Joy In Odd Places

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Simple Joy

Sometimes you go to an event and expect nothing. Sometimes you are surprised by getting way more than you had a right to expect. Serenity exists and should be savored.

As a parent I have gone to probably 20-30 local school concerts all told. My presence at these performances was required because of participation by my children. First there were the 5th and 6th grade cello renditions. Next came the 7th and 8th grade bass workouts. In the bass years, because child two, affectionately known as Secundus came into his own musically, there also came the Suzuki piano recitals and the French horn concerts. At some point I had come to a Zen like attitude as to the passage of time. I can tell you how many slats of wood line the wainscoting of each of East Lansing’s auditoriums.

Last night I attended what I though was to be the 8th grade band’s performance cum French horn go round. But it was different. The school had combined the orchestra and some of the brass and created a symphonic orchestra of 8th graders. An 8th grade symphony, isn’t that amazing? In a time of declining funds, enrollment and general apathy the music staff had the stones to create a symphony. My hat goes off to them.

Dressed in black with frilly shirts and bow ties they shuffled onto stage. No incidents of poking or pushing were observed. The lights went down and it began. The music played included about five pieces. One was entitled Into the Storm. But the rest were from the Nutcracker. It was a delight.

Clearly what I was hearing was not the Boston Philharmonic. However the performance by the 8th grade symphony orchestra was joyful. It was clear they were proud and were playing to show this could work. They hit the notes, they played fluidly, and they sounded (for the most part) tight. I hate the Nutcracker with a passion but even with that in mind the performance was aurally pleasing. Instead of a band concert I got a symphony. Kudos to Dave Rosin director of the East Lansing 8th grade symphony.

Take joy where you can find it. It was a good night.

Let the Mystery Be

Eventually you learn not to look too closely. If you do you just keep finding things that bug you and you’re never at peace. (A nod to Brian A. here)

On November 23, 2010 I started using a new journal. Opening a bound volume with line after line awaiting my musings and memories is both daunting and exciting. I began the new journal with the following:

Belief is tricky. I hold some things as true, some as false, some as relevant (but without a definite resolution) and some as irrelevant. Philosophy and religion have structures of belief well worn and intricately constructed. My beliefs don’t necessary align with the main themes of the currently predominant sects and schools but they don’t necessary contradict them.

I believe in life. Cognito ergo sum really makes sense to me. If I didn’t have existence then what is dithering about being and not being. I also believe in the corollary, not life. As the preacher said, there is a time for everything including a time to be and a time to be no more. For the short time we are here there is an awful long eternity to be gone.

There may be a transformation of essence, a continuation as it were of existence but as far as I can tell empirically the odds against that are pretty big. If it were not for the exception to two phone calls that creep me out to this day I would peg the odds at 1,000,000,000 to 1 against the ethereal sphere of existence. As far as I can tell based on tangible fact, the who of whom I am ends when I shed this skin.

As a result while I am among the living I believe I must act appropriately. What this means is that I need to do good, to be an aid to and help my likewise doomed fellow travelers. The golden mean, the do unto others mantra makes sense to me. I must confess that I am not good at it but it does make sense. I think we are compelled to do more that the medical profession that is we have an obligation to try and do good, not to simply avoid doing harm. We must act with compassion and reason.

If there is a knowing being a knowing essence my appeal would be, “Source of being and existence bless this world. With grace and mercy ameliorate pain, relieve deprivation and gently resolve conflict. Provide bodily integrity, space, shelter and sustenance for our persons. May my life be blessed but not at the expense of others. May others be blessed but not at my expense. Let me be genuine and effective and an aid to others.

Winning by Losing

In dealing with my oldest son I am often surprised by some of the things that we encounter in our shared lives. One of the most difficult things I have had to deal with is the very clear disconnect between his perception of how the world works and how I see the world working. Because of his Aspergers he often doesn’t size things up the way I do. His world view is not necessary wrong and I acknowledge that How he sees reality tends to be more clinical and more black and white than me. But in life and death situations it may be better to go with his dispassionate analysis.

Often big things for other kids don't seem to bother him. Normally a loss on the ice for his hockey team isn't a big deal. Other kids will be playing blame games or agonizing about what went wrong or what could have been done. There are times when his lack of exaggerated passion may be interpreted against him. It would appear to somebody who is unfamiliar with Aspergers that he isn't committed or doesn't care about the team success. Reaching such a conclusion would be wrong, dead wrong. But the lack of demonstrating the same emotions as standard kids can be counted against him on the calculus of who is really with us on this team.

Recently however the lack of emotion mode didn't hold true. Last Saturday his team had its collective butt handed to 'em. The score was double digits to zip, zilch, and nil. Me I chalked the loss up to the way the hockey program has progressed for the team over the years. I didn't blame the players but rather the system and decisions made by the league that had brought us here. The scoreboard stopped at 7 to 0 early in the second period. The real score was significantly more than double that.

I held the door off the ice open for the team. When Primus came off the ice he had tears in his eyes. His face was flushed and he just seemed torn up. This surprised me. It worried me a little bit because it meant to me that he was at an extreme point of his tolerance. I opted to wait for him to come out of the dressing room to see how he was. Normally I would have gone out to the lobby and commiserated with other parents.

When he walked out of the locker room I asked him if he was upset. He told me that he was and he asked me how he could not be because the game was an embarrassment. I asked him if he was upset with his play and he was. (In my mind he did all he could. He took the puck in the opposing teams end twice. If we had it there six times in the whole game I would be surprised.) He had a shot on goal. I believe it was our team’s only shot on goal. There might have been another when I was looking away.

Standing there was my son and his ASD I saw clear passion. He was emotional but controlled and he was doing self evaluation directly comparable to what other kids on his team were doing. This was something different. It was a step to acceptance in a world that just doesn’t get him.

Little Happy Moments

Mostly I use this blog to reflect and recollect about things that I have experienced. A great deal of my focus for these pieces comes from looking backward. Wistfulness, bitterness, gauzy memories these are the things that I set down in what I write. Today I want to look sideways.

Good things have happened of late. I have reason for joy in my life. Joy no matter how small must be savored and celebrated.

For whatever reason my oldest son, the one that is ASD is doing well in school. The first marking period has passed and he has an A – average. I understand this could be better, but it is far better than what it was last year. It makes me really, really happy to see him excel. He also seems to be getting into the rhythm of dealing with other people. He still does not want to look people in the eyes but he can make some small talk working off a rudimentary script he has internalized.

These are good things, real good things.

Last night I received my election certificate in the mail. An election certificate comes in the mail to verify that the post you sought has been obtained. Why I ran is God’s own mystery but run I did. To come out on top is really a unique feeling. It wasn’t like I got a mandate I won my less than 2% of the vote but I won. This too is good.

While the giddiness over each of these things will not last, I am happy for now.

Winter Photo as Poetry

 

Winter light poured over a cold landscape as I walked home this night. Silently the trees around me reached up against the darkening sky. As I glance skyward through these bare branches I was adrift in memory. Stopping I set my camera on the ground and I snapped the picture above.

When I was eighteen I loved an album cover with one bare tree upon it. While I never bought the album the band who made it became one of my favorites. The title was From the Witchwood. For years I assumed the title was From the Winterwood. My guess as the why of this has to do with my myopia and because of the bareness tree on the spare two tone album jacket. Only recently was I disabused of that notion when I decided to look the disk up and give it a listen. To me the Winterwood will always remain part of the title. It was apt to my mindset at the time. Michigan was the Winterwood.

