These Mornings

 These mornings. The alarm I pay not enough mind, the keyboard that gets not enough action, and my mind that knows not what it wants. These mornings. The wants should come from me but I will be satisfied if they come at me. I will not duck or flinch. Hit me! Hurt me. Punish me. But do not ignore me. Apathy is the opposite of love. Is there no calling for me? These mornings. Where comparison is the enemy but a necessary one. On a deserted island on takes on all the properties, traits, and characteristics. I am not on an island, these mornings. My world is populated. Hell is other people, per Sartre but Heaven can't be devoid of our brothers and sisters. We...compare. We...must. For we got here together. We...survived. From aboriginal Africa through industrialization, and face to face with our digital selves...we. These mornings, I think about you. And us. Never one from the other. Impossible. There is no I. There is only us. The forsaken and the deserted are just that. Past tense. We are here and now. We have a future. Together. These mornings. All of us.

Monstrosity of a Driveway

 

1. In your notebook or on the computer, write a scene that occurs between no more than four characters in one single location over a unified period of time (a morning, a day, or even a long meal).

Winter storm Gloria had dumped a foot of snow on most parts of Rhode Island. Weather technology being so advanced in 2020, schools were called the day before, which meant the idiot neighbor would be out there with his measly shovel to dig out almost a ton of snow - a driveway thirty yards long and ten yards wide, as his sons “helped.” How can he not possess a snow blower. I watch this idiot toil away for hours with this heavy, great snowball making snow. I have to imagine his back will suffer soreness untold. Of course he takes breaks here and there, to yell at his sons, one wielding a sharp edged shovel, trying his best to help the old man but probably just creating more work, when he isn’t nearly decapitating the old man with reckless swings. The other son has a broken plastic shovel but gave up helping an hour ago to roam the yard and ponder things to break. Two hours of this and I see him head back inside - not even half-done with this monstrosity of a driveway. His neighbors have a service - a huge truck with a plow comes in and wipes the driveway clean in ten minutes. This guy shovels his back to mincemeat for two hours and isn’t close to done. About a half-hour later he trudges back out, yells at his boys about not killing or maiming each other and sets back to murdering his back. This idiot, taking years off his life, because he’s too cheap or too dumb to get a snow blower, is nearing completion as the suns sets, taking breaks only to reign in his sons, when I decide to pour salt in his wounds and take my snow blower over and help out. Ha ha this fucking guy. You should have seen the look in his soul - not on his face, no he was all “Thanks!” on his face but his soul was all, “Could have used you three hours ago.” I love it. I clear the end of the driveway for him, oh and get this, right as I’m turning around to leave, I say, “Merry Christmas,” and this dolt, who can barely stand up by now says, “Thanks.” Merry Christmas indeed.

Timefull

 1/24/21 5:41 AM

I was awake very early but felt that perhaps I had slept though my alarm. I do what I have restrained from doing over many decades now, and check the time. Not yet four. I worry I may not get back to sleep but don’t worry too much because my alarm goes off at four-thirty. I do fall back asleep, and have a sex dream. I was standing in the dream; a near sexual impossibility in real life. I was inside skin and all I could see was skin, moist sweaty skin. I could feel the pressure but all I could see was skin. No face, no faces. Face-less pressure. Then I got out and could not get back in. I tried. I fumbled. I fingered. Skin and folds, no pressure.

Alarm.

Awake.

As I write this, I realize I am inside skin. A body, a passive body in the philosophical sense; in a body that can be split. A body that is in time and can be taken out of time. A body occupying space, what philosophers call, extension.

I go further. I AM my body, not just inside A body. Per the principle of the conservation of matter, I am nothing new but this shape will never exist again. This shape, this logic, this consciousness, composed of the timeless but somehow, timefull but not eternal nor infinite. Fleeting. Not even a geologic wink. In short, I am special. Not because of what I do but because I am. Name one nothing that is special. See, can’t do it.

Inside this skin, I am special. And desperate. Desperate to feel skin against mine, lips on mine, pressure upon me. Forsaken, my body (me) resorts to dreams. Pleading, my body (me) fires up during REM sleep to arouse the appetite without bedding it back down. Exasperated, awake (not woke), I curse my forsakenness and my actions leading to such; I rage against that body (me) and blame it, all day long. Name one nothing you can pin the crime on. See, can’t do it.

I am special; part of the eternal unchanging.

Nothing changes.

