Magpie Tales 238: Made For Walkin'

Image via Tess Kincaid at Magpie Tales

boots brogans mukluks

not 'wellies' her look said

I said which do you wear

quick shy smile

under chestnut tresses 

she didn't answer

from over here

now that the rain stopped

looks to me a mismatched pair

at that she stopped

tucked a strand 

behind the shell of her ear

polar blue eyes

with a touch of crow

that mona lisa shone

I wear what I wear

because it suits me

why do yours match?

Jesus Christ Movie Star (Sunday Meditation #35)

Is your faith not enough that it takes movies to make it real, or to banish doubts? Belief in heaven, of whatever stripe, seems to me to be the minimum requirement to make it real for the believer. I say this after having seen an ad and two film trailers this week for religious-themed movies, "Son of God", "Noah" and "Heaven Is For Real".

A big Hollywood production is a low benchmark of imprimatur, in my opinion, to make one feel better about choosing to believe. Faith is faith, and it doesn't need a camera or an audience for validation.

Mañana Blues

The problem it seems may be one of self-priming. Without priming, the well will not flow free. Without free flow, the energy goes to waste or is never expended at all. Energy without expenditure is simply potential. Potential and a few dollars will buy a large cup of coffee.

All of the above explains the paucity of posts on this blog. It explains the dearth of worthwhile photography over the recent months. It is a condition of my creative existence that I have momentum, that I actualize the latent forces within my brain. Momentum breeds momentum. Once I get going, I find it very hard to stop. Witness the time not so long ago where on this very blog I posted and entry a day for over one year.

That is a lot of posting. While some of it was fluff and fill, much of it was inspired and heartening to me. I wonder if I ever again can achieve a similar feat.

The reason this matters is because as of late the tasks of writing and photography have acquired a difficulty I struggle mightily to overcome. The energy to get started rarely manifests for long, and I wrestle with bouts of angst triggered by comparison to my past efforts. It is the feeling of "I should be writing!" that gets me all wound up.

It is a mystery to me why creatively speaking things should be so difficult. I know the conventional wisdom is that one should write/draw/photograph/paint etc every day even when you do not feel like it, to keep the discipline up and the energy flowing. I do recall that feeling of engagement and satisfaction I get when I do get going, when the ball is rolling, when the mojo is workin'.

That feeling is wonderful. Now to overcome the lassitude between me and it.

It is no good thing to think of yourself as lazy, unambitious or lacking in imagination, but that is precisely what troubles me during these short fall days. The notion that I am waiting for something to come along and knock me out of my complacency seems all too real. "Carpe diem!" shouts my conscience, and I would, if only I could get myself off the couch.

The Stay-at-Home Nomad (Sunday Meditation #28)

If the redwoods questioned their roots as often as it seems I question mine, the forest would be full of giants crashed to the ground, howling at the moon about the indignity of the craters at their feet. There would be no grandeur, only solipsistic anguish.

The weather, damp and dreich outside the walls. Gazing out the windows at the sodden yard, trying to get a grip on the untethered balloon that is my soul. Perhaps the better analogy would be blowing about like a plastic shopping bag caught in a dust devil. I feel like that, sometimes. This floating, flying, whirling sensation has acquired a life of its own in recent weeks. Often it is triggered by the weather, like today.

I am not blaming the rain for my dislocation. The rain has no motive, no desire. I would be quite the fool to think the dull gray clouds and the drops were out to get me. No, I don't blame it.

After all, think positive, right? It could have been more snow, right? I actually manage a smile or two. Given the choice I would take rain over snow most every time. The deep snow of the past two weeks has mostly melted, under the influence of warmish temperatures and now rain for much of the day. The thrum of the sump pumps in the basement offers its own commentary on my ruminations. I shiver to think what might happen if the pumps failed. The groundwater is running fast from snow melt and the rain.

To be fair, the weather isn't the catalyst of my rootless funk, it is only the familiar of the extraordinary pressures I find my self battling at the moment. Life has been a swirl of change. Tax season is upon us, and I will not fare well this time around. I am still searching for the right combination of jobs to resume truly useful employment. There are many irons in the fire but no clarity.

Nights are spent chasing sleep, and believe it or not, dear readers, I have been wishing to not dream so much. This is unusual. Up until about the end of last year I hadn't dreamed much at all for quite some time. Long enough that lack of dreams became the new normal. But then something changed. The dreams came back. Frequent, disjointed, erratic

My dreams, dressed in harlequin, enrobing the motley fool that is my mind. All possessed of a common theme, in myriad variation. I am searching, I am hunting, I am lost, I am prey. It is a terrible quest to find something you cannot name while being hunted by something you cannot identify. I search and search, only to awake empty handed and weary, wondering what just happened.