The album cover’s fascination for me had more to do with my arriving in this north country inexperienced in the ways of winter as opposed to anything else. To me winter started in mid to late December and was done mostly by mid March or April 1 at the latest. That year, my first year here the time was not long before the autumn of late September turned into the Winterwood of late, late November. Golden leaves gone the spidery fingers of the trees reached up into the dark sky. They looked a great deal like the image on that LP.

No fear rose in me when I looked at those webs of wood woven skyward. Instead I saw the art of life. It was not long before I saw the beauty of black and grey branches coated with white crisp snow. The Winterwood was not something troubling or scary. It was instead part of life’s gallery of beauty.

East Lansing's Response to WBC

C3173@aos-sharp.com_20101117_091134[1]

Tournament Helpful Info

I looked up the rink based on the pamphlet for the tournament.

Here is the link and here are directions to the rink from the hotel.

http://www.arcticicearena.com/



Country Inn & Suites Edit

18315 la Grange Rd, Tinley Park, IL 60487 - (708) 444-4384

United States



1. Start out going NORTH on LA GRANGE RD/US-45 N toward 183RD ST/ORLAND PKWY. 2.9 mi

2. Turn LEFT onto W 159TH ST/US-6. 1.5 mi

3. Turn LEFT onto 108TH AVE. 0.1 mi

4. Turn LEFT onto 160TH ST. 0.2 mi

5. 10700 160TH ST is on the LEFT.


Arctic Ice Arena 10700 160th St, Orland Park, IL 60467 - (708) 403-4231

Hard Wired

Walking to the bus stop the other day I found myself whistling/singing David Crosby/Graham Nash’s Wind on the Water. Penned many years ago the song decries humankind’s hunting of whales to the brink of extinction. Why this song over twenty years old is stuck in my head I really can’t say. Couplets about whale meat being used for ephemera such as lipstick and the like really shouldn’t be the default song in my personal RAM. Animal rights activism has not been a hall mark of my life, take kibbee for example.

There are other songs in the rapidly accessed storage portion of my brain. Most of them however are Merle Haggard songs. There is Momma Tried, God’s Own Singer and Sing me Back Home and they crop up all the time. Wind on the Water has an incredible hook. Still there should be for any number of reasons a hundred other songs that should be hard wired into my head.

I mean I get to some extent the why of the Haggard songs being stuck in my head. There are trains, mama, a misspent life and remorse at death woven into each one. About sums up the rural American experience that I wanted to believe was to be my life when I was fourteen or fifteen. Life did not head that way for me. My life is not rural and I am not in jail, mom is dead but my life has not been totally wasted. Still I get the mythology that keeps those songs inside me. What I don’t get is why Wind on the Water is there.

Maybe it was some lass that had it on a LP when I was in those psyche molding years of undergraduate studies and my infatuation with her wove the words and music into my mind. Maybe it is the real lure the ocean, the Atlantic Ocean holds for me that keeps it close. Sunset behind and the moon rising the water is always my image of my chosen home.

I assume other people have hard wired musical memories. I wonder what they are. Here’s another one….

Autumn

 

Autumn is the best time of the year. Today I stopped for a moment and noticed Mid-Michigan is well into fall. With the demands of parenting the time just seems to fly by. As I walk I pray for a few quiet moments of awareness. I look into the blue sky and I know it will not be this way for long. Still and warm the morning snow cannot be far off.
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On the Capitol lawn the maples are gold and red. The red one I looked at was well past prime. About half the leaves had fallen. But there was an organic beauty to appreciate in what I saw. Life and it cycles.

1974-2010, 36 years I have watched this place as it changed from summer to fall and then onto to spring. There is a serene beauty in the maples that I will never comprehend. Maybe it is serenity I will never comprehend.

The sound track for this world is not George Winston, although his Autumn is a great disc to get laid by, or it was when I was in my late 20s. Me I am listening to a deep rhythmic groove called The Ghetto by Donny Hathaway. Deep vocals and kind of a mild afro Cuban feel and I keep stride in the wonder of golden autumn.

Beflore the Light

 

When I am just about to walk in to pick up my morning caffeine this is the view I see. I won’t see it much longer because they are moving my office to a strip mall. Glancing down toward the east it is a typical urban view. Glass, bricks and concrete create a street canyon that leads straight to the river. I have been turning and opening the door at this store for a decade. Soon that repetitive act will end and the canyon will be a memory for me.

The manager of the coffee shop is a close friend. He too will be leaving soon. His wife will be taking employment somewhere else and he will follow. My conversations over the years with both he and his staff have been some of the most fun I have had. In a few weeks the canyon will remain but the world I have known there will be gone. Like a real canyon the place will be empty to me except for the wind blowing ever eastward.

Hope and Weakness

 

My little Portals of Prayer devotional book has prayers printed out for reflection and recitation. Entreaties are set out for each morning and evening of every day in the week. Me, I don’t recite them like the ritualized prayers so enmeshed in the formal liturgy of my church. Lutherans, we bend and kneel on a hard floor reciting “we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed... In thy mercy forgive what we have been; help us to amend what we are…” As I mentioned in a prior post the things I read in the morning are the starting point for a meditation.

Today’s prayer opens with the line that the deity knows my every weakness. Continuing on it mentions that because of that weakness the supplicant (i.e., me) will disobey, fail to love, and otherwise be less godly. Today the prayer seems on point. As I am taking my desk today I feel weak, loveless and prone to failure.

Emotionally it has been a rough week. Both children have been buffeted by tribulations at school. My wife’s recovery is slow. My work feels like it is a stone ball, which like Sisyphus, I must push ever upward only to have it roll further back down the hill. When I listen to the news what I hear is all doom and gloom. Even as I type these words I shudder, stretch my shoulders and realize I don’t know if I can even take an appropriate cleansing breath.

The prayer ends with a plea for forgiveness, renewal and strength. Inherent in the closing entreaty is the plea for love and the reassurance of love. When I contemplate love and the love that I know from friends and family things always seem better. Most days I find my way back to the point where balance comes. Let a few hours pass and life will glow again. Weakness is a starting point but the day will lead to something better.

Sometimes the Light Just Plays God

 

Failing to meditate early in the day means I will get lost in the day. By meditation I mean an act that focuses my being not just sitting around in the lotus position internally uttering the unspeakable syllable. Perhaps the better term in lieu of mediation is clearing my mind and contemplating something beyond the mundane minutiae of daily living. When I say lost in the day I mean my focus is drawn in a 100 directions and I don’t seem to accomplish anything. My prioritizations schemes all fail.

For me the act of centering my mind is as natural and necessary as taking a shower to cleanse my body. If I don’t take my shower say because I know I have heavy work to do that will require sweat and or exposure to gunky things (image cleaning a wet basement), my day is thrown off also. Showering just gets me to the starting point of the day. Maybe what I am saying is I like to start the day clean mentally and physically, a tabla rasa as it were.

Meditation can be as simple as walking about and just forcing myself to be in the moment. Look there is a tree. Smell the bakery. See the light glinting oddly off the windows up there. Other times it is reading a religious passage and someone’s commentary on it. Trust me I oft times find the commentary has missed the point or is agenda driven. Still the act of reading a verse and thinking about how it fits into my life in the world I occupy is refreshing and invigorating.

