one moment

Tonight when I was looking through an old journal, I found a fine poem I wrote about 7 or 8 years ago. I don’t have it in front of me anymore, but I have it memorized.

Glass of Wine #1
There’s not much sadder than an empty glass of wine.
There’s not much more beautiful than an empty glass of wine.

I love that. I remember writing it and I remember looking at that empty glass of wine with a drunken sort of sad grin. The end of the glass, the end of the bottle.

Good times and bad times all wrapped up into one moment.

We built a fort tonight, strong and big, with pillows and blankets draped over furniture. We had two rooms and three entrances and we had so much fun pretending to be a family of bears. We’d go to sleep and then wake to hunt food and bring it all back to our cave and share with one another. When I turned the lights off and it was dark and we only had one flashligtht between the two kids, there was a near riot. It all ended in tears and huffs and puffs and stomps off down the hall to another room. But for a few minutes there before I cut the lights, it was pure magic. It was real, true playing with random shrieks of happiness and nowhere else we ever could possibly want to be. And then I had to make it dark. I learned my lesson.

Good times and bad times all wrapped up into one moment.

The Snow Hides - a story for F (because it is snowing tonight!)

Under the snow hides the grass yard where we’ll run and play and laugh in the summertime.
We’ll lay on blankets on those warm nights and watch shooting stars dance across the dark, prickly sky.

Under the snow hides the wooden fence next to the big field where we’ll pick wildflowers in the summer. We’ll sit up on the fence and try to count the birds flying above us as they sing from tree to tree.

Under the snow hides the pond where we’ll swim with the dogs and skip rocks in the summer.
We’ll open our eyes under the water to see the fish and long grass, we’ll see where sunlight bends.

Under the snow hides the picnic table at the top of the hill where we’ll eat lunches on hikes in the summer. We’ll name all the mountains we can see in the distance and take pictures so that we’ll never, ever forget.

Under the snow hides the trees we’ll be reaching to climb branch by branch to our tree fort in the summer. We’ll sit up on the old tire swing and get dizzy, tickling tummies as it spins and twirls through the air.

Under the snow hides a world of things we miss when it’s not the summer. We miss all the colors and smells and sounds and we daydream about when the snow will be finally melted.

But when we run and play and laugh around the yard in the summer, we might miss how we used to put on snowshoes and trek around that same grassy spot when the snowwas there.

When we find those wildflowers in the big field next to the fence in the summer, we might miss how we used to cross country ski along that fence and point out the tracks of deer and rabbits when the snow was there.

When we’re swimming in the pond and splashing with the dogs in the summer, we might miss how we used to shovel off the snow to make a rink for ice skating on that pond when the snow was there.

When we’re having a picnic at the top of the hill naming distant mountains in the summer, we might miss how we used to go sledding down that hill so fast and so fun over and over again when the snow was there.

When we’re up in our tree fort or swinging on the old tire in the summer, we might miss how we used to pile up huge pillows of snow and jump out of that tree, landing and laughing when the snow was there.

Even if it is snowy and cold or sunny and warm our best places will always be there for us and we know we’ll be outside playing. Our best places can change and be different just like the seasons.

Animalhood - a story for T

We moved to a new neighborhood, but this one is a little different than the City where you were born. Now we live in an animalhood. Our neighbors are farms and woods and pastures and ponds.

Maybe before breakfast we can walk down that wide dirt road to see the horses. We’ll pick an apple from the tree next to their fence and hand it to one and watch and listen as he eats it in two great, chomping bites.

And after we have our snack we can go the other way, down past the chickens and hens to visit the goats and sheep. They live at the farm where we picked our pumpkin to carve for Halloween.

Do you think we should walk down that other road and visit the cows after lunch? We’ll take the dirt road next to the Old Meeting House and follow it up around the bend to where the cows and kitties and the new puppy roam about and moo at me and you.

Before dinner we’ll take a stroll up to Turtle Pond, where you and Grandpa let the turtle go back into the water after inspecting him and making sure he was OK. You carried him up there to the pond in a seashell and let him slide back into the water from the long grass on the side of the road.

