Negotiating

Posted on November 8, 2025

“It seems we lose the game before we start to play.” Those words from Lauryn Hill’s song “Everything is Everything” always resonated with me. “We never argue.” I told my boss when I was twenty-two. I was aiming to relate how perfect and idyllic my life with my parents was to him. I was living in Paris and not ever planning on moving back to the states. He stared at me, wordless. Right then, I knew something was up. I had said something wrong. And I was wondering how to backtrack. Of course, he didn’t straight up reply that that policy was abuse. He finally said something along the lines of, “I don’t know about that.” Looking back, I recognize that at that time: …

Categories: Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Narcissism, naropa, Persephone Abbott, Richard Brautigan

He’s Cranky and Got Something to Say

Posted on November 1, 2025

It sounded like a piece of theater improv. And the performer was directly in front of me. I was sitting in the tram, enjoying the street views from my window seat. The man was standing in the connecting section, leaning on a pole and looking straight at me. He was old. Hold on, maybe he was my age or even a bit older. To resume: He was an old white guy wearing a backpack, sounding cankerous and entitled. He had something to say and I wasn’t thinking he was part of a pickpocket gang. But you never know. “Let it ring,” he said, “I have plenty of time.” I could hear the sound of a telephone ringing. It sounded like it was coming from…

Categories: Amsterdam, Mindfulness, Tourism

Tagged: #anti social media, Amsterdam tram, apps, improv, middle aged man, Persephone Abbott, public protest

Everglades National Park and The Bookclub Stategy by Concerned Alligators

Posted on September 20, 2025

“Everglades?” I thought. “Everglades National Park?” I had once driven across Highway 41 in Florida and I don’t recall seeing many residential areas. Could there be any stategic bookclub placement businesses being run from out there in the swamp? “So whatever,” I mused in my late night revery before going to bed, “this is (a pointed text written with winsome flattery and competent editorial English) equals a load of whatever the universe can now manifest. I.e. an educational moment to definitely pass up and pass on.” But still, undeniably, a beautiful vision sent from AI for a great title: Idle Opportunities.

Categories: Book, Mindfulness

Tagged: bookclub, everglades, Idle Opportunities, Persephone Abbott, Scam

Lots of Fans in Roswell?

Posted on September 7, 2025

I was inspecting the google analytics page listing the cities where people are interacting with Routine Apparitions. Roswell. That must be the UFO connection. And how have I gotten to Roswell? Here’s the trail, interview style, for fun: What am I doing with my days? I am looking for my father’s missing archival materials. What did my mother do with them before she died? And who was involved in the disappearance of the materials? Why weren’t they sent to the archives in Bellingham? Fact: they are not there. And how did this come to pass? Well, first I have to consider the stories my mother told about my father. A load of bad ones, that’s for sure. In her narrative, I got flame torched…

Categories: Announcements, Book, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Amsterdam, Archives, Bellingham, Colorado, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Longmont, Missing manuscripts, Mordecai of Monterey, Persephone Abbott, UFOS

My Dearest Own Harald

Posted on August 17, 2025

Debunking my mother’s false identities since her death has taken years. Of course, she wove her disingenuous narratives for decades and targeted different communities with her various falsehoods. Every once in a while I come across an item and I think, “Let me address this, set the record straight.” It’s not only me, other family members have also been involved in this matter. A few months ago I wrote, again, to an American professor of Scandinavian studies. He had written a review of the book that my mother participated in — and in which she provided a story about her grandfather having been raised in a Sami family with Sami traditions. It’s all quite sensitive on a cultural plain, but I feel communication is…

Categories: Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: Family, Hillesoy, Letter, Norway, Persephone Abbott

Prague To Budapest

Posted on June 27, 2025

I have to admit that I am becoming a bit of a fan of the Austro-Hungarian empire. And I am not talking politics. Having paid much less attention to this particular historical region of Europe than others, I realized the inevitable fairly early on while in Prague. I’d have to review history to understand the buildings and their historical context for this trip. *** During one of my last days in Prague I had a mind to visit the Museum of Decorative Arts. The main displays weren’t quite what I was hoping to see. The interior of the building, though, looked like a mix between a festive birthday cake and a fantasy set for a First Communion celebration and it was around then that…

Categories: History, Memory, Mindfulness, Tourism

Tagged: Budapest, Persephone Abbott, Prague

Beat Scene 112

Posted on June 9, 2025

My piece on my father’s missing manuscripts and notebooks was published in Beat Scene. Thank you Kevin Ring for highlighting this matter and supporting Mordecai of Monterey! Maybe some of Mordecai’s melanoia (the feeling that good things are going to happen) will grace us all! #keithabbott #keithkumasenabbott #beatscene #beatpoets #mordecai #monterey #longmontcolorado #naropa #persephoneabbott #watergate #zen #buddhism #bouldermennonitechurch #rhinoritz

Categories: Book, Memory, Mindfulness

Tagged: 1046 Grant Street, Beat Scene, Buddhism, Colorado, Keith Abbott, Keith Kumasen Abbott, Longmont, Mordecai of Monterey, naropa, Persephone Abbott, Zen

Reflections in Aachen 2025

Posted on May 3, 2025

In 1984 I visited Germany for the first time. Although I didn’t get to visit Aachen in 1984, I definitely wanted to see Aachen. Having read up on Charlemagne during my high school’s medieval history class I well understood the core concepts: throne, crowning, important location. Instead of Aachen in 1984, I was placed as a summer exchange student in a small town in Westfalia. It was a beautiful town with gabled houses and a medieval ruin. I took walks, but as I was socially not very outgoing, you might say I didn’t “react” well to being in a small town. I started to watch Herz zu Herz (Hart to Hart dubbed in German which is the only way to watch Hart to Hart…

Categories: Autism, History, Memory, Tourism

Tagged: aachen, Persephone Abbott, Tourism

Reflections in Germany 2025

Posted on May 2, 2025

I recall the coolness the moment I stepped into the hall, and I remember the odor of wood polish. It was July and I was seventeen. I might have looked like I had a lot going on, but I didn’t. Coming from the north by car, I was deposited into the care of my father’s German translator by my American Field Service host and hostess who didn’t quite know what to do with me. Tecklenburg had been a strain. It was a small and cosy town on a hill with a medieval ruin in Westfalia. A theater had been set up between the walls of the former castle. Along with the members of my host family, I stood on stage in the rain dressed…

Categories: Memory, Poetry, Tourism

Tagged: Bavaria, Ex-Friend, Freising, Persephone Abbott, Poem, Strawberry

Artistic License

Posted on April 20, 2025

Cleaning up my social media this week, I came across the name of a French baritone in my list of friends. Jacques Calatayud was a devoted friend to Suzanne Sarroca (and her former student) and he had died. And so had she. They died within a year of each other. I had no idea. In 2015 I met up with both of them for dinner in Paris. Sarroca was already quite in advanced age, still living in her apartment on the rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and Jacques was attentive to her needs. He screened the diva’s socializing activities and facilitated the meeting with Sarroca. I remember him as a very gentle and kind person. “You are lucky,” Sarroca said to me over dinner,…

Categories: Memory

Tagged: Idle Opportunities, Mady Mesple, Paris, Persephone Abbott, Suzanne Sarroca

Posts tagged “Persephone Abbott”