Today’s mediation, “ I must refuse all affirmations of what I do not fully and actually know, experience and believe myself.” It is from Merton of course. It argues for a simplified relationship between oneself and the world. Sounds like a good thing. Whether life in an organized society is possible utilizing this maxim is possible, I do not know.

A Shallow Grave in the Hundred Acre Wood

Secundus and I tagged along with some of his friends to see a play. We say the Abridged Works of William Shakespeare. It was quite humorous and somewhat bawdy. Tit and penis jokes abounded. Methinks such jests are much in accord with the Bard’s original style. Secundus worked his way into the production. At one point he was doing the Macarena at center stage before one of Hamlet’s big soliloquies. Don’t ask. My eyes were filled with tears from laughing so much.

The play, while fun, is not the key thing in this post. The other two parents we joined at the production complimented me on how nice Secundus was. “He always shares,” they said. “He always plays nice,” they said, “ when he plays with younger children.’ “Look how the three boys are just having fun.” Foreshadowing.

In the van on the ride back the three boys that had attended the play were goofing around with the little kids’ books in the back seat. Together they had managed to wiggle into the third row in the back. One book was an apparent Disney Winnie the Pooh knockoff with another child other than Christopher Robin cavorting with Pooh in the illustrations. Secundus took real exception to this. Works like sacrilege and blasphemy floated up toward the front seat. At a point when the parents had stopped talking for half a second we heard this. “Hey on TV these days this imposter would be end up in a shallow grave at the far end of the 100 acre woods. Pooh, Tigger and Eyore would then set out on a trouble laden mission to find the real Christopher Robin.”

Secundus is 12. Dispatching a faux Christopher Robin to a shallow grave while in line with a Showtime storyline seems a tad bit harsh. We will have to talk.

Pulp Fiction Awakens My Foggy Mind

Over the past week I read a book that I had shelved long ago due to lack of interest. In the mid 1980s and early 1990s I would join and quit the Quality Paper Back Book club on a regular basis. I would pay the three dollars for three books plus shipping and handling, buy one more book and my commitment would be terminated by a note saying “no more”. One of the books I picked up was called Glitz.

Glitz was an Elmore Leonard book and Elmore was hot at that time. Having recently seen Get Shorty again I decided maybe I should check out the source material that is something Leonard had written. Put most basically I was in need of mental floss. My mental floss is mindless reading filled with action and unambiguously good and bad characters; maybe some sex or sexual innuendo should be thrown in. Reading mental floss is a great deal like watching a Jason Bourne movie it only takes two or three hours more. Pulp novels move quickly.

Starting back into the book I realized why I had put it down. Set in Puerto Rico the first chapter makes it seem like the novel will be a Caribbean pot boiler. At the time I got the book I had no interest in such a tale. Miami Vice and its progeny had over-saturated the airwaves with tales of South Florida and the islands. This time because of my desire to just cleanse my brain of reality based thoughts I read on. To my surprise the book rapidly shifted to the stretch of the Jersey coast I know best, that is from Somers Point to Atlantic City. As the setting relocate I felt like I was taking a piece of chocolate out a tin on someone’s desk expecting a Milky Way knock off and finding out I was munching on a dark Ghirardelli chocolate with walnuts inside.

Reading about places like the Black Horse Pike and Shore Memorial Hospital made me chuckle. It was an unexpected trip back to the homeland. I could remember Story Book Gardens was on the Black Horse somewhere and Shore Memorial was where you went when you were banged up down at the beach. In the end I think I spent three evenings with the story, two sitting in my backyard hammock this warm October. It was just what I needed.

The fact that the tale was set in the 1980s reminded me of why I write this blog. A Space True and North exists to capture the stories of the places I have been and the things I have seen. Having read Glitz I am reminded more stories need to be told. I am really going to try and keep this blog current at least for the next few months.

With a Hat and Hair From Bob Dylan Circa 1977

We were riding in the car the other day. This is not unusual we run around a great deal on the weekends. We run to the Farmer’s Market. We run to the recycling center. We run to the mega mart. We run to the pool. We run to pick up and drop off children. Sometimes it feels like we never stop running.

Back before the home computer died I used an older version of Roxio on it to create a ton of mix discs. They have names like the History of Rock #1, #2, #3. Some are simply called Road Tunes. Often if there is a beloved disc in the home collection it will get copied so that a.) The CD reader in the car will display the song titles and b.) So the master disc will not get dinged and thus become unplayable.

Saturday we were riding the other day with Primus in the back seat solo. Secundus was still at camp. Bopping down the road to a mix disc the opening strains of the song linked below came on. Without hearing more than the opening seed shakers at the start of the studio version he said “It’s Aztec Two Step-Dean Moriarity.” He then commenced to sing the whole song start to finish. When he knows the words he sings mostly in tune and has a pleasant voice.

It made me happy. At least part of the warm feeling was that he didn’t reject all of “my music”. Some of it was that he felt free enough in the confines of our car to sing along. Our rule is as long as you aren't being silly you can sing the song on the radio/CD player, period. This requires self editing for those Green Day songs.

I don’t know which of my children will be the next Dean Moriarity but I have no doubt that both have some of the basic traits.

Reasons to Like Lansing

 

When I was a child in South Jersey we stopped and shopped at roadside vegetable stands. This is were our produce came from, the local farms selling a part of there crops direct on routes so far off the beaten track and to not even qualify as blue routes. Lots of people had good sized gardens too. I am not saying it was healthier because there were lots of chemicals used on that stuff. Hey though, it was fresher and it had real flavors unlike the rubber ball tomatoes you find in stores today.

In the area where I live I have never noticed roadside stands to be as common as they were "back home". Up in cherry country there are some. Just outside of Elk Rapids there a couple stands that I really like. But these are the exception not the norm.

Over the years when I have wanted fresh produce I found myself shopping at the Lansing City Market. In a long standing building some years the market looked lively. Some years not so much. Over the past two years the market has moved. The space is smaller but for some reason it seems more vibrant. With a relocation to a new space the place seems to just be more inviting. If you haven't made the trip yet and if you are local, go do it.

Yup, the Lansing Market is another reason to like Lansing

The Portable Nietzche

 

Over the weekend I went into a book store. While there I found a dog eared copy of The Portable Nietzsche. It only took about half a page of reading and I had to buy it. In a letter to his sister he started talking about his search for truth. In essence the thing that caught me and sold me on the book was this quote. "Do we after all seek rest, peace and pleasure in our inquiries? No only truth, even if it be the most abhorrent and ugly."

My hope is that there is beauty and peace at the end of the search. But we must not be deterred if the answers point elsewhere. If we do not search ferociously and critically for truth we might as well take up the opium pipe.

From the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished File (or When did my Life Become a Seinfeld Episode?)

This was written yesterday. Sorry I took so long in posting it.

To quote Earl karma is a bitch.

Yesterday was my wife Francie's birthday. In the regard of duly noting the event I am a schmuck. While I did take her out to dinner I did not buy her flowers. Karma I tell you.

Like the cheap bastard I am I tried to pick up a bouquet at Sam's Club. There we were picking up some toilet paper the night before her birthday. I grabbed one of those cellophane wrapped bunches up by the check out. Romantic aren't I? No go. The “impulse” purchase was vetoed by Francie due to a perceived wilt factor.