Bah. It wasn't really dreams about which I wanted to write. I am not certain now what it was I wanted when I sat down to empty my head. I wish it could have been fiction (I have a number of things floating around in my head), as I am sure it would have been much more edifying for all of us. But the fiction just wouldn't free itself up. I tried, but I couldn't get the snow out of my mind.

The snow. Yes, that is it. The snow that had been on the ground is what triggered this funk. I know why. It came up in a recent conversation I had with someone I love, in which we were discussing our respective reactions to the heavy snow. Hers was more gleeful and upbeat, mine was grouchy and less than cheerful. Mine involved expletives.

The significant thing was not my surliness. It was something I said, the import of which did not fully catch up to me until yesterday. I said out loud that the snow made me unhappy because I have now, in my life, seen more snows as an adult than I ever did as a kid; snow means something very different to those stages of my life. Snow as a kid means playtime and wonder. Snow as an adult means (at least to this adult) inconvenience and stress. The melting drifts reminded me that I have been an adult for many moons now.

The full realization of that revelation hit me hard today when the pewter skies opened up and the rain began to fall. I listen to drops fall, snow of a different genus, and the water hitting the ground became the scissors that cut the string holding me to the ground. My body stayed put, but my mind went whirling away, spiraling up into the sky. I felt weightless, rudderless, wondering when the roots I am desperate to grow will spread themselves firmly into the soil that surrounds me.

The chair creaks softly under the weight of my body, a corporeal anchor to my nomad soul. I'll open the window tonight so I can hear the rain while I drift off to sleep, perchance not to dream.

Taking Fire

Winter light of lapis and polished sterling flooded the room through the paired windows. The stone around the openings flared outward into the room, magnifying the illumination to make the infirmary cell much brighter than Rāhula would have imagined. He was grateful, prayers of thanks going up every morning when the sun slipped into his room.

The old monk lay still, his eyes tracking the progress of snow finches across the flagstone patio outside the window. His bed had been pushed close to the window to afford a view out. The weight of the blankets and bandages served as warm anchors. But it was the pain in his skin that acted as biggest shackle. Rāhula's eyes twitched in time with the hopping birds, his racing mind considering that the pain was simply another attachment. The task, he thought, was to consume the horrible ache before it consumed him.

The smell of gasoline lingered as a phantom haunt in his nostrils. Blinding sunlight and the horrified screams of passers-by kaleidoscoped across his memory. He gritted his teeth. Tears surged, searing his dry eyes. Rapid blinks cleared his vision. The snow finches snapped into sharp focus.

Rāhula smiled, a reflex action at odds with his will, but felt good. Watching the finches peck at the black scatterings of nyjer seeds on the snow, Rāhula decided then that he would never again set himself afire for anyone. Not the government, not the news, not even himself.

Broken Voids

December 14th, 10:27 PM. Vile headache from parsing news of the latest horrific gun violence tragedy. Rain falls, and thoughts of bed beckon me.

---

There comes a time where the left and the right, the liberal and the conservative, the 'must-control' and the 'cowboy militia' crowd simply must cease to talk, blather and yell.

They simply must be silent...unless they want to join us devastated human beings in a scream of volcanic anguish that surely could be heard at the edges of the universe.

Now is not the time to squabble about the deadly tools that usurp our hearts with broken voids. Now is the time for considered reflection, to fill those voids with love.

Sleeping Dogs In My Head

Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs

Retail Therapy, with Chiles

September 6th, 2012, 8:41 PM. This notion swirling in my head, after a bowl of beans, dressed in shades of cinnabar and rust.

Close to three weeks into my part-time job, dear ones, of being a seller of spices. About time for a status report, methinks. For me just as much for you, it would seem. This is because the retail environment is a very different terrarium than my usual habitat.  I took my emotional temperature on the matter earlier this week. I had a particularly enjoyable day at the store. Stocking, finding stuff, connecting the customers with what they need, what they want and occasionally with something they did not realize they wanted...it was all to the good. This is important. The work is uncomplicated, but important. I mused on that as I drove home after closing. Why did I think that? 

The first thing that occurred to me was that it is important because getting your customer what he or she needs is crucial to survival as a merchant. Even more so is doing it with grace, style and efficiency. Not only connecting them to the particular product, but enjoying the process becomes a matter of pride. 

The second thing was the realization that all of these transactions I was involved with during the day were opportunities to learn something new about someone or something. I am finding it fascinating to discover what people are making with and doing with the herbs and spices and seasonings they come to buy. Talk about a fertile ground! It opened my mind again to the notion that there are so many good things in the world, to be seen, touched, tasted. Listening the short stories people tell is time well spent, I believe.

