The Stars Watch Down

I sat on the porch to look at the stars late last night.  But the moon was so bright that it obscured all but the brightest from view.   The moon is the now and the thousands and thousands of invisible stars are the myriad of faces that pass in and out of my consciousness.   Faces from people with bit parts, a line or two… or even extras without a line getting a day’s wage for their work.   They have faded from memory.  Faded from view on all but the darkest of nights.

But a few stars peak through the blazing light of the now and can be seen irrespective.  Their parts haven’t faded over time.  They burn bright in my rear-view and hover over my conscious self as gentle reminders on the impact that those faces and their words have had in my life.  

Yesterday was your birthday.  Somewhere you might be looking at the same stars peaking through the blinding light shed by the now.  Or perhaps the light is different there now, and my star has faded.   Either way… it is as should have been.  

But your star still hovers over me.

Thirteen

It is inevitable.  Progress.  Decay.   They are two sides of the same coin and you are still too young to understand this.  You know only the possible and you make your own realities on a daily basis, regardless of the laws of gravity, or the laws of special relativity, or even the laws of common sense.  Your dreams are new and palpable, and who am I to tell you that dreams can’t come true.  Because they can.  Somedays you even make an old skeptic like me believe. 

I try to thread the line between warning you off from reaching too high… afraid the sun might melt your wings off and you will fall to earth… and letting your balloon rise and rise out of sight and out of my reach.   That day of you being out of my sight will come all too soon.  And regardless of whether it results in an eventually fall, there can be no doubt now that your star is in ascending like a rocket.

You have always been ahead of the curve.  You rolled over early.  You walked early.  You talked early.  You read early.  You outpaced your peers in every way.  Until you were forced to pick peers that were years ahead of you.  And still they call you for help and tutoring.  And yet you are only beginning to grasp how remarkable you are.  Your humbleness is a more put on than it used to be… before it was because you knew no better.  But now you do know better, and know that you are better.  So humble is sometime more of challenge than it once was.

I’ve noticed other changes that are inevitable.  You are longer.  And the skinny arms are becoming muscled.  Not fast enough for you.  But too fast for me.  And as always when you reach a milestone, I quietly search your pictures and remember you as you were in the blink of eye.  Your eyes are still as big, and still as startling blue.  But now you are beginning to grasp the power of your eyes to disarm, whereas before they were wide eyed and truly innocent.  Not all of that has burned away.  But enough.  

Like all numbers, today is a simply that… an arbitrary marker along your path of days.  An anniversary that I remember like it was yesterday.  Yes… you were even born quickly… anxious to get into this world and start your work here.  But arbitrary as it might seem, it is a moment of cultural magnitude for you.   A moment when childhood decays, and manhood ascends.  

You will climb that ladder as you do all things… quickly, and without reservation… anxious to be on to the next phase.  And it is left to the rest of us to think about the trail you have blazed.   


Happy 13th birthday…

Tilting at Windmills

I have always been drawn to the melancholy. The stark scenes from the westerns where the hero rides slowly against the empty and barren landscape. The warrior poets who understand that their lot in life is not one for enjoyment, but to withstand through sheer force of character. But deep down they know what they are missing and have consciously chosen the harder road simply because they are built that way. And someone must bear the burden.

I wonder at times what happens when they realize that they have borne these struggles wrongly. That their raison d'etre was misguided or just plain wrong. In the movies there is good and there is evil and they rarely mix. Perhaps once in a great while will the good guy turn out to be bad, or more often the bad guy will turn out to be good. These are themes that we are all familiar with. But rarely do we understand the good AND bad in a single character.

For it is within us all. The gray mixture of lust and honor. Or anger and pity. Of self indulgence and empathy. Beyond the walls of fiction is the constant moral wave that ebbs and flows inside of us. These are the what-ifs... what would I do IF. Would you kill to protect your children? Would you give up your morals for a million dollars? Ten million? Would you risk alienating friends and family for an bacchanalian evening?

But the what if moments are rare. More often the lines are not hard and fast but blurry patches when empathy gets lost, and our own needs or frustrations get in the way.

I was born with a hard wired empathy gene. My default is to attempt to understand the needs of others, sometimes to the detriment of my own. When I was young this seemed an honorable way to live and I felt that I made a difference in the lives of those around me. As I have aged, the chronic skepticism has grown like moss on me and made me doubt that anything makes too profound of a difference. And that I kid myself with my own abilities to influence. It is ego speaking, I tell myself. Perhaps this is a thing learned as we age. That we can't fix the world.

And so we stop trying.

And then what is life for if we have stopped trying. And when does the fixer get fixed?

Perhaps the archetypes or imagery that draw me in is simply a reflection... the mirror of a life spent tilting at windmills. And that feeling I have is just the sudden and daunting realization that these structures are not evil knights for us to vanquish, but simply harmless wooden buildings.