On Thursday her actual birthday I tried to set up an ad hoc quick birthday dinner. Alas I couldn't find most of our friends. Michigan must be the new France. Nobody working in August and thus no one remains in town. Wait, no Michigan is the new dust bowl. No one is working at all ever because there is no way to make a living here. Everyone seems to be leaving to find work elsewhere. In Newfoundland they talk of having to go “away” for work. Sure seems like we’re living on a new version of the rock here. In the end I did find one wonderful person to join us.

Okay enough of the grim. When I got home last night, Thursday night, my son had taken in some flowers. These from him comments were due and owing to one of our neighbors. The flowers were unwrapped, no cellophane, no tissue paper, nada. A colorful array of red and white with some purple stuff and baby's breath they were delivered sans protection, what is that about? Our neighbors were apparently not home and thus there was a problem due to the continued heat here in the northern tier. In order to keep the small but elegant bouquet from wilting and conveying something less than joy to the recipient the flower delivery person knocked on our door and asked our son to hold the flowers for the neighbor. Primus agreed.

Looking at the flowers when I got home made me feel bad. I had not come through with the floral affirmation of love for my wife on her special day. Schmuck. Double Schmuck. I wanted this thorn in my side gone.

Well I did not get the opportunity to drop off the flowers right then. As soon as I got home Francie, Primus and I had to run to the high school to sign up for the chance for Primus try out for the hockey team. Try outs will not happen until November but all sports sign up is now to accommodate the only real sport that matters, football. We dashed to the school, we did the signing and then we rushed home. When we got home our friend was already there and any chance to deliver the flowers was gone. Jumping in our friend's car, just in case the birthday girl wanted to have a dinner drink, we headed out. Designated drivers are wonderful people.

Dinner was good. We had Italian at Bravo. The conversation was first-rate and the food full of flavor. However for all it highfaluting airs Bravo did not have the right dessert for this birthday celebration. We had to set out elsewhere to find....creme brulee. All in all last night shifting between several restaurants we shot three hours seeking and eating celebratory food. All in all the experience was wonderful. Francie seemed to really like the crème brulee we eventually found.

It was 9:30 when we got home. The flowers were glaring at me with their air of evil accusation. Francie and Primus said I had better deliver the flowers to our neighbor Kim.

Here is where the tricky part comes in. We live in the middle of a block and we have neighbors on both sides. The two couples who are quite different, but who are both are quite nice bear the exact same names. Both couples first names are John and Kim. That is right we have John and Kim to the right and John and Kim to the left. I asked Primus or rather he may have told me the flowers were for Kim of John and Kim to the right side of the house (henceforth John and Kim-right).

Dutifully I carried the flowers to the home of John and Kim-right feeling somewhat ashamed I had not done so earlier. (And then there was the whole schmuck thing going on in my head because I had not given my wife flowers-but I am not going to obsess on that anymore.) Hey the bouquet might be late but it was not wilted. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again and John-right came to the door. Taking the flowers from as I muttered something like,” these came today for your wife and you weren't home...” John-right smiled. Me, I dashed off. At least the floral irritant to my conscience was out of my life.

But no!

It was a beautiful day today temperature wise so I left the office early. After mucking about a bit in East Lansing I found myself in Mackerel Sky a wonderful gallery of artfully crafted articles for everyday life. To my non-Michigan friends here is the link, check it out. It is a great store and Tom and Linda are great people. http://www.mackerelsky.com/html_files/about_us.html Linda as usual was giving me guff when I came into the store. Linda is my source of inspiration for gifts when time is tight. Mackerel Sky is open until 3 p.m., on Christmas Eve. I have availed myself of its services and wares dashing in as late as 2:50 p.m., on December 24. It would emphasize how pathetic I am to admit I have done this on more than one occasion.

Anyway I had just gotten into the store and my cell phone rings. Francie was calling to tell me that she had just gotten an e-mail from Kim-left asking if we had gotten flowers for her yesterday. In a somewhat concerned voice Francie inquired if I had checked the address on the flowers before I had delivered them. Sensing that I had no problem here I said no, you told me they were for Kim-right. Ah not to be touched with guilt on this Francie said no, “Primus told you it was for Kim-right”. She again inquired if I had checked the address. A mere 10 seconds had passed and even if it had been more the answer would still have been no. I was simply doing what I was told. Then came the trump card, “You know your son can be a little distracted at times. It is part of who he is.”

Have you ever seen Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) die in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Here it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giFoMYuy5b0 Owww, Ouch. Uhhhwwuh. Yeah the delivery of the flowers to the wrong address was on my head and I was feeling it. Francie at this point indicated she was deferring a few minutes before contacting Kim-left back. The delay was to allow me a way to figure out how to sort “my error” out. Yeah me!!!! Schmuck. This would never have happened had I sent my wife roses using ProFlowers. Really, I mean I am sure of this fact.

Dejected I hung up the phone and talked to the staff at Mackerel Sky. They were uniform in their agreement I was living a scene out of Larry David's life. Yup, they also indicated that this was really not my problem and perhaps I should contact the florist to set up a “make good” delivery. The communal logic was that it was the florist's error for the poor (really the absent) packaging and for leaving the flowers with my son. My actions were merely part of an inadvertent good natured bungle and retrieving the now day old flowers would not really be making the situation right.

As I left the store and proceeded to walk home the contacting the florist idea made sense. Using my iphone I looked up the number of the florist. It was local. With a local business involved telling them about the situation and setting up a “make good” delivery might be the best resolution. Wrong O Boyo.

When I tapped the screen and the number dialed I ended up being routed to a call center in Texas. The connection on the line was terrible. As I walked and talked I did eventually after repeated attempts convey the gist of the information to the clerk in Dallas or wherever she was. As I listened to the clerk I noted that her accent was so strong I found myself waiting for her to tell me to kiss off with Chief Brenda Lee Johnson's classic signature southern drawl infused line “Have a nice day” Click.

In the end the clerk did not tell me to kiss off and she indicated she would try and make arrangements for another drop off. To do this she needed a number for phone confirmation of delivery. She asked if I had Kim-left's number.

Looking in my cell directory I did not have Kim-left's number but I did have John-left's cell number. Giving her this number I chuckled to myself. It was clear to me that John-left wouldn't know what was going on when he got the call from the florist. Given what had happened this seemed par for the course. But at least I was doing the right thing.
Ah but the tale is not over yet.

As I walked down my street I saw the door to John and Kim-right's house open. I thought to myself ‘well I can at least explain what happened and in case the florist does not make good on the “make good” I can get the day old flowers and take them over to Kim left’. I knocked. I knocked again.

John-right eventually appeared. I started out with an “I have to apologize but I think I dropped off flowers to your wife last night that belonged to the other Kim.” At that point Kim-right came out of the hall going “Oh no, those were my flowers. They were a thank you from a former student”. I then explained that this state of facts was very weird. I went into how Francie had gotten a call from Kim-left indicating she that she thought we were holding some flowers for her. How odd was it I asked that we would have two deliveries of flowers to our house at the same time, one of which we could not account for.

At this point Kim-right said “Oh that must be my fault.” She then went on to explain that when she got home yesterday, after my group had gone looking for Italian food, see found a note saying something about there being flowers for Kim at 410 Ourstreet (not the real street name). Kim-right continued that her home had a lower number and so she assumed there must be flowers for Kim-left. As a result she then put the note on Kim-left's door. At this point I interjected that I lived at 410 Ourstreet and what the note had meant was that flowers were left for Kim at 410 Ourstreet not for Kim of 410 Ourstreet.

Giggles all around. Schmuck. Schmuck. Schmuck.

