Words That Can Haunt Me: Opulence

opulence: wealth, riches, or affluence. 

Until looking up opulence in the dictionary, my brain had always associated the word with something far beyond what the average person - like me - might call wealth. In my head, opulence conjured mind-boggling riches, not just affluence.  

Such was my frame of mind back in March at the Royal Palace of Madrid. As our guide walked us through just a few of the 3,418 rooms, I flashed back to a tour I'd taken many years ago of the stables at Buckingham Palace. For me, these places of opulence can be awe-inspiring and distancing in nearly equal measure. On both occasions, I had to consciously remind myself that I was fortunate being able to visit and learn a little history. That conscious reminder was the counterpoint to the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach during both experiences. Where has your mind wandered when you've been exposed to this kind of unimaginable luxury?   

In the months since that tour of the Royal Palace, I've been reflecting on the discomfort in my gut and what it says about me. Is part of it perhaps connected to a wondering about how a life of staggering opulence might have shaped me? Would I have ever realized I'd been born on third base or would I have just reflexively assumed I'd hit a triple? Back to the Buckingham Palace stables for a moment. Was it churlish of me to wonder how anyone - monarch or otherwise - can think it's OK to have a stable for one horse that is both larger and more lavishly outfitted than the average home for six on London's east side? 

But wonder I did all those years ago. And so went my mind - and my stomach - back in March at the Royal Palace. I suppose that's a partial explanation why the word opulence can haunt me, despite my own relative affluence. I suspect at least a few folks reading this might be groaning at my existential angst by now. For those folks - and others inclined to be awestruck by manmade wonders (vs. this privileged blogger's overthinking) - directly below is the Wikipedia link for the Royal Palace. Enjoy.  

Royal Palace of Madrid - Wikipedia

Words for the Ages, Line Forty-One

"It's strange, what desire will make foolish people do." 

Can I hear an "Amen"?  Despite its simplicity, that terse phrase from Chris Isaak's Wicked Game (1989) captures a universal truth. And it stands on its own; no rhyming couplet is required. These are words for the ages, no matter how straightforward.

In fact, I would argue Isaak could have easily left out the word "foolish". Certainly, the things that desire drive us to do can be foolish. And the consequences of those things often make us look foolish indeed. But wouldn't you agree that even reasonable people do foolish things under desire's influence? How many people have you known who've had their life upended by desire? For just a minute, put aside the things those people did. What percentage of those people would you have described as foolish before their desire took over?

Perhaps Isaak's timeless lyric is directing us to chicken and egg land. That is, was the person who succumbed already foolish enough that desire was more easily able to do its work? Or was the desire a force so intense that even a reasonable person would succumb?

A Not-So-Simple Story of Simple Assault

Fifteen years ago today, I was arrested for the first - and I trust the last - time in my life. It was not the first time in my life I'd ever broken the law, the subject of perhaps another visit to the bell curve confessional booth in the future. But it was the first time I'd ever been caught. The charge? Simple assault. The story? Not as simple. 

My wife, our niece, and our niece's friend were sitting at the bagel shop located a block from our home, a place we'd patronized regularly since moving to our current home about eighteen months before. A man who we later learned was known to the local police approached the three of them and quietly but menacingly scolded the friend to "...get your filthy feet off the chair..." My wife was so astounded by this man's temerity and the racial animus she detected when he spoke to our niece's friend that all she could think to do was ask "What did you just say?" When he repeated himself with equal venom in his voice - but still so quietly that only the three of them could hear - my wife threw the little bit of coffee remaining in her cup at him. He said, "That's assault, I'm going to have you arrested!". She replied, "Go ahead and try!" then stormed out of the shop with our niece and her friend close behind.

Here's where hot-headed Pat takes the stage. I pull into the bagel shop parking lot and am not yet even in a space when I see my obviously frightened wife hurrying toward the sidewalk, our niece and friend on her heels, the sneaky coward right behind the three of them. My car still idling, I have barely a second to ask "What's going on?" before my wife has time through her fear and anger to say something to me like "That man just said something ugly and racial ..." I quickly reverted to a primal state. All I could think to say before shoving this bully to the ground was "How dare you!" or something equally innocuous. Would I have done the same had I known there were police officers sitting in the bagel shop witnessing my impulsive spectacle? Can't say for sure. But I do know a few things that happened next even if some details are fuzzy and it still remains unclear exactly when I realized that both my wife and I were being arrested.

