Day 116 of 365 Abandoned Forts

After 1000 miles and four days in a car with someone you begin to discover little things about the nature of the person who is sitting next to you in the front seat. These little epiphanies come even though the expanse of the front seat is quite wide in a 1972 Chevrolet Impala. As the miles click off bits and pieces of who they are come through. Sometimes what you find are little insights into thier personality that because of how you were genetically wired or brought up, (although me I think who we are is more genetics), that you didn't just don’t understand.

The first of several insights that were to reveal themselves on that two and a half week road trip showed up while camping in God’s country. It appeared at an abandoned naval base in the middle of Idaho. Idaho seems an odd place for a naval base doesn't it? But in World War II apparently having an inland naval training center was apparently very important. Bearing the name of Farragut Lake the base had in 1978 recently been converted into a state park. The work appeared to have been done on the cheap, or relatively inexpensively as they would say. Some open tent sites and a concrete boat landing for sport fishing boats were about the total of amenities. I don’t remember showers and thus it must have been a pit toilet kind of place.

This was an honor campsite at the time and you had to put $2.50 into a paper packet and drop it into a slot in a pipe to pitch a tent for the night. Cheap was good. The place was isolated. As I noted a lake abutted the campsites and a short walk away sat the old Navy barracks. The barracks were not behind any kind of fencing. If you were so inclined you could have looked in the windows and climbed the exterior staircases. They were just off to the side of the campground and they slowly starting to fall apart. It was not the decay of vandalism but just the creeping return of North Country nature.

Farragut Lake was beautiful, a naturally dammed box canyon that about a mile deep. In the need to quickly, efficiently and safely train submariners the lake was pressed into use as a training ground. My guess is that you needed the depth to teach people how to dive and surface those submarines. You also needed a place to train that was not in the active war zone like off the Pacific Coast. Going out from Seattle or the other ports of the northwest for a practice run would have put the trainees in immediate danger.

Farragut Lake was north of Coeur d'Alene and south of Bonner's Ferry. Nestled in the woods the park was just a stone throw from the Canadian border, a border mind you, where I had to show a gas credit card and $200 in traveler's cheques before they would let me in the country. My hair was a little longish and my female companion was a little waif like. For all the world we looked like hippies coming to homestead in the true north proud and free. Farragut Lake was out of the way and not a whole heck of people were using it at the time. After the day fisherman left we had the run of the place. We did not I emphasize go poking around the old barracks

Picking a site down near the water we figured we could see the sun going down. We cooked dinner as it were on a green Coleman stove (which we still have to this day). No gourmet meal it probably was fried hot dogs split in half or scrambled eggs as a main dish and baked beans for a side. After cleaning up using the campground's pump and a dinky little sample size of dish detergent we drank a beer or two and crawled into our sleeping bags. The cotton batting sleeping bags we had got stuffed into a little nylon tent that stood maybe three foot high, was three foot wide and seven foot long. We had no Coleman lantern and when night came we were done.

As we talked before sleep were covered all the topics two twenty somethings on the road would talk about. Books including Dune, Watership Down anything by Kurt Vonnegut were riffed on. We probably were still babbling about the beautiful campsite the day before in Wyoming. Lying there just talking my travelling companion then told me about her fears of abandoned buildings. Deep rooted as it was she could not explain exactly wheree it came from. Knowing it was irrational she was quite uneasy because of the old abandoned barracks.

She also had the fear of old bridges where one center piece was still standing but the access points to the bridge were gone. This fear came from a dream which had been recurring in her youth about being stuck on that center span. I joked about these being just unreasonable fears, but these were nightmare fears and I personally know they don't go away easily. These were fears that came out in dreams again and again. Me I had my own nightmare fear. For me there existed in my subconscious a pair of hands coming out from under a door and grabbing my ankles pulling me under a garage door or down into a drain. About once every three months still I have this dream and I wake up screaming and sweating. Don't know why. We drifted off.

We slept at eight hours for we were dead from a long day’s drive. As a result the time asleep passed very quickly. At dawn however the pterodactyls arrived.

At 5:45 in the morning a murder of crows was set out and about in the CCC forest that the base/campground. was nestled in. These large dark birds had taken control. As daylight was breaking they began to scream and caw like crows I have never heard before. It was unremitting. It was bone chilling. It drew a power from prehistory.

The shrill screaming scared the living hell out of me. To my travelling companion who had already given voice to her unease with the surroundings, this otherworldly message provided by those dark birds, creatures that populate Poe and so many other stories of horror, stood as the warning to get out. The screeching was a message to flee. Trust me I was right there with her, I don’t think I have ever heard an animal sound so ill timed and nerve jangling. These crows could have been a message that doom was impending. Given the ferocity of their cacophony I was buying into the "this is a creepy place" vibe.

