Peter M. Hunt's Blog, page 10

Hubris of meaning

While walking along the beach, I noticed a large stump that appeared to have been yanked from the ground before drifting for a lengthy indeterminate period as judged by the smooth veneer of its chain-sawed limbs.

The stump’s roots had circled in flowing adaptation around four large rocks, entangling them firmly in smooth wooden cavities, snuggly ornate in artistic simplicity.

I had never seen this before, such an obvious encirclement of a tree over stones. What could it mean?

I consider...

Beyond ordinary ken

We are lured to the water, perhaps a tacit acknowledgment of greater, unseeable unity, beyond that detectable by sense or sentience. Water levels all, balancing temperament while hinting at the universe’s magnificence of creation, drawing out emotion, the essence of our being.

One afternoon, my wife and I witnessed a small example of water’s power while moored at a local marine park dock. While preparing lunch, my wife and I saw a woman moving slowly toward the end of the pier in the familiar...

Tyrannical anxiety

Over Christmas, my wife and I visited family in San Francisco, staying at the same beachfront hotel we had on a previous trip south eight years prior. The season, age, and my Parkinson’s progression separated the two hotel stays, factors I did my best to consider in an attempt to manage expectations, not looking to relive the past but instead to enjoy the location’s beauty on each stay’s merits.

Honest reflection requires me to say that I failed miserably. I would have preferred over the holi...

Final Odyssey

It’s been over ten years since last venturing out during New Year’s Eve, what I used to consider amateur night. That’s what a lifetime of hard drinking will do to you—soften criticism of those who managed to interject a modicum of moderation into their lifestyle.

Not one to shirk responsibility, it is clear to me that this personality fault caused some of my life’s most difficult times. Still, it took a lot more than humiliation to humble me into moderation, and it wasn’t until many years aft...

Clever grace

When I was nine, the family hit the road after work one Friday, searching for a place to park our VW to enjoy the outdoors. Almost all coastal Greece is beautiful, making finding a campsite in 1971 easy.

After helping my father raise the tent, I walked along the craggy shore until finding a perch to sit quietly for the sunset. Gazing into the Aegean with unfocused attention, I stared at the rugged rock wall that descended into eventual darkness.

There was something about one outcropping in...

Loverly

Part of my recent routine is tackling select morning chores as the day’s first medications wear off and the second batch of drugs ramps up to take over, a sixty-or-so-minute process that begins about 8:15 am. The challenge is to maximize the golden hours of medication equilibrium, freeing me to write, exercise, and drive for limited times, mainly in the mornings.

While making the bed—a painfully slow evolution, but one I can usually accomplish regardless of physical state—I started humming a ...

Humility’s gentle grace

My life—until recent years—mimics a pendulum’s widening arc of extremity, hinting only the slightest hesitation as the center oscillates past quiet with confounding predictability.

Recognizing prior patterns of hollow value does not magically charm foibles into fables, and perception alone only summons the rigid reward of hardened belief. Authentic humility’s hushed wisdom is what opens the door.

Tutoring conviction elicits the mind-as-tool prison, lending it unbalanced weight while ignori...

Coexisting realities

The deep brain stimulator surgically implanted in 2014 has served me well, but its effectiveness wanes each day. A persistent brain fog hounds me, often leaving imagination as my only reliable companion in adventures of memory.

Today, I traveled back four years to share the water—from the safety of an underwater cage—with Great White sharks. Rounding off each day of diving, an informal tutorial on the behavior of this apex predator would be held in the vessel’s common area.

When two Great ...

Returning to port

My hobbies and ten years in the navy reflect my attraction to the sea, an evolving self-discovery of conflicting visions.

Watching the sea’s delicate orchestra of peaceful violence fascinates and thrills, luring, tempting to risk venturing a stroke too far. Sensually appealing, the ocean seduces its prey with vast expanses of barren surface while creatures dare depth’s darkness in a flirt of imagination.

Accustomed to the push-pull delights of mimicking tide, the ocean’s stinging salt air ...

Courageous kindness

While The Lost Intruder was certainly about deep diving, Naval Aviation, and underwater exploration, these perspectives merely provided the framework for the book’s genuine aspiration: describing the re-discovery of my soul. Despite countless hours of reflection, however, the mechanisms at play behind the scenes during the 18-month search remain, for the most part, a comforting mystery to me. 

Intuitively, I knew to avoid gleaning from the experience inevitably incomplete, although important,...