March 6, 2024

The first nine years of my life were spent growing up in a mobile home adjacent to a horse and cattle pasture. Two sides of the back yard were lined with electric fence. Grandma and Grandpa Country lived to the east of our little lot and our front yard faced the south. In the lot to the southwest diagonal, Dad built the two-story colonial home I spent the rest of my childhood in.

The mobile home was made by Great Lakes and I believe it was a 1959 model. The trailer was 10×50, with a very small bedroom in the middle of the unit and the “master” bedroom (that could barely hold a double bed) at the end opposite the kitchen, which was on the east end of the trailer.

I can vividly remember my dad, grandfather, and uncle building the 8×40 addition on the side facing south, which included a new “master” bedroom, a living room, and a laundry room just wide enough for the dryer. The washer continued to live in the bathroom. The old living room windows allowed us to look into the new living room. Mom kept the curtains in place.

Just out of curiosity I did a search and found a promotional photo taken in a 1960 model of a Great Lakes mobile home, and it’s the exact layout I remember from our trailer. In the back of the photo is a wall next to the small hallway; I believe we had a mirror on that wall.

Our stove and refrigerator were both a turquoise blue, with a small broom closet just to the right of the gas stove, and then the Hotpoint refrigerator. The broom closet had a can opener mounted inside. The stove was one that had a pilot light; no “click click” ignition system when you turned it on. In the photo above, the original main entry door is behind the young, handsome man; when dad built the addition that door led down two steps into the new living room. There were notches in the molding around the door noting the growth of my sister and me.

It’s funny that I can remember growing up in that mobile home like it was yesterday, and the sound of rain on the metal roof, the noise of snowstorms coming in off Lake Ontario in the winter and the amazing thunderstorms in the summer.

If you’ve been following along with my blog entries this week, you may have noticed that I have been in a bit of a reflective or pensive mood. There’s a couple of reasons for this. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the midst of yet another mid-life crisis but then I realize in this day and age I don’t know what defines mid-life anymore. Is it mid 50s? Is it 50? 60? I really don’t know. But then I get lost in trying to figure out the mathematics when it comes to mid-life and I forget that I was trying to figure out if this is a mid-life crisis or not.

I’ve been reading more Stoic philosophical readings than usual. The theme is a continuation of my list of goals for 2024. I am really feeling drawn to reading again, and by reading I mean real books made of covers and pages and the like. I’ve restarted Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations, The Annotated Edition”, as translated, introduced, and edited by Robin Waterfield. When we lived in Chicago I read the “Enchiridion of Epictetus” and found it fascinating and it resonated well. “Meditations” continues this theme.

Every morning I’ve been pulling a quote from a Stoic quote generator and pasting it into my journal. It gives me something to think about. Today’s quote:

I will reveal to you a love potion, without medicine, without herbs, without any witch’s magic; if you want to be loved, then love

Hecato of Rhodes

It really is simple, isn’t it. If you want to be loved, then love. That’s it. In this day and age life seems way too complicated. These studies are helping me bring calm to the chaos.

I’ve kept a journal for over a decade. This particular journal is a personal one with no intention of sharing. While I’m pretty real and open in this blog, there are things that I still keep to myself. The personal journal has been maintained in the Day One app for almost its entire life. I’m not 100% satisfied with it, because I believe there is a certain je ne sais quoi achieved with the handwritten word. I’m thinking of writing some journal entries by hand using pen and paper and then filing them away and/or scanning them into Day One. I’ve also done some handwritten entries on my iPad using an Apple Pencil. For me to write unencumbered I must have as little friction as possible. Day One allows me to use the provided apps or a web interface if I don’t have an app on a particular computer, like my Linux laptop.

But honestly, the mechanics of my journaling are secondary to actually journaling. It needs to be freeform, flowing, and honest.

And now that I think of it, my blog entries are often the same way.

I know that since I’ve been amping up my reading and focusing on philosophies, my mood has been a bit better and I’ve felt more comfortable with being just me.