Step one: Thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Read my rights? Don't recall. Step two: Taken in a squad car to the station. My wife was allowed to drive herself and be booked. Later: Fingerprinted and told the charges. Lots of unexposed film for much of the rest of this story. However, I'd been at this blogging thing for about six months when this all went down. Consequently, I do have one piece of irrefutable evidence about my state of mind the next day.  

As the first cryptic post below will show, on August 16, 2011, I was sure I was out of the blogging business. Given the disaster scenarios that had played out in my head over the previous twenty-four hours - following what I now call the $4,000 bagel fiasco - on August 16, continuing to blog seemed like a preposterously silly and frivolous pursuit. Obviously, my retirement from blogging ended up being as short-lived as the ones threatened many times by Ol' Blue Eyes, as the second post below (from September 1) will also show. Although it took me fifteen years to be ready to fully confess here that foolish act on August 15, I'm still uncertain what Pat - circa 2011 - thought he would prove pushing that cretin to the ground.

Reflections from the Bell Curve: That's All, Folks!

Reflections from the Bell Curve: He's Baaaack

Celebrate With Us

Early today, while preparing for tonight's discussion, I was temporarily sidetracked thinking about the celebration planned to mark the 100th book my club has read since our maiden voyage in January 2017. Tonight's book - #99 - was Tar Baby (1981) by Toni Morrison. As usual, it was a stimulating, enriching discussion. Book #100 - A Marriage at Sea (2024) by Sophie Elmhurst - will be discussed at our September meeting. Then, that celebration. 

Since realizing months ago that this milestone was approaching, I've been vibrating with excitement, thinking of ways to try to make the event memorable. But even if my planning goes awry, how bad can it be to commune for an evening with other bookworms about our shared adoration of literature? Five of the people who will be at the celebration - including my partner of 48+ years - have been in the club from its inception. (That book - in case you're keeping track - was Founding Brothers (2000) by Joseph Ellis.) The rest of the folks who may attend the event? Mostly hardcore bibliophiles. How cool will this be? 

Though I haven't kept close track (honest!) for the nine + years the club has overlapped with my blog, I'd estimate I've published at least twenty-five posts about books the club has either read or is about to read. After all, I only publish about books that have moved me, the same criteria used for putting a book in the queue for the club. Most recently? The two posts directly below highlight the selections for September & December. If reading these posts whets your appetite enough to read either or both of these winners - or even if you're just thinking about reading one or both - consider yourself an ex-officio member of the club. And celebrate with us from wherever you are.  

Reflections from the Bell Curve: Being Truly Tested

Reflections from the Bell Curve: The Bee Sting

My Rogue Scholar Tribe (Redux)

I didn't fully appreciate how much my fourteen Rogue Scholar travelling companions had brought to my life until early today as my wife and I finished a Shutterfly project commemorating our adventures together. Though mentioned on this blog several times since we all met in Alaska in 2015, considering the riches this community has bestowed on me, I cannot overdo the tributes paid to them here.

Soon after our 2024 reunion in Rocky Mountain National Park, the group decided a celebration of our years together was in order. Two of us worked on crafting several questions for everyone to respond to in writing. The responses were then compiled into a final document and distributed to all. (Sample question: How did our time together add value to your life?) It was in the re-reading of the responses to those questions - and deciding which select few to include as text in the Shutterfly project - that my appreciation for my soulmates grew even deeper. One celebration response included a mention of every person in the group - by name - and how that person had enriched the author during our years together. The time put into that one response alone reminded me - again - of how grateful I am to have made these Act Three friendships. As another person said in a different celebratory response - What a gift!

How do you celebrate the people in your life who have given gifts comparable to those my Rogue Scholar tribe has given me?

A Private Life

Although I didn't thoroughly scour my archives to be 100% certain, I'm reasonably sure the time between my last post about a movie and today is the longest gap of its kind since I began reflecting from the bell curve fifteen + years ago. My recent ten+ weeks of movie silence here is not connected to the number of films I've sat through since late May when a re-watch of Fargo inspired a post. But not a single film since then spoke to this unrepentant movie geek like A Private Life did. Cinephiles: Put this one in your queue. 

