60th Anniversary of Hiroshima

“When it turned out that I, an average Joe, was successful in making a device from easily acquired materials that could annihilate millions, I didn’t feel pride in accomplishment. There was a sense of immense sadness and dread and I buried my head in my hands for an eternity.”

“I feel certain that in our lifetime, we will suffer a mass destruction of humanity as a result of such a detonation,” the curious middle-aged amateur tinkerer muttered ominously into the camera.

Those were the last words I recall hearing before drifting off on the couch. I wish I hadn’t heard them. A chill snaked up my fetal-curled spine as I strived to shut out the reverberating thoughts.

It had been a moody time, days drifting listlessly by in the aftermath of the tsunami in SE Asia. “Death toll exceeds that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined” the headlines hinted. The names were all too familiar – Sumatra, Phuket, Phi Phi, Kerala - the experience sadly not, digesting it as I was, through the cocoon afforded by a news anchorman and a TV screen. My ex was on a plane just about to arrive in Phuket when the first wave hit. The pilot turned around and landed in Kuala Lumpur instead. She and I had planned to see each other over the holidays. Had I gone, might we have flown out the day before? It might have been that we’d go diving the next day. Instead, we’re both back to our busy distractions on opposite corners of the world. I eased my conscience by uncharacteristically sending off $100 to one of the active disaster relief NGOs.

The real noose of guilt was the absence of real relief from this malaise through the joys of daily life, for example in sunny Santa Monica. What right did I have to be unhappy? Did I secretly want to be there – in Aceh - in the midst of the pandemonium? It felt like 9/11 all over again, when my parents - reversing earlier sentiments - gave thanks to the fact I was in faraway Lusaka, and not asleep in my Chambers Street apartment watching the flaming towers through my bedroom window. Then, while riveted to CNN from the living room of my former classmate’s home, I’d felt a pang of inadequacy. Like I had let my mates down in their time of need. They would have been at our office round the corner from the stock exchange, no doubt dealing with their own panic. And here I was, oceans away trying to see if my building was still standing through the rapidly panning lens of the CNN camera. I should have been there. It was only right. And I wasn’t. And now it happened again. I wanted to be there in part because I might as well not be here. Paradise seemed like it had wasted a precious berth on me.

And now this. Someone I might sit next to on a bus, announcing his success in constructing a nuclear device out of easily obtained materials.

London and Sharm El-Sheikh feel mortally close. This seething heaviness and its attendant influence must subconsciously be one of the more defining forces of our time.

Fragments

GROUP MEMBER LEADERSHIP

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While you are likely to have your own opinions on each of these subjects, how



out of their way to make sure that you have everything you need.

In the Cape our local guide was Dr Peter Ryan, a young scientist attached to Africa's foremost academic centre for ornithology, the Percy Fitzpa



write even more, setting me up for the temptation to slip two manuscripts into the following week’s pile for more masochism or massage as the case may be.
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er I met her, she presented me with an intricately woven crochet. It had a filigreed green tummy and big button eyes. “An owl!” I rejoiced aloud as I leapt ove

The value of property

A friend who’d years ago graciously apportioned a small section of her basement for the temporary storage of my life’s belongings contacted me recently. Apparently, when I’d finally liberated the space of my boxes, I’d left behind some things – kitchen equipment, old shoes, a cache of jackets. Possessions I’d clearly not missed in the 2 years we’d been apart, excepting the one occasion when I wondered whatever happened to my precious shearling. I asked her to dispose of all items save for the jackets.

I’ve never been a frivolous jacket shopper and items of that magnitude merit considerable weighing of practical and gratifying aspects of ownership before committing. Would seeing each of those “lost jackets” revive those moments of considered thought, the decision to actually follow through on acquiring the item spurred by some aspect of nicety or necessity? Years later would I be grateful of this reunion, to again walk in a long-forgotten comfortable skin once carefully selected as part of my visual makeup to the general public; or burdened by its reappearance, questioning the original choice and onerous spatial accommodation?

Over the last several years, I’ve had occasion to live apart from the bulk of my personal belongings. For periods as long as a year, the sum of personal items within reasonable access ranged from objects that could be contained within a backpack to a small studio apartment. All other possessions of value would be stored somewhere far away, out of sight and more significantly, out of mind. This arrangement seemed to suit me best, unencumbered by physical objects in my immediate vicinity yet anchored by the psychic association to items representing the passage of my life.

Memorabilia – it has always for me been a tense tease between “memory” and “liability”. Without the benefit of memorabilia, we wouldn’t have such ready access to our past. Every glance, whiff or unconscious caress of an old letter, faded photo, creased concert ticket or never-worn trinket is like turning a combination key in the vault of our memory bank, unlocking unexpected images and responses in our minds’ eyes. Surely an easy way to cheat a leg up along the Buddhist path of non-attachment to the past is the jettisoning of memorabilia.

For individuals embarking on a “new life” with a spouse, that watershed moment of transitioning from one’s past to a future likely represents a point in time where the anchor of personal property ties is at its lightest, the old making way for the new. As someone yet to seriously approach such a defining watershed, property represents a tangible record and witness to all I’ve experienced.

Huangshan

In Huangshan, each morning is holy
Pilgrims awaken amidst a mist
The freshly scented dew
Of anticipation

Collective souls in gentle jostle
some have waited years it seems
Seeking this very vision
Must be mystical

Surveying this peaceful place
endless canvas of heavenly lace
we gaze

Welcoming rugged peaks
in first light - mere meek peeks

Strength gathering with hearts
Quickening

Saffron red
Soul radiate
The buzzing of the haj
10,000 silence
to await a mirage

And anoint their dawn with the golden halo