Or perhaps, like Don Quixote, I'm just near sighted.

Acceptance

My friend Buddha Mama has been preaching the gospel of “right speak” recently in her blog. I have been thinking about right speak’s cousin “acceptance” a great deal of late. This is mostly because I find myself trapped in a world of whiners who battle to come up with the best whine of the day.

“I’m so busy.” And then they proceed to prove to you how busy they are and stew about it.

“The kids are slobs.” And then they proceed to stew over cleaning up after them.

“I never get any time for myself” And then they proceed to stew over the lack of me time.

We are a culture that emphasizes stewing. Of being unhappy with where we are because everyone else is someplace better.

“I hate my job.” “I hate my house.” “I hate my neighbors”. We all have something that we don’t like. “I hate my weight.” “I hate my school.”

We throw the word “hate” around like nobody’s business. Which is where the right speak thing comes into play. And even if you aren’t feeling it, there is the theory that right speaking will help you pretend until it becomes habit. The old, fake it, ‘til you make it theory.

But the thing that I face every time I read something along the right speaking path is that I off-load. I deflect. I think to myself… my god… if only so and so would read this and start thinking that way. Now, I believe that I am fairly self aware and I am certainly aware of my flaws. But it is a natural tendency to deflect. To see the specks in the eyes around you while missing the log in your own eye.

But the disease that lies beneath our way of speaking or stewing is bred from a world where we deserve more. We are angry with our lot in life because we were meant for great things. Not this absurd life of fighting for promotions, or fighting to raise our kids the right way, or fighting to keep the house from falling down around us. It is all so banal. So common. And we were meant for greater things. And thus the root of all mid-life crises.

I have… of late… been trying to combat this in my own life by doing everything that I need to do, but with a more positive attitude. An internal version of “right-speak” if you will. I try not to hate my kids as I drive them from place to place. I try not to judge my neighbor when they do their best to annoy me. I try not to hate my job because I travel constantly. I try not to think of the what-ifs and stay focused on the what is.

The danger of acceptance is always in settling for something without striving for more. This can lead to awful problems. The difference in what I am advocating is striving to do more and be better every day, but not stewing over how things are now. For there will always be things to strive for. More things than there are days. And happiness can only be found if we make peace with a road that does not end, and enjoy the view on the walk without worry about the destination.

Silence

There is a beauty in silence. A profound tranquility that comes upon us as we sit out among nature, or hide away in our secret cloister. This silence is one that must be sought after. Striven for. Found. It does not come to us unbidden any longer. There is too much noise. Too much clutter. Too many competing points of view bidding for our time.

News. Music. Emails. Texts. Calls. I can see the Grinch in my head with drum sticks beating on each side, and “Noise, noise, noise, noise…” ringing in my own eardrums. But the reality is that we can’t stand the silence and we augment our world to fill in the gaps in sound, perhaps afraid of that awkward pause in conversation.

The profound truth is that no matter how much noise I can take in… none of it helps me connect. Connection can only happen in the quiet moments. Connecting with one’s self or connecting with a loved one. All attempts to use the tools of “connection” are merely hollow copies of the real thing, much the way watching a travel log of the Alps can not replace actually traveling to the Alps.

More and more we subjugate our relations to electronic go-betweens. And more and more those relationships lose their color and fade. I am complicit in this subjugation, however. Do not get me wrong. I do not seek to pass the blame. I find it easy to relate via email. My own discomfort with my own skin makes the electronic barrier an easier means with which to relate.

It avoids all that bloody and messy reality of looking someone in the eye and knowing, with absolute fact, that you are wrong. Or right. Or just profoundly different in the way that you think. Because this difference is what causes us to feel like we are the only people on Earth that think the way we do. And that thought is a lonely one.

But this way of living also avoids that deep and knowing connection that is only possible in person, whether it be a secret moment of divine bliss with a lover, or a moment of existential connectivity on a deep thought.

But too often we give up the beauty of reality for a misguided attempt to water down the pain of being separate. And we fill our lives with noise so we can avoid that utter sense of loneliness which is often found in the silence.

And the joke is thus complete, because only in the silence can we find ourselves… and in so finding ourselves can we find the connection to others.

Choice

Building or destroying is a matter of choice.
Patience or anger is a matter of choice.
Understanding or intolerance is a matter of choice.
Being loved or being despised is a matter of choice.

Selfishness and selflessness is a matter of choice.
Noise or quiet is a matter of choice.
Violence or peace is a matter of choice.
Holding a grudge or offering grace is a matter of choice.

Now... Choose.

