or even a day. Certainly they’d never brought him there.
     Neither his brother Devin nor his sister Rachel had ever said anything about it. Though the will had made it their joint property, Andrew’s siblings had swiftly deeded it to him. The use and management of it were on his shoulders. It had made him wonder what they knew that he didn’t. Yet they’d said nothing more to him, whatever they might have said to one another.
     His acquaintance with the land and the cabin had brought about changes he could not yet explain.
     His decision to retire from wage labor at only thirty-eight came as a surprise to his supervisors, but even more so to him. The decision to terminate his lease and make the cabin his home had seemed to follow from it. Yet both decisions had come altogether naturally, as if they had been made by God and were only being announced to him on the spot.
     I won’t starve without a salary. What I’ll do to fill my days, apart from writing a bit more, I still don’t know. Read, think. Wander around out here, I suppose.
     There’s a lot of peace here. Maybe I can borrow a little of it.
     Peace had come hard to him, ever since his adolescence. He’d tried to smother his disquiet with activity. His creativity and his gift for electronics had made him wealthy, but had done little to soothe his inner disquiet. Throughout his waking hours he remained acutely aware that he was a fugitive from his proper vocation.
     What’s done is done. The priesthood is no longer open to me. I’ll come to terms with it, or not. Maybe it’ll be easier now, away from people.
     He reached into his backpack and pulled out the paper bag, that held his lunch. He’d taken his first bite of a ham and cheese sandwich, lamenting that yet again he’d forgotten to add mustard, when the bear appeared.

#

     The bear was typical for the New York woods: about two hundred pounds and shaggy black with a long tan snout. It walked on all fours to the riverbank in no particular hurry. Andrew laid his sandwich in his lap and sat as still as he could manage, acutely aware that he had left the cabin without a weapon. Should the bear prove aggressive, he would be maimed if not killed.
     To his surprise, the bear merely sidled up to a spot beside him, just a few feet away, and lowered itself onto its haunches. It did not face him nor give another indication of having noticed him. It stared into the distance, as if it could see something beyond the river worthy of ursine contemplation.
     After about a minute Andrew cautiously picked up his sandwich and took a bite. The bear turned to look directly at him, and he froze.
     There was no suggestion of hostility in those brown eyes. The animal merely regarded him soberly. It was a gaze of the sort one might receive from a stranger in a tavern, the sort that silently inquires whether there’s any conversation to be had.
     If we were at the Black Grape, he might make a comment about politics or sports. Bears must not take much interest in those things. Not that I know much about them either.
     The bear’s gaze dipped to the sandwich in Andrew’s hand.
     Oh, right.
     He slowly extended his arm, intending to deposit it on the ground between them. The bear edged toward the movement, which caused him a frisson of fear. To his surprise, rather than snatch the sandwich out of his hand with its claws, the bear simply lowered its paws and waited.
     It was an invitation that could not be misinterpreted.
     Andrew laid the sandwich delicately on the ground before the bear. It reached for the gift with one paw, brought it to its snout and sniffed at it, then proceeded to nibble at it daintily. It took its time consuming the thing. When it had finished, it let its paws fall to its sides and gazed once more into the forest beyond the river. Andrew’s nerves began to subside.
     Probably for the best that I forgot the mustard.
     Perhaps ten minutes had elapsed when the bear rose and jumped into the river. Andrew recoiled from the splash the animal made, but otherwise remained as he was. Presently the bear clambered up the bank toward him, a large fish in its jaws. It laid the fish a couple of feet from where Andrew sat and resumed its seat. Its eyes were on Andrew. There was still no hint of aggression in its demeanor.
     Andrew strove to lock eyes with the bear.
     “For me?” he murmured.
     The bear met his gaze. It didn’t move.
     Andrew leaned forward and scooped the fish into his hands. The bear continued to watch him solemnly. He rose awkwardly, faced the bear, and bowed.
     The bear remained seated. It turned to gaze into the forest once again.
     Andrew departed.