We were up and packed in minutes flat. No coffee was brewed. No toast or pancakes were made over the Bunsen burner like elements of the Coleman stove. We just got the hell out of there and started heading north to that interesting exchange up at the border I mentioned. We didn't look back. Odd moment, odd night we spent there on the north edge of the country. Mental note was made by this writer, no abandoned building infested future camp sites. Also beware of crows for they are nasty loud creatures.

http://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/parks/farragut

Fragment

Morning came. He awoke. The bag of aching meat he had become was stiff. With no slight effort he pulled himself to an upright sitting position. He paused on the edge of the bed. How long he would rest there didn’t matter it was just time. For a moment he let his eyes adjust.  Enough light was filtering into the room to move about it.  As things stood despite a desire to get moving he had to remain seated. Until his mind cleared a bit he would not be able to find his glasses.  

Memory not failed eyesight would locate his specs.  Let the seconds tick by until memory comes. Are then on the headboard or on the chair. Myopia is a terrible thing, it can lead to broken toes. Done that before.  

As his mind slowly cleared, groggily kicked into process he knew he urgently had to pee.  When he was six years old he would have done a crazy hold the pee in dance bouncing to the john.  Six years of age was long ago. He doubted any real memories of that time existed within his consciousness. His mind was producing cogent simply structured thoughts now, ‘Oh let the eyes clear. Let me find my glasses and head to the toilet. Don’t want to pee on my toes’.  

He had slept soundly and that is why his bladder was screaming.  No two a.m. trips by feel to the head last night.  Sad thing though, he knew he was old cause he didn’t have the morning “I gotta go so bad” hard on.  Old was now measured by the fallen barometer of his dick. Sleep now was induced and regulated by Xanax. 

Placing his glasses on and shuffling to the bathroom he knew the day was different.  To an observer nothing special stood out.  The world within this room was in place.  The body next to him when he had gone to sleep was still there as he rose.  Softly breathing the relaxed form moved in the rhythms of sweet and gentle rest.  The light coming through the window was the warm yellow light that spring as it comes to the north provides at that hour. Her sleeping form conveyed peace. 

On the dresser his old bible sat covered with the tiniest little bit of dust.  Last week he had found himself rereading that passage about not worrying about tomorrow.  The Lord gilds the lily; the birds of the air survive.  After that reading he had put it down and had not revisited the Holy Book.  

When trouble comes everyone has a specific place they run for support.  His was there in the Gospels of the New International Version of the Bible. Living with acceptance that life would be providently provided for he tried to move on.  As sure as a dog won’t give up a meaty chew toy he worked over that thought again and again.  He had been mulling that concept up ever since he had turned those onion skinned pages. Life it seems was pressing in.

Another week day, another work day, the rituals were beckoning.  His shoes sat in his closet shinning.  His shirts were clean and pressed. Silent white oxford button down shirts hung there above his shoes. Old ties hung in a row on a tie rack.  He stood and looked at them and only one thing crossed his mind, revulsion.  Yesterday it was boredom.  Today he knew it was revulsion he felt; it was if he had a flu coming on.  A mild perspiration appeared on his brow.  A knot came to his stomach, his hands clenched.

Glasses found he walked quietly but quickly to the other side of the room.  Grabbing a patterned t-shirt, tightly whities and blue jeans he made his way to the shower.  Oh he had to pee. It almost hurt.  How long can you clench without blowing out some ureters? 

The hall was carpeted so the only being who would know he was moving about would be the cat.  As he got to the door of the shower the cat lifted up on his hind haunches and raised his head.  A more blatant cry for a head scratch and some attention there is not. He bent down and stroked the top of the cat’s head.  The cat reached up and grabbed his hands with his front two paws.  There was going to be a minute or two of petting at the very minimum. He was probably going to pee himself.  Cat might get caught in the crossfire.

Tiring of the ritual the cat raised a furry black tail and walked from the bathroom.  I’m and old man living in an old house, he thought.  He turned on the faucet in the tub and let the water run it would be 30 seconds to warm and then he would jump in.  At 60 seconds it would be getting pretty damn hot and he would turn the handle to the spot where he was comforted by the heat but not scalded.  Before that 30 seconds passed he voided with the power of a firehouse.

For men the shower is sacred.  It erases aches in the shoulders, aches in the back and aches just about anywhere.  It cleanses the pores and hair.  It carries away the residue that results when those two women you saw yesterday evening at the bus stop are suddenly a whole lot prettier and a whole lot more naked and are furiously engaged in lesbian sex in your mind. It is where you organize your lists of to dos for the day.  It is where you pray to whoever is listening out there among the stars that this might be a better day. And then you twist the handle and the shower is done and you are reaching out for a towel.

