Recurring Dream
Patrick reflects on a recurring dream about a house in West Virginia and an old woman with a big book.
Tag: Scattered Notes
Xingo
I found two short pieces of Patrick’s involving Xingo. Here’s the first: The Spanish Civil War officially ended in 1939, but unofficially went on for many decades. Especially in the Basque country, dissidents fought a continuous battle of resistance. Two brothers from Bilbao became members of the feared and despised Guardia Civil, but luckily for […]
That Dog at the Corner
That dog at the corner. I always forget he is there, just about eye level, waiting to bark right into my ear, scaring the pants off me every time. Today as I started off on my walk, for once I remembered he would be there and I picked up a branch left by the crew […]
Floccillation
He does so much nit-picking he has been diagnosed with floccillation of the brain. Pat and Mike strode in step down the cobbled lanes of the hamlet. “Why does it have to be like it is?” Pat mused out loud. “Garbage on the streets. Garbage on the air waves. Garbage in outer space. Garbage in […]
Meeting Fred
Nobody said everything, or anything, for that matter, but we all tried. Fred, Zen, Robert, Milo, Barbara, Tony, Ruthven, Barry, Eivin, Alastair. Certain encounters change the course of one’s life. You might not recognize that until much later, but eventually, upon reflection, it becomes obvious. Such was that moment in the faculty room of the […]
Phil Anders
Phil Anders, now entering his eighties, often wondered whether his name had predestined him to the life he had led. Of course he was already in his late teens when he recognized the implications, but since then he had lived up to the meaning of the word philander. PatrickPatrick Meadows 1934 – 2017. patrick-meadows.com
Maybelle and Mr. Bob
I’m danged if I can remember how I met those two old drunks, Maybelle and Mr. Bob. Maybe hitching on the highway from Oak Hill to Fayetteville. It was the summer I quit school in Florida and took off for Oak Hill, homesick for my girlfriend. She was by then a mother, made pregnant by […]
Stephanie and I
Stephanie and I made a little world and we lived in it. A long goodbye. My life is in tatters. Yours has ended. So sorry. This short poem is from a collection Patrick called Scattered Notes.odt dated from 2014 to 2016. I’ll continue to add other segments as time allows. PatrickPatrick Meadows 1934 – 2017. […]
Bulent
It was inevitable, thought we didn’t know it at the time, that we should meet Bulent. Mari and I flew from Izmir to Ankara where we spent the night. Then the next day by bus to Adana. Sounds like a simple statement, but it was not so simple. The two-propeller plane took off from what […]
Sawing Trunks
Thursday I am pointlessly staring at my tea, now only a stain at the bottom of the mug. So I glance at my reflection in the glass door of the dish cupboard opposite the table where I am sitting already quite a while. Reflected is the window behind me, through which I see that the […]
The Joy Had Gone Out of Her Life
The joy had gone out of her life ten years ago already. Why pretend? Her friends tried to cheer her up, but stubbornly she held onto her empty life and empty house and empty bed. In fact she came to resent the happiness of others. Only the firmest of old acquaintances persisted, inviting her twice […]
Marvin Introduced Me
In this excerpt, set in Tampa in the early 1970s, Patrick describes how he first learned of Dr. Weightnovel, which turned into a writing project he worked on for the rest of his life, but never finished. I’ve made only minor edits, primarily fixing typos and punctuation. Caution to the reader: this story includes a […]
Mem-Mari
Create a montage of those events that most often recur in memory. Mari got a a job teaching elementary art in Centereach. We found a cottage in Lake Ronkokoma to rent. Since she was teaching under the name on her teaching certificate, we lived under that name – last name Irvin. Her sister Nancy and […]
More Thoticles
He lost belief in almost everything. You might say he had a mysterectomy. Entanglements in quantum physics (also in relationships): Once 2 systems have interacted they must from that point on be considered a single system, even if they fly apart from each other and remain widely separate. Ian Smolin, “NYRB The Other Einstein” June […]
The Fall
How time flies. And with it memory, as swift or swifter. I picked up a book, The Fall, with me over fifty years, how I couldn’t say. I thought all the books from those years were left in a barn in Peculiar Missouri. Some of those books, only a few, i would have liked to […]