#

     The fish was good. Though he lacked experience, Andrew succeeded in gutting and cleaning it. He fried it on his Franklin stove. Salted, peppered, and with some corn alongside it, it made a tasty meal. From the cleaning of the fish through his washing-up after dinner, his thoughts remained on the exchange with the bear. He strove unsuccessfully to fit it into some familiar model of animal behavior.
     It defied understanding. Bears are predators. Even the relatively peaceable Northeastern black bear, the subspecies most common in New York’s forests, could not have been expected to wait for Andrew to surrender his sandwich willingly. It would have viewed it as as something to be taken from him willy-nilly. Resistance would have brought an attack on Andrew’s person.
     The bear’s gift of the fish made the whole business incomprehensible. Predators simply didn’t do such things. Surrendering freshly harvested food to another predator would express submission. A male bear, an apex land predator and a member of the most solitary of all predatory species, would never surrender food to another bear. They’d fight to the death first.
     Yet it had happened just that way. Entirely without violence, other than the bear’s capture of the fish.
     Maybe it was a sport. An exception to its species. There are exceptions among humans, so why not among bears?
     Because this is the wild, idiot. Pacifist bears wouldn’t last long among others of their kind. Probably not even long enough to reproduce.
     Still, it happened. I was there. I may go crazy after a few years living here, but I’m not crazy yet.
     Andrew knew himself to be a sport. Brilliant, from his youth deeply religious, and solitary by choice. Entirely uninterested in the things that made other men’s eyes light and glands pulse. Even his friend and colleague Louis, a polymathic genius, a world-class athlete, and a tower of rectitude, shared more with the common run of men than he did.
     Well, I probably won’t reproduce either.
     He put it aside for another time and dried the last of the dishes. Once his hands were dry and the dishes and utensils were back in the cupboard, he seated himself in his armchair, recorded the events of the day in his journal, then picked up the book he’d been reading, and read until he fell asleep in his chair.

#

     Two days elapsed without incident. Andrew ate, slept, read, wrote in his journal, and ambled around the forest near to his cabin. The fright he’d taken from the approach of the bear had taught him always to take a rifle with him, though he was still lax about having it immediately to hand. He refrained from going back to the riverbank.
     Around noon on the third day after his encounter with the bear, he was building an outdoor fire, intending to heat water in which to wash his laundry and after that, himself. He’d rigged a grate to set over the wood from discarded fireplace andirons. The vessel for the water was a steel tub he’d salvaged from an old washing machine, easily large enough for the task.
     A brief rustling to the west of his cabin drew his attention. A black bear emerged from the thicket.
     Andrew’s rifle lay against the side of the cabin, more than thirty feet away. The bear was closer than that.
     It held a fish in its jaws.
     The same bear?
     Andrew could not tell.
     He stood still as the animal approached. When it had closed to within about six feet, it halted, dropped the fish on the ground, retreated a few feet and sat, eyes fixed upon Andrew.
     What are we doing?
     He still had no idea. Yet it was plain what the bear expected of him. He held up a hand, palm toward the bear, and trotted into the cabin. He found the remains of the ham he’d been eating and weighed it in his hands. There was at least a pound of meat left.
     This should do.
     He returned to where the bear waited and stopped a few feet away as the bear had. He lowered himself to one knee, laid the ham on the ground next to the fish, straightened and stepped back.
     The bear watched, unmoving.
     “For you,” Andrew murmured.
     The bear seemed to understand. It approached, sniffed at the ham, and closed its eyes briefly. Andrew waited.
     A few seconds later the bear straightened and shuffled toward the cabin. It made directly for the rifle Andrew had left there. It sniffed at the weapon, turned toward Andrew, and rose onto its hind legs.
     Andrew felt a fresh thrill of fear.
     The bear did not attack. It held its paws out to its sides, claws plainly visible, and looked directly into Andrew’s eyes. After a moment, its head moved slowly up and down. Twice.
     Unsure of what he was saying by doing so, Andrew nodded back.
     The bear dropped back onto all fours, ambled back to the paired gifts, and took the ham in its jaws. It regarded Andrew once more briefly before dashing back into the forest.
     Andrew felt all his muscles soften at once. It took him some time to master himself. Presently he picked up the fish and his rifle and returned to the cabin.

