21st September 2020

My days and nights are spent in an illusory land filled with ghosts and demons, both fictional and real from past, present, and possible or probable futures. I choose to abide on the isle of Orcas which as near as can be possible places me at a perfect fulcrum of my birth, life, and demise. Born of green hills and lush valleys, strident forests and freely flowing streams, I passed through a myriad of alternative landscapes to eventually find myself resting upon the very throne of my inception.

Circuitous though my journey might have been it was ever filled with endless wonder, mystery, Magik and happenstance, both good and bad, joyful, and bleak, well received and rejected. I now stand, admittedly somewhat falteringly, upon the precipice delineating the apocalyptical end of one journey and the inception of another, as yet covert and enigmatic but assured to be fascinating.

I am of course more than thankful to accept and fully embrace any essential expressions the role so magnanimously gifted should require, inclusive of any and every angelic or sinful persuasion such mantle demands.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
    "To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
    Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
    And whether pigs have wings."
                                                       Carroll

Dodgson has a remarkable way with words, particularly nonsensical words, somehow making the staggeringly obtuse seem profound and inscrutable simultaneously. The actual persona behind the characters of Walrus and Carpenter have never been satisfactorily identified, or the purpose of the dialogue explained. General opinion seems to favor either political or religious confabulation or commentary, but of course only Carroll himself truly knows and he remains as cryptic upon the subject as a Cheshire cat.

Personally, I favor the idea that the two principals are simply exchanging absurdities, telling shaggy dog stories, gossiping as is, much as many a pair of older gentlemen might do whilst taking a stroll aside the sea whilst tasting the fruits their abounding. Neither seems particularly to listen to the other, or care for opposing views or arguments, preferring to consistently indulge their appetites for young well booted oysters, upon which count the Walrus according to Tweedledee was undoubtably the winner.

The role I presently am inclined to invest is perhaps that of Carpenter, although my abundant wittering doth more suggest the probability of Walrus, my rocky sea shore the rather more salubrious confines of a well situated coffee house, my ‘oyster’ of choice a well sweetened mocha. I am inclined to jibber jabber, quite distractedly on occasion, and listening absentmindedly with a somewhat waxed ear being a decided specialty. Like Carroll’s protagonists I have learned the pointlessness of outright contrariness, unless hysterically amusing of course, preferring a jaundiced eye hid behind shaded glass to disagreement or even mild debate. In the broader spectrum of life right or wrong are probably quite irrelevant in any but the most vital of matters, whilst affability and convivial conversation are of sublime import.