(December 28, 2020) (in progress)
https://www.facebook.com/samuel.v.libby/posts/10158036612850544
“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”
(January 1, 2021)
The Situation My Situation Is In
As the world, definitively, comes through this
horrible year,
and comes to another rotation of the sun,
I have been given the opportunity
to fully examine
my existence,
my mortality,
my purpose.
I am
66 years old.
I have come to see my existence as being like,
walking a high wire.
I live
as if I was a young man.
I live a life that is not wasted on the young.
I walk a wire high in the sky.
I walk a walk that requires balance.
At the end of 2020,
I lost my balance.
I am in Terrenas, Dominican Republic.
I am in a place where I live
with people,
who are no longer strangers.
As I was just living,
there was a moment
in which
I was completely
healthy,
alive
and well.
This was followed by the next moment,
in which
I had lost my balance.
I can stand up.
I can walk
with difficulty.
I am disabled,
crippled, completely handicapped.
I have fallen
from the wire
in the sky.
The people who I am with,
because they are not strangers,
want me to go,
immediately,
to the big,
public,
hospital
in the closest,
big city.
I don’t want to go.
I know only
I
can find my balance.
And yet,
the people who are no longer strangers,
insist.
If I am sent to the hospital,
I know,
it will be a waste of time.
I know it will only delay,
my finding,
of my balance.
Then,
I will be bum rushed/medivaced back
to Colorado,
where my Medicare is.
And this will only further delay
my finding,
of my balance.
If I am forced
to return
to Colorado,
I will need
shelter,
rides,
space,
and time
to find my balance.
I am resisting.
If I am given
time
and space.
I will find
my balance,
here.
And yet,
I feel,
I must tell
people who are not stangers,
about the situation,
my situation is in.
(January 3, 2021)
I despair.
Then I pick mySelf up.
When one hits bottom.
Life is simple.
The only thing you can do
is pick yourSelf up.
(January 4, 2021)
EMERGENCY ‘RONA LAW
HAVE BEEN COMMITTED TO LOCAL HOSPITAL.
EVERYBODY IS NICE, ENOUGH.
BUT DON’T THINK ANYBODY HAS A CLUE
(January 5, 2021)
Will be released from the hospital tomorrow.
I was forceably incarcerated.
As I was being forceably incarcerated they took my blood pressure.
It was pretty high.
And then it was all about lowering my blood pressure.
Nothing useful was done about my loss of balance.
Then I got the hospital bill.
All that was done to lower my blood pressure was for naught.
I can pay it.
But I’m busted.
If you are able.
If it works for you.
Please Western Union to
Samuel Victor Libby (my name on my passport)
Las Terranas, Dominican Republic
(January 7,2021)
Am out of the Dominican Republic medical gulag
That shit was horrible.
Was constantly stabbed with needles.
The food was worse than prison.
The doctors don’t have a clue.
Back at Duena Montys
Mi Reina Indigenas
And her family has become my family.
I’ve become like a child who is taking their first steps.
I must learn how to walk
for a second time.
(January 8, 2021)
I’ve become Rimbaud
Rimbaud traveled the World
He became seriously ill.
His poems have a
feverish,
deliriousness.
He depended on the kindness of others’.
.
He reveled in shared Human-ness
He fought.
He defied,
all that keeps the Human down.
He transcends.
(January 8, 2021)
Am like a child taking their first steps.
And like a child
I have no doubts
no concerns
that i will learn to walk again,
that i will enter into a new world
of movement.
This time around
I will learn to dance meringue
like a
Dominicano.
I use to dance.
But it was a minimalist thing.
I really believed tough guys don’t dance.
This time around,
when I hear the music
I will just give myself over to IT.
I will move with IT,
like a Dominicano.
(January 14, 2021)
HANDICAPPED PARKING
When my father died
my only inheritance
was a battered Toyota Tercel
and a handicapped parking sign.
I’m not proud of myself,
but I abused it.
And yet,
How could I help myself,
you could drive to anywhere you wanted to go
and you had a parking space,
right there.
When, in a moment,
I became
handicapped,
disabled,
I said to mySelf
‘Payback is a bitch.’
When I looked upon a universe
of infinite indifference,
When I looked at the ruins of my existence,
ye I did weep.
And yet,
this moment came
when I had reason to hope.
I’m going to get a cane
And I have reason to believe
that a time will come
when I’ll dance
like a Dominicano.
(January 22, 2021)
The Situation
I have been reading of the neurological implications of da ‘rona.
They are extensive and severe.
I’m not a doctor,
and yet,
my best theory is that it’s something like that.
I got the ‘rona a little over a year ago in Ensenada, Mexico.
I lost my taste and smell in
a moment,
in the middle of a meal.
It was dramatic.
In a moment,
our infinities of uncertainties
became clear.
This crippling
is something like that.
I’ve been describing it
as a loss of balance.
And yet,
I must have some balance
to be able
to stand,
and walk,
with difficulty.
A better way of describing it,
is that in a moment,
the communication
between
my brain
and legs
became inadequate.
I suspect the ‘rona
did some damage to my neurons.
I have not lost any
cognitive abilities.
But I am
crippled,
disabled,
handicapped.
And yet,
I trust in the
plasticity
of the brain.
In my personal history,
in Humans’
evolutionary history,
there has been
many blows to the head.
The brain has evolved
to reinvent itself.
When a part of the brain
has been damaged,
it is possible
for another part of the brain
to take on the damaged part’s role.
This is what I’m hopng for.
I am learnng to walk
with a cane.
Slowly,
I am feeling
more secure
on my feet.
I have reason to believe,
in this infinity
of uncertainties,
that a day will come
when
I will dance
like a Dominicano.
CHINESE BUFFET
I can walk with a cane,
I’m getting pretty good at it.
I’m still not dancing like a Dominicano.
And yet,
I’ll never stop attempting it.
Not only am I returning
to a greater,
wider
world of movement.
I’m seeing this
new world of movement
with new eyes
moving in it
with new limbs.
I am blessed.
Dynamic Uncertainty
pulled it’s punch.
I’m going to be
at Manty’s
mi reina indigena
’til the end of March.
I’m going
to finish,
publish
my next book
“The Gonzo/Kukulcan Papers,”
a collection
of short stories
of Central America.
Then I’m returning
to Santo Domingo.
Then I’m taking
a slow boat
to Puerto Rico.
I’m then flying
to New York.
I’m hoping to change
my medicare
to New York.
I’m hoping
the doctors
will figure it out.
My best guess
is long-term covid.
My second best guess
is that it’s
pinche brujeria.
I keep on being reminded
of getting covid
over a year ago,
of losing
taste and
smell.
I was feasting
at a Chinese buffet
in Ensenada.
There was a moment
of the rapture
of the Chinese buffet.
Then there was a moment
when I couldn’t
taste
or smell.
In a moment,
the world
terribly
constricted.
It took
about six weeks
for it to return.
Six week
to dwell on
how things
really suck.
And yet,
its back.
And I didn’t lose anything.
I still can enter
into the rapture
of the Chinese buffet.