A Prayer

Seek that which is higher than the world. Entreat the four winds and the stars and the sky to show you the true nature of all that is holy. Humankind is so small, so very insignificant. One being is a mere grain of sand on a planet made up of sand, the epitome of insignificance. But one being, one grain of sand, is not less deserving of the divine than any other.

Approach the sacred and consecrated with openness, the greatest openness you can muster. Approach that which is holy with open hands and open hearts, with ears listening for that which lies beyond the din of daily traffic. Approach the divine without expectation or demand. Approach the holy with a hope to catch a glimpse of what is pure and what is right. Look deeply seeking the balm for your soul.

I am not the first to have trod this path. Pablo understood. I use what is below without legal permission but I hope with spiritual permission.

Gautama Christ

The names of God and especially those of His representative

Who is called Jesus or Christ according to holy books and

someone's mouth

These names have been used, worn out and left

On the shores of rivers of of human lives

Like the empty shells of a mollusk.

However when we touch these sacred but exhausted Names, these wounded scattered petals

Which have come out of the oceans of love and fear

omething still remains, a sip of water,

A rainbow footprint that still shimmers in the light.

While the names of God were used

By the best and the worst, by the clean and the dirty

By the white and the black, by bloody murderers

And by victims flaming gold with napalm

While Nixon with his hands

Of Cain blessed those whom he condemned to death,

While fewer and fewer divine footprints were found

on the beach

People began to study colors,

The future of honey, the sign of uranium

They looked with anxiety and hope for the possibilities

Of killing themselves or not killing themselves, of organizing

themselves into a fabric

Of going further on, of breaking through limits without stopping

What we came across in these blood thirsty times

With their smoke of burning trash, their dead ashes

As we weren't able to stop looking

We often stopped to look at the names of God

We lifted them with tenderness because they reminded us

Of our ancestors, of the first people, those who said the prayers

Those who discovered the hymn that united them in misfortune

And now seeing the empty fragments which sheltered those

ancient people

We feel those smooth substances,

Worn out and used up by good and by evil.

Pablo Neruda

Lunch Rooms as the Great Equalizer

Lunch rooms in state office buildings are places where one is never quite sure of their footing. All levels of staff pass through whatever small space the building administration assigns to house a refrigerator, a microwave, a table and some ratty broken assed chairs. From managers to temporary workers, from attorneys to lifer worker drones we all share the fridge and the microwave.

The lunch room at my office is small. At maximum it holds about 7 seated people. Two small tables sit inside. Space in the “break room” is so limited that one table is wedged into a corner and thus only two seats are possible. The other is wedged against a wall limiting it to accommodating three or maybe four people max.

Most of the time I opt not eat in the lunch room. Frequently I go out for lunch but on one or two days a week I don’t I eat at my desk and type up orders. My office and the branch office of the Secretary of State are distinct in their functions and as a result of that differentiation in task for some people there is awkwardness in comingling in the break room. Sometimes there is even a chill when the attorneys are sitting in amongst the clerks and eating.

Mostly I don’t think the branch staff or we have ever put a finger on that fact but the awkwardness is often palpable. I think this squirmy feeling may actually have to do with branch clerk’s perception of the attorneys as management. We are not; we are more or less stand alone professionals.

For the most part we don’t care about the branch personnel’s’ peccadilloes as to total time spent in the lunch room (the branch is totally production/time clock driven) or what kind of drinking binge they were on the previous weekend. Their managers would care, we don’t. My guess is that they think we are watching every move they make just waiting to turn them in. Thus there is always a sense of something that maintains a distance.

Two very nice ladies take lunch about the time I do. One of them is quite gregarious. She is talkative, opinionated and has lived life. The other has lived life too but the trail leading her to this point is different. She emigrated from Romania. She has an intriguing accent. Her questions sometimes show the differences in cultural experience and cultural expectation.

Today she brought a salad. It was something like a densely packed potato salad but with a wonderful flavor. She served it up on crackers to the other woman and myself. The basic flavor per her comments came from parsley root and pork. It was very delectable. The flavor hung around with a sense of taste not unlike a good fois grais.

The American bred woman asked me if I had ever had anything like it. In all honesty I replied in the negative. What I did bring up was that my ex-sister in law was from the area where Germany and Czechoslovakia abutted. I do remember spatzle and other dishes mostly with very savory flavors from the couple of years they lived in the same little town as I did.

I brought up that are family was the true American family with Russians, Mexicans, Germans and Irish all blended in. All of these were melded onto authentic red neck roots from Kentucky. My American lunch friend began to talk about watching her southern sister in law cure pork. I opined about how my grandmother used to store sweet potatoes in something akin to a buried teepee filled with sand. And then we were off.