The third thing, and perhaps the most revelatory of my musings, was the effects on my own physical and mental states of being. At the end of the day, I was tired, but strangely happy. Happy. Being in a store, selling the stuff and the things! How could this be? I'm introverted, people usually wear me out, and sometimes I feel like Forrest Gump when it comes to small talk. So you would think this setup would be the wrong way to go.

Much to my delight, it is not. At least, not so far. I realized that, yes, people do wear me out. I do have to venture outside of my "hamster ball" for hours at a time. But the reasons for that are good ones. I get to solve simple problems, with easily measurable results. I can talk about what people are cooking for dinner (and I so enjoy food and the cooking of it), and for whom they are cooking. And one of the coolest things about the gig: if at any point in the day I feel the need for a pick-me-up, I can open any number of the apothecary jars holding samples of a huge variety of spices or herbs...and smell them, enjoy the colors and textures.

Trust me, there are times where a noseful of basil or oregano or curry spices are just the thing to perk a mind and body up. Lately my new favorite has been this ground Indonesian white pepper that looks a little like fine sand and smells like wine and beaches. So good...

I arrived home, pulling into the driveway to park the car. I sat for a moment in the silence after turning off the engine, wondering why I felt so accomplished. The only thing I could think was that it was retail therapy that is doing me some good. Not the buying of things, but the selling of things that help fill bellies and bring people to the table that have brought me some peace of mind. 

--
Epilogue: Tonight I made a big batch of pot beans, based on a new recipe newly brought to my attention. The ingredient list is short and simple, just the thing for a day when you don't feel like much fuss. I did make some changes, because I like to ask questions of what I cook. Instead of 2 to 3 dried 'red' chile pods, I used the equivalent of 5 chiles (3 Anaheims and 2 anchos). And instead of leaving them whole, I removed the seeds and ground the peppers fine in a spice grinder. The resulting powder was spicy but not hot, and was beautifully mottled in shades of red. Bricks and rust, cinnabar and iron, painterly shades swirling around in the pot as the beans simmered to full-bodied tastiness. I spooned up the last bits from the bowl, at peace with a full belly and savoring the good things come from this earth.

Braving the Deep Wood - Where From Here?

A forest of noises, the great green wall within my head. Steam from the nostrils of my horse drifts lazily past my eyes. The sun is just cracking the sky, frost is on the grass, and I clutch the reins a bit nervously while staring into the trees. It is dark between the trunks. A darkness so thick I cannot quit the notion that it never goes away, even in the implacable white gold noon of a high summer's day.

---

I wrote that bit above a few days ago. My head was full of pressure and noise. That passage is what came out, and I must confess I was slightly disappointed. It started with such promise. It came to a crashing halt as I typed "...day."

The wheels fell off the writing bus. There was so much promise...

I seemed to have abruptly lost the thread. I was banging away on the keyboard, turned my head slightly to look out the window at a passing shadow, and the thoughts vanished like steam into the air.

I had such promise.

The paragraph suddenly became a metaphor for my forays into writing. Burst of promise, bright new idea, the words flowing...into nothing. This is most troubling.

There is something holding me back, dear ones, and I cannot get a grip on it. The specter of unfulfilled potential is shuffling around in the dusty closets of my mind. I am fighting the urge to look over my shoulder.

Specters, my friends. If anyone has insight in how to banish them, please let me know. It is the first day of September and harvest time is coming up soon. I need to be ready to reap what I have sown.

Wise Wolf

Rafe sat back on trembling haunches, staring down into the valley from the top of the mesa. The air was thick with the acrid scent of burning things, human and otherwise. His flanks still heaved slowly. Fleeing fast uphill over broken country was hard work even under the best of circumstances. Being chased by ignorant monsters was far from the best.

Rafe was fast, no doubt. Speed and smarts, coupled with an innate desire for the taste of truth,  had served him well in his many years on the planet. His muzzle was frosted with gray, but his mind was quicksilver on the wind. Rafe would never had said as much, but he was far smarter than the fools who claimed him for their totem.

The old wolf looked up into the sky. The sun was on its way down, the cerulean bowl deepening to light indigo at the far edges. He closed his eyes. Sky was always there, a truth he could not imagine would ever leave him. Truth and wisdom were his lodestars. They always had been even when the ignorant and the damaged had pursued him all over the land. It grieved him to discover that some of the creatures, who called themselves 'humans' (a term imparted to him by Raven and Coyote), thought Rafe himself to be a monster. They blamed him for the misfortunes that befell their kind, claiming all sorts of savagery on his part. Supposedly even the blood of infants stained his jaws.