Nostalgia

Oh whisper me words in the shape of a bay… Shelter my love from the wind and the waves…

My daughter’s Facebook status quietly switched from “single” to “in a relationship” one day. That is the way of things now. The way that these things are announced. It is puppy love, filled with youth and dreams.

“He listens to me… and he doesn’t try to fix me…” she said one day. And I smile. Remembering.

I walked in earlier and she was talking to him. I could tell just by watching her body language. There was an electricity that is alive there… it is almost visible. And it reminded me of those times so long past.

She is metal ore… valuable but unformed. She and her beau could take any shape that her imagination drives her toward.

But my relationship was beaten into shape long ago. Tempered through heat and quenched in cooling waters. It has been hammered and curved, and then hammered again until it formed a definitive and beautiful shape of our making. It has been polished, bright… and then, as is often the case, it grew tarnished through neglect. Not purposefully… but because there are so many other things that needed tending. It gets an occasional buffing, brightening it for a moment or two. But it is an artifact now.

Hanging in the galleries of the world are thousands of similar works of art, admired for their technique and their skill. But lost in all of these works is that moment when the artist sat in front of the canvas, blank and white. Before the brush made its first stroke. When all was potential. That moment when the electricity was palpable. All that remains is the artifact which attempted to capture the immense beauty in their inner vision.

The artifact that is mine is beautiful… there can be no doubt. It means the world to me. It created a world that I inhabit and breathed life into three souls that have changed forever my place in the world. And time and oxygen might conspire to makes its surfaces less shiny, but the beauty is still visible, even if faded.

But I can’t help but feel that bite of nostalgia when I see the crease of a smile and excitement cross her lips as she talks to him. She is an artist in front of her blank canvas… and I wonder if the vision she will paint will truly match what is in her mind’s eye now. Or if that is even possible.

Hydroplaning

It is easy to take things like traction for granted. We travel thousands of miles and things work as they should, with the laws of gravity working. Our feet or tires or whatever remain firmly attached to the ground. Then something little happens and throws us into a panic and we realize how close to the border of chaos we all walk on a daily basis.

It was raining the other night. Not the normal sprinkle, but a good, hard downpour. I was traveling on the yon side of hither and yon... heading home in the dark. I hit the puddle on the side of the road going about 60. And suddenly I wasn't attached to gravity any longer. I was airborne... riding a wave a fraction of an inch thick, no longer in control... but subject, instead, to the whims of momentum. I have hit puddles many times before. A few feet of water that tugs the wheel hard for a moment. I have driven on highways where a car beside me has sprayed me with a coating of water so deep that I was blinded for moments. But nothing quite like this. The puddle must have been 50 feet or more.

They say war is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. I think this is true of many things in life. We grow comfortable and complacent in the sameness and only when things upset our carefully organized world does that panic rise, like bile, and overtake us. With age comes the knowledge that an instant can change everything. With age the knowledge of consequence. And a knowledge that we are only mortal.

But with age comes patience. The understanding that ups are followed by downs... and downs are followed by ups. And that if you fight your body's natural panic reflex and stay relaxed... sanity will be restored.

Eventually.

In this case it probably only took a few seconds... a few seconds where I was driving a missile and fighting to edge it in the right direction despite its desire to pull me off the embankment into the dark. Sometimes it takes much longer for sanity to be restored. But panic only makes us pull the wheel harder and lose control before sanity can regain that control.

Chaos is always a few feet to the right... down an embankment. It is easier to just ignore it and follow the lights down the road... between the white lines where all makes sense. But we can only maintain the road if we override the panic with calm.

SBT: Trust

Beyond the last last line of defense... past the places that you hold sacred... and at the edge of reason, lies a boundary which you dare me to cross. You entice, and cajole, and plead with me to step over that line. And yet you say nothing. It is all unwritten except on your heart, and deep in your eyes. Away from public consumption. But the signs are there for one who knows that path.

It is well worn with only my steps. And yet each trip I take there is unique. Each journey requires its own dance, with steps that are similar, but not quite the same from the last. At the heart of the matter is a emotion that is simple and pure. Trust. It is a simple helix with infinite variety. A genetic code all its own that wraps its way forward and back in time... pulling history and mingling it with possibility into something that is new. It is an emotion that is as solid as smoke, difficult to grasp, and impossible to regain once it has dissipated.

But once there... once the invasion has begun... it devolves into naked fury, hand to hand combat, where both sides sweat, and both sides struggle, and both sides die a little death.

And once the battle is over... and we lay there, spent... the lines resolve again into north and south, and we stare at each across the parallel and await the next battle.

Closer to Fine

Socrates said that "A life unexamined is a life not worth living." And while Socrates was undoubtedly a smart guy, he doesn't give a whole lot of guidance on how much examining we should be doing. Does this mean I should be examining your life? Or mine? How closely? Is a financial statement enough? Or do I need the full Monty, complete with sleazy investigator pics of your vibrator collection. See what I did there? Cleverly employing some Socratic irony... and vibrators.

