20190606.0430

I have posted on 6 June in six of the nine previous years: 2010 and 2014-2018. In all save the last two, I've commented on the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, of which this year is the seventy-fifth. It is the diamond anniversary of an event more marked by steel and lead than any precious stone, and few are left to celebrate who were united then. It's not something to which I think I ought to speak all that much at this point. Honestly, what more can I add to such a conversation, when I have not worked to make myself an expert in it? I know that does not stop many from opining at length, and I am probably among those people, but I will at least not compound the error this time.
In all save the last year, as well (again with the poem-in-sequence), I have noted that the day is my parents' anniversary; they've been married thirty-eight years today. I'm not sure what I can add to that, either, except to say again that I am glad they are and have remained married, and that I love them. But I think they have known it for some time, even if I do not think they weary of hearing it.
The commemorations may not offer much to reflect upon as I sit and write now, but some of the attending comments might. My 2016 post on the day, for example, gives me something to consider as I look back. Aside from a usage error that galls me as I read it (so much so that I've gone back and adjusted it), I find myself somewhat annoyed by the tone I hear in the piece (or perhaps an under- or overtone that sounds in my ear because I remember its composition). Not having steady work was not good for me, I think; the writing reads as having whining notes in it, as well as fundamentals in dark tones, indeed. And why should it not? I was beaten, leaving Oklahoma in defeat, and there are ways in which I've still not recovered from it.
I am not sure I ever will.
This is not to say that things are not better now than they were. I have steady work now, and decently fulfilling. More importantly, I am able to have a good life outside of work; I am not a creature of my professions only, as I had tried (foolishly) to be, or even mostly, as I often was. Instead, I have a life outside my work, and one that is of greater comfort to me than any work I have done. And I can still work on The Work--I am, in fact, getting more of that kind of thing done now than I did when I was making a go of making it in academe, which is a strange thing but not unenjoyable.
Even so, there lingers at the back of my mind a niggling voice that reminds me that I have been beaten. It calls out a cadence to which I still play, and I am not sure how to break away from that rhythm.