His heart felt much pain over this cloud that obscured and distorted true sight on the part of the humans. The thought that those who did not know him, those who did not care to know him, feared him and wished him destroyed, filled him with such sorrow he thought he might burst into howling.

The howl died behind his teeth. The moons he had witnessed had given him the hard-won knowledge that to howl would be to give himself away. They would find him again. Ignorance and cruelty were implacable, it seemed to Rafe. Even the tiny fraction of the humans that had sought him out in peace had themselves in turn been hunted down by their fellows. The grizzled wolf had seen his fair share of harsh things in the Universe, but the ferocity of violence the people exhibited towards those whom they should welcome into their circle astonished even him.

Rafe lowered his head. His eyes watered in the smoke drifting up from the conflagration below. The whole town seemed to be burning, a vicious riot of flames fierce enough he could hear a faint crackle, even at this distance. There were other sounds. Gunshots. Curses. Screams, human and animal. Rafe watched as a small group of humans ran out of the clouds of smoke roiling over the ground, headed west and uphill. Straight towards him. 

His ear pricked up, eyes focusing sharp. The humans were not moving quickly, held back as they were by some who appeared to be hurt. Some clung to others, who carried their slumping pack-mates as best they could. Rafe relaxed slightly; he didn't think they were after him. But the smoke parted briefly, just enough for the wolf to make out what looked like another pack of humans. They were hurrying, and carrying tools.

And if the first group found Rafe, the second group would, too. His hackles raised a bit, rising to his sore paws in a burst of nervous energy. He wanted to help the humans out front, but he was already injured and weary. He had given as much as could. That they had not seen the glory of his gift was something he could not control.

Rafe stood, backing away from the edge and into the fading sunlight. He would put distance between himself and the tragedy. There was a place he could go, a secret cave behind the wind in the West, where he could heal himself and sleep. He would hide himself from the monsters, dreaming of the day when he could walk among them and they would understand what he had been trying to teach.

Rafe turned around. He loped uneasily into the setting of the sun. Behind him the screams faded away into the mountains, while the world continued to burn into the blackness of the night.

Me, Knife

This soul is not Pierre nor
Delphic queries on the tongue
of a dead French philosopher

Yet a day does not pass
without replacing the heart
or switching out the mind

Or is it heart every day
and mind every other?
Confusion, exhaustion

I know it happens, I feel it
reaching for the blade-mind
gripping handle of the soul

Ignore the whispers of Sartre:
blade, handle are distractions
I am the Knife within my reach

That Old Time Religion

It's Sunday, and you know what that means. It's time for guns and Jesus!

...

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I thought so, too, when the tagline first crossed my mind on Saturday. I tried to set it aside in favor of something else. As the day wore on, and the more I read in the news, I realized I wouldn't be able to drop it.

I was meditating on the awfulness of the shootings and killings that occurred in Aurora, trying to gain some understanding. It saddened me deeply to think that yet again something like this happened, yet again we will go through the cycle of shock, outrage and collective forgetting of the random, sudden violence that seems to be an unfortunate, horrifying earmark of life in the modern United States.

I told myself to send up a prayer that such a horror never happens to me, my friends and my family. I told myself to send up prayers for the victims and their loved ones. In many ways that is all we can do when faced with tragedies which have their only connection to ourselves through the medium of modern telecommunications technology.

I also hoped that outsiders with an agenda would exercise some tact and common sense, and refrain from using the tragedy as a sounding board for all manner of fear-mongering or idiocy.  Way too optimistic on my part, I know. Sadly, that lasted all of no time.

That some commentators on ABC News got way ahead of themselves by trying too hard to make a link between the alleged gunman and the Tea Party, based on very sketchy and unsubstantiated information, was bad enough. I'm no fan of the Tea Party, but the link between the perpetrator and them was so tenuous at that stage (and I don't think it has been substantiated even now) these veterans of the reporting trade should definitely have known better than to put it out there.

Trying to be the first to report, okay, I get that. Want to be cutting edge "on the scene", okay fine, just do a better job of fact-checking before trying to trump the competition. Really, it was way to early and so little facts were known that it ends up making them look stupid.

What really made me sick, and feeling so fed up with the culture of violence in this country, was one particular set of statements made by U.S. Representative from Texas Louie Gohmert. In a truly breathtaking leap of logic (or illogic, depending on how you look at it) that strains the bounds reasonable thought, he made the following remarks in a radio interview broadcast by the Heritage Foundation:

"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place."

"Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important...Whether it's John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people ... Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters ... We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country."

"People say ... where was God in all of this?...We've threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God's name, they're going to be jailed ... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present."

So he thinks that there is a link between random, mass violence and lack of religion. Furthermore, he seems to think it is specifically due to lack of Christianity. What is truly breathtaking in its willful irrationality is the connection he tries to make between supposed 'ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs' and the psychopathic actions of a single mass murderer.