I'm thinking he was talking more about self examination... and not the monthly kind for lumps. But the internal wrangling with who we are... and what we are... and why we are.

For most writers... the written word is a formalized wrangling. Regardless of the topic, it is impossible not to inject some of your own soul searching between the lines. Writers of history are not, as a general rule, a happy lot. Oh, I'm sure that there have been some painfully happy writers. Just not very successful ones. The process of laying oneself bare in the form of the characters that we create can be very taxing. Blogs are no exception and in fact they can be even more so... since the character generally has little in the way of fiction. Comedy or tragedy. They really are two faces of the same internal dialogue.

I've been writing less of late. Both here and elsewhere. I suppose it is a natural flow where we are driven to write and then just as quickly emptied out. Writers are typically "a little bit bipolar" as my mother terms it. She should know. She's been treating them for years. Driving around my home town with her is like a mobile PDR of diagnoses. "Oh, there's Bob! He's a little bipolar." I think we all have a bit of the manic depressive cycle within us. We are more prolific at times than others. But at the heart of the matter is our own soul searching. Is a life unexamined really not worth living? Do we really need to dig into the knotty problems of our jobs, and our loves, and our mistakes, and our mid-life crises on a daily basis to be "worth living?" Or can we just check in from time to time to see if we have any new lumps.

There are more days than not when I don't really feel like writing. Does this mean that I am not feeling as deeply as I do on days when I do write? Am I more in touch with me when others can read and connect? Or am I just repeating the same words time and again?

None of these questions really have answers. Your answers will be different than mine... and my answers today will be different than they will be tomorrow. And this lack of clarity is the thing that has kept real philosophers and amateur ones tied in knots for eons. But I wonder if Socrates is a little off some days... and if there were days where he just laid in bed and watched the tube and didn't really do any thinking at all.

Personally, I've begun to prefer the philosophy of the Indigo Girls: The less I seek my source for some definitive, The closer I am to fine.

Off to watch some mindless television.

The Ties that Bind

My youngest has started her own business. It isn't much of a business since she doesn't charge for her wares. She does it for love. And because she is a busy body. Somewhere along the line someone taught her how to make bracelets from multi-colored string. Now she can't stop making them. And she takes orders from friends, family, strangers who dare to ask her what she is doing. Her little fingers flying as she weaves the thin string into multi-colored bands.

On the surface of it... it is a childish hobby. On a deeper level there is much that is symbolic about it. It is her way of making her mark in the world. Of staking her claim on the people that she loves. Public displays of affection, if you will.

Love can be like that. It is our deep, unspoken desire is to make our mark on other people. To bind them to us in ways where they can't escape. In some cases this is sweet and lovely and happily ever after... but in other cases it can be stifling and limiting and troublesome. My dog has a way of binding us with his love. He sits on us. It isn't really comfortable for either party. But there is a territorial protective part of his behavior that is funny. But it is also hot, smelly and uncomfortable when he steps on areas of you not made for stepping. But the concepts are the same.

We are surrounded with symbols of owning and being owned. Wedding rings are only a hop, skip and jump into metal from the string colored bracelets of my daughter. There is desire to own... but a reluctance to be owned. But owning someone when it means we have to sit on them to keep them where we want them isn't very satisfying. Being our own people by running away from any possibility of being owned isn't very satisfying either.

Of course, love isn't really about owning... or being owned. It is about willing giving oneself over to another. Choosing to stay. And letting the other person decide whether to come or go. That can be joyful. That can be heartbreaking. But it is a lesson that comes to us all at some point. I hope for my daughter the heartbreak is minor and the joy overflowing. But those lessons are far away from now. A now where a piece of string is all it takes to say "I love you".

And so... for the time being at least... there is a middle age man walking around with some woven colored thread on his wrist. She owns a piece of me. I accept that and embrace it. And I love her back, even though that means that I can't tie her down and keep her with me forever. I will let her fly away when she is old enough to fly. Perhaps she will return or perhaps not. That is the risk we take whenever we give a piece of ourselves away with no strings attached.

Cause and Effect

The older I get the less the question "why" really matters. As a child it was the only question and it is asked with annoying frequency in my house now. There is an innate desire in humans to unravel the mysteries of cause and effect. It is bred into us and ingrained into us by our elders. It is soaked into the fabric of our culture... just flip to any channel incessantly playing Law and Order re-runs... and there it is. Justifiable cause that our fearless sleuths unravel and our prosecutors prosecute. We NEED our answers wrapped up neatly in sixty minutes. The tragedies that we can't wrap our brains around those where there is no cause... just fateful timing. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our culture lacks the patience for the Greek myth of the Fates and so we seek black and white answers. Even our religion steeps us in this concept... predestination, karma, purgatory... all cause and effect in their own ways.