I talked about sitting on the front porch of my grandmother’s house in the shade of the live oak tree on an unscreened porch. She talked about how much more important family was back then. She recalled camping Up North with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts and Uncles all up near the lakeshore with people sleeping in and under cars. When the family tent came along she thought she had died and gone to heaven.

In coming back I talked about renting a house by the ocean and squeezing 14 people in. Compromises were made and some people only got cold water showers. Some people slept on the couch.

Today our Romanian émigré friend remained quiet talking mostly about cooking. She described a dumpling that I believe I have had that has a marmalade in it. The role of raspberries were debated.

I of course engaged in this discussion wearing bunny ears. The brown appendages were well received.

If we can just get beyond what barriers status and class create I think we can find the common elements that unite as human. If we can just forget about the issues of power maybe we can see what common elements we share in this our life on this planet. Bunny ears, food and vacations by talking about these things we can seek common ground. While every management book out there tells you to keep up the barriers, to define the roles, to make distinctions I think we always have to return to the fact that we are people with families, of a large human family seeking sustenance and joy.

The Baying of His Hounds - April 21, 2014

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." Martin Luther. 

The concept of tomorrow is the concept of hope. As long as there is a chance that something can be improved upon, something can be made better or somehow joy can be shared then tomorrow matters. Many days I struggle to find an idea of what tomorrow’s joy might be. Eventually I put my mind’s wrestling to an end. Then I lay down to take my rest and somehow somewhere inside of me I know there will be a brighter moment found on the morrow.

Funny thing I have been a Lutheran for 30 years now and I have never heard the quote that rests atop this piece. Probably reflects on the fact that I came late to the faith and didn't do the two years of weekly catechism class my kids did. I probably didn't get the assigned reading list and for the life of me I struggle still to make the sign of the cross appropriately. But the quote seems consistent with the mindset of the old German Lutherans. Despite Garrison Keillor's dour depiction of Lutherans there is a thread found among members of the faith that by acting with hope that tomorrow can be changed for the good.

Over the next few days I have immense amounts of work to do for the tasks I perform both at my job and for the work I do in the community. Truth be told I should be using this computer right this very moment to be creating questions for interviewing candidates for the position of Superintendent of Schools. But earlier this year I had made myself a promise that I would write and would do so regularly. I have been searching for a way to get myself into the habit and this prompt, of which I am using a 30 day free trial, is working for me. This is day three. I hope there will be work on day four.

If you have any interest the site is called http://750words.com/ . The prompt simply asks you to just write until you hit that magic number and then it tells you things about the writing which various algorithms disaggregate. 750 Words will let you know who much of you have written is egocentric (in my case that is virtually everything). The programming will tell you have positive commentary in your writing style is (in my case not so much). 750 will compare what you write to what others are writing vis a vis tone and speed and complexity. I am slow but by far I am not the slowest.

What is my hope, love, respect, honor, wealth? If truth be told not so much. Most days I hope for levity, small pieces and bits. Today hope came through for me. Each day the UPS delivery person comes into our office space. He seems to have a fascination with our soon to be retired clerical technical. They talk for about 10 minutes most days. The gent whose name I have been told but don't remember is really a nice person. He looks like he should be a dullard and in some ways his speech would imply that the looks are reliable. Case in point his arms are filled with tattoos seem very detailed and very excessive.

But this driver is not a dullard. He loves to travel. He loves to explore. We have talked about museums in Chicago, Toronto and Philadelphia. We have talked about politics. While he carries himself with the demeanor of a man of the street his mind is active and engaged and he is a good person.

It turns out that he is an animal lover too. I found this tidbit out by accident. Two doors down from me there live a couple named Leigh and Chris, attorney and professor. They own two dogs that are the howlingest things ever. The dogs look like a cross between an Irish setter and some shinny coated water dog. Did I mention that every time I set out for a walk in the neighborhood these mirror image ruddy colored beasts run from the back of their yard to the front falling over each other as if in a cartoon, baying and flaying right up until that hit the edge of the invisible fence. For the whole time I am walking in their eyesight/range of hearing it is HOOOOWWWL. WOOF. BARK. MUCH MORE HOOOOOWL.

Well this morning I got out of the car to get a cup of decaffeinated coffee at my nearby coffee shop (read Biggby’s). Stepping out and closing my door what do I hear? Yup it is the baying of the hounds close as sin for I can even smell their doggie breaths, HOOOOOWLLL, Woof, etc. etc. I get into the coffee shop and I am standing behind my neighbor. Laughing I say to Chris that I thought I had left the Baskervilles behind. He smiles, "You know they are good natured dogs don't you?" I nodded yes. He then told me everyone loves 'em the UPS guy brings them treats every day. I smiled to myself. Ah hah! You see I know who services the area for UPS, my office delivery person.