After dinner we’ll take our dog out for a walk down into the field and do our best to find the moon up through the clouds. And if we’re lucky and the clouds move away, and the sky opens up, we’ll see all the stars and then you can do your best to count them like you always do. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….

And when you’re finally tucked safely back into your bed, breathing your long, sleeping-breaths, and dreaming about all our animal neighbors, it’s time for me to smile and remember all those animal neighbors too, as I watch the fox dancing and bounding ouside the window in our field.

I wish you were awake to see him with me. I wonder if I should wake you up to see this fox, the animal you’ve only read about and never seen before. But then as fast as he came into the field, he’s gone. Bounding down the deer’s trail and disappearing into the woods and onto a new mission.

How lucky we are to live in our animalhood, where nearly every neighbor brings that wonder-filling smile to your face – the best part of my day again and again and again.

Trippin' stories

I’ve driven across the United States of America seven times. From east coast to west coast and back again, many many times. Nothern routes, central routes and southerns routes. That road-travel was one of the many benefits of growing up and living in Vermont during the summers and going away to college in Eugene, Oregon and then moving to Virginia Beach and then back out to Portland for another 6 years. And then back to Vermont for now. The best way for me to get me and my stuff (and friends/family) across the country was to simply drive ourselves. Add in a round-the-country, three-week camping vacation with my girlfriend (now wife) mixed in for fun and you’ve got a storyline that at the time I didn’t realize was so unique, but now with the distance of time, I can see how special that all was.

It started with the summer trip with JK in the yellow Ryder Truck (“Daisey Fuentes”) from VT down to Central PA to party with some friends from my first year in college (before I left to go out west) then over to NJ to pick up inherited furniture for my oldest brother and then on to VA to see my girlfriend and then on to Nashville, Arkansas, my 21st birthday in Kansas City, and then out to Boulder for a few days and nights with high school friends, and then finally onto Eugene, where we immediately stumbled directly down into the dark basement of our band’s rented house where I remember Jamiroquai was playing in a smoky, beer-smelling, dankness with a red spotlight shining on my friends in the corner. That first scene in Eugene that year pretty much summed up my entire college experience, though the jam in the basement over time became other basements and living rooms and back yards and co-op housing units and bar lounges. That was a fine first trip. And destination.

Then there was the move back east after beginning our family in Oregon. That was a mid-February 8-day trek with me piloting a 26’ Uhaul truck trailing my Subaru station wagon and my cat in the cab with me mewing the ENTIRE time. Behind the cat and I, my wife, her mother, our 16-month old daughter, and our black lab drove the Pathfinder. Again, in February! There wasn’t much sight-seeing on that trip. We were focused on one thing only: Safe passage. Between the hourly updates on the walkie-talkies, there was simply constant hope to all get to our day’s end safely and with dry roads if possiblke. Incredibley there were storms east of us, west us, south of us and north of us the entire way across, but we managed to stay in between them all and we had dry roads all the way except for a few miles of snowy Nebraska highway. The first two days in the mountains of Eastern Oregon, outside of Boise, and Salt Lake City, were the most punishing for the Uhaul – I was flooring it at 15 mph with the Pathfinder behind me as they drove in 3rd gear with their flashers on…Man, they stared at the back of a Uhaul for hours and days on end. What troopers. Another fine trip. And destination. Hopefully not my last, but I’m good with it, if it is.

In between those trips there were five others, each with a million stories and laughs and characters and madness involved – too many for a blog. The opportunity to lose youself out on the road like that over and over again, never seeing the same things twice make it difficult to ever think about not traveling. When our kids are older, I cannot wait to take them out on the road with me and their mother and get lost in America and tell them stories they’re much to young to appreciate today. But for now, we have weekend trips to Maine like the one we have in a few days.

There is just nothing better than roadtrips in my opinion. But what I’ve learned is that no matter how incredible the voyage becomes, or maybe even because of the magic of the voyage, the destination is in fact the key, for this is where you get to rest and remember and appreciate it all. Which I do. I appreciate it all.

sparks

Take a memory, tear it up, flip it over, turn it inside out, lay it down flat and search for the worn edges. Find an edge, a good one or a bad one, peel it open, pull it back, pry it apart, reach inside, feel around, and pay attention. Now do the same thing for a song, a word, an idea, a person…and describe what you’ve got.

