Deontic Choice: Readiness Is All

Readiness Is All: Two Essays on Memory

Michael Sedano and B. Nicki De Necochea

The Fall of A Butterfly

Michael Sedano

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.  

Hamlet.

If it be now, ’tis not to come

if it be not to come, it will be now

if it be not now, yet it will come

The readiness is all

Brilliant orange wings lay outspread upon la tierra's rough brown garden detritus. It's this butterfly's habit, resting like this. Naturally, I have hundreds of fotos of orange butterflies resting. But not this one, I don't have its foto. I must go down to la tierra again, and all I ask is the butterfly not move.

The Gulf Fritillary doesn't flinch when my lens approaches. I think this is one of those serendipitous meetings producing symbiosis between butterfly and camera, a social contract: one agrees not to fly, the other agrees to share the joy of a close-up photograph. It's the ineluctable nature of garden walkabouts, butterflies come in beauty, people come in wonder. 

The butterfly's four wings show little, if any, wear, and no tear. The edges are pristine, no perforations anywhere mar the perfect orange expanse stretching between branching venas. The butterfly is dead.

I take the Gulf Fritillary into my palm, turn it toward the sun where mosaic underwings glow with the sheen of burnished silver. It's a color the camera cannot capture, the spots bear an inert, dull grey-white coloration. 

Life expired here sometime in the past few minutes, a "now". Now, no immortal hand nor eye can recapture flight nor fluttering wings. 

Ants will find the butterfly's remains in the branches of the casí-flowerless Buddleia bush where I dropped the empty shell. A dearth of flowers could mean this Fritillary starved to death. Any number of somethings could have brought the butterfly to earth. To my eyes, it's dead before its time. I call this less Providence than more nature's deontic logic, yet it will come.

It came in 2023 to my house. The year began in a special providence, I knew this would be our "now". All we had was Time. I lacked Hope and didn't need Hope. After February, it was not to be. I'm glad we're almost done with these four numbers, 2023. 2024, it will come.

Memory: written in 2019 when De Necochea was living with Alzheimer's Dementia

MY MOTHER'S HAND

By B. Nicki De Necochea

As I was writing my Christmas cards this year, I was also appreciating that I do love the “old school” ways of communicating from brain, to hand, to pen to paper.   My handwriting is changing, not so perfect as in the old days, but nonetheless it’s mine, and like my personality, laugh, and smile - and even my fingerprints, unique.  I also now do my mother’s cards to the remaining friends on her list.  She is 91 this year, so the list of her friends is getting shorter.   This brought to mind a reflection on my mother’s once gorgeous handwriting.   

She can no longer even sign her own name, and likely cannot tell you what her name is if asked on a day she can’t recall it.  However, my personal archives of her writing are now so representative of who she was, and no longer can be, in a verbal sense.   Her penmanship was elegant, and her messages deep and meaningful, her heart and her hand immediately recognizable.   When I now run across a handwritten recipe  or note, I  know it was hers even if not signed, because her writing had its own personal identifiable strokes, and pace, beauty and grace.   

It’s as if I’m looking into her face, when I come across her writings on notes, cards, her old address books, and handwritten lists.   It’s so thought-provoking that no one has identical penmanship, even given that the manner in which we were taught longhand likely had all the similar steps, and instruction and basis for connecting the letters of the alphabet in a harmonious twist of the hand, grasping the pen or pencil and gliding the words across a page. And like artists painting the same landscape, the outcome will be unique to the artist or the writer.  

Yes, we could all write the same words, sentence or paragraph and the words would have their own personalized  look and feel, as our brain’s recall makes connection from head to heart to hand ----the loops and dips, curls and feeling of thought laid down as  a beautiful form of communication.   To me, her lovely and thoughtful wisdom, once imparted on the special Christmas cards and birthday notes, in which she conveyed her love, and sage wisdom are like the works of art of known masters, no longer with us but no less appreciated.  Her ability to write has long since left her, as those parts of her brain have stiffened or dissolved along with the needed cognition, now just another one of her lost arts.  I’d give anything to get one last card filled with her wisdom, heartfelt desires for me, or wise conveyances.   

So, let’s not take for granted our ability to write with love, to share a note that expresses who we are in longhand.  I say, write for those who will outlive us, to share exactly what we are thinking and feeling in the moment.  Let’s all leave behind some semblance of who we once were, as indelible and retrievable.  May my great grandchildren who I will likely never know be able to hold my words, executed in my own hand, in theirs.    I do my share of contemplating how short life is, and thinking about how I will be remembered.   And, it’s OK if people remember how I was so “old school”, handwriting my Christmas cards, long after it was “the” thing to do.   Instagram, email, texts and Facebook all have their place in this new quicker is better electronic age.      

Handwriting is an art form, but also a heart form.   I’m curious if my sons have or will save any of my writings like I saved my mother’s …to appreciate them in the future in which I will not be.   Daughters perhaps might be more likely.  If you are of the era of handwriting and penmanship, continue your long-handedness.  Put your thoughts to paper without the need for any technology other than your own hand, and brain power, pen and ink.   There’s a beauty in it I can’t describe, but can only appreciate.   

So thank you to my lovely mother, for taking the time to pick the card, write the letter or note to be re-read and appreciated as well as coveted so many years later.  And, even more appreciated now that she can no longer pen her own messages.   I cherish her written words but also her “hand”, and the lovely penmanship from an era where penmanship mattered.   

I encourage you to write to your loved ones, little notes, cards, messages.    And not just the mothers. Dads, consider taking the time to feel the feelings, share the thoughts, and leave the legacy in your own handwritten expressions for your children, and grands.  What I wouldn’t do to have a handwritten note of my father’s.   

Love, peace and everything else!  

B. Nicki De Necochea is a So Cal artist, residing in San Diego who embraces her art and writing as a form of creative self-expression.   She is a painter in oils, acrylic and mixed media.   Her writing addresses personal themes and experiences as another vehicle for using art for growth, human awareness, and for her own self-discovery.