#

     Rachel debarked from her car as Andrew stepped through the cabin door. He spread his arms as she approached, and they embraced.
     “I see you were serious about living here,” she said.
     Andrew grinned. “What’s the giveaway?”
     She nodded toward the large pile of wood Andrew had cut into stove lengths. “That must have taken you a while.”
     He nodded. “Gave me a few blisters, too.”
     “Think it’s enough for an Onteora winter?”
     “I think so. That’s a bit more than three cords, and the cabin isn’t all that big. Besides, I can always cut more. There are a lot of dead trees out there.”
     She hugged him again and kissed him, then stepped back and regarded him soberly.
     “You’re looking good, Drew,” she said. “You’ve gained weight in the chest and shoulders.”
     “Yeah. Chalk it up to a lot of exercise and a protein-heavy diet.”
     “It’s deliberate, then?”
     “Very much so.” He waved toward the interior of the cabin. “Come on in. I’ll put up water for tea.”
     “Hang on a sec, I brought something for later.” She trotted back to her car, extracted a bottle of Dry Riesling, and presented it to him.
     “I doubt you see much of this in here.”
     He chuckled and took it from her. “Right you are. The wildlife prefers Chardonnay. Come on in.”
     They were seated at his dinette table over mugs of hot tea before their conversation resumed.
     “How’s Devin?” he said.
     “I can’t really say, Drew.” She sipped at her tea. “He keeps to himself even more than before Mom died. I’ve talked to him a few times, but he doesn’t say much. At least not about himself.”
     “Did you tell him you were headed up this way?”
     She nodded.
     “And?”
     “He didn’t react.”
     Andrew grunted.
     “Don’t expect too much of him, Drew. He’s better off not having a lot of contact with either of us.”
     “I suppose. Still, do you think we might be able to get him here for a family dinner next July fifteenth?”
     Her eyes narrowed. “Why that date?”
     His face twitched. “I shouldn’t call it a celebration, but... it’s for a celebration. That’s the day we were finally liberated from our tormentors. Don’t you think that’s a good enough reason?”
     She studied him for a long moment.
     “Yes,” she said at last. “I suppose now that both of them are dead and buried, it’s safe to think of them as what they really were. No more need to pretend we miss them or mourn their loss.”
     “Then it’s on,” he said. “I’ll make preparations.” He rose, stoked the fire in the fireplace, and returned to his seat. They passed an interval in silence.
     The two episodes with the bear rose to the front of his thoughts.
     I can tell her. Anyway, I ought to tell someone, and she’s close to my only choice. Maybe she’ll make sense of it.
     He hunched forward, folded his hands and laid them in his lap, and grinned at his sister.
     “Want to hear a weird story, sis?”
     Her expression became acute. She smiled.
     “Let’s have it, Drew.”
     And he told her.