Say what? How in the world does that even make sense? My guess is the perpetrator is a deeply troubled individual whose mind went places most of us cannot even imagine. I truly do not believe that it was a lack of Christianity that led to this; it was a pathological lack of reason and empathy. It speaks to narrowness of mind and arrogance of belief to claim this random act of violence as an attack on ones' belief system. Frankly, if Gohmert and folks like him are making Christianity look bad by claiming their religion had something to do with this crime.

But that's not all. It gets worse. He went on to speculate that the tragedy could have been lessened or stopped if only (you guessed it) more people in the theater had been carrying guns, and thereby could have taken down the shooter:

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?"

Oh, for the love of humanity, really? A crowded theater full of people carrying guns? Is this man a complete moron? People who were in the theater have been quoted as saying they thought the commotion was part of the movie. And do I really have to point out that it is generally DARK in movie theaters, so between that and the confusion, the soundtrack with special effects a generally untrained population...how would anyone have been able to take down the gunman without hurting and killing even more bystanders? Does he not understand the concepts of "fog of war" and "crossfire"?

Not long after I read the above remarks, I saw that old worn-out platitude "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" making the rounds in the media and on Facebook. Oh, it made my head hurt and my heart sick. There is nothing that pisses me off more every time something like this happens, when the gun nuts and NRA puppets start squawking about not taking away their weapons or controlling them. It completely misses the point, and in no way is an excuse to NOT do something about guns and their potential for crimes like the one in Aurora.


What really galls me, makes me sick and angry, is that too often Mr. Gohmert and many like him seem to think it was a lack of guns and God that lead to these tragedies. There I must emphatically disagree; sometimes I think this country suffers from a surfeit of both.

But he and many others are willfully missing the point. It is neither Christian belief or the right to bear arms that matters here. The most important thing, what we should all remember, is that someone went berserk and yet again the blood of innocents is on the ground. Pray that it doesn't happen again. Pray that we all may find peace.

Salarymen in the Mist

On Friday, June 29th at approximately 7:30 in the morning I swung my feet from bed to floor only to find that it was quite possible I no longer exist. A disconcerting sensation no matter which day of the week on which it might occur, but all the stronger for it being close to the weekend. I was not pleased with this turn of events. I like to exist.

Vertigo laced with anxiety made my belly flip a little. I patted the carpet, a high shag affair, with my feet to assure myself that I could indeed stand up. The softly scratchy strands felt good, felt so mundane that I made myself get to my feet. Surely the floor would support me. No embarrassing sinking through the floor to fall to the living room below and then on to the the basement. Why I thought a concrete slab would hold me if carpet and a wood floor would not, I do not know. I stood up. I did not sink into or through the floor, except to the extent my weight caused compression of the carpet. Very reassuring, that.

Sunlight leaking in between the small slats of the blinds caused me to blink. A good sign as well, I told myself. The knot in my belly loosened almost imperceptibly. Air flowed into my lungs with a muffled rasp. The sound inside my head gave me some comfort. It seemed so normal. I think I was just happy to breathe and feel the coursing of air in my chest.

So far, so good. Feet on the floor, air in the lungs, no fainting or disappearing into the woodwork. I felt less dizzy as I quickly scanned my surroundings.

Rumpled sheets. 
Bedside table with books. 
Low hum of fan. 
Phone on nightstand.

Heart beating, limbs moving, earth turning. I must be here, I exist...right?

Then why did I feel as if there were no gravity and that my flesh was becoming transparent before my groggy eyes?

I shook it off and made my way to the bathroom for some brief ablutions. Then it was downstairs for tea and breakfast. I don't recall what I made then, it must have been something simple. There were things to do and places to go, and none of them would wait for angst to make itself scarce. I showered and made ready for a road trip, all the while puzzling over my very own 'unbearable lightness of being'. It kept me occupied for quite some time.

Somewhere between lunch and departure it hit me square in the cerebral cortex: I am a salaryman without a salary, and thus a certain way, I do not exist. I don't earn, therefore, I am not. Years of societal and professional conditioning had led me to this identification of self with salary, and that is a dangerous place to hang the hat of one's identity.

The pieces came together. I am approaching nine months without employment, and in this culture of job = money = worth, that nine months is akin to a lifetime. This feeling gripped me hard, this uneasy knowledge that to many employers perhaps I have become invisible. Nothing breeds success like success, and ladies and gentlemen, I have had no success in the time I have been looking. There is some truth to the notion that it is much easier to get a job when you already have a job, and I am without.