That is how my writing begins, usually, at the end of my arms, at the ends of me, but still attached by the smallest string.

From a spark to a blaze, then settling back in to the quiet dance of the story. A writer is a pyromaniac playing with matches…setting fires, trying to manage the burn. When it works, you feel it and you’ve got a fine flame to play with – a glass blower using high heat to create a piece. When it fails, you’ve got rubble and mayhem and possibly nothing worthy to show for your effort.

That’s how my writing ends, usually, in a heap of charred remains in a darkened file.

But there was a spark. And I tried. I can always go back and make another spark and another spark and another spark and see if something’s close enough to catch. I’ve seen the big burn for myself, I’ve felt the heat of the surrounding flames. And that’s what keeps pushing me back inside that forest, that fabric store, that nuclear plant with a book of matches and a grin.

The Writer's State

A sense of place is stitched into my soul. Especially this place. This land, this home, this entire state. The Green Mountain State. The Writer’s State is what it is. So many writers of all kinds here and I’m not sure what the draw is exactly. I can only speak for myself, but there is just something special about being here in the open air with neighbors who are like classic literary characters themselves and the stunning beauty of distant views around every turn in the dirt road that encourages words to form. And of course, the topic of all topics: the weather.

Long, cold winters of an amazingly pure, whitewashed world of quiet. Springtime river runs with the sun finally warming your shoulders and buds peeking out from the wet ground. And syrup directly from the trees in the front yard. Too-short summers of daytime green after green after mile of green and nighttime fireflys dancing under a million stars winking slowly to the beat. Magical autumn colors pulsing within the full hills of misty mountain shadows and little field mice looking for a warm place to sleep.

What isn’t outside to inspire a writer here? Well, there’s no billboards in the way telling you to buy this or watch that or listen to them. There’s no smog in the way, dulling up the view.

Vermont may just be a small, liberal-leaning state with a fascination for homemade ice-creams, cheeses, snowboards, and jam bands, but there’s something else too. There’s the real world here. There’s no catch to the promise. At the end of the stick, there’s no single carrot dangling, but instead an insane garden of flavors and tastes and spices. It just is itself. And that’s what gives us room to roam and explore. That’s what inspires the poetry like the amazing one I heard on The Writer’s Almanac on NPR this morning (The Cows at Night, by Hayden Carruth). It begins, “The moon was like a full cup tonight, too heavy, and sank in the mist…”. Just nailed it from the start, right? The whole poem is just like that, too.

I live here because my parents moved us here when I was 8. I live here because my wife grew up here. I live here because Portland (our other home) just isn’t close enough anymore. I live here because there is both a sense of fear when I leave and joy upon my return. I live here because now I am a we and this is where we belong. I live here because this is where I can be the me that I want to be, as well as the we that we need to be.

Like music and love, this place has its place in almost everything I write. I can’t escape it. It is a character unto itself, though I‘ve admittedly still got a long way to go to write about it with the class and tenor that so many others have done. But it is there all the same. In infant form, perhaps, but there. Right…there.

The moon, which was full last night, is pointed directly at me like a spotlight through my window over the monitor this second. It is, again, like that full cup, heavy and sinking from this morning's poem. The night is clear. I want to walk outside and visit my neighbor's cows down the dirt road a quarter mile away just like in the poem. How strange that would be, but how wonderful too, where life imitates art which imitates life and back around again. Full circle. Well, full circle last night. Yes, the night is so very clear.

My Desk Books

On my writing desk are some books. Stacked up like bricks right in front of me and my keyboard, this is my super-secret-special library. People who check out the downstairs bookcase wont find these titles. They are my favorite books and I keep them close to where I write for use as references if I need them. The books are all quite different from each other, but they all have a certain lyrical beauty, a way of placing words into gorgeous form as if mixed colors on a canvas, and stories that keep me interested forever. They are each written in prose I wish I could write and I have no hesitation flipping any of them open to read a few random paragraphs whenever I find myself stranded at the keyboard, unsure of where to go next. They always help. The hard part is closing the book up again and getting back to my own thing.

These books give me inspiration. They are certainly not your standard list of favorite books, but they work for me and that’s all that counts in my lone, selfish goal to be a better writer. My feeling is this: surround yourself with beauty, then let it soak into your pores.

