Day 51 of 365 (Or the Beginning of a Tale Whereby our Hero Finds Himself Wedged Between a Lesbian and a Gay Man under a Twin Bed While a Glock Waving Lunatic is Seeking Vengeance. Our Hero is of course Praying that His Parents Will Not Have To Read About his Demise in the Local Newspaper – it is a long story and will be told in several parts).

My troubles all began when I first graduated law school. The Law and I were not tight you see. For whatever reason and I am pretty sure other who enter law school seeking certainty, my legal education took my moral compass and spun it about quite wildly. The people most drawn to the law, the folks that believe that there exists ultimate principles and that those principles are codified and knowable, are the least suited for the law. Law school teaches you that with words and wily artifice you may say black is white and that a cow in this context is a horse. Lawyers live in the area of uncertainty where rules fail. When everything is arguable that what fixed morale principles are left to guide you? The spinning of that compass lead me to beer.

While I don’t publicize this fact I don’t hide it either. The first time I took the bar exam in the great State of Michigan I failed it. Despite three years at the University of Jesuit Knowledge I had not really anticipated how much of law was simply business, buying, selling and trading and all the things that could go wrong in those processes. In reality the core of law was arguing about who had the monetary responsibility for grandiose fuck ups in the manufacturing and delivering of widgets. . In each and every year of law school I struggled with the Uniform Commercial Code. I passed the courses but those were the courses I got 2.1 s in. Constitutional law, contract law in the abstract, those I did well. I was a truth seeker; I was drawn to ultimate moral rules. In Constitutional Law I set or helped set the curve.

When you graduate law school you are a doctor of law but you are not a lawyer. To be a lawyer you must pass an exam showing mastery, showing creativity and showing the ability to think quickly. While you may have gotten the knowledge to face the questioning of the masters of the legal profession at some point in your law school experience time had lapsed. Arcane issues like the fee tail in property may have become buried under more recent concepts like original intent versus the living constitution.

To deal with what had been lost to time as I passed through law school I like every other bar student took a preparation course. At the time I took the bar the first time I was living in Detroit. Each day I would trudge off to do clerking work drafting briefs asserting that it was a God given right, a Constitution right to have nipples jiggling in your face as you drank beer. I was working first amendment law then. Yup I was defending the constitutional right of communists to assemble and the constitutional right of strippers to dance in bars where alcohol was being served. If you can’t tell my career path defending the constitution was on a high moral arc. This was the purity of the law I had so desired to defend.

The bar review course I took was the Josephson Bar Review. Funny thing about that, one or two of the lecture were actually taught by Barry Josephson. Does that name look familiar? He doesn’t do bar review anymore. He has moved on and is now the producer of Bones, the television show. Some people like Mr. Josephson saw the writing on the wall that said the law is a suck ass profession. He got out and he got rich. One of my closest buddies simply went up north and bought a canoe livery.

Each night as the exam approached the other lemmings and I would arrive at a room in the law school the prep course had rented. We would then spend three hours trying to create mnemonics that when faced with an oddball question on a bar essay prompt we could use to craft an answer. Go ahead, I dare you, ask me about a bill in the nature of interpleader damn it.

After the night of trying to cram a one specific year’s worth on knowledge into my head we would head out to relieve the pressure that had build up in our brains. This in my case usually meant going to the Post Bar on West Congress. On a pale green wall that ran the length of the building someone had written in magic marker, “You can only give yourself away for free so many times.” Yeah the Post was that kind of place.

When exam came it was clear that my balance of time between the post and the lecture hall had not bee well spent. It is the clarity you get when you realize you are entering into a spin on an ice covered road, oh yeah I was driving too fast. I chocked. I gagged. I fell flat on my face on a question about a bogus check and a question on taking a security interest in grain being transported in a railroad car. I might have stumbled on the meaning of FOB also (Freight on Board) too.

When the bar results came the bar examiners posted on the doors of all the law schools in the state. Hearing word the results we in I ran from my office in the Cadillac Tower in downtown Detroit to the University to see if I had made it. I hadn’t.

At the time to pass the bar in Michigan based solely on the multistate portion (multiple choice) of the test you had to get 150 points. Both times I took the exam I got 149 points. With 150 points they didn’t even bother to grade your essays. On the first go round I had essay scores of 8, 9, 10 until you got to commercial transactions. On those U.C.C. questions I had 1s or 2s. Later when I was having an informal conversation with the head of the bar examiners he told me personally that he had never seen a person get a 149 and fail on the essays.

At that point I had to make a decision.

Day 49 of 365 (A Lone Busker)

I used to work downtown. Now I work at the edge of an old mall. The mall was initially constructed in the 1950s. While they have put new facades on the stores the place is sort of a dowager with lots of make-up. The wear still shows. 

 The area here is sort of a nether zone not suburb, not city and definitely not anything with community character. Sometimes during warm weather I walk out to a nearby park with a baseball field. Wildflowers will pop up as the summer drags on. Still it is a solitary space. Except maybe for the guys smoking dope in their cars parked in the baseball fields parking lot.

 This place is a lonely place. I miss the people downtown. In the last year when I was working downtown this young woman had taken to busking in front of a local business. She played a classical style of violin tune and it was quite pretty.

 As I was looking for a photo for another post I came upon this image I had captured. The shot was taken on a warm late spring/early summer day.

 I was simply walking to walk and enjoy the radiance of the sun. As I turned a corner there she was playing.

 A musician on a corner is a perfect icon of the life of a downtown. People handing out samples of candy or thrusting fliers into your hand for events or causes, these are part of a downtown life. At least during the lunch hour even this boring Midwestern place has life. I miss it.