Perhaps I should be nothing.

An Iota

 I was reading George Saunders’ new book last night and he is so incredible. The book is about writing and he basically takes the reader through his mind as he teaches a class on Russian short stories. The second of these stories is Singers by Ivan Turgenev. I won’t spoil too much here but Saunders teaches us that an artist, at some point, must choose himself and go with it, warts and all as they say. I’ve no doubt read this in other places but it’s the small anecdote he tells about wanting to be Hemingway and writing all this Hemingway-esque stuff but in so doing not choosing himself as an artist. But then one day while doodling essentially during a phone call, he creates little stories. After the phone call he thought of throwing them away but something caught him. The stories/cartoons wind up on the kitchen table and while off in the other room he hears his wife laughing. The proverbial light bulb goes off above his head and George chooses himself. And of course we are all better off.
Now of course it isn’t this easy. One might choose one’s self but not have the talent of Mr. Saunders. 
So I ask myself: How can I choose myself? 
No clue. 
Write what I like?
Like what I write?
Be who I am? Oof, what if I don’t like myself a whole lot?
Not gonna figure it out by not writing I know that.
Ok, we’ve got something to build on. An iota.

It might be worth mentioning here that the pedagogical upshot of the first Russian short story is this: an artist takes responsibility.

Damn.

Plunging Toward Self-Actualization

Abraham Maslow, in his magnum opus in Psychology, which I can’t remember the name of right now, tells us that self-actualized persons are not embarrassed by bodily activities like defecation and flatulation. Not being self-actualized, or remotely un-crude, I am still going to tell you about a shitty experience I had recently. 

The morning poop came on, even before the coffee, but alas, in the toilet was a log of brown and some heinous colored water. I interrupt my son’s chess game and gently/firmly remind them that every time we use the toilet, we flush the toilet. 

“Capiche?”

“Yeah dad.”

So I flush.

It is clogged.

Lovely.

Right about now the pressure in the bowels is nearing “Houston, we have a problem,” so I head to the upstairs bathroom. Quickly.

And I sit.

On a toilet seat with urine on it.

[Replays in mind how many times I have told them] Sons, listen to me now, every time we urinate, we lift the toilet seat up. Every time. 

“Capiche?”

“Yeah dad.”

Urine for it, kids!

A quick wipe of the seat and my arse, and I, Maslow-inspired here let us not forget, defecate. 

The toilet clogs. 

Shoulders droop so far as to seem out of sockets. Exhale powerful enough to steam towels in hamper. Frustration at Defcon 5. Full, complete domestic defeat.

Two toilets clogged, not yet 7am? Check.

I trudge downstairs to retrieve the plunger and begin with the downstairs toilet.

I plunge.

And plunge.

Complete tricep workout later, the toilet is unclogged.

I trudge upstairs to plunge.

I plunge, upstairs.

You may not remember the old Army commercials: “We do more before 9 A.M. than most people do all day.”

Well, I think Abraham Maslow would be damn proud of me for defecating before 7 A.M., given the tremendous domestic hurdles god hath given me on this day. And let us not forget the incredible parental modeling that went on here. Did I scream to the high heavens or curse or use the lord’s name in vain or rip out a toilet with a crowbar in an early morning rage? Of course not, I hadn’t had my coffee yet. No I showed tremendous calm and poise to defecate the way I did. 

I hope you can take this story and use it to become near-self-actualized. Maybe not as close as me, but somewhere in the general vicinity. The next time life gives you multiple clogged toilets, make lemonade.

Fears (And Stains)

 Margaret Atwood asks, "What are your fears when it comes to writing?"

Fears. I fear not being read...because the writing isn't good. I tell myself I'll write for myself - the joy of it - but I do want to be read. But other eyes and other ears and other minds will judge and criticize. And that is what I fear most, that my bad writing is an indictment of me - the person who is not good at anything, even into old age. So I tell myself I write for myself. I guess if I value writing, I will spend time with writing. Those things we value are the things we spend time with. So I'll tell myself that any icing on the cake - like being read by others - will taste sweet but I fear this is so unlikely and that it will eventually feel like writing on a deserted island. 

I fear me.

And I should. My past is my predictor. My artistic achievements? What are they? My past is my predictor. My past is a minefield: littered with bodies and limbs and bloody failures; steam rising from the guilt and ineptitude as I bleed out over the decades, staining everyone's clothing.