We want the world to be a place where goodness is rewarded and evil punished. We want to know that if we act well to our neighbors, they will, in turn, treat us well. But it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes the bad guys win, and sometimes the goodness results in nothing more than heartbreak. There are supposedly (and according to a writing teacher of mine once) only a handful of plot lines for fiction. These plot lines are repeated all around us every day. The good guy gets the girl and lives happily ever after. The bad guy kills the good guy right at the point of success. The girl turns out to be the good guy... or the bad guy... or just not that into guys in general... etc. But they are rhythms that we are all very used to. Comedy. Tragedy. Two sides of the same face.

And at the apex of the maturity level in terms of plot devices is what is called "no plot"... popular among the Coen Brothers and others of their ilk. The hero is not that heroic and manages barely any change through the story. The plot points are vague and fuzzy. The message is in the background and at the end of it we are left scratching our heads or demanding our money back.

But perhaps that is life. We are the heroes of our story. And in one storyline I can be the hero... and in another storyline I can be the goat... and yet another the bad guy. But my life is all of these things together. And all that really matters is the perspective of the person delivering the judgment of who belongs in which category.

So it isn't why that matters anymore for me... all that matters is perspective.

Tiny Dancer

For over a decade now, the summer has started with a night of dance. Two nights, actually, if you count the dress rehearsal. The bitter cold auditorium filled to capacity to watch the multitude of dresses and music and choreography. But no matter how many people are on stage... I only have eyes for you.

Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult to find you among all the other tall, thin girls with their hair pulled up. The groups have grown from a few in a static row, laughably attempting to remember the steps while craning their necks from side to side to watch their neighbors... to your groups now. Dozens of girls whipping around in long lines. First you are there. Then you are suddenly there. Popping in and out of vision. Your smile fixed firmly in place. Your timing always perfect. No longer is it just enough to remember your part, but now you must fit in seamlessly to all the others, forming a single unified unit devoid of individualism.

You have already grown out of believing me when I tell you that you are the best thing on the stage. The only one that knows their part. The one with the best smile. You know that it is only my job to tell you such things. You chide me for focusing the camera on you, instead of on all the girls together. For you, the interest is in the whole dance. For me... I can only see the tree and not the forest. The forest overwhelms. But I remember the tree when it just a sapling, and I remember the endless nights and days of care that we lavished on you so that you would bloom.

When you watch the video, you make fun of yourself for all of your mistakes. Hypercritical to the end. An unflattering trait that comes genetically, I'm afraid. You roll your eyes at my attempts to deflect your criticism of yourself, because you know so much more than I do. And that I am not really observant because my eyes are blinded by love.

And perhaps you are right. But I notice one thing. In the ballet number, right toward the end... you stand in the back, in the center of the stage against a giant blue scrim. I watch the graceful lines you make in silhouette. And just for a moment, your fingers splay slightly in a break of form. Then all the other girls leave you alone on the stage before you finally make your way off... the last girl among all the other trees in the forest of girls.

There is a tear in my eye. Because I noticed the splayed fingers. And it reminds me, viscerally, of the way you were ten years ago. I remember those sames hands... smaller and more childlike... splayed in the same unique way, which made you.... you.

And I love you all the more for it.

Rear View Mirror

I lay in my bed this morning enjoying just laying in my bed. The sheets were fresh. The pillow was mine. The air was damp and muted and all was quiet.

Then came a horrific crash which sounded like thunder, but in my room. I threw on some shorts and ran down the hall to find my youngest still abed covered with her covers. Then I ran to the next room and my son was making his bed... so everyone was alright. "What was that?" I asked. My daughter pointed to the foot of her bed where she had stretched so hard that she kicked over her toy bin. I had obviously missed this fact when checking to make sure that a tree hadn't come through the roof. Toys were everywhere and she was smiling.

Good morning.

I wonder about those moments. Those moments just before the crash. Those moments right before impact when all is well and all is quiet. How easy it is for us to take those moments for granted and assume that they will keep coming and coming.

Last week I got an email telling me of an accident. A boy that we knew was in a crash. This boy is one of the most talented athletes his age... and at age 11 he was know already across the country for his skill. But last weekend he and his father ran in to each other on motorcycles and for a while it looked like the boy wouldn't even survive... let along play hockey again. I couldn't help but ponder the events right before the crash. A beautiful, sunny day... perfect for play, full of happiness and joy... moments that we wish would last forever. But life doesn't play that way.

There is a balance, I suppose. I know many parents who refuse to let their kids live because they are so consumed by fear that something might happen to them that they cloister them away from everything. But this approach, perhaps, ultimately does more long term damage than the scars of all but the worst accidents. Fear consumes us so that we can no longer lay in bed and enjoy the moments of quiet because we just know that a crash is waiting around the corner.