I decided that I would not call the florist back. I decided I would not call John-left back. What was the downside here? If the “make good” got delivered John and Kim-left get some joy (joy my wife did not get) by the delivery of beautiful flowers. Schmuck.

Geometry

The light falls in odd ways on the modern buildings we create. Using small pieces of granite and large pieces of darkened glass we make monuments to modernism. Sometimes I wonder if anyone still really tries to act upon the maxim of letting form follow function.

On an early summer morning the light hits the window of the House Office Building for the State of Michigan. Stand in the right position and you see a geometry of light that playing out along the concrete sidewalk. Nothing grand but waiting to cross a street the gently differentiated rays can be a mild diversion. Today I snapped a shot of the web of light and put it up above. Maybe the fact that this dance of light caught my attention enough to snap a picture shows a little of how my mind works that this game of light caught my eye.

Over the past week I have been working on a piece about working in a vegetable packing house when I was 14. The work lasted only a month or two but it really opened my eyes up to the layers of this world. The hours I spent were key in defining what I wanted in life, that is to be doing something other than manual labor and to be somewhere other than New Jersey I want to get the piece right.

Writing this story is both hard and easy. I remember splintered bits and pieces with great, great clarity. But other parts are large soft fluffy clouds of feeling that I just can’t get my mind around so as to conjure words to capture what I want to say. I wrote a couple of pages of narrative and then stopped. Right now I am just writing vignettes about people and things associated with the place. In a few more days I will go back and try and integrate everything into a whole. We will see what happens.

Enjoy the geometry of daybreak.

Musical Interlude

I like Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service. Here is a link to a live concert recording of Ben Gibbard the lead singer for each of these bands. I liked the cover of the Donovan song at the start and Silhouettes a little later on.

http://www.archive.org/details/bengibbard2007-05-09.flac16

Dogs and the Horizon

Love, pain, watchfulness, fear, despair, exhilaration, exhalation and wonder; these are the emotions of a parent. A single minute, no, a mere fleeting moment can run you through the whirling wheel that evokes each of these emotional states. The cascade happens regularly as you stand watching your child. You understand what he is feeling but you also understand so many things that he doesn’t yet. Still no matter how much every piece of your being wants to intercede and help make every situation work out well you have to let him live his life. A parent prays a great deal. Entreaties are made no matter whether you believe in God or nature. You pray earnestly that if your child should fall that the pain will be bearable.

Primus is my oldest son. He is a moose of a boy. His music camp is over. Both the double bass and the moose boy are squeezed into a tiny Prius for the trip home. After a week of food largely ignored because every morsel has been drenched in mayonnaise and other unappealing binding agents, the moose is ready to forage. As we peruse the menu at this drive-in, this last vestige of 1950s American car culture, he has made his choice. Now he looks out the other window away from the menu board. Suddenly smiling. Primus yells a loud greeting. He has just seen a camp cabin mate walk by our car. The shout out was absolutely nullified by the closed car window. Sitting at the drive in carefully considering this order of dogs and fries the air conditioning is on and the window is up. Hot summer this one.

Realizing how special a moment this is when he says “I have to go over to say hi to Sam”, Mom and I say in unison “Go”. With that Primus pushes the door open and strolls ‘aw shucks’ hands in pocket to where the boy in the other blue camp uniform is eating hot dogs with his family. We watch as drawing close Primus leans back against a wall and starts talking and gesturing in a warm and friendly way. The boy's posture mirrors James Dean's in Rebel Without a Cause. In 14 years of life this was a first.

Aspergers defines who my son is. Sometimes sadly it also defines how people perceive him. Aspergers makes getting to know him difficult and challenging. But it also makes him interesting, if you take the time to make real contact. Primus comes at the world in his own way and he doesn't seem to care a whit about what you think. In some ways that is a true thing and a meaningful statement, but in others it is not. Primus wants to be liked but not necessarily on the terms and in the ways social convention delineate.

In the past year Primus’ teachers have told us that he is trying to make social connections. They say he is working hard to find ways to respond to social cues. He wants to act in ways that are at least consistent with the behaviors of other kids he goes to school with. Primus clearly wants to be part of the world of people. It is by his choice that he works to be on a sport’s team. But the hidden cues in our faces confound him. The unspoken rules are unknown to him. Vocal tones don’t carry clear meaning to him. Sorting these things just doesn’t come naturally.

But I must turn back to the incident at Dog and Suds with the boys in the blue shirts. The blue shirts are part of the uniform at the Blue Lake Fine Arts camp. The folks at Blue Lake must be different. This is the third year Primus has been and each time he goes we find something new and positive that gives us optimism.

The first year we were overjoyed when the kids after the final concert were saying things like, "Primus you are coming back next year aren't you?" Nobody had ever invited him back for an event unless they were forced to, or needed to for one reason or another. The comments in that informal moment backstage were different, it was clear these boys liked him.

Year two it was the banter around the cabin as he was packing to go. Again the kids seemed to genuinely care about Primus and what was up with him and his plans for the rest of the summer. The counselors that year told us how much they had enjoyed him. They made it clear that it really wasn't an issue that he had Aspergers and that he was a good kid.

Leaving the car to go seek out someone else to talk was watershed moment. Before our wide open eyes Primus instigated an outreach to another person because he liked them and because he wanted to keep a contact with them. Wow. My wife and I stared at each other as he opened the door and walked down the sidewalk. It was a moment we had wanted for so long. Reaching a point where social reciprocity was wanted is something.

Trust me the world didn't not turn upside down but it was a start. When we got home the first thing out of his mouth to his brother Secundus was "Be quiet you." But the command was warm, not just barked out in routine fashion.

Maybe it is just the maturing process. On the way to the car after his performance he carried his own instrument. About halfway up the path to the car I offered to carry it the rest of the way and he readily agreed. But he made the effort to carry the heavy instrument at least for the first part of the way. Taking responsibility was a change.

When we talked in the car on the ride home he tried to make conversation. The answers weren't much different than they usually are. What was the funniest thing that happened? I dunno. What did you enjoy most? I dunno. Did you have fun? Yes. I assume that some of this is just pure teenager. However I know that some of it is pure Aspergers. He doesn't rank emotional experiences the way I do. It just doesn't happen like that.

Sitting at Dog and Suds I looked out at the lake. The sky was blue and the air temperature was as comfortable as it had been in weeks. A tray of death dogs and greasy burgers and onion rings had arrived. The smell of such food is wonderful. The moment was perfect. Primus was happy and connected. I could have cried. Some days are better than others. Blue skies do come. Success can be attained. I felt so good that I went home and cleaned the garage. Sweating I picked through years o f accumulated crap. The work was hard I was motivated. It had a day to remember. This was worth much more than the price of admission to music camp.

Words and Voices

My life is words. Spoken aloud and spoken not loud it seems my words carry a distance that is so very far. Language comes easy for me and my words are plentiful. Chuckling here I muse that many probably think my words are far too plentiful. Because of the ease I feel with language I may not think about what I say as much as I should. In reality more often than not I do not fully think before I speak.



When you have spoken out loud something that you are at the moment thinking and have thought on for a long time, people gain an insight into the essence of who you are. If you say the thought you have been nurturing too hastily others may not see what really is inside of you. Or maybe the problem is they see too well what is in you because the words carry out more of what we keep inside than was planned.

One would think that having let an idea gestate for a while in the back of your mind would season it. One would think that ruminating over the meaning of something you have seen or come to a conclusion about would refine the way it gets presented to your audience. It just isn't so.

