Holiday
Greetings, 2003,
from
Laurel and Brian Hines
As Brian sets out to write
this year’s “Christmas” letter (which we generally prefer to
call “Holiday Greetings,” since this allows us to
procrastinate and send it out anytime before New Year’s Eve)
he feels some special pressure. For he recently began to ramp
up his website (appropriately named www.brianhines.com) in anticipation
of the long-hoped-for publication of his book about the Greek
mystic philosopher Plotinus— Return to the One:
Plotinus’ Guide to
God-Realization.
Since, so far, all of his books
are either (1) out-of-print, (2) not-yet-printed, or (3)
printed non-commercially, he needed to dredge up some
immediate content for the web site.
And this turned out to be…The Collected Christmas Letters of Brian
Hines—which now can be perused by the wired world at
large (more accurately, world at miniscule, judging by the
pathetic daily upticks on the site’s page counter, most of
which are being self-referentially produced by Brian himself
as he checks the home page daily to see if, by some miracle,
or the grace of Google, his Christmas letter oeuvre has hit
the big time, or even the little time).
So here we are, with this 2003
letter set to join the Collected Christmas Letters archive,
and Brian needing to burnish his credentials as a
philosophical writer. Let him begin, then, by
considering the deeper
meaning of a casual remark
Laurel made
yesterday morning just after she woke up:
It’s Monday, and time to change the
sheets, but it seems like I just did this
yesterday.
Oh, yes. How true. Weeks have
become shorter by at least half. By the same token, these
Holiday Greetings seemingly were last sent out a few months
ago. In the life each of us experiences, time is speeding up.
And this is happening in precise conjunction with our having
less and less time to live. Hey, what gives?
We don’t know, which is a fine
philosophical position, knowing that you don’t know. If it was
good enough for Socrates, heck, that’s good enough for us. But
some guesses can be hazarded. Stoicism, the marvelous
philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, posits that everything that
happens in the universe is recycled, over and over. That is,
in the endless span of time that is eternity, the same events
end up repeating themselves. Just like doing laundry. And
writing Christmas letters.
Maybe, then, life seems to be
speeding up because, as we age, we’re more aware that this
merry-go-round of earthly existence often appears to possess
much more circular motion than forward (or upward) progress.
Revisiting our past Holiday messages, as they were posted to
Brian’s web site, he couldn’t help but be struck by how this
year’s themes were also themes of years gone by.
Fighting lot partitioning.
Laurel is still
battling to prevent more houses being built in our semi-rural
neighborhood than the environment, and aquifers, can handle.
In round 1 of our appeal of the Nielsen partitioning request,
we won. Then, after an appeal to the
Marion
County
commissioners, we lost. Now we’re waiting to hear the outcome
of round 3, which resulted from our successful attempt to have
the state Land Use Board of Appeals remand the case back to
Marion
County. Win or lose
in the end, we’ve learned what “remand” means, in addition to
“recharge rate” and “water balance calculation.”
Laurel has become
well known (we could even say, notorious) at the Marion County
Planning Dept. due to her activism aimed at improving rural
land use and groundwater ordinances.
Getting a book published. OK,
Unlimited Publishing isn’t Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, or
even Random House, but it beats iUniverse, that’s for sure
(see my “coming soon” mention at www.unlimitedpublishing.com/authors.htm).
Faced with the cold, hard, brutal facts of the book publishing
business (which goes a long way toward explaining why writers
become alcoholics or drug addicts, an option that held
increasing appeal for Brian as rejection letters continued to
come in, except he doesn’t drink, and has no idea where to get
drugs), a co-publishing arrangement with a selective publisher
came to make the most sense. That is, after being accepted,
you pay your thousand bucks, and you get your books—in this
case, in a print-on-demand fashion, which saves trees, and
additions to the remainder bin. He’s formed his own company,
Adrasteia Publishing, hoping to enlist the aid of one of Zeus’
daughters (“adrasteia” also means inescapable in Greek, which
he hopes his new book will be).
Staying lively at, um, over forty.
Laurel still
has some problems with the foot she broke several years ago,
and her back isn’t, well, back to what it used to be, but she
sure enjoys balling for a long time almost every day in weird
positions! The reality isn’t as erotic as it sounds, since
Laurel’s intimate encounters are, sadly, not with her husband,
but with a large inflated ball on which, and with which, she
does some pretty amazing Pilates exercises. Laurel also takes
long walks daily, light rain or heavy rain (this is
Oregon,
remember) worshipping, like Thoreau, in the
Church of
Nature. Our
remaining neighborhood coyotes often treat her to enjoyable
serenades when a distant train goes by, or a plane flies
overhead. She has encountered several coyotes on her walks.
They may well sense that she is the Great Coyote Mother,
working to save them from the patriarchal attitude that mankind is entitled to
dominate nature, and shoot wild canine creatures for no real
reason.
Green without the green stuff.
Brian continued to experience the joys and sorrows of the
Hines’ investment in Sustainable Fairview Associates, the
group working to develop a 275 acre
Salem property
into a model sustainable, or Green, development. Unsatisfied,
along with others, about the way the development was
occurring, he leapt into the business world as Communications
Director for Eco-Enterprises, Inc.—an impressive title that,
unfortunately, was not accompanied by a similarly impressive
(or, indeed, any) monetary return. But Brian had a great time
working with Russ and Delana Beaton, and the other folks who
appear on the days-appear-to-be-numbered
EEI web site (www.eco-enterprises.com,
which Brian wrote the content for). Numbered, because it looks
like Eco-Enterprises, Inc. is going the way of so many other
cutting-edge concepts: unfunded.
Well, we should end, as we
began, on a philosophical note. Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics
considered that there is only
one important thing to do in life: live honestly and well in
the present moment. Nobody can control what happens to them,
or to the world. To a Stoic, that’s in the hands of destiny,
or Universal Reason. However, at every instant we can choose to make the
best choice open to us, and be thankful for whatever life
brings. We are indeed so thankful, and you, the recipient of
these greetings, are a big part of our thankfulness. May we
come closer in 2004, and, together, enjoy the moments that are
flying by so fast.
Oops, got to go. I think
it’s time to help
Laurel change the
sheets.
Warm greetings, Laurel and
Brian