#

     Rachel nodded as he ran down.
     “How long ago, Drew?”
     “About two months. Shortly after I moved here. I’ve been trying to make sense out of it ever since.”
     She frowned. “You have?”
     “Oh yeah. Bears are top of the land food chain. They take what they want. And they certainly don’t surrender food to other animals. Not even to other bears. Not without a fight.”
     “Hm.” She pursed her lips. “It makes perfect sense to me.”
     He peered at her. “It does?”
     “Oh yes. I’m surprised it isn’t clear to you, but then you’ve never been much for social stuff.”
     “Well,” he said, “do you plan to enlighten me?”
     She grinned wickedly.
     “Rach!”
     “Oh, all right.” She sat back. “I’ll tell you a story.”
     She closed her eyes and steepled her fingers before her.
     “Once upon a time,” she said, “there was a traveler who was looking for a home. He’d never had a true home, and he’d looked for a long while for a place where he might make one. He hoped for privacy, and peace, and if he were to have neighbors, that they would accept him for what he was rather than insist that he become something else.
     “After a long and tiring search, he stumbled upon a place that looked favorable. It promised privacy and peace. Since it looked as if there would be a comfortable amount of space around him, he decided to settle and take his chances.
     “It didn’t occur to him that the place he’d chosen might already have residents. He couldn’t have imagined that they’d regard him as a guest in their home. But that’s the way it was. And one day, one of the neighbors looked him up and clued him in.
     “The traveler was momentarily confused. For a while he had no idea what was going on. But the neighbor—more of a representative of the district, really—gave him enough of a hint that he got the message. And as has always been the custom when one visits another’s home, he presented the neighbor with a guest gift. Food, the offering that says I wish you well in the universal language.
     “The neighbor accepted the gift and offered the traveler a matching gift: food the neighbor himself had prepared. It was about like the traveler had gone to dinner at someone else’s house, except for the absence of a table, plates, and silverware. The traveler accepted the gift, and he and the neighbor parted on good terms. The traveler continued to make the place into a home, the home he’d sought lifelong.
     “Three days later, in keeping with the prevailing custom in the neighborhood, the neighbor came to the traveler’s house with a gift of food. The traveler did as the neighbor had done: he reciprocated with food he had prepared. The two exchanged gifts and parted once more, and the traveler knew by those signs that he had been accepted into the neighborhood. He’d become a neighbor himself. And so his residency in his new home, the home he had sought for so long, began at last.”
     She opened her eyes and smiled. Andrew sat dumbfounded.
     “The bear was the… welcome wagon?”
     “No! Not at all, Drew. You’d entered his home. Without his invitation at that, though it appears he was willing to let you get away with it. As long as you followed the rest of the guest customs before making yourself too comfortable.” She slid forward on her seat. “Do you know the word ‘propitiate?’”
     “Of course.”
     “That’s the point of a guest gift. You’re propitiating the host, letting him know that you come in peace and friendship. A robber or a raider wouldn’t do that. He’d plunder the place, take whatever he wanted and use as much violence to do so as he needed.”
     “Oh.” In that moment Andrew MacLachlan could actually feel his mind expanding. “And the second time, when the bear brought a fish here?”
     “Same thing, Drew. Plus an acknowledgement that you’d made a home here and are now a resident of the community.”
     “I get it,” he murmured. “I get it! But… what about the bit with the rifle?”
     “The way you described it,” Rachel said, “sounded like that was one predator accepting another on equal terms. Also, I think that bear might have been putting you on notice. Telling you to use your claws judiciously, maybe. And maybe he was giving you a friendly warning that it’s not all sweetness and light here. A reminder that even the nicest neighborhood can have a few bad apples in it.”
     So I should keep it with me. That way I maintain my status as someone dangerous enough to be respected, and always ready to do what I must. For the neighborhood.
     “And I used to think I was a bright guy,” he muttered.
     “Oh, you are,” she said. “About technical stuff. But you might want to leave the people stuff to Devin and me.”
     “Yeah.” A laugh burst from him, unbidden. “Well, welcome to the neighborhood, sis.”
     “Just visiting,” she said. “But congratulations on having found your home,” she replied.
     “Think so?”
     “I know so.” She stood and waved in a gesture that clearly meant to encompass the forest beyond them. “The area’s certainly nice enough, but it did lack something before you got here.”
     “Hm? What?”
     She smiled.
     “A chapel,” she said. “And a priest.”
     He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
     “Okay,” he said at last. He rose and stretched. “Join me for dinner?”
     “Sure. As long it’s not something you shot.”
     He chuckled. “I was going to take you to the diner. It’s that or eat from cans.”
     “The diner will do.”
     He offered her his arm, and she took it.
     “The neighborhood could use a few more restaurants,” he said.
     “Give it time.” She handed him the keys to her car. “You drive.”

==<O>==

Copyright © 2024 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

The Feminization Of The West

     I’ve had this article in my Future Columns folder for a week, and have just returned to it. I originally saved it both from admiration for its frankness and from a desire to think over what I might say to amplify its thesis. After a week’s contemplation, I’ve reached a conclusion: not much. It’s that good.

     The core of the thing is the general displacement of reason – decisions based on logic and evidence – by emotion. The author delineates a number of developments that brought about that displacement. It’s connected to the efforts to “diversify” various occupations, especially journalism, entertainment, education, and law. That gave rise to cadres of women in those occupations that would habitually make decisions and render judgments based on the consensus about how the matters under judgment made them feel.

     Emotion is a poor substitute for rational analysis, especially when it’s elevated above the facts. Thus, this feminization of critical specialties and institutions has resulted in many injustices. Author Helen Andrews is candid about this devolution. She does a good job at connecting feminization to the “wokeness” plague. However, she fumbles at the conclusion:

     Thankfully, I don’t think solving the feminization problem requires us to shut any doors in women’s faces. We simply have to restore fair rules.

     But wait just a second: The sexes differ on what’s meant by fair. Now that the feminization of so many important institutions is an accomplished fact, who will decide what fair really means? Will it be the logic-and-evidence, performance-oriented men, or the emotion-oriented, make-sure-everyone-feels-good women? And even should men prevail in the argument, is it likely that women will go along with it in practice? We can’t just flush them out of the power positions they’ve attained. Imagine the howls that would arise should the men start overruling the women repeatedly, even regularly!

     Men often give in to women simply for a little peace. It’s as commonplace in the boardroom as in the home. Women know that and use it. So the restoration of reason supreme over emotion will require men to “cowboy up:” to learn once again to stand firm despite the punishments women can inflict on men, and so endure them. It’s possible that the feminization of our society has progressed too far for that to happen without first suffering a rash of convulsive institutional failures.

     Please read the whole column and form your own conclusions.