{"id":11157,"date":"2026-09-11T20:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T04:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/?p=11157"},"modified":"2026-09-12T08:13:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:13:22","slug":"imagine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/archives\/11157","title":{"rendered":"Imagine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where was I? On a mattress on a cold floor in a drafty downtown Anchorage apartment. My household goods had not yet arrived in Alaska. I&#8217;d left Santa Fe, NM about two weeks earlier, drove to Denver with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/archives\/736\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/archives\/736\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rufus<\/a>, put him on a plane to Anchorage, and from there I continued driving the old Mercedes 300D to Seattle, where I put the car on a ferry and then flew to Anchorage. About two weeks later I&#8217;m awake on that shitty mattress, probably rubbing sleep dirt from my eyes, trying to make out what the girlfriend standing in the doorway was saying: &#8230;<em>attacked<\/em>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like most every other American alive on that day, 9\/11 was transformative. But for me, personally, the good fortune of meeting HW at a wine tasting some eight weeks later was truly life changing. The change would come slowly, way too slowly, and I nearly screwed it up. I should have trusted my instincts then. Had I done so, the worldwide happiness quotient would haven risen by two whole points, years earlier than it did, when, eventually, we became inseparable<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Death and destruction, love and joy, both are out there, immutable features of life on earth. Maybe there&#8217;s some place out there where we might experience less death and destruction? None at all sure would be nice. If I were the supernatural thing that had created everything, I would have made love and joy the constitutive experience of all life. With no propitiation or belief in me required. And I like to think I would&#8217;ve had the good grace to say just one thing to my creation: You&#8217;re Welcome<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where was I? On a mattress on a cold floor in a drafty downtown Anchorage apartment. My household goods had not yet arrived in Alaska. I&#8217;d left Santa Fe, NM about two weeks earlier, drove to Denver with Rufus, put him on a plane to Anchorage, and from there I continued driving the old Mercedes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11157"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11161,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11157\/revisions\/11161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}