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.

Thanksgiving in October

Celebrated Thanksgiving in October. Thanks Rona. Nothing says Turkey and Mashed Taters like Monday off for Indigenous People's day. All snark aside, I'm thankful that my fam and I are healthy in what is shaping up to be a pretty shitty 2020. And weeeeee're back with the snark. I missed snark; after, let's count em', 20 words. Not bad for me.

I've missed you too blog, but I've been quarantined and parentined without enough booze-filled canteens. Plus I'm teaching three courses and taking one and blah blah blah, only 24 hours in a day. 

Can I tell you that running in the dark at 5am blows? I can. I did. It does. Don't do it. This Monday the entire run was in the dark. 

Which brings me to where I am in life, having recently celebrated a half century of life/existence: 

IN. THE. DARK.

But I know there's light. 

It's gotta be around here somewhere.

"Here boy! 

(whistle sound) 

Gotta be around here somewhere."

I'm alive enough to keep looking...and for that I'm thankful...in October.