We oft forget that what made us who we are did not make everyone else who they are. At best we are making guesses about the scope of common experience that we share with others. So many times we find that our guesses are just that and nothing more.

There should be no surprise in finding out that my words and your words, my world and your world are like that faux old timey picture of the two trains meeting six feet off center. Still I am surprised when my words do not convey what I mean.

At times I wish there were some common source like the tree in Avatar that we could all plug into. Sometimes I wish that the barrier that exists between myself and other people would just disappear for a moment and that I could be in their skin and they in mine with our minds sharing what we know to be true, what we have experienced and through that process reconciling and advancing on to a better form of understanding and human communion.

The hippies and hipsters of the 1960s wanted to do this with LSD. They failed. Monks have wanted to do it with celibacy and libertines have wanted to accomplish it with wanton copulation. They both failed and continue to fail. Churches want us to do this through their paths, their ways of redemption. If any of these ways was the one, including Paganism, Buddhism, Christianity, Tao ad infinitum why do we still fight religious wars, crusades and jihads?

I don't have an answer to my ultimate question, how do we move beyond the limitations of language. Living with an open heart is fine, but somehow you have to communicate what your idea of good is. Words seem to be the only choice available. I guess I will just strive for greater precision in my words.

A Sunday Should be Well Spent

Lazy Sunday brings with it a vibrant feeling of life when it comes. In a sunlit room with wood floors I make time to read Prince Valiant.

Reading the old fashioned strip is not an obligation but rather a habit. I read Prince Valiant when I was young and thought things like, “Geez this is slow and boring” and “When will this every get to some action”. Now I savor the fact that I only have to read the story once a week and I am current.

By saying I “make time to read Prince Valiant" I mean I have the opportunity, the down moment in which to waste my time in an idle pleasure. Our world we live in is too fast. We have lost any sense that we can ever rest. Culturally we went from to hand to mouth existence to a time of leisure society in less than a century. In less that three decades we are now back at fighting for our day's morsels.

Still I think we need to carve out downtime. Rest beyond sleep is important.

The pictures are from a Sunday afternoon spent wandering about a county park on Vancouver Island. I think the shot of my youngest all those many years ago is a thing of beauty.

It was different back then

I am cleaning up an old computer and this is what I found in the images. Forgive me if I posted it before. Yeah times were different back then. Looking at the typing I think it wouldn't have taken much to turn me into a Unibomber clone.

The Two Stimulants that are Always Visible

The motivation for the posting of the Joni Mitchell song, the Three Great Stimulants was a walk in the alleyway behind my office. As I was departing for a lunch one day I noticed an odd bit of urban art. The piece had clearly been arranged by someone.

My mind saw this as an installation by one or more addicts in a private urban space. I snapped a picture to memorize the effort. The coffee cups were all precisely placed at an angle save one. The empty cigarette pack also seemed to be staged with care so as to complete this work comprised of lost/discarded materials. My mind gave it a title, Stimulants in Iron before Brick.

The only things missing from this shot are intoxicants and sex. Putting a woman in a slit skirt with a mostly empty microbrew bottle in her hand might be the answer to that. It would resolve the lack of completion that I see in this work. Maybe I will try and stage that and post the image.

Anyhow once the stimulants thing got in my head I started humming the Mitchell tune.

Faces

Sometimes you see a face and just accept the emotion being conveyed as being open. Perhaps the person you gaze has caught is smiling. It may come from the twitch of a muscle near the mouth. Perhaps a bone in the cheek flexed.

A face can tell us so much. The arch of the eyebrow, the presence of “laugh” lines, these are the kind of nuances of facial features conveying who a person really is. Well it conveys this information to me and to other people of my ilk, neurotypicals. Clearly and without question my son doesn’t see these things; nor will he ever. His brain has been proven empirically per a series of MRI scans to be formed in a way that is not set up to read these cues. It is what it is.

For me reading a face isn’t about the complexion as much as it is the eyes and the mouth. Oh the complexion can tell you if the person has worked hard and thus has been weathered. Stress or the elements are a couple of causes for the aging of skin. My father’s face worked outside and worked with stressful situations. His face was as worn as an old leather jacket supple and wrinkled. His was an expressive face. The skin told you what he did. However the mischievousness or anger or confusion that is what you had to read in the eyes and the laugh lines. A complexion can also tell you if a person has sought refuge in a bottle or some other intoxicant. But skin tone can’t tell you what somebody is really all about.

For years now I have seen the above face behind the counter at the coffee shop I haunt. The image does not do her justice. It does not show the open joy she exudes in daily conversation. It does not show the love of life and the lust for knowledge she ebulliently exudes. What it does show is another human who can use her face as a canvas to tell us so much more about who and what she is.

The Three Great Stimulants

I don't know if I would call this one of Joni Mitchell's great lost songs. I like it. The sentiment seems true when I think about it. Also how many songs can you name that use the word artifice?



Here are the lyrics in case you want to peruse them.

I picked the morning paper off the floor
It was full of other people's little wars
Wouldn't they like their peace?
Don't we get bored?
And we call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence

No tanks have ever rumbled through these streets
And the drone of planes at night has never frightened me
I keep the hours and the company that I please
And we call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh and deep in the night
Our appetites find us
Release us and bind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up building bombs
And making laws and bars
They'd like to slam free choice behind us

I saw a little lawyer on the tube
He said, "It's so easy now, anyone can sue."
"Let me show you how your petty aggravations can profit you!"
Call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh and deep in the night
Appetites find us
Release us and blind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up building bombs
And making laws and bars
They're gonna slam free choice behind us

Last night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker
Great forests fell like buffalo
Everything got sicker
And to the bitter end
Big business bickered
And they call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh these times, these times
Oh these changing times
Change in the heart of all mankind
Oh these troubled times

Spinoza

Our apprehension of truth can’t be passive at all, but active, a function of the exercise of reason-the same reason that exists in all humankind. Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza. New York: Schocken Books, 2006, p 208

A walk at lunch on a gray day passes quickly. Time spent this way gives a moment to reflect. Walking down the streets of a small city is a different walk than the one in the mountains I described recently. On the misty evening of the earlier walk I was seeking relief. Today when I walk at lunch I am seeking a moment to think.

Primarily when I have been striding abut today I am thinking about what Baruch Spinoza endured in his search for the truth. Being driven from his community of Amsterdam Jews, that is the entirety of the world he had known until his excommunication, could not have been easy. Today nobody is expelled forever from society except for sex offenders. Now even murderers can be rehabilitated. In our 21st century world you can challenge the existence of God and humankind in most places will not kill you.

Having been ordered to sever his ties with the Jewish community, and they having been demanded by the religious authorities to cut all time with him, Spinoza had to move into a more rural area. It was a place where he was isolated from the day to day world. He was left alone with his ideas. Alone isn’t quite right he had correspondence with persons engaged in similar pursuits, but some of these were clearly designed to trap him in acknowledging one heresy or another. Some seem to have been been sent with the hope he would say something in response with which he could be prosecuted. He entered a world where all of Christendom was suspicious of anyone other than the true believes; it could not have been easy.

I liked the above quote. In some ways it is my mantra. The search for truth must always be foremost in how we carry on in our lives. To probe for truth and challenge assumptions allows us to grow. However with growth comes pain. Spinoza really was an extraordinary being.