I’ve heard you can’t write an original story anymore. These are the same fools who say you can’t write an original song anymore. I don’t believe it for a second. That’s like saying you can’t have an original baby anymore because there are so many people already in the world. Each baby, each story, each song is inherently different because of two keys things: the giver and the taker. It’s all about perspective and we’ve each got a different one.

The giver is the writer or the musician or the baby itself. By putting out into the world what they have to offer, they are the givers. The taker is the reader, the listener, the random people sitting in cafés watching other people go about their lives. By taking in what the givers give them, they are the takers.

All of us are both givers and takers. And we all enjoy that unique perspective, a truly special set of experiences which help define us. We have our own senses, memories, ideas, family, friends, stories, priorities, and dreams. You read one of those books below and you hate it. I read it and I am consumed with appreciation for it. You listen to The Cure and love every note. I listen to The Cure and can’t turn it off quickly enough.

What I’m throwing out there is we’re each built in a crazy way and though we have so many similarities, we have many, many more differences. And that’s what gives me a seed of hope. Seeking to find, explore, and magnify what makes me different than you. That’s my goal as a writer: to write the original line, the rhythmic, musical phrase, the single most important word for that very moment. And then find a way to do it over and over again every time until it paints the complete picture that was probably there all along. That’s how I see it anyway and it can’t hurt to try.

MY DESK BOOKS:

Peace Like a River - Lief Enger
The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness - Rick Bass
The Shadow of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
Bluesman - Andre Dubus III
The River Why - David James Duncan
The Secret History - Donna Tartt

(If anyone reads this…what are your “desk books”?)

A Peek Behind the Curtain

I went to see a well-known author talk about his new book a few months back. He was discussing the fact that this latest book was the hardest thing he’d ever written and that it was so completely different than the previous books he’d written and become famous for writing. But he also loved it unlike anything else he’d ever tried. He was writing the story that he wanted to write, not the one he wanted to sell, and the whole thing – the process, the research, the writing – it all turned out to be the favorite of his many books. Then he discussed how he had an idea for another new book, which again was very different than what his core audience was expecting and he said he wasn’t sure he could, or should, do something similar again. He didn’t think his regular readers would buy it, much less enjoy it. Understand, this is man who once had a book picked by Oprah for her club, so his audience was huge and he had large expectations to fill. A woman from the audience asked him if the book he’d just written was really his favorite of anything he’d ever done. He said yes. She asked him if he expected it to sell as much as the others. He said definitely not. “But this last one was your favorite to write?” she asked. “Well, I don’t understand your problem.” He smiled, stood straight up and realized this woman had called him out and publicly kicked him in the ass. Then he asked her name so he could put it in his acknowledgements if he did end up writing it, which I expect he will.

Sure, he’s a big time author who’s not trying to sell his first book, and he already has the contract so desperately desired by so many of us. But he was going through the same thing we all do and he realized he needed to continue to write from his heart if he wanted to truly be happy.

The rest of his discussion was a little lame and very scripted…you could tell he’d been giving the same speech and telling the same jokes over and over and over again for the past two months on his book tour all over the country. But it finally took someone from our own little bookstore here to question him and bring him back to the reality of being a writer and pushing him a bit to explore his own questions about writing for money vs. writing to be happy. That was not scripted. That was a peek behind the curtain which revealed a real man with real questions and doubts about his writing. That connected all of us yet-to-be discovered writers in the small audience with this already quite successful writer in a way none of us expected before going into the bookstore that evening. That was special.

The Four-Stringed Harp

Ben Harper has this beautiful song called “Picture of Jesus” about how he keeps a picture of Jesus on him at all times to look at whenever he’s feeling lost or otherwise needing some guidance. It’s from his album with the Blind Boys of Alabama, which is simply fantastic all around. I’m not all that religious in the standard sense, so I don’t carry a picture of Jesus with me but man, I have no trouble connecting with the message in this song and others from the album. You cannot groove much better and I find myself singing along…”I’ve got a picture of Jesus/in his arms my prayers rest /you know, I’ve got a picture of Jesus/and with him we shall be forever blessed.” Who cares that I’m not actually sending up any prayers? I’m digging the music and the vibe in general and I can understand the need for others to do it.