(Day 50 of 365) Don't Let This Beautiful Day Slip Away

Glorious perfect days seem a thing of the past. Now what I am faced with is a choice to either be overwhelmed or to stoically persevere.

Imperfection surrounds me, at home, at work, in my public service. In the past couple of days I have been dealing with the skullduggery of the political world I haven chosen to inhabit. In the background I have been hearing a conversation somewhat akin to Bill Clinton and the mother of all political parsing, “ it depends on what the meaning of is is”.

Also I have been sorting out/motivating a child to sort out a series poor grades.  I think all the perfect days are gone.

But it is okay. Jimmie Dale Gilmore summed up what I feel most days as I awaken. No matter what has occurred or will occur I will accept it eventually.

Tell me now that you know how to greet the dawn each day.
Fearless and unfettered, stand before the sun and pray.
There's no controversy, let silence judge your plea
For justice or for mercy, they both will set you free.

It's a braver, newer world you've found,
Rolling 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round
It's a braver, newer world you've found.

Show me know that you know how to play the winning game.
Laughing 'til the sky stands still with neither praise nor blame.
There's still time for heaven, though we're already there.
The daily bread will leaven all hope, all pain, all care.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore appears from what I can to be a Buddhist influenced cowboy singer. While his stuff is hit and miss for me, when it hits it is really awesome. This song every single time I play it takes me to a different far calmer place than the one I occupy before I sit back and listen to it. It is that last lyric that rings so true. The perfect days may be gone but there is still time for a kind of heaven with acceptance.

Day 38 of 365 (And Some Mornings it isn't Faith but Rather a Poet's Voice that Centers me.)

So that you will hear me 

So that you will hear me my words sometimes grow thin as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches. 

Necklace, drunken bell for your hands smooth as grapes. 

And I watch my words from a long way off. 

They are more yours than mine. 

They climb on my old suffering like ivy. 

It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. 

You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,

 and they are more used to my sadness than you are. 

Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me. The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual. 

Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over. 

You listen to other voices in my painful voice. Lament of old mouths, 

blood of old supplications. 

Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. 

Follow me. 

Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish. 

But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, 

you occupy everything. 

I am making them into an endless necklace for your white hands, 

smooth as grapes. 

Pablo Neruda

Day 48 of 365 (What Has Love Got to Do With It

I often seek wisdom in short writings found in books that have titles like “A Year with Zen”. Christian or Zen, the source doesn’t matter because the words as they flow together hold some similarities.

One of the main areas where both groups of writers of these little volumes dwell is the concept of getting to truth. Each of the different sects best and brightest spend lots of time contemplating their respective faiths’ desire to cut through subterfuge and subtext. A longing is present for a path to arrive at truth. What the truth is that they seek varies but path of each requires a clarified vision. For Saul the scales fell away and he became Paul. For the Zen practitioner the bindings of the “this world” are loosened through practice/meditation. The emptying of the grocery bag of the mind and the ditching of the daily list may punch a hole through the mental garbage through which we may pass on the way to truth.

 One of the writers I go to was talking in the section I was reading today about love. She noted that romantic love is really not a construct of Zen. Romantic love is illusion; it is in many ways an impediment to reaching truth. She dances around the issue that passion. The author is clear she feels romantic love is dangerous by saying that when the hormones die off the illusion of our partner, an illusion that we have created, will fall away leaving us disappointed. Clearly there is some wisdom in these words or we wouldn’t have a current 53% divorce rate. (Interesting side note the raw data for spousal murder is low and doesn’t impact this relationship termination statistic. One spouse killing the other totals about 700 a year. Only 70 of these are premeditated.)

 When I first read this Zen bit I struggled with how the author phrased her stance regarding love. She almost said that love does not exist. But I don’t think that is what she meant. My best guess is that she is saying real love is possible but it has to be something based in a genuineness and not in some imperfect idealization of others. You know we don’t fill the holes in who we are by patching the empty spaces with the good qualities we attribute to others. What love is requires awareness, acceptance, understanding and knowledge of self.

 If I don’t’ know me how can I love you? I think that is it.
.

Day 37 of 365 (Mental Space)

I am running toward the sea, or toward the mountains, or toward the prairies, or toward the north. Where I am running really doesn’t matter all that much does it?  The running is what matters.

No, I am not going to walk out my front door having doused the house in gasoline, dropping a match and walking down the street and take a bus as a fiery orange glow warms the winter in my neighborhood.  Not my style.  Not what I mean by running either.  

 I am mentally running to places I have been, to places I want to hold onto with my all my heart.

Running away, not really I am running toward things that will fade if I do not note them so very soon.

When my brother passed away a whole wealth of memories vanished from this sphere, memories in which I played a bit role.  I realized then I had to keep writing down things that made a difference in who I have become.  Someday my kids will want to know. Can’t you hear the questions already about why was Dad always so weird regarding that? If using the long stepping legs of my mind I run back to those places where my life on a dime and changed my very being and if I observe it and get it down on paper they will know why Dad was so weird.

It is for this reason I come seeking a space to write.  Yup only me and my monster know what really motivates my very being.

Day 36 of 365 (Oppression)

I have lingered too many times on my thoughts of how oppressive this winter seems. I shall stop. However I came upon a poen that kind of made sense to me in my February state of mind.

Winter's Chill

Winter arrived no warning
snow covered the ground like a weightless blanket

the air was brisk sweeping across my face
 chilling to my spleen

 you touched me
 I was warm again. 

winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter winter

 Heather Burns