Peter M. Hunt's Blog, page 6

Life’s grandest question

Our two golden retrievers pulled towards Mr. Johnson’s open garage door, a sure sign of his presence. Our entry into the garage prompted the elderly Mr. Johnson to look up. A man known to the neighborhood pups for his bottomless bag of bacon treats, Mr. Johnson gave a silent nod.

He shuffled painfully towards us, back unnaturally stooped, skin ashen gray, movements painfully slow. Ordinarily, his posture was consistent with the Marine Corps flag that flew at the end of the driveway; something...

Reconciliation

Pride often dictates a reaction that we regret, potentially laying dormant friendship for decades. Recently, I witnessed the reconciliation of two good friends, both mellowed with aged circumstance, as they put their immodesty aside in reconciliation.

Captain/owner of the research vessel Wahoo Steve Bielenda and underwater historian/writer Hank Keatts should be familiar names to those knowledgeable about early east coast shipwreck diving. In the 1980s, the inseparable pair spent most summers ...

Dental floss

Yesterday, Laurie left for a week in Texas to visit my daughter, her husband, and our new grandchild. I was pleasantly surprised by my positive mood on the departure morning, despite a near-incapacitating run-in with dental floss that had me laughing my ass off while exhibiting no-kidding concern that I might lose the use of a finger.

It has been almost two years since my knee replacement surgeries, two procedures in as many days, that brutally knocked me back (the second, unplanned surgery w...

Imaginative surrender

Driving home from the hardware store today, I experienced an intense spark of unexpected connection, cloaking me in a dream-like trance. I’ve come to associate this sensation with the degree of balance within me. When comfortable in mind, at peace, and unconflicted, the instances seem to occur more often. My family aside, it is in these moments that I find my greatest source of happiness.

This magical state draws me into a powerful union of what I can only describe as a fleeting fellowship wi...

You only live once

This past year has seen an inordinate number of house guests as if all my friends were taking advantage of the opportunity to see me one final time before I am permanently relegated by shovel to a six-foot buffer zone.

It is true that Parkinson’s is advancing more quickly, but not sufficiently swift enough to make this the year of my final tour. So, dear friends, don’t line up quite yet to spit on my grave. As my coffee cup—a gift from a like-humored son—says, “I ain’t dead yet motherfuckers....

Looking good

As I left the house today to get a haircut, I ran across a thirty-second clip of uncommon wisdom on social media.

The clip contended that suffering is one of life’s most exalted opportunities. Failure is good, James Skalski went on to say, and pain, difficult times, loss, and suffering bring death to the ego in a rite of purification, a prerequisite to personal heroism of the spirit.

Reflecting on the powerful message while driving to the barbershop, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of in...

Peaceful surrender

Parkinson’s is an inherently confusing disease with symptoms constantly ebbing and flowing. When first diagnosed, Parkinson’s seemed to be toying with me, allowing five years before I started taking Levodopa, the only medication, in my opinion, that significantly eases symptoms.

Parkinson’s is a supremely patient adversary, demanding more Levodopa until the side effects produce such painful and debilitating movements that they are worse than the disease.

There are few options available at ...

Being

As I ramble along life’s calendar, each day slightly more at peace than before, it strikes me as an odd truism that the rational mind, that most vaunted human attribute, is the source of most unrelieved suffering.

The soul pointlessly craves meaning, a task taken up by the rational mind through its constrained capacity to understand. This exercise of life through perspective is a confounding mystification beyond the narrow definitions of rationality’s comprehension.

Does the future or past...

And life goes on

After spending a wonderful week with my newborn grandson, daughter, and son-in-law, fate decided that I needed a snap back to reality during my flight home from Texas. I was traveling by myself, and the journey evolved into an excruciating ordeal. After just thirty minutes seated, my joints screamed for the relief of movement in response to an intolerable building of frustrated dyskinetic pressure. By the time that the plane taxied, I was on the verge of a debilitating panic attack.

I had not...

New life

Reveling in translation to the material world, new life bridges love’s eternal unity, transiting from darkness to light in the purity of innocence, enraptured in life’s simple joy of wonder.

Opening eyes wide to morning’s natural glow, rejoicing in life’s simple awe, new life remains unaware of joy’s fleeting nature, grace’s inevitable sacrifice to the future through the maturation of crippling manhood.

And what of me, a 15 year old temperament fettered irreducibly by a 60 year old appeara...