So what it got me thinking about was what I do have instead of a picture of Jesus. And what I do have is a harp tattoo. It’s a simple four-string harp that my brother and I began designing on a bar napkin while sharing time over a few pints in the window seat of the world famous, Charlie-O’s in Vermont. Vaguely based on the harp from Guinness’ logo and from another harp we found online, with a Celtic design along one side, we also took some design-liberty with it and after some back-and-forth emails with the siblings it was settled. The four strings represent the four siblings in the family and the plan was for all of us to have it grace our bodies in some way. While we’re only ¾ successful at this point, my brother–in-law got it as well, so in the end, there are indeed four of us with the tattoo. I have it on the inside of my right calf just above my ankle, my brother’s is on his arm, my sister’s is on her lower back, and my brother-in-law’s is on the outside of one of his ankles. And we all had them done during the memorable weekend that one of my brother’s was married in Virginia.

These days, when I am sitting in a chair and I cross my right leg up over my left, I find myself covering the tattoo with my hand and just remembering what it is, when I got it, and what it means to me: family first, music of Ireland second, and I guess stout beer third. Looking at, and then touching the harp has become a reflex in a certain sense whenever I cross my leg up and over. Even with pants on, I find myself reaching under the cuff to feel my leg where it has been forever scarred with a brand meant to signify my connection to the family I grew up within. There have been times when I have literally stared at the ink on my leg and felt a sense of peace and ease about things. Yes, it’s magic. Yes, it’s family. Yes, it’s now part of me forever, as if I needed some sort of branding on my flesh to tell me that.

People who pray to Jesus don’t all need to carry pictures of him around with them all day long, but some do and those that do probably feel better for it. And Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama have a great song about it. So, yes I am tight with my family and it goes beyond blood and love and I definitely don’t need anything to remind me of that. But now again, there is this special harp on my leg with four strings that is there just in case I ever find myself in need of a special harp on my leg with four strings.

Knocking on Wood

My son recently told me that he’s never seen me cry. He doesn’t think I can cry or that I know how to cry or that I would have reason to cry. This shocked me but I suppose it was true. There have been precious few reasons to cry since his birth three years ago.

He wasn’t at the memorial service for his great-grandfather last winter. He was at the internment in the spring but I was wearing sunglasses while we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the beautiful sunshine. He stood listening, swaying with his big sister and our voices but he didn’t see my eyes.

He didn’t notice me crying in the operating room on the morning he was born, when we discovered we had a little boy, a healthy little boy. He didn’t notice my tears when my wife immediately threw away our choice for a boy’s middle name and suggested we give him mine, which was also my grandfather’s.

He wasn’t awake just this past September 11th as I stayed up very late to watch a documentary on public television about that terrible day in 2001 and tears creeped into my eyes at the horrible memories of that morning.

My daughter is two years older than my son and it’s probably the same story with her.

I guess we tend to hide our tears from our kids and I’m not sure that’s always the right thing. Maybe it would be good for them to see their parents cry sometimes, in happy times and in sad times, too. Just so they know that yes, we know how to cry, just like they do.

The night their great-grandfather passed away, my wife came back to the dinner table from getting the phone call telling her the news and she had tears in her eyes. My kids saw that and their serious concern impressed me. She soon went to be with her parents a few miles away, to see her grandfather one last time, and to say goodbye. After she left, the kids asked why she was crying and I sat at the table with them both looking to me for answers to something they’d never really had to consider. I had no great answers to fit inside their happy little worlds. They didn’t notice my tears then for some reason, though they were there as I tried to explain something about what it meant to “die” to these two little kids who at the time could only consider death as it related to Mufasa in The Lion King. They didn’t notice my eyes as I began to realize that what I was telling them that very moment was likely making them just a little less innocent, as the reality of life slowly made its way over the beautiful bliss of being a young child in a family full of love, like a sweeping tide slowly covers up the playful beach over the course of the day.

You can’t hold back the tide, just like you can’t hold back the real world from becoming a part of your kids’ lives. All you can do is ensure you’re right there with them for as long as possible, holding their hands, answering their questions, and maybe even showing them that we do know how to cry.