Bradbury 5v model Grostundian Unit

 3.  Experiment with the uncanny. Pick an object or even a person in the room and describe them in a short paragraph. Then describe it again. And again. And again. Describe this same object or person 10 times. How does your last paragraph compare with your first? Do you see a progression in your descriptions? Does the object seem more or less familiar to you now?

 

 

 

It lights a small corner of the kitchen. Very little light. Open, it contains the world. But it is a world of little value to him now. He wishes to be an artist (ha!) and the light emitter is merely a tool. An unimportant tool. Other tools could work. The important tool is he but he is unimportant. 

 

The laptop stares back at him, talks to him. But doesn’t say much. But it beckons, without words it beckons. It is tapped, and tapped, and tapped. Some good comes from this tapping, a salary earned. But art? His art? 

 

It is black. Fitting. It is in the dark, before 5 A.M. most mornings. Then, light, to see with, to look at. Words, tapped out, ideas forming, stories brewing, art creating and created. A black sleek tool of electricity and circuits and processors but no more than a blunt instrument; a hammer and anvil of a different sort. The person matters, not the tool.

 

It has, of all things, a space bar. It is the biggest key. The largest key. The most used? A space bar without a drink. A space bar without aliens. A space bar without some ET on a futuristic instrument. A space bar that can’t get you tipsy or drunk or feelin’ it. A space bar without a staff or a band, even a shitty one doing their shitty original songs. The space bar isn’t even in space. What the fuck. It’s right here, space space space, only showing itself where it isn’t. THAT is cool. Even without a beer or a shot or a mixed drink or a purple Geeelshejune from the Mixtolendian realm, who just came in on a Bradbury 5v model Grostundian Unit from the 3060’s, it’s cool.

Swans and Kant

 

We took the shoreline first, we usually take the shoreline to finish. I didn’t have a dog in the fight, I was just trying to get the boys out of the house as they were at peak riot before seven thirty in the morning. It was MLK day 2021, deep in the throes of the CoronaVirus pandemic. Getting them out of the house, even if for an hour, helps calm them a little, makes bedtime a little easier if they’ve been on their feet for at least a little while. As I said, we took the shoreline first. Goddard park is a great walk. One always has the shore for a good vista but there is also the path that glides and meanders between a forest dense enough to cut out a good deal of the human noise we probably aren’t adapted for yet and unknowingly makes us crazy. There have been days where after a walk at Goddard, the boys, usually riotous at seven thirty in the morning and cacophonous the other waking hours, are dare I say it, calm and serene. It is low tide and I am frigid; I tuck my nose inside my coat and I can feel how cold it is. I breathe inside my coat for as long as I can as the wind drills us on the shoreline. It is so early and our direction means we’re getting no sun. The boys are impervious to the cold. Julian has taken his gloves off for better rock skipping. Julian finds the sole of a shoe. Avery is carrying sticks...for protection. We reach the rocks and ah, sunlight hits me. The bite of the wind is softened. The star a mere ninety-three million miles away warms my Irish nose and reminds me, there can be warmth. The rocks are the informal half-way point. At low tide the rocks jut out to where, traversing them, one can feel in the middle of the bay. Not for me today; looking at the water makes me shiver. I let the boys linger though I am cold and my Raynauds has my hands and feet stinging. I let them be boys and they are gloriously boys. Loud, active, gregarious, with elan to burn...and they burn it and it powers them: on the rocks, off the rocks, karate pose, stick fight!, on the rocks again, off the rocks again. I can’t help myself so I get some pictures; they are too glorious not to take pictures. But the wind drilling me for a half-hour is all I can tolerate so I say it is time to head back. The walk back is through the woods, a reprieve from the wind. We know this path well. The leaves soften the walk and the noise is dampened. Funny how the noise of a forest, isn’t called noise, doesn’t feel like noise. Perception. There is no noumenal realm. Plus Kant died from eating a wheel of cheese. I tell the boys we should try to be quiet as we near the pond. There have been days we spotted a Heron at the back of the pond. The pond sits just about seventy-five yards from the shoreline at low tide. It is surrounded by trees but a nice path has been beaten around most of its near-acre size. We do not see the Heron but I tell the boys there are swans back there. Two, white dollops of feathered mashed potatoes somehow floating on the water. I have never given swans much thought. Near the zoo, there are swan-shaped paddle boats the boys have enjoyed and my calves have not. Who really thinks about swans? Maybe Kant did. We round the corner and I point out to Avery that someone has dropped some seed for birds. He lingers, noticing the birds, and appreciating how close he is to them. Nuthatches mostly. Julian is ahead of me, Julian will always be ahead of me, and he’s talking about something I can’t quite make out because Avery is in my ear about wanting a small, cute bird for a pet. I tell him, “My sister had a cockatiel,” when I am alerted to the sound of a jeep or some vehicle driving through this forest. Impossible. How in the world did someone get a vehicle back here? I think. The birds scatter at the sound of this vehicle rumbling toward us. I try to locate the source and my ears point me to the center of the pond, but...it is not a vehicle. It is the sound of the two swans, pelting the surface of the pond to take flight. I realize these swans are huge; their wings must be seven feet or more from tip to tip and those wings are beating the pond like a drum. Bam bam bam, like an old Dodge motor with perhaps a rod knocking. Huge birds. We are rapt. All attention on them as they finally get off the water and the old Dodge turns into a wind turbine, their long strong wings forcing a loud, dare I say cacophonous whooomph with every flap. Quickly, loudly they flap in order to rise over the surrounding maples and sumacs. They do, the dollops of white, quintessential orange beaks, and jet-black eyes, rise above and are gone. But not forgotten. Julian and I look at each other in amazement. Julian is speechless. “That was cool,” I riotously yell. I am thinking about swans. Swans have been perceived, not in some cold, mathematical, taxonomical, noumenal realm but in a phenomenal realm, where sounds startle you and sights dazzle you, and the smell from a wheel of cheese overtakes you.

