Platyoceandanthes amabilisum (Streams of Consciousness in a Sea of Being): Or In a Constant State of Flux, and yet Unmoving

By G.E.B.S. GEBShelton

The author utilizes metaphor, simile and the occasional reference to make one ponder and self-reflect. Through the use of streams of conscious, he encourages self-hypnosis or creative visualization that allows us to imagine our capabilities or to see our possibilities before making changes in our lives. Stressing the importance of remaining child-like when appropriate, allowing whimsey and daydreaming to stay an active exercise in our lives, the author stresses the importance of seeing what we are looking at, like a visual artist, but with word usage. A repeated theme places us on a cruise ship, staring out to where the sea meets the sky. By allowing ourselves to look outside of ourselves, we try to find meaning in our lives. Another repeated theme is that of defining or characterizing entities in ways to establish order and place expectations so that we conform or behave in ways as others would expect us to perform or behave. The author would encourage us to challenge such defining and characterizations, in order to develop a stronger sense of who we are. Bonus writings relating to changes imposed upon us by Covid and other World events, should seem meaningful to all of us, and likely in very different ways. Do you think we have learned anything from our Covid experiences? Would the author’s use of metaphor improve how we see ourselves, and our places in other people's lives?
Spotting a sea serpent along the voyage would add even more self-awareness and insight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665748704

G.E.B.S. GEBShelton

Acknowledging that he is one generation down from the plow, Dr. Shelton shares that in order to know where we can go, we must maintain a connection to our beginnings. The author was born in Illinois and has lived in Colorado, Florida and now NYC. With his clinical doctorate, he feels honored and rewarded to assist with promoting connections to all peoples.

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Copyright © 2023 G.E.B.S. GEBShelton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Photos by Douglas Ficocelli

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4869-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-5086-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4870-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023915790

Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/26/2023

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preamble

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Taxonomy

Sagrada Familia

Last Week

Sea Rain

Iceland Perhaps

Creepy or Creaky?

Birthday Cosmopolitans

How About a Better Introduction

Northern Atlantic

Sometimes It Is Warm

Their Eyes

The Birds

Are Those Cloned Birds?

The Things I Am Missing

Who Sends Postcards?

Jackson Five

I Forgot How Much I Love This

My Dad and the Mediterranean

They Do Wait for Us

But the Birds Give Me Insight

People Eat

Remembering Orange Juice and Other Such Cans

This is Not Right, or No, No, No!

Beanie and Cecil

Momma

The Best is Last

He Writes Poetry—At Least One Poem a Day

Not a Diary, but with Dates

Those Cubicles or Pods or Bed-like Seat Teases

Amabilisum

Pandemic Cat (Feline) Behavior and After

COVIDophrenia

Post COVID-19

Is It What It Is?

GEBS

His Interest In, and Usage of, Commas

Epilogue

Reader’s Guide to Discussion

About the Author

DEDICATION

(To name names would be unfair.)

This is dedicated to the one I love the most, to all the people I love, and to all of whom, love me—you know who you are. And maybe for those who might love me, and yet I am unaware, as you have not made it clear to me that you love me. Thus, to name names, would be unfair. But I would like to thank my friend who suggested I ponder, Lenise Taylor, and to Jorge who once encouraged me to continue to write.

PREAMBLE

(Latin melded with science and medicine;

bodies of water became platy bodies)

(I think I’ll) introduce the topic of streaming, of journaling, of being in touch with oneself and, therefore, with others. Just as the visualist evokes of us, dictated, or formulated, or promoted by art’s basic elements; line, value, color, form, and space, the promoter of visualization through the written word, the writer forces us to see or to try to see just what we are looking at or to think like they do. Streams of consciousness tell us a story. They provide a framework for our canvas, for our brains to create—to paint in our minds and see, from what we are reading. Thoughts emit pigments; feelings emit hues. It’s a dreamer’s fate to journey through streams. We give and we get in life, and in a perfect balance, the giving and the getting are as equals, but only when we sea!

As a man one generation down from the plow, I claim ignorance. I don’t know any better and I don’t expect anything otherwise, except to experience a connection with almost everyone. Like we can be immediate friends, without the necessity of benefits, that our friendship relies on nothing more than our co-existing as human beings—beans, for that matter, that as co-inhabitants on this earth, we need not have fears or concern that we are or aren’t friends. We are immediate friends by virtue of being here, together. Ubuntu. Humanity.

A kindred spirit of sorts, Joyce Travelbee and her Human-to-Human Relationship Model, provides a foundation for nurses, to see themselves and others as human beings, we are all human beings, in illness and in health, all of us can and should live by this decree.

Maybe I should introduce myself as a character in a play—my play, in my mind. I’m Edsel Coy Borden. My healthcare friends call me E. coy. I joke that I am the son or grandson or nephew or distant relative of Elsie the Cow Borden, who made milk or glue, and who was from Dixon, Illinois; (I think Elsie gave milk for drinking and to accompany eating things, and her husband Elmer made the glue). Growing up in Lee County, we would often drive past the Borden factory or distillery or manufacturing place of employment, where something Borden-like was being made and carted off (milk carton-ed off, but in glass in those days), click-clacking away on train tracks that paralleled the highway into town.

I would be stretching the truth or even fibbing, to claim the relative thing that is. I am not a Borden, yet I do see photos and pictures of cows, peripherally, on my living room walls, as I move my head and eyes, typing or fingering this keyboard. I sense a very strong connection to cows, to Elsie and Elmer. They don’t really moo, you know. Their sound is more like maw or meh. A gal pal work colleague and I are planning a sit down with cows, where they live in upstate New York, and we’ll be able to talk and laugh amongst the cows, and I can photograph my relatives.

Can cows swim? Cows in streams? Streams of consciousness. Whether it is the Mediterranean or any ocean or sea or body of water, we float or swim or sink. We rearrange the surface of any bodies of water as through them we pass. Do we leave a mark? Is it important that we do, or even if we do, leave a mark?

Always a writer, or at least one who writes, kind of like a daily diary, a journal but more for my own development of an identity, I put down words to evoke memories, triggers. From an early anatomy and physiology course or maybe biology or was it chemistry—they meld together in my mind—I recall Platyhelminthes. I think we were forced to draw them for who knew what reason. However, the platy stayed with me—not physically, like inside of me, but who doesn’t like a good worm?

Never escaping my early Latin classes, words melded with science and medicine, bodies of water became platy bodies from the Mediterranean to any ocean or sea, thus my working titles: Platymediterrandanthes and Platyoceandanthes amabilisum; streams of consciousness versus being conscious of streaming; or maybe streams of consciousness in a sea of being.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

(Douglas saves the day and tells me what I am thinking.)

I can’t be selfish, even if there is a virtue to being such. I have always written my thoughts, so that I could remind myself of them later, when I would re-read them, when perhaps they could be more developed or when they might find more meaning for me. I enjoy my excessive use of commas, as they force the reader to hear my words, as in the way I would be speaking them.

I might take myself back to Chicago, where I could find myself as a child preparing for kindergarten, which never happened as we moved south before the school year commenced, or in first grade, when the large class in Galatia, Illinois was split into two classes: one with the smart kids and one with those not quite so smart. Oddly, interestingly, I always thought I was in the smart class, but lately I have rethought that and wondered. Would they have actually told us we were separated into smart kids and less smart kids? If so, what did they tell the other kids? Flights of ideas or streams of consciousness, brilliant or an idiot savant—must I be defined?

This book, this collection of ideas, of streams would not be possible without the assistance of my partner, Douglas Ficocelli. Our minds might not be as sharp as they once