Skip to main content

The Elixir

What happens when the promised elixir (*) that has been touted for centuries as guaranteed to promote health, heal the wounds, cure disease, alleviate pain and prevent the noxious viruses from returning does not deliver on the hoped-for happy outcome? What is left for us to conclude when we observe the sick and infirm, the injured, the newly infected, bedridden souls, walking wounded,    still vulnerable to the onslaught of malignant microbes? Has the original situation fundamentally changed? Do we delude ourselves by claiming progress? Are we to say, behold the amazing power of the elixir that only here and there, haphazardly and unpredictably works its magic? Because many have closed themselves off from the healing effects and thereby prove unworthy of a cure? Is that it? On the basis of such glaring evidence,  could one not reasonably begin to question the purpose of the elixir itself? And if the elixir has not been working out as advertised, have we in fact misunderstood it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Estabrook

  On a well-traveled corridor of the East coast - where tourists drive northward every summer on a sleepy (and sometimes dated) old thoroughfare that meanders (roughly speaking) with the shoreline - there lies a coastal village renowned for its posh homes and proud inhabitants - and at the center of this village which boasts of a main street, a historic library and a stately boat landing, a garden shop can be found nestled among costly domiciles - just a stone's throw from the private academy and the gourmet ice cream shop. Set upon five acres of serene commercial flatland - the property houses multiple plants and trees and flowers - providing an oasis of greenery for anyone conjuring up daydreams of bucolic bliss. Set apart from the store - a no-frills wooden edifice - were greenhouses,  rows of plants and flowers, larger trees in back and an old modest mansion of a house - still occupied by the family, Estabrook, which had owned the place going back three (3) generations. Th...

Edgewood, 1973

We had made our way down busy Palm Avenue towards the crosswalk. after zigzagging the usual route from busy Bandini Avenue to Tower Road to Rosewood Place. Bret was our wild-man companion - a fifth-grader with a take-no-prisoners approach to life. The local crosswalk, that most mundane of enterprises was soon to become the scene of spontaneous absurdist theater when suddenly out of nowhere came the random yelp: Hey...Hey...What do you want with us lady? -  What do I want with you? said the most predictably normal gray-haired woman by whose ever so brief guidance we measured our daily jaunt to school.  Yeah - where are you taking us? -  There's only one way kid - It's this way... -  You're not really a crossing guard are you? came the cheeky interrogative.  The slightly bemused, limping, beleaguered  woman was dwarfed by her bright yellow uniform as she held up her STOP sign - showing Brett. The other smaller kids walked by us single file in the middle of th...

The "Endless Summer" Feeling a.k.a. "Time Stop Mechanism"

Growing up out west - we had what was known as the "endless summer" feeling - a moment in the summer when - not Time per se - but hectic, anxious, nerve-wracking time would come to a standstill. Change would still happen of course, things would continue moving, interacting, but at a slower, more predictable pace...the rhythms of summer would take over with sunny days giving way to balmy nights...a certain degree of repetition would lend structure to this seeming "pause" in the action...Clouds still move across the sky, waves still crash against the shore, traffic on the roads, people walking, biking, swimming - but all in a self-contained world over which one had some semblance of control..Long days at the beach, lying in the sun or playing tennis at the community college, watching the heat rise on the pavement, shooting baskets on the outdoor courts, sitting poolside at a neighbor's house, sitting on the lawn at dusk, staying outside on summer nights with no wi...