We are merely mortal, regardless of how godlike we feel in certain moments. We are flesh and blood. It reminds me of the end of the movie Patton... when Patton is walking off into the sunset of the movie, having won the war... and a few months before his own crash and demise would come. He related a story as follows:

"For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him.Sometimes, his children, robed in white... stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning... that all glory... is fleeting."

I think all we can do with the lives that we have is to enjoy the parade... or the quiet bed... or the moments of joy and sunshine in the moments that we are given. Maturity brings the knowledge that crashes will come... and we must be prepared to pick up the spilled toys... or deal with the more serious consequences. But there can be no greater regret in life than looking in the rear view mirror and realizing that we missed those moments because we were too busy worrying about those crashes to come.

Storylines

I've slept in my bed once in the last two weeks. As I write this, I am sitting in an airport somewhere around the Rockie Mountains waiting for another plane to take off to another place. I'm told travel is supposed to be exciting. Mostly by people who don't have to do it very much. They are stuck in their time zones and want nothing more than to escape. I understand this.

This is "It's a Wonderful Life", where George is jealous of everyone who gets to go someplace other than Bedford Falls. His brother is off at war and it seems exotic and cool. But if the hero of the story was Harry and not George, the story line would be a lot different and I'm sure Harry would rather be back home than he would going up in a plane everyday and trying to kill people before they killed him. Both story lines are understandable to us. The desire to escape. The desire to return. The Lord of the Rings is all about that... the urgent need to leave the Shire, followed by two books of wishing they could be back in the Shire. And no, Mandy, it doesn't make be a geek because I referenced Lord of the Rings in a blog. Ok... maybe just a little.

My wife described her week ahead to me. "Drive here, do this, do that..." on and on. And she didn't sound very happy about it. It is a lot of moving from point A to point B, all in the service of someone else's schedule. There is cooking and cleaning and laundry and work and concerts and a large variety of other things that go on in the Shire that are the same as every other week. Her storyline has her trapped in this time frame forever... like Groundhog Day. "It will never change!" she wails. But it will, and then she might even miss it.

I know this travel stuff will change eventually. But for now it is my storyline. It is a little like the middle section of War and Peace. So I keep telling myself. If I slog through the doldrums for long enough I will get to the end of the book and it will feel worthwhile. It gets to a point where the place and the time are all relative. I'm not sure if I'm two time zones ahead? Or one behind. Or if I'm supposed to be eating lunch or dinner. You get up when the sun rises and work until it is long gone. And the beautiful and exotic things that surround me remain hidden as I never escape the terminal. There is a purgatory aspect to this sort of life. A myriad of faces, none of them known. None of them familiar. And so this hero in this story at this moment wishes for nothing more than familiarity and my own pillow.

They changed my gate again. Off to track down my next leg.

Over and out.

Invisible Fences Make Good Neighbors

My dog has an Invisible Fence... a wire that runs around my property and is buried under the ground. He wears a collar and if he gets too close to the line it beeps, and if he ignores the beep... it gives him a shock. This sounds cruel, but I live on a busy street and with three kids running in and out, there was a good chance of him getting out and getting hit. Once we had the fence installed, he did get shocked a few times. But only a very few. They put flags up to warn him where the border was and he learned in a day where his territory was. It has gotten to the point where he doesn't even wear his collar much anymore. He just assumes that his border is what it is... and he is content in his box. And he runs madly around in that box to the point of wearing a path through my front yard... right where the line is.

Having spent much of the last year watching the unfolding drama of various celebrities... John Edwards, Tiger Woods, Jesse James, and Tiki Barber... to name the obvious... I am struck by a sea change of the male/female dynamic. I am not naive enough to think that these men are a new phenomenon. The sea change is, however, in how these men are portrayed in the press, and by the public in general. In many cases prior, much of the blame was wrongly placed on the woman... the succubus who come for seduction and are completely irresistible to even the strongest of men, willing them away from their chosen mates. But the sea change is that in these latest cases the men are portrayed as the offenders and the women, as innocent victims of the man's sexual appetites. I don't really know what went on in any of these cases... and neither do you... as much as you think you might. In all likelihood there is guilt on both sides of the aisle. But that doesn't make for as good of a story.

But how does this relate to Invisible fences... you ask.

Well, if I didn't buy my dog an Invisible Fence... he would undoubtedly be running around the neighborhood in a bacchanalian frenzy, screwing everything in sight... girl dogs, boy dogs, children, legs, trees, fire hydrants... etc. There are many dogs in my neighborhood... and many real fences... and some of the dogs ignore their borders and dig under the fences and bound around, breaking out of their boxes and breaking the rules. It isn't until they get hit by the car that they realize that this probably wasn't a good idea. However, those with fences that shock provide some pain beforehand to deter the inevitable frenzy to occurs. I wonder how many of the above mentioned men would have strayed if they were given the painful shock of embarrassment and family ruination that comes after the fact.