Today when the UPS driver came in I walked up to him and said “Where are the Milkbones?” He gave me a puzzled look. Our clerical tech gave me a WTF look. I continued, I know you have doggie treats. He asks why would you think that? I said the two hounds at the coffee shop told me this morning that each day when you make a run through my neighborhood you give 'em the bone. He just busts out laughing. Slowly he pulled a bag of doggie treats from his pocket. He then mentions that he had forgotten I lived two doors down from the hounds. (Easy to do nobody sends me packages).

So I got a laugh today by forcing a delivery driver to show me his soft spot for the hounds. I got a little joy and shared a little joy. It was clear he found joy in talking about his love of those dogs. Yeah hope counts. It wasn't planting an apple tree but it was human interaction on a meaningful level. Sometimes that is enough.

Easter Sunday, in the Year of our Lord 2014

There once existed a website called Letters Written But Never Sent, or something to such effect. The site may still be a going concern, but high concept websites appear and disappear rapidly. Not really remembering the name there is no need to go out again searching for it.

When coming across it my interest was piqued for I understood at once why someone would create such a repository of essentially dead almost letters. All who write regularly have mental letters that we have half drafted over the years. In little mental cardboard boxes there are notes of concern, compassion, love and remorse. At the time of creation we worked through each phrase and each modifier. With passion we sought the right adjective or adverb. Internally and quite fiercely we debated whether an ellipsis would convey the uncertainty we sensed at that time and in that space.

Ultimately everyone has put a partially thought out, maybe even tangibly writ but incompletely drafted missive aside. On the edge of our mental work table what we had struggled with became lost out of time. Circumstances change. In changed times posting the note would have been awkward, ill advised, hurtful or just puzzling. As time and fortune played out sometimes we realized that our mindset was wrong. In other personal timelines we came to know that we should have sent the note. Two hands holding open a carefully selected card and painstakingly unfolding the paper within would have led to a moment of discernment. Were the words within chosen artfully quite possibly the unwritten post have changed a relationship forever.

But the crux of the matter is this we didn't finish the draft. This inside the deeper recesses of our soul we have feelings that the mere existence of those unspoken words cause that we wish we could assuage. 

 Whoever it was that created such a website was a genus. In aligning that HTML formatting they gave a space for people to post, electronically as opposed to with a “Forever” stamp, words that still have weight in their heart, words that really matter to their souls. Collecting, capturing and posting perhaps offers a catharsis or a sense of absolution. Maybe it just allows a being to examine his or her motives and to reaffirm or disavow the constructs that had led to that point in time, that emotional state, that heartache, that anger or that passion.

In a closet in my house there exist two boxes of memories from the years 1972-1983. There are poems I wrote, bad, really bad free verse that in my best hand I printed out in tiny script on 6 inch by 18 inch pieces of this cardboard. My writing stock was comprised of the dividers that separated stacks of ice cream sugar cones in a case. I worked at a boardwalk soft serve ice cream store and we burned through comes fast. So those dividers were stacked up to be trashed but I made use of them. I filled them with the doodling of a teenage mind. And in the mid afternoon of a sunny summer’s day when everyone was on the beach they were not moving up to boardwalk, not even to get a pop. The beach vendors had what they needed. Me I had time to draft those thoughts. Every emotion that roiled me was captured but they never went anywhere except into my box.

In those boxes along with those bad, bad poems are the talismans of a young male living in the wild open years of the 1970s. In addition to poems those cardboard sheets contain drafts of letters written but never sent. Letters explaining why the break up was because of me and not you. Letters written saying I could change and would she would take me back. Letters railing about politics and letters just filled with babble drafted on a night spent too long consorting with John Barleycorn and his friends of the field. The reality of what is in those boxes isn't important anymore.

What is important are the bits and pieces in my head. Every now and then I dip my toe into the waters of religion and philosophy. And the two are like oil and water they do not mix. But when I have talked to people, people I love and care about I have oft times felt that I should be saying what I feel in a more precise way. There is a nagging in my soul that says speak of the turmoil, speak of the disquiet, speak of the moments of living in just the now with acceptance.

Have I drafted any of those letters posted them? No. There is a fear that the meaning would be misconstrued. There is a fear that people would see me for the shallow madman (L)oser that I am. In a way this writing prompt I currently am working with is my version of Letters Unsent. I try and put out what I think on any given day. I try to be rigorously honest in what I say because I am saying what is inside of me. In these words I am working out what should have been said and sent and which wasn’t.

Rash notes posted in urgency are most often unwise. Unfiltered and lacking reflection so much damage can be done to so many people with such a post. But too long a delay and the words not spoken can become a cancer on our soul. On a clear day, under blues sky the words need to find their way out. There shall be no more letters unwritten, maybe letters a little more carefully crafted over time, but not unwritten.