Not exactly front page news in architecture, a profession that unfortunately seems to demand experience without necessarily wanting to pay for it. You can imagine how discouraging that feels, having put in a lot of time with no results to show.

I took some cold comfort from having identified the root cause of my anxiety. It is always easier to deal with a known enemy rather than a mystery. I talked it out some with my companion, and was reassured that I do exist, that I live and breathe, and that I am real.

I know I am. I feel the blood in my veins, the air in my lungs, the food in  my belly. These are all good. What troubles me is that for a bad moment on an ordinary morning, external ideas of self-worth overrode internal ideas of my identity. Nine months of looking for myself in the wrong mirror came to roost, and it took some heavy mental lifting and a strong dose of love to return the ground to beneath my feet.

Solid ground. I have it. I gained some breathing room for my mind. There will be something out there for me, I have to believe that. It will be something I can do, even if I myself do not know yet what that something is. What I will not do is make the mistake of confusing what I can do for money with what I truly am worth.

What Are Words For?

Not much for me to offer right now. Sorry about that, dear readers. The thing that brought me to the keyboard, to write, is that today was the first day of June, 2012. Hardly anything of significance, but I had this nagging anxiety about letting the first day of the new month pass by with nothing to show for it. My very anemic output in May had something to do with this I am sure. I feel itchy and anxious when I have written too little.

Neil Gaiman said something to the effect that if you only write when you are inspired, you might make a decent poet but you won't succeed as novelist. I think a little of that may be at work on me, even though I have never had any serious claim to being a novelist. 

I'd like to be a novelist. The editing exercises I have indulged in this week have planted some doubts in my head as to whether that is possible for me. I have written a few substantial short stories and a lot of really short stories, even a lot of what I guess might be called flash fiction, too. Or maybe mini-stories? The file I have compiled of the short fiction is approaching 120 pages and over 64,000 words, but it is in no way a novel. Or a novella. Or a truly definable group of long short stories.

But I am not done yet. I have another short story I need to edit, and a connected series of them I need to stitch into one longer version. Then there is the memoirs I have collected, mostly related to my experiences of 2003 with the twins and the NICU, in a separate file. Then I need to start on the slice-of-life stuff I have written...

...then the stuff I don't even know how to classify...

The glaring trait that leaped out at me today, in the midst of reading through my back catalog, is that I don't have a specific genre I most closely identify with. It is the jack-of-all-trades phenomenon rearing its head.  So what to do? I observe, I think, I overhear, I experience. I get ideas and then the chatter starts in my head so I write it down. Sometimes it comes out as fiction, sometimes non-fiction, sometimes a blur of the two.

I don't know what to do with it all. This troubles me. Trying to sort it all out is a full-time job on its own. And I still want to write for the sake of writing! Time, please!

Oh, and another thing. I went through every single one of the 906 previous posts of mine, in the last two-and-a-half days. This was to sort out and identify the pure fiction pieces I wanted to collate. What I noticed is that over the course of time from October 2008 to the present is that my fiction output tapered off dramatically through 2011 to now, dwindling in frequency and in length. I don't know if that is a function of decreasing energy or attention span, but it made me uneasy.

What is becoming of the world if I cannot find more good stories in it?

My challenge is to find the inspiration for new stories and the discipline to write them even when I do not feel like writing. I must work at the writing, so the writing will work for me. So it is written, so it must be.

903 Views Of Mt. Gumbo

Following my own "narrow road to the deep north"*, through the countryside of my mind...

This is a time of particular reflection, as I contemplate change in my life, and a path that unfolds a step at a time. The jottings here have mapped out parts of the peculiar terrain of my mind. I have been unable to shake the notion put forth in the work of Japanese artist Hokusai, in his famous series of woodblock prints 36 Views of Mount Fuji. The art being a manifestation of explorations into a central idea, I realized that I have been engaging in the same thing with words.

The problem is I am still chasing Mount Fuji.

My nine-hundred and third post. 903 different maps in just over three-and-a-half years of journeying. I'm still looking for that point about which this world of mine revolves. My own personal axis mundi. Perhaps it is there. There have been glimpses. Sometimes the fog burns off and I can just see something there, something that might be a mountain, a tree, a post the size of Fuji.

I don't know. Ideas are funny that way. Our heads are full of them, universes contained in the perimeter of our minds. I have many. What I don't know is the one that functions as the anchor of my internal universe, and by extension, my external universe. I've come close, at times, I think. Lately "Love" seems to be central to the mental eructations I call my writing. You, dear readers, may better able to tell me.

Gripping smoke. Herding cats. Embracing a waterfall. The tasks I set for myself, because if I have learned anything from writing, getting a handle on truth, authenticity, and the "real" means chasing something I may never fully grasp. Yet something keeps me on the path, searching for that one view in my head that finally makes me say "I have seen the mountain".