It is easy to sit on the sidelines and judge others... and I realize that none of us are completely to blame... nor completely innocent. My dog follows his nature. His nature is to sow his seed far and wide. As more evolved... we humans are supposed to live by a code which uses rules and morals to provide the Invisible Fences around us. Our big brains allow us to think into the future and to see the destruction our actions will cause... both to ourselves and to those around us. Yet the big brain is often overridden by the little brain of our libido.

Perhaps we all just need to wear collars that provide us a jolt of electricity when we begin to get too close to the line.

Touch

The fire has died down to embers. The quiet descends as a shroud, covering us in a canopy of muted and tranquil depth. Shadows cover shadows until the eyes strain to uncover the deep grays from the deeper blacks in a futile attempt to divide and parse the world with the weakest of the senses. But while one sense fades, others rush to take its place. The burning wood stings the nose, overpowering the musky pine and loam. But not the fragrance of your hair... so close. The last crackle of the wood spikes the hearing, until the deep rumble of a train, miles away, returns to prominence. Thump, thump, thump.

The moon is full behind the swiftly moving blanket of clouds, and through the trees, the blanket thins for a brief moment and shadows chase themselves until the darkness envelopes us once again.

Your body shifts against me. It is solid and real and full of substance. For a moment, I had forgotten that we were two, but your subtle movement in the crook of my arm is a gentle reminder of our separateness. I can feel your breath against my neck, your hand tightening slightly over mine. The touch is casual. Familiar. Should all other senses fail me, it is touch that will buoy me and keep me afloat on the vast ocean of nothingness. It is touch that connects and combines those things that are unique and separate. It is filled with the raw emotions... the violence of anger... the trembling of fear... the gentleness of love. But the easy manner in which your hand finds mine and gently strokes the hair on my arm speaks volumes more to me than the obviousness of the others.

It is music to me, a melancholy air played on the strings of the heart. The impermanence of now. The moments and touches and feelings and emotions that co-mingle into the sense of being alive. The sense that can be raucous and jovial... tearful and heartbreaking... or, like now... calming and infinite.

I know not what goes through your head... or your heart... but only that you are here. Because I can feel you.

An Analog Boy in a Digital World

I was in film school at the dawn of the digital revolution. The talk then was all about the difference between film and video... how to shoot it, light it... This was in the years when if you turned a video camera and pointed it directly at a light you could burn out the tubes inside and ruin the camera for good... and these weren't the cheap cameras... they usually ran about $40K. So we were all very careful. My area of interest was as a cameraman, and I was rankled to have to fit my "art" into the confines defined by a video engineer. I was hardly alone in this and because of it, the look of video has never really taken off for professional projects. And except for a few "video" classes everything I shot was shot in film.

Even today a majority of television shows are still recorded on film. Editing was a different story... the digital revolution was massive for film editors. The silly practice of physically splicing film together was replaced quickly and nearly universally by digital editors. But except for some advances in true digital photography, film for shooting still rules as a recording mechanism in movies and TV.

Why this remains so is hard to describe to most people. But I guarantee that if you saw the results side by side, you would be able to tell. Even the best digital camera has a different way of light capture than a regular film camera. But things are changing quickly as we become more and more accustomed to the "look" of digital. HD TVs are so ubiquitous as to make "regular" TVs seem like dinosaurs. And digital still cameras have made film SLRs seems ancient for home use, and increasingly for professional use.

I've been thinking about all of this of late because I got a Kindle for my birthday. I had been oohing and aahing over a few friends who had gotten one for Christmas, so one magically showed up from Amazon for my birthday a few months later. As a man, I like me some gadgets. But as a well known bibliophile, I also love the feel and smell and touch of books. As with film, it is hard to explain to a non-believer why one would miss the feel of a book. But you do.

The logical part of my brain, which thinks about things like sustainability, knows that it is wasteful to cut down trees to continually make new books and magazines and newspapers, when it is faster and cheaper to deliver words digitally. And I have to say, it is pretty f-ing cool to be on a phone call with someone listening to them rave about a book and download it and start reading it before the call ends. I've done that twice already in my two months of Kindling. It is also cool to have 50 or a 100 or a 1000 books in my backpack without walking around like Igor.

Likewise, shooting family stills has gone by the wayside in a digital world. The photo chemical industry is in the toilet. Which is not a bad thing unless you are in the photo chemical business. Our kids will no doubt be so used to the look of digital that films and TV will eventually go that way too. And it is just a matter of time until e-book readers become so universal as to make hard copy production obsolete. The nay-sayers may say "NEVER"... but the writing is already there, and like all such sea changes, we end up looking like dinosaur hold overs from a different age... laughed at and mocked by the new generation.