Aside from Jodie Foster's predictably excellent performance - speaking in French throughout - what sets this 2025 movie apart from some of mediocre fare I've endured these last few months is its incisive script. As the film opens, Foster is experiencing personal challenges as well as setbacks in her professional life as a slightly aloof psychiatrist. The director and screenwriters then imbue that straightforward premise with astute insights about the stories we often create in an attempt to make sense of the things that happen to us. 

"Irony can be an effective way to avoid dealing with fear." I'm accustomed to capturing sharp phrases in my journal while reading. But I cannot readily recall the last time a line of movie dialogue that did not come from a book hit me with as much force as the one directly above. I felt compelled to write it down, much like when I'm reading. When did a line of movie dialogue recently do the same for you? 

I recommend A Private Life without reservation.

p.s. How refreshing it is to see a sixty-three-year-old movie star who looks sixty-three. On a parallel plane, not long ago I read a NY Times article about Jodie Foster. In that article, I recall her comment that having a personal assistant struck her as "... like having someone else living your everyday life ..." or words to that effect. Is it possible she is carefully curating a down-to-earth public persona? The cynic in me would be inclined to believe that but those lines in her face tell a different story.

Native American Day

Cinco de Mayo, Christmas, Columbus Day, Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Day, St. Patrick's Day, Veteran's Day, Yom Kippur. How is it that a day acknowledging the native people of this land of ours - with or without closing schools and the post office - has yet to enter the public conversation in any meaningful fashion? In my view, having to share a day with Columbus - although well meaning - is not adequate in redressing the egregious way native people have been treated here in "America". 

I'm as clueless about this long-running oversight as anyone. After all, on every August 1 since 2012 I've used my tiny spot in the blogosphere to promote the idea of celebrating something on this date to mark the otherwise barren month of August. But until earlier today the idea of a Native American Day did not occur to me.    

Reflections from the Bell Curve: Still Closing the Gap

In my meager defense, I can only offer the gaps in my education. And though I've tried to surmount some of those gaps in recent years - the subject of the 2023 post above - doing so will remain a work in progress for all the time left to me. 

I've had fun dreaming up ideas for a national holiday on this date for fifteen years. National Book Day, National Gratitude Day, and last year's National Technology Turnoff Day are a few of my whimsical favorites from earlier iterations. Today's notion to mark August 1 as Native American Day is more earnest. I know I'm not alone in thinking an acknowledgment of this kind is long overdue. Join me.

A Pledge to Respond in Kind

Thinking back on your life, what have you accomplished that continues to give you significant satisfaction? For the purposes of today's thought experiment, I'm requesting parents put aside - just this time - the most obvious answer, i.e., your children. What might be the next thing that comes most readily to mind?

Although the years spent teaching guitar to my youngest nephew is not the next thing that comes most readily to my mind, the sense of accomplishment I get listening to him play is up there. I suspect the fact that he's getting married this coming weekend contributed to this Act Three-ish reflection popping up recently. I mean, it's difficult imagining someone still in Act Two - that is, someone not likely to have a twenty-something youngest nephew - spending much time on a thought experiment like this. After all, while in Act Two, most of us on the bell curve are still working at the big stuff, aren't we? But when we're in Act Three - or like me, quite a bit along into Act Three and watching the youngest members of our extended families starting adult life - isn't it predictive for us to be looking back at accomplishments, at least occasionally? 

So, when this reflection first began percolating weeks ago, the first thing I did was capture in my journal several things that came to mind, including that time spent teaching guitar to my nephew. Next, I did what I almost always do. I asked my ideal reader and partner of forty-eight + years to respond to today's thought experiment. Though unsurprised that her instinctive response was our daughter, I asked her to dig deeper, just as I'm asking you to do. Her "secondary" answers gratified her and reminded me of significant pieces of her legacy. I'm guessing the same could be true for some of you. I hope a few of you will share something here. To anyone who does, I pledge to respond by sharing a different accomplishment of mine, another from that same journal entry, the petri dish for this post.