As If

My mother is back in her home with power and air conditioning.  She was done it by it all, but I am hoping she feels better today.  Myself as well.  I spent most of the day getting things taken care of for her then came home, ate a very late lunch snack, and fell asleep.  I didn't wake up until five.  I wanted to stay in bed, but of course it would not have been wise.  A soak, a shower, and then a Campari on the deck.  I called my mother.  She still had not, as she put it, "settled down."  

"Yup, that was a lot of stress and worry, but we were certainly lucky."

Of course, she agreed.  All around us, people were still without power.  A bit further on, people had lost their homes.  

Still, other people's suffering does not simply dissipate your own.  We all live in a world of frustration and worry beyond our meager control.  That alone merits anxiety.  

However, as someone said, we must live "as if. . . ."  I think it was George Berkeley, the Irish philosopher.  He might have been drunk when he said it, I don't know.  I'm not even sure I recall correctly, but I think that was in reply to someone who challenged his idea that reality was a construct of the mind.  He was asked then why he wouldn't step out in front of a speeding carriage.  "One must live 'as if'" I think was his reply.  

In other words. . . .  No, I think I lost myself somewhere in there.  But what is an essayists job but to reveal the inner turmoil of an often confused mind?  

"To instruct and delight,"said Horace.  

But I don't have it in me today to do either.  I've tried for an hour and have deleted everything.  Wisdom and levity are not my strengths today. 

Hell. . . I don't even want to tell you what I think.  And so. . . . I will go out into the aftermath and try to live. . . "as if."  

I dated a girl long ago who used to say that.  I don't think she meant it the same way Berkeley did.