Spring Demands of You Celebration, It is a Moral Imperative

Sunlight so bright poured over the eastern edge of the horizon this morning. Bright, so very bright it washed out any distinct edge to the buildings and trees that lay due east. The warmth felt good after such a long, harsh, cold and oppressive season away spent from the sun. The tendrils and then cascades of light filled every empty space, every crevice, every nook and every cranny with warmth and the promises of spring.

Over the past week the better part of nature has flirted with us. She has given us warmth but not sun. She has offered up a clear blue sky but not warmth. She has offered the promise of day like today teasingly, tantalizingly but has held back. Ah it is like great sex moving toward the moment of ecstasy but then slowing down and backing off. Teasingly our closest star's ray are bringing the senses to full alert and carefully holding them at the greatest point of awareness without fulfillment. But today nature will let the explosion of life happen. The temperature is supposed to be in the seventies and there will be nary a cloud in the sky.

What can be done on a day like this? Bruce Springsteen sings so very many songs of the road. He talks about hoping in, the door is open but the ride ain't free. This is the great American day in a huge old powerful Chevrolet heading down to the beach on back roads, drinking road beers and cranking up the tunes.

Ah that would be the day reserved for the young, the young of a different era. For the more mature today is the day to get into the yard and assess the damage. This day demands we get vinyl string for the weed whacker. Today you go and get gasoline in the five gallon tank to cover the summer's mowing needs. With care you walk about the house and see if the ice did anything to the roof. You pick the sticks up off the lawn and pull out detritus that those powerful winds of January forced into the cracks and dead spaces between the shed and the house.

A young man sitting in a Sunday school class years ago listened to his teacher. The teacher had white hair, a gentle smile and a genuinely warm demeanor. The instructor, for all the young men trying to sit there respectfully knew, was a true believer. A lesson of life, not a gospel lesson was imparted that day at least one young man was never to forget.

Old Charlie Shiffer looked at the lads under his charge. Each of them was shifting uncomfortably on their respective folding chairs set about in a semi circle on the stage of the Fellowship Hall. They were chaffing at their starched collars and some were chewing on the tips of their clip on ties. He looked at them because they didn't seem to get the urgency he felt in communicating that life would be lived with God from the start.

Sitting back he commenced, "You at your age don't know what time is. You have no idea how fast it will pass." At this point his shook his head just a tad and then continued. "When I was your age I would go fishing. As I sat there with my line in the water time passed so very slowly. The time I was there trying to catch a fish I guess was forever, it was eternity and I ached to be anywhere else. Now when I go fishing I toss my line in the water, then I nod my head and the afternoon is gone. You boys need to know that time goes so much more quickly than you realize. And when you start to notice how fast time is moving is the moment when it is almost gone. Don't waste you lives believing you have forever."

On a day like this Charlie Shiffer's words ring so true. When the sun has filled the sky with warmth the day should be embraced. Ragtops should go down. A point out of the horizon should be picked and the ever more fuel efficient car of today should be nudged in that direction. Hell, get the chores done early. Check the items off your list as fast as you can. Pick up and pack away the groceries. But let the call of the open road grab you and lead you out and away from the everyday, from the repetitive, from the ordinary. If you nod my friend the day will be gone.

Somewhere down that road I feel there is something special waiting for me. It might be an ice cream cone down the road in Hell, Michigan. Could be a view of a lakeshore perhaps. Then again today’s hidden joy might be a very special coffee in a favorite shop after a late afternoon matinee at an art house film theatre.

If you want to know what this feeling is, find the straightest road you can and just drive for an hour. Really soak up everything that fills your field of vision. Fading billboards, wandering cows, tacky roadside attractions. Then turn around and come back home and and stop at your local Biggby's (or maybe one of those other chains if you don't have a Biggby's) and get a Deluxe Mocha Mocha. Swing through the video rental place and get a copy of The Visitor. As the light is fading on a warm afternoon and you mind is still full of all you have seen in the real world leave your windows open and sink into your favorite chair. Finally let your mind wander free lost in an amazing film and savoring the day you have had.

My Beautiful Reward

It is Good Friday.

Today is one of the two days that together with Easter are the nexus of the Christian church calendar and belief structure. On a day somewhere in history according to church doctrine a being both man and God was killed in a barbaric manner. The death was a real death according to the precepts of faith of an individual pure in heart, spirit, and soul, well pure in everyway. The act of this death of described as that of a “lamb willingly led to the slaughter” purports to have borne away the burden of all our sins, our failings, our misdeeds and those things we wish would never be examined in the light. We, as I look about this world, need to have our sins borne away. Our hands and hearts are stained with dark dark things.