I will see it. I know it. All I need to do is keep looking.

---
*The Narrow Road to the Deep North (and Other Travel Sketches), by Matsuo Basho, is a book I would love to write for today, and one I wish I had written.

Breaking The Smith

Tobias watched his hands shake, considering again the dread he felt facing the forge. His breath steamed in the crystalline air of an early winter. The cold outside sent sluggish spikes of pain through his belly, belying the intense heat of the almost white-hot coal. The smith picked up his hammer and tongs, spitting into the blaze.

"Another winter of this," the rugged hulk of a man muttered, "and I'll throw myself into that forge." He sighed heavily in a sort of barking cough. The knot in his belly failed to disappear.

Tobias hefted the tongs in his left hand. The Jovian weight of the hammer tugged at his right hand and arm, but was no match for the bulging muscles shaped by years of pounding metal. Hands rough and large, scarred by embers and red-hot iron. The smith stared at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. The resentment he felt for his hands flared bright in his mind. Today it felt like hatred.

Tobias choked back an oath. His hands were always dirty. No amount of scrubbing with sand or, when he could get it, pumice could seem to clean his hands. Nails perpetually grimy and creases in the skin like trenches filled with graphite. He simply wanted clean hands.

If he never again had to breathe in the fumes of smoldering coal and burning straw, Tobias reckoned he could be a happy man. The only way he knew to fix that was to find another trade. The village, he knew, wouldn't let him. They needed the things he made, that was true. But not as many of the villagers were willing to help out now and again. Not as many would want to get soot ground in their skin to do something useful.  The smith scratched the back of his head with the tongs, wondering at the willingness of others to have someone else be saddled with the dirty work.

"No more," Tobias grunted, "no more. The hammer and the anvil about near to killin' me, and I reckon I've had my fill."  The words sounded loud even above the low roar of the forge.  Red highlights flickered on the burnished iron of the anvil, impish eyes beckoning the smith from where he stood.  The anvil. Tobias squinted at in a sudden burst of desperate inspiration. He had been between the hammer and the anvil near all his life since he became a man, and his heart was sick from it. The horn of the anvil seemed to glow, and Tobias knew what to do.

He walked over to the anvil, dropping the tongs and transferring the hammer to his left hand. The right hand he laid on the face of the anvil. The cold iron stung the palm of his hand, which trembled slightly as he raised the hammer high over head. His breath held when the hammer reached the apex of the arc. Slight spasms coursed up and down his arm.

Tobias drew in a lungful of the freezing winter air. The hammer began to swing down, slow at first then blurring into a dark silver arc. The hard steel crashed into the back of the smith's right hand. The cracking of bones mimicked the crackling of the coals. Tobias bellowed, a gored ox falling to its knees with blood spraying out to stain his apron and coal-dust blackened snow on the ground around the stump on which the anvil sat. The big man fell to his knees, screaming and crying, with tears tracking silver runnels through the coal dust on his face. He began to smile. Blinding pain laced with sweet relief flooded through his gut. The smile turned into a laugh.

"I'll not be a smith no more, Lord, I'll not be a smith!" he shouted, "I'm free!" He passed out.

Folks from the village began to crowd around, drawn by his screams, and frightened by the enigmatic smile of the giant with a ruined hand.

Sunday Meditation #18: Time Away from Love

Struggling in the midst of chores, I wonder: why do we spend so much time not doing that which we love to do? How is it that the balance of life always tilts away from the heart?

It is the reason this meditation is so short.  I was so caught up in maintenance I had little time for wonder.  There is so much more I wanted to write about, but it wasn't meant to be.

If I could, I would write most of the time.  I would imagine great things, and then sweep the floor.

Road Along The Sea

This life can be as a road along the sea, hugging the cliffs like curves hug a snake. The drive can be anything you want it to be, if only you know what you want and what you need. Driving with the top down at high speed when you feel confident, or maybe when you forgot where are the brakes, you round a curve at the bottom of the hill with the hood of the car pointing up and out over infinity.

You don't know what to do.  You can't see a guard rail, or feel the wheels on the pavement. It gets quiet there, and slow. For a slice of infinity you ponder the Was, Now and What May Be. What is it you have done with this life, and what will you do should you find the road again?  What can bring you back?

Take a deep breath. Let go of the steering wheel. On this road, there is love, if you care to look.  Better yet, if you care to feel.

Love will bring you back.  Love will put up the rail, stop the fall, get the wheels back on the pavement.

Love will do these things, if we let it. We just need to let it take over and drive.