A Tree Resolves it All

Sometimes you just need a walk. Putting your feet into motion feels good when your world is too intense and too in your face and when you just need to be anywhere but where you are.

On vacation recently I hit one of those moments. No single thing took me there; no single person brought me to that point. It was the accretion of a number of things that caked together made me want to go.

Let’s consider the situation. Sitting in a garage some 60 miles away was my car. As noble a beast as the Prius it for some reason it had started smoking on the long decline into Cherokee. Social dynamics on the child front were bad. The kids had been at each other in the back of my sister in law’s van for the better part of the day. We had been visiting historic sites and the Gameboys were mandated to be off. Lacking distraction teen fuses were short. Me I was just sweaty and tired.

Arriving back at the condo, I couldn’t find any reading material that would work to divert my mind. The TV did not work well and I really didn’t want to play cards. Lacking any other options I decided to take a walk. On the way out of the condo I noted our camera was sitting on the table. Grabbing it I headed out.

Despite the humidity the walk was exactly what I needed. As I headed down the hill I noticed a cloud rolling over the next hill/mountain. Stopping about halfway down a pretty steep incline I noticed how majestic the mist coming down over the green lush trees was. Looking up I spotted a single tree standing erect and very strong against the fading light. There was no hidden in the tree it was just beautiful to me. I took a couple shots of that pine and my mind cleared.

A walk on a country road took me out to a solitary tree. A solitary tree took me to a space beyond all the hubbub of the day. It grounded me and I was okay. Go take a walk.

Why I Love This Site

In March of last year I came upon a website called OneTwoFiver. OneTwoFiver is a writing tool used to open up the creative juices. It demands you write without editing really and that you follow a contrived format.

I was skeptical at first but I created an account and started writing. One word, two words, five words and so on; I created stories. Normally when I went to the site I had nothing in mind, just a desire that I write and that I create a piece that was a couple of pages long. In the end I think if you follow the rules you end up with 888 words.

Noting that the site is not heavily used and realizing that there is a cost to maintaining such a site I have become worried that my work resident there will be lost. As a result today as I sat here recuperating I went out and grabbed all my pieces off the site and saved them as a word document. Like the folks in Writer’s Monthly say, just sit down and do it.

In 33 pieces I have amassed a word total of over 14, 000 words. Some of the pieces are short; there were days when I just couldn’t get it going. But a goodly number of them have the full count and then some. A number of these pieces have been copied and pasted by me in the past and reworked into blog posts. There was a 10 day period in August of last year when I wrote 8 full length pieces. I don’t’ know how I did that. Still I am glad that I did.

I have never felt comfortable with my written words. Syntax and grammar baffle me and frustrate me. Words, oh dear precious words, them I love. But stringing them along in a coherent form uh well I am how you say not so good at that. But with OneTwoFiver I am forced to write and then because it has no editing program Word and I get busy afterwards. Sometimes I wait a day or two before tackling the mechanics of it all, but I try.

I guess what I am saying is that writing is a good thing. We all should do it. Find a way that works for you and just do it. Me I use OneTwoFiver but there are lots of other sites and tools out there. Take a breath and create.

Parts of Two Nights Long Since Past that I have been Trying to Work into a Story

Lonely and quiet the darkened beach road winds down the coast towards the ocean. Dunes lie to the left, just beyond them the waves are rolling in again and again. With the pickup truck’s windows rolled down the sound of the surf can be heard over the engine. Glancing out of the open window on the driver’s side, thin wisps of foam can be seen dancing and scattering on the dark water as the waves rise and fall. The cream, almost yellow colored foam is like an ethereal water snake barely caught by the eye in a glimpse illuminated by the moon’s light. You only see the waves along those stretches when the dunes part. The surf you see is the Atlantic. In North America the direction in which the ocean lies should tell you the road you are on is heading south.

Late, late summer night moving into early morning with a full moon hanging clear, there is no haze tonight. On an evening like this the dunes are more a moonscape than something of this earthly world. It should be hot and muggy but it isn't. Being on this thin strip of land with water so close on either side the wind no matter which direction it blows cools the evening quickly. There is dampness in the air, you never escape that hear along the beach, but it is not oppressive. You begin to hum a country song sort of. It is new country that is closer to folk rock than to Merle Haggard. “I rely upon the moon; I rely upon the moon and Saint Christopher.” A couple of choruses find their way out and then you grow quiet. Your head is pounding and your eyes burn.

For whatever reasons the developers and other rapists of the good lands have not found this place. Maybe they just can't figure out how to stabilize this place. Speculators and would be land barons don't give a rat's ass for safety or the environment. There must be an honest to God engineering problem or there would be condos up and down this blacktop.

If you were in a mood to think you would have to wonder why anybody even pushed this two lane (sort of) road all the way out here. Some roads like this exist because they used to run down to a ferry, not this one. It is and has always been a dead end. The route is a hell of a long drive to come out to a ramshackle fishing pier.

At the base of the pier is a little seafood diner populated by a bunch of gnarled old people. They themselves don’t give much of a rat's ass about who you are and why you are here. With the burdens of all the infirmities that age imposes upon them, while they stare at you when you get out of this old truck, they really don’t care much at all about you and your business. Sometimes you want it that way. This however is their social time. Early predawn breakfast and fishing done before noon is what they do to stay connected.

You can smell the coffee that is brewing inside. The odor of coffee mixes with the salt air and the smell of dune grass. If your stomach wasn’t so wrecked that smell of java would seem like aromatic heroin. You would have to have some.

Why the Sam Hell did you drive all the way out here? Couldn't be for the cuisine, there isn't any really to speak of. When the Sea Shanty or whatever the name of this place is opens up it’ll have hash browns, eggs, bacon, white toast and coffee and that is about it. They might have oatmeal for the health conscious (not really). It is just for the old-timers who have been told give up the grease or die.

You won’t be going in except maybe to get some something to drink. Even if you didn’t fell like crap there sitting on the front seat of the pickup is that homemade sort of Egg McMuffin thing you made. Only the egg is fried and has lots of grease congealing on it. Instead of back bacon you threw shaved deli ham you had in the fridge on it. The bread is store bought bogus white and the cheese is from a gigundo pack you bought at Sam's.

When you were putting the sandwich together you had wished you had had some of the bacon left over from last week, also from Sam's. That stuff is a veritable plank of dead pig. When frying up it smell's about as smoky as a fire along the coastal forest. Egg McMuffin, nayh, this is an Egg McNuthin”. But the Egg McNuthin’s is not calling to you just yet now is it?

Okay so you aren't here for the food? Why then did you drive all this way to be here at this point? Answers aren’t always clear or easy. Sometimes you drive and drive not to get somewhere but to be as far away from somewhere as you can be. Sometimes when you wake up in the backyard happy that some snakes didn't get you and happier still (well more relieved than happy) that you didn't die in your own vomit because there were copious splashes of that around you as you rose up. Yeah making that Egg McNuthin” made more sense way earlier in the evening and most of a pint of JD ago.

Nope you got your dew drenched hungover ass up and fled the scene because you just wanted to be as far away as you can be. Sometimes it is just better to be gone than to actually go back into the house and see the carnage of the night before. Sometime it is best not to answer voice mail or check your messages because you really, really don't want to know who you told to suck what. Don't check out those texted photos either. You were not a pretty sight wearing just a football helmet, your jockey shorts and a happy face spray painted on your bare belly.