And despite logic to the contrary, I will remain nostalgic for the analog world. I will remember the many hours spent changing film with my hands deep inside a light-bag, my hands touching the reels, and carefully and blindly feeding them through the camera. I will remain nostalgic for the look of grain in a world of discrete pixels... of lighting with your gut, and knowing that it was, at the very best, a guess... instead of a sure thing. And I will remain nostalgic for the book stores and libraries that will fade away by the time I die... and the feeling of being surrounded by the works of generations... a feeling I don't get when I hold the thin Kindle in my hand... even though it holds a whole shelf of books already.

Logic does not play well with nostalgia. Nostalgia is smells, and touches... heartbeats and fragments of memories. It is the emotion that we turn to when the antiseptic cleanliness of logic fails to move us. And after all, living is about being moved. And even while they laugh at me now for my nostalgia, the next generation will have their own list of things which will make them nostalgic, I'm sure. At least, I hope.

Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

Any minute now my ship is coming in...I'll keep checking the horizon, and I'll stand in the bow.

It is dark and the lights below rise to meet me. When the door opens, I repeat the steps that I've repeated over and over. I move because moving is expected. I walk fast because walking fast make me appear to have purpose, and it is important to keep up appearances. Even if there is really no one watching. The stores are all closed for the day, the gates pulled down, and the place is mostly empty. But still I walk fast.

And I'll check my machine, There's sure to be that call, It's gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon... It's just that times are lean.

While I walk, I try to remember how it is I got... here. Not necessarily the physical here... but the timeline here. I retrace my footsteps in my head, and visually connect the moments. But it is like a morning dream. An amalgam of dreams of the whole night. Disjointed snippets and images which, combined, make no sense. We make due and weave our stories together in ways that tell a narrative. But often the writing isn't as good as we hoped.

And you said,"Be still, my love. Open up your heart. Let the light shine in"

I think it is inevitable that the cheerleaders in our lives grow out of the uniforms eventually. The skirts and pom-poms that once looked so fetching, now look absurd. That is the definition, I suppose, of the end of love. When the new stories in our lives sound so much like the old stories in our lives that those that once believed, can no longer rouse themselves off the couch for long enough to feign interest. I wish for that voice to say... "Be still." But all I hear is the echoes from long ago.

Don't you understand? I already have a plan. I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

First it was film. Then writing. I could go through a whole laundry list of them. Something... anything creative that allows the world not to view me as just another poor sot. Anything but the corporate hustle to make other people money. But we put our energies where they need to be to stay employed. The helpful adages of "do what you love" become replaced by the realism of "do what pays the bills". And find those things that keep you going in other places. And instead of waiting for others to cheer... cheer yourself instead.

And so I move. Walking fast, and waiting for my real life to begin.

Love & Dinner

Taken from the actual dinner conversation at Chez Mobi last evening.

13YO: SOOOOO..... I have NEWS. I have a new boyfriend!

Me: (mid bite) What happened to what's his name?

13YO: He is too much of a girl.

Me: (chewing slowly) He was too much of a girl so you broke up with him?

13YO: Yes... A is much better. And taller. And generally cuter. And smarter.

Me: (swallowing carefully) How did this come about? This whole "being your boyfriend" thing?

13YO: At lunch.

Me: He asked you at lunch?

13YO: No... he sent his wingman... who talked to the girls I sit with.

Me: Wingman? How do you even know what a wingman is? So there was no direct contact. Just brokers?

13YO: Yep.

I chewed some carrots pensively.

8YO: I have news too... C is dating B now.

Me: Dating? What does that mean exactly? Aren't you 8? And didn't C say that he liked you, like, yesterday?

8YO: Yes... but that was yesterday.

Me: Ouch...

8YO: Yes... but I was too good for him anyway.

Me: Double ouch. Remind me to keep close tabs on you when you get older.

11YO: I have news too...

Me: Not more love news...

Now the 11YO has been "with" his girlfriend for two years... an eternity for this family. And while the other people use brokers to parlez, the boy was always very straight forward... sending cards, buying Valentines, going to birthday parties... girl birthday parties. And he never caught cooties. So if this was about his love life.. it was news.

11YO: M is moving to Dubai in a few months.

ALL: WHAT????

11YO: It's in the Middle East.

Me: I know where it is. Why?

11YO: Her father got transferred.

Me: Wow.. that sucks buddy.

11YO: (philosophically) Yeah.

Much quiet chewing for awhile as my hair grayed more.

11YO: Dad?

Me: Yes?

11YO: Can we get Skype?