In my little town I was raised a Baptist. At age 13 or so I was washed in the sanctified and holy waters by an act of full immersion by Rev. Martin. I professed the articles of faith of this sect. On a number of occasions as the years rolled on I responded to altar calls because there was a deep shade and obscurity of truth I felt within me, call these acts pleas for balm for a troubled soul. On those nights when Billy Graham preached on TV I watched voluntarily as he talked about the clash between sin and goodness and the need for spiritual cleansing. Somehow those words spoke in a stentorian tone touched me.

But it didn’t stop me. In those dark and little rooms beneath the sanctuary of that country church I do believe I may have copped a feel or two during youth group activities. And as I have said before I hope God has forgiven me for blowing that doobie with my cousin in the bathroom beneath the sanctuary. Oh how we inhaled deeply during the start of the Sunday school weekly assembly. I will forever remember the pot smoke that was streaked with the light from the stained glass windows as we got upstairs for the end of the assembly. I will also remember the distinct feeling 150 eyes were staring at me. You would have thought they would have vented that room to the outside of the building.

But I digress. I do believe there is good. I do believe there is evil. I do believe good must be brought to the point of supremacy over evil. Are the teachings of the Christian church completely correct on all points? Can we simply listen to a preacher and find our way to God? Well, no. How could a person who is as fallible a mortal as we are, lead us into holiness? We humans err in all our efforts of trying to define and refine the meaning of the divine. But we must try the darkness cannot be allowed to prevail. As Paul said in Philippians 2:12 we can’t give up for we must“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,”

I do believe we as a species need absolution. I do believe there is a transcendent beauty in the depiction of the Easter resurrection and the promise of absolution it offers. If you find your way to holiness through this path, that is wonderful. If your route is different I do not judge you or condemn you. My only hope is that you seek holiness, that you seek redemption, and that you seek the truth. I am still looking and I doubt I will ever stop.

Bright Distractions

As I face this day my hope is that I remain diligent in the conduct of my actions, calm in my temperament and judicious in my manner. There is a Psalm that says as regards the righteous, “They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.” As most know I am conflicted over matters of faith but I do struggle to be moral and virtuous. I do fight (at least internally) to do the “right” thing.

A friend provided me a book called “Jesus Calling” sometime ago when I was facing loss. I pick it up from time to time on a relatively regular basis. The volume with its daily meditations sits among my treasures, Merton, Neruda and Gordon MacKenzie. These are the guidance counselors of my life, a hermit, a hedonistic poet and an anarchic corporate denizen. Sounds like the start of a very filthy joke, eh?

Today’s mini homily in my friend’s gift says that we live in a world of brash sight and sound. However it goes on to say we are not (and must not let ourselves become) slaves to stimuli of shinning things. The text talks of taking all things to Jesus and there weighing their value.

Me, at the place where I am, I see value in the core sentiment. My thought would be to view all of the radiantly burnished things of this world through skeptical eyes taking time to balance the demanding brash urgent now against the truth, the divine. Whether a person is “of faith” or of the world we need to look at what is about us with a cautious and questioning eye. We must suss out whether the bright urgent will ultimately produce good, in us and in the world.

Peace Among the Ruins

http://youtu.be/wb75Jwil0Zg

This shot is from last night. Looking west as I was leaving the child psychologist’s office the light filled me for just a moment. Fumbling about I grabbed my camera and I captured the light’s last transit marking day’s end. Bathed in blue and gold light was a larger end. Some of my hope died last night. Right now, for the time being at least, I have to walk away from trying to push my youngest son forward. He will only be who and what he wants to be.

Before we went to the psychologist I had made the decision to end the sessions. The most important thing that we working on, but by just the tiniest of margins, was diverting my son from slipping into overwhelming depression. Right now, for this moment, that seems stable.

The other issue was trying to instill some personal accountability into his life. I have tried to give him a framework to understand the value of this by talking about why it matters to have some integrity. I have tried to talk to him about what success means and the need for both skill and for production of effort. But I am old and my ways are not in fashion. In trying to inculcate a strong work effort in him but all I have gotten are bold faced lies and passive resistance. In trying to help him clean up his screw ups I have used all my chits. I am done. He sinks or swims on his own. I spoke this out loud.

Surprisingly the psychologist agreed with me. As I understood the parting conversation it is to no productive end to keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same negative result. He laughed as he said while not clinical insanity it was a popular maxim. I hear it every day from my A.A. acquaintances.

There is so much in my world right at this very instance that can go sideways, or which has gone sideways or may tank totally right now. At this juncture I can only seek access to the divine. I hope for but don’t count on equanimity. I ask for acceptance, or peace, or God’s peace if you would. The light through the tree in the cold April air was a keyhole to that state.

Happenstance

Lives are so easily changed by a moment’s happenstance.