Nine Billion and One

God
Elohim
Yahweh
Allah
Vishnu
Jehovah
Khuda
Waheguru
Bahá

Then I gave up.
The names of God?
Far too many
to know every one
but I grow weary
of everyones' claims
to have the water of truth

Foolish, they are,
these clamoring voices
raucous rivers believing
themselves flowing
to completely separate seas
I bid them, Silence!
To hear, to taste, a singular ocean

Sunday Meditation #15: A Bowl Too Big for the Masher

It is a snowy, wet evening.  The night before the biggest annual sporting event in America, and I am walking the local mall with my dear daughter in tow.  The Super Bowl is far down on my list of things to ponder; we are in search of that which may have more import for me and the Wee Lass.  We are looking for a potato masher and some brownie mix.  Tomorrow is a big day: we want to make brownies.

We eat dinner and set out for the kitchen wares store, the type that has an extensive selection of finely made stuff, and the overheated price tags to match.  I had in mind the masher I wanted. Heavy duty, sturdy, preferably stainless steel.  The kind with a flat, perforated disk attached to thick bars and a solid handle.  I have never possessed such an instrument.  Having read reviews and done research, the disk type seems an excellent choice. 

The store has an excellent selection of mashers of various types.  Wee Lass enthusiastically joined in the search, bringing me various mashers she took delight in finding on the racks.  The low end started at $20, a coil type that seemed bizarre.  Next up was a rubber handle/metal shaft, also at $20.  Then, solid metal at $25.  None was the disk type.  Then I found it: chromed stainless, holey disk, Swiss.  Almost like a fine watch.

It was $45. Forty-five dollars.

I admit, I balked.  It was indeed a very fine tool.  Well-made. Sturdy.  A Ferrari among the Hondas, as it were.  In my state of jobless-induced fiscal austerity, out of my league at the moment.  I wistfully placed the masher back on the rack, telling my daughter we might have better luck with brownie mix.

We found the brownie mix.  Tastefully done packaging, extolling the delights of fine dark chocolate and the creators' passion for excellence in baked goods.  Handsome fellows wearing aprons on the box photo, beaming over a plate of what surely must be brownie nirvana.

Nirvana, at $17 a box.  I silently put enlightenment back on the shelf.  My sigh was audible.  I told her I would look for a likely recipe on the Internet, or in my collection of food-related books at home.  She smiled and said okay. Before leaving the mall, she and I strolled over to a nearby department store, whereupon I found a serviceable thickset silicone masher of the disk type.  Price? Nine bucks.

Sold.

Purchase tucked under arm, we wended through the mall on our way back to the car and home.  Wee Lass strolled along beside me, we laughed and chatted.  But I had this moment of clarity, a voice speaking quietly but firmly in my head as we passed all the new stores full of shiny things we may want but do not necessarily need. Stores crammed full of things that here pass for ordinary, but would be luxuries in many places on earth.  People buying, people jonesing for stuff as the voice said:  When did we as a society come to want so much, and why?  When did we lose perspective on content over form, value over cost, truth over hype?

I thought of the impending Super Bowl, a contest which, in all candor, makes me yawn but which much of the nation seems to treat as a secular holiday.  Full of hype, of noise and blather, of aggression and over-indulgence.  A spectacle that I as an American am supposed to want watch just because its, well, the SUPER BOWL!

But I don't.  I enjoy a good sporting contest, but this just seems like an over-blown aggrandizement of the many negative traits of consumer culture.  The real kicker for me, the one that made me wonder about the pop culture my daughter will grow up in, be surrounded by, and possibly be made to feel like an alien if she doesn't care to participate in it...is that even the commercials get just as much publicity as the game.  The commercials, for crying out loud!  People actually say the only reason they watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials.  30 seconds, millions of dollars, all for the purpose of getting us to buy stuff.

For some reason this made me sad and anxious.  Those thoughts, and my humbling search for a simple potato masher, left me feeling a sense of dislocation like I was an alien among a different tribe.  I reached for the only antidote I could think of at the time: I took my daughter by the hand, and we walked out into the snowy night, marveling at the fat flakes falling from the sky.  She laughed to catch one on her tongue, and so did I.  It was then I felt closer to home and okay in my affinity for simplicity.  Tomorrow, we would make brownies from scratch and know that they are good.

---

Epilogue: Wee Lass and I spent some time discussing the merits of spending $45 dollars versus $9 dollars on a potato masher.  I did my best to explain the difference between the 'value' and the 'cost' of an item.  She did me proud when she nodded her head and said "The plastic one will do for now, and you can get a better one later when you have more money!"  Well said. At home, I dug out my copy of the compendium 'Cook's Illustrated 2004'.  Lo and behold, there was a recipe for brownies.  From scratch, simple, and just what I needed.  And more for less.