It's A Shame

 Joyce Carol Oates Masterclass Writing Assignment

 

4.  Write a story about an unsolved mystery in your life. Use Joyce’s phrase “An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart” as your first line. Then, in an entirely new paragraph, begin explaining the mystery while keeping the first line in mind.

An unsolved mystery is a thorn in the heart. 

 

Why I can’t bring myself to like myself is a thorn in my heart. I even tell people, “I’m a decent person,” as if to remind them, but it’s really to remind me. I don’t know how this came to be. Well, other than growing up poor, and internalizing the poverty and equating it with character failure and moral worth. So maybe it’s more of a riddle. Disliking myself (hate is such a strong word) is why the words of an adjunct professor, Andrew Stypinski, have stayed with me all these years (30 yrs): If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else - there’s no analogy to draw from. This thorn has impacted my relationships (no friends to speak of at the age of 50), a troubled marriage, and parenting that won’t win any awards, or even honorable mention. So there’s a thorn, or maybe it’s a switch-blade, or the Conan Sword in my heart but I guess I’m lying when I tell you there is this big unsolved mystery. There isn’t. My early life (Freud was right about so much shit), my parents, my surroundings, my choices, my zeitgeist, my biology, my culture, my nature, my nurture, my wiring, my education, my lack of education, my intelligence, my lack of intelligence, my experiences, my being a late bloomer (as in weighing 95 lbs in the ninth grade late bloomer), my early sexual experiences, my lack of early sexual experiences (see late bloomer info above), my cramped childhood household (eight people in a two bedroom ONE bathroom home) my potty training, my living thirty yards from an interstate highway, my contracting scabies as a kid, my parents’ and uncles’ and brother’s alcoholism, and my goddamn self are the reason(s) I dislike myself - this shit isn’t a mystery or a riddle or a limerick or an amusing anecdote, to paraphrase George Carlin, it’s a shame.

Among The Conifers

 

Point A to Point B. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. From poor to rich. But unless you suffer from Alzheimer’s, you never forget. Never forget you were poor. You can walk all around your ritzy neighborhood; five-bedroom three car garage homes, with decorative stone paths, scaped lots the size of a football field, nestled in the enormous conifers. You can. But you know they’re dangerous. Those people you knew. You know what their capable of. You know that if you ever cross paths with them, decorative stone or not, they will immediately recognize all you have to lose, and pounce on it. They will threaten you and your family, nestled in among the conifers. They’ll seize on how much you have to lose. They’ll threaten to hurt your wife and kids. You know they will. They’ll abuse your fear and never stop. Which is why you can never go back. You can never see them as human, never respect them as more than animals. On sight you should kill them. On sight. Six hundred miles separates you from them. Six hundred miles and thirty years. But they’ll recognize you. Feel you, and all that money. But you too, you feel you, poor, out of place, among the conifers.