Reaching down to pick up a map or a cell phone and suddenly your car veers into oncoming traffic and you spend the rest of your life as felon with a limp.  And two traumatized seven year old twins who were asleep in the car you struck head on grow up living with their aunt. Throughout their lives they will tear up when they revisit those last memories of their loving parents being futilely med-evacuated to a trauma center. 

Will we all pick up maps or change radio stations?  Absolutely.  Will nothing happen 99.99% of the time? Absolutely.  Happenstance.

Or one day a teacher compliments you on a paragraph you wrote and suddenly writing becomes the be all and end all passion of your life.  You struggle with your craft and you succeed.  Maybe you end up an essayist.  Maybe you do PR but in your schilling for a potato chip, an oil additive or Doctors without Borders you write well. When you see the teacher who created that spark of inspiration again in 25 years she doesn’t really remember your transforming moment. Worse yet you aren’t quite sure that she even remembers you.

Do transformation moments happen in our lives every single day?  Absolutely. Do we recognize them?  Sometimes. What occurs in our odd and hanging moments can bring good or bad.  Sometimes the results go sideways.  But the plan you had for your life palpably changes and the trajectory you take is never the same. Happenstance.  There is both good and ill in happenstance.  Accepting this fact is the key to forward motion and spiritual growth. 

Birthday Without

In the past several days several of my friends, good friends have celebrated birthdays.  Mine is coming shortly but I am not looking at it with any kind of favor.  I am not unhappy but in my heart I know this one is different.  I have lost my birthday brother and I am at loose ends about it. 

Each year John and I would talk on set days, Christmas, our birthday and the like.  Each year we would exchange a card.  Some years there were gifts, some not.  I know I was the poorer correspondent, the negligent younger brother.  Hey you all know I am always the poorer correspondent and the most insensitive bloke in the house.  But John was always and will always be my big brother and our shared birthday mean something to us.  

Trying to fix the empty spot I am feeling regarding the upcoming day I went searching for poetry at poemhunter.com to see if there was something from a poet laureate or such ilk to capture my feelings.  I did not find it.  

Dylan Thomas as he often does caught my mind and pulled it in some directions that I wasn’t planning to go to.  His “Poem on his Birthday” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poem-on-his-birthday/ brought a variety of feelings up; mixed dark feelings. While Mr. Thomas and his poem capture some of my feelings about life and aging it did not capture the sense of loss and melancholy within my heart.

The closest thing I found was a poem written to ostensibly be given to a wife on her birthday after the passing of her husband.  But in some ways Jonathan Goldman’s poem captures it for me.

Celebrate or not
they come each year to stay
To count your years for all
To know you and your ways.

Your Birthday is here again
Alas, I cannot be
with you to celebrate
and make your day great.

To celebrate this year
is not what you can do
For memories of the past
will forever break through.

My wish for you today
Is for comfort, solace and more
To get through these times of woe
And have happiness evermore.

I am sorry that I cannot find that snarky card to send.  I grieve that he cannot send me as equally a snide aside.  (He sent me probably the most profane birthday card about 25 years ago, think Gilbert Gottfried with no filter).  I still laugh every time I think about it.  Memories will always be present when “our” birthday comes.

I guess I would tweak the above poem a little bit and in doing so it would make sense to me, this year, this month.

Celebrate or not
They come each year to stay
To count our years for all
To know us and our ways.

Our Birthday is here again
Alas, I cannot be
with you to celebrate
And make your day great.

To celebrate this year
is not what we can do
Memories of the past
Will forever break through.

My wish for all today
is for comfort, solace and more
to get through these times of woe
And have happiness evermore.

To my brother John, it is hard to imagine the cycling of the sun without you here among the living. Travel well. I will keep you in my heart. 

Post Script:

After I wrote this piece and posted it I began to mull on something. Something bothered me and I tugged at it with my mind. Rereading my post something about the tenor left me disquieted.

What I wrote was from the perspective of a much younger brother with somewhat distant sibling ties. John and I were two people tied together by parentage and a calendar date. We had times together over the years and many shared experiences but he wasn’t part of my day to day life. Some of that distance was of my own making. When I was young I ran as far and fast as I could away from my family. My choice carried with it both loss and gain, but this is not time for regret.

By creating such an egocentric piece, my feelings, my thoughts and the like I missed something huge. My feelings constitute but a small part of the loss that my brother John’s passing made in the lives of a number of people.

John’s beloved wife Gayla, his sons, his daughters and the friends that populated his world they will feel a loss when his birthday passes. While I may ache with melancholy they most likely will have a more deep pain. Their pain is the kind that each holiday, each anniversary and each recurring event they would normally share with John in the calendar’s cycle is now marked with a huge absence. My love goes out to them on this what would have been John’s 73 birthday. With time only the moments of remembered joy will remain. It is one of the good things of how our human hearts work.