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In my previous post, Your Blog Here, I opened up the e-floor to questions from my limited audience. Though I was not inundated with queries, Friend Anthony, with the generous curiosity of three normal friends, responded to my solicitation with the three following questions:
How do you want to be remembered?
My morbid fascination with death as the ultimate conclusion of my interest in this world precludes me from considering how, or if, I will be eulogized, but perhaps I can address the spirit of your question in this way:
I am a jerk. Here’s my brush, here’s my paint, and here’s my corner. Jerk. If there’s something not to be said or done, you can depend on me to say or do it. We all have our roles to fulfill. You’re good-looking, Julie’s sweet, Randy’s gay, and I’m a jerk. Social ecosystem in balance.
But do any of us want to be remembered, or thought of now, in such simple terms? Of course not. We’re all constantly planting the seeds of ourselves in our friends, and so thanks to my careful tending, you already have a little York garden growing inside you, and there you’ll find the answer to your question.
Would I lend you my car? Would I keep a secret for you? Will I be there when you’re in need? My hope is that, jerk though I am, you’ll remember me (and better yet, think of me presently) as a friend you can rely upon.
When are you and Julie having a baby so it can grow up and lead our troubled world to happier times?
Funston blood will never lead us to better days, unless it’s in the spilling.
That said, my feelings on having children almost perfectly mirror my feelings on owning a dog.
I would never own a dog, nor raise a child, while living in an apartment. They both need big yards and quiet streets to run around and play in.
I would never consider either while living in Los Angeles. I believe that the romance of life, found in rugged coasts, pine forests, fall leaves, main streets, town squares, and jack-o-lanterns, and nowhere in Los Angeles, is essential to the happiness of both dogs and children.
I won’t consider either until I know I am ready to devote myself to them. Right now I want to ride camels in China, kayak in Kamchatka, and hike the Pacific Crest Trail. There’ll be no more of those adventures when another living creature depends upon me. I am definitely not ready to make that sacrifice.
And while I’d like a pure-bred Golden Retriever puppy, and I’d want to father my own child, there are so many older dogs forgotten in pounds, and so very many orphaned children in this world without love, that to follow my own desires strikes me now as terribly selfish and unaware.
There’s really only one difference I can see between owning a dog and having a child. That is, I want a dog.
Do you have a spirit animal?
Did you run out of real questions?
Two days ago, I was attending a clinic on conditioning for backpacking. The woman instructing us said that whenever she went backcountry camping, she dreamt wonderful dreams about mountain lions.
She interpreted this to mean that the mountain lion was her spirit animal, and so she knew she would never be attacked by one.
To this my reply is, simply, Grizzly Man.
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