Most likely when you got in the car you were still DUI but with the hour it took to get out here you might be under the legal limit. Luckily on this beach road there are damn few things to hit. Your biggest risks are going off into the sand or being hit by a clam dropped a seagull trying to break it open on the road surface.

Maybe taking a few hours here on the beach will help you. If you go into the Sea Shanty you can get a large Pepsi Cola with lots of ice. Then you can walk down the beach about as far as your legs will carry you away from any other human face. You can back up onto the edge of the dunes and wait for the morning to break through; it really won’t be long now. As you watch the sun come up maybe you can come up with a plan. A beach sunrise has always helped you before. It light has always been a clarifying wash for your troubled soul.

As the sun comes up you can chug that carbonated brown sugar water beside you. Maybe it will replenish all those acids and electrolytes that your stomach spread on the lawn last night. Maybe it will simply quell your stomach’s roiling. As the warm of the sun begins to grow you can sweat out the last of the JD from your pores. Good thing you’re wearing an old cotton shirt to soak up that stink. By 10 a.m. maybe you will have a plan. Remember to take your shades the beach gets real bright by mid-morning. Your old ball cap might help too.

A Change is Bound to Come

Monitors showing coarse images in a room filled with beeping machines and gowned nurses provide the back drop for my scary morning. Lying flat with intravenous drugs pumping, this sterile world whirls and washes about me. Lying flat, they tell me I must lie still and prone I stare up at the image of the interior of my heart.

Too young, too young, I shake my head. 54 ? Really I am just a child. A young soul, my body is showing wear signs. Still the midpoint of my life has passed, these days rush past. Before the drugs Dilaudid and Fentanyl pumped into me I was sniveling and scared.

Mentally floating I watch my mortality on a grainy black & white screen. An audible pumping sound, a whooshing sound I hear as that core muscle works to keep me alive. What have I done for my heart lately?

Uhm, well I have given up chocolate and caffeine. In the old days I never would have done that. Ever. The doctor thinks the chest pains may be the result of caffeine and stimulants screwing with my veins. I have returned to the use of a statin drug but I am also using a non statin which has its own issues.

My leg wound will heal. This incision is from where they took their tools and snaked their way up into my heart. When my flesh has knit itself back together I will return to walking. Each morning I will trek to the bus stop. Each evening I will be riding my bike.

My diet was already changing. Hopefully the shift will be long term. More fish (for now) is on the daily menu. This is tough when the nearest ocean is 600 miles away.

If the radio is right I have to shift over to eating brown rice and barley too. These grains will reduce my chance of diabetes and that would be a good thing. At least I have always like broccoli. Odd how mortality seems to matter more when there is an instance of sudden doubt as to its continuation.

But the world will always press in trying to derail my efforts. We are conditioned to look for the easy way to do everything. Why walk when we can ride. We are conditioned to reward ourselves with food, food that is not good for us. When in doubt, eat a large piece of chocolate for each achievement or failure.

Today I ache. My muscles and my gut are sore from the “procedure”. Despite the warnings of huge bruising it really hasn’t set in yet. My hip hurts and sitting is uncomfortable. My wish is that these pains would all go away at once without hesitation.

On the other hand I am relieved that none of the physician’s might have to deal withs came to pass. Sequentially numbered these were set out on a warning sheet I had to sign and date. Coronary bypass surgery, stroke and death stand out at the ones that really scared the bejesus out of me. All in all, the event was rather quick and without complication, less than six hours from in the door to out the door.

People don’t change who they are very easily. How and what we eat is unquestionably part of who we are. But when you are faced with a choice between being and well not being, change becomes a little bit easier to swallow. It may seem unfair that grazing is no longer an acceptable food ingestion plan and that chocolate and Diet Coke are no longer a viable food group, but it sure beats the alternative.

Motivated by the existential ultimate coup de grace I think I can eat clean at least for the near future. Maybe if I can stick with a week I will make it a month. Maybe if I can make it a month I can make it six months. From anecdotal memory this is the way change has always worked for me. Aim for today and maybe tomorrow and if it works then think long term.

Once upon a time when I was 14 years old I pared off a great deal of weight. I weighed about 190 pounds and I was 5 foot 6 inches tall. From about April of the year I hit that weight until September I changed my eating habits. I drank water instead of soda pop. I walked and biked all over the place. I stopped eating Tastykakes (mmmm Tastykakes) .

Forty pounds disappeared in almost no time. I didn’t feel it going away, it just vanished. Hey I grew six inches at the time but I don’t think the metabolic change accounted for all of it, or even most of it. It was really a matter of desire and will.

I had made my mind up that change had to happen. Then I focused on a strategy. Each step I took toward the refrigerator was taken with knowledge and purpose. For years afterward I had food rules such as when I could and couldn’t eat. I wouldn’t buy candy bars. I would only drink unsweetened tea. I avoid ice cream. I wouldn’t eat after 7 p.m.

In reality I don’t remember what the event was that motivated the change but there must have been one. It has been my experience that people change only when an “event” occurs. Death, incarceration, and divorce these bring about change. Maybe it I was to pay for a second session with a psychiatrist and maybe a few more after that I would peel back the layers and remember what my catalyst for change was. But right now I don’t think that is necessary. One day spent scared out of my mind while they poked around in my heart; yeah I think that is enough of an agent for change.

Hey but chocolate is chocolate.

I Should Have Known There Would Be Days Like These

What is the heart and crux of a human life? Put simply I don’t know. In all my reading while I have found many people willing to make a buck or promote particular agendas by claiming something is the heart of human life I have yet to find one that holds up for me. Is the answer to this question what I feel and experience of the world around me? Maybe, but I am not sure. Being engaged and active in living life seems to be something that is important but I am not sure it is the heart of life. No guru, no teacher, no method, like Van Morrison said I just want enlightenment, whatever that is.

Last night was very hard on my soul and psyche. I had to cancel my younger son’s participation in a school field trip, the fun field trip of the year. Secundus had been given the assignment of getting teacher signatures on a sheet showing what work he had turned in and what still owed. His grades right now are abysmal. When I called him at day’s end he told me the sheet was completed. When his mother got home he admitted he had not done it, not at all.

When I arrived home it was a scene out of my childhood. I found myself being directed into the living room to be the inquisitor. Facing my boy I asked him what had stopped him from getting the signatures. The claim was he had forgotten to do it for the first two classes and at that point he decided it was too late to get signatures from any of his other classes. Does this sound like a valid or good reason? To me it sounds like an excuse offered for a decision made early on in the day not to subject himself to the embarrassment and potential of being called to task by his teachers. Secundus had been warned there would be consequences and I have acted.

It was probably one of the harder parenting decisions I have had to make of late. Opting to go to the ER was easier. I have always hoped and believed that Secundus would rise to whatever challenge was put in front of him. He is ferocious as a debater. He is an omnivore of all kinds of knowledge. But something this year has taken him off track. His teachers blame it on him. I don’t at least not entirely. Some of the blame clearly belongs to me for not interceding early and often when things began to get bollixed up. Some of the blame belongs on the teachers, all of whom have my e-mail and my phone number for not contacting me when they were observing problems.

Secundus has fucked up. But so did I, as a kid. Hopefully he will right himself. In my case it took a move away from home to bring about change and that is not possible here. It may happen that I have to move him to another school. We’ll see. I so want to protect him from all the major problems that confronted me but I guess I can’t. Maybe life’s tough turns, those are its heart.



http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/first-steps-to-digital-detox/