I am a Thief

I have a friend who has sailed around the world. I have a friend who is an amzing musician. I have a few of those, actually. I have friends who create the best, most innovative running shoes, basketball shoes, football cleats, soccer cleats, and snowboards in the world. I have a friend who is an Irish priest whom I would nominate for the Nobel Peace Prize if I could (and who also presided over the weddings of my 3 siblings as well as my own - that time while wearing a Jamaican Red Stripe t-shirt underneath his white, transparent robe). I have a friend who runs the camera for major motion pictures, shooting the likes of Robert DeNiro and Mel Gibson. I have a friend who might just be governor of Vermont one day. I have a friend who works closely with Landon Donovan and other members of the US soccer team. I have a friend who runs his own capital investment funds company. I have a friend who is a professional artist. I have a friend who owns a car dealership. I have a friend who makes the best coffee in the country. I have a friend who makes the most comfortable socks I’ve ever put on my feet. I have a friend who played professional hockey in Europe. I have a friend who stays home with the kids. I have a friend who knows more about wine than anyone else I’ve ever met. I have a friend who really dislikes the writing of Jack Kerouac (huh??). I have a friend who worked for the New York Yankees while wearing his Red Sox cap proudly. I have a friend who is fighting in Iraq. I have a friend who studies life in the ocean. I have a friend who is pals with Bjork. I have a friend who drinks scotch with Ewen McGregor. I have a friend who writes the lyrics for Phish (welcome back, boys!). I have a friend who brews amazing beer. I have a friend who competed in the Olympics. I have a friend who…OK, so the first problem is I don’t have a plan to end this rant. The second problem is I don’t have a point.

I suppose, I just wanted to acknowledge that I know good people who do cool things and who think differently than I do and who are motivated to succeed and who are unique, amazing, and deeply interesting people. Yes, I have friends who inspire me beyond compare every single day of my life and from whom I openly steal bits and pieces for my own puzzle. That’s the way it works for me. And then there’s family, who take it all a notch or two higher.

I guess I think it’s important to sometimes take a minute to stop and put a few certain truths out there before you go any further.

And then we move on.

The Wondering Switch

My house is full of big old windows. We’re in the process of replacing the draftier ones with newer models but there is only so much to be done so fast. So I tend to look outside those many windows and do my thinking. Where else would I think in an old farmhouse like this? The windows are just so obvious. It is truly, only natural, to look out the windows, gaze upon the land, spot a neighbor maybe, or a fawn and turn on The Wondering Switch.

My house is older than I can even imagine. The 1840s. Built sometime in the 1840s is all I know for sure. Fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and then comes 1900 and it is still a hundred and whatever more years until this year, this month, this week, this night, this minute, this...second. I was born in the 1970s. That’s nothing.

So I sit in the house a lot in the quiet and look outside my windows. I think about all those years between when the house was put up and now. All those families, the babies, the lovers, the friends, the enemies. The additions, the demolitions. I imagine the dancing, the parties, the sad times, too and I can’t help but try to picture who else has lived on these planked and uneven creaking floorboards, under these thick-beamed ceilings, and behind these large, drafty windows overlooking big, old maple trees.

I think about the long summer days of 1926 and the long winter nights of 1911. The rainy mornings in April of 1843, when the house was still so brand now. Just twenty years ago, in the snows of February and the way people must have dressed back in 1888 when they walked in the door from outside, the rain falling or maybe just turning from rain to snow to sleet to sunshine. Or how mornings before school would have gone back in 1938. We all learn the basics about history when we’re in school, but it would take a series of books just to detail the history and all of the lives that have lived, and most-likely, even died in this one house alone. I’d like to be part of that book.

It didn’t take me long to realize lately, that I don’t want to learn more about the wars and all the trouble outside. I want to know about this land and this house that have now been added to my own family tree. How many family trees does the connecting go back? It could be just a few; it could be many, many more. A house like this isn’t just a real estate decision. It seems like it’s a commitment to live a certain way and a history lesson to be explored and valued in and of itself.

Turns out it’s a good thing I’ve got my windows to look out of as these ghosts of wonder weave about inside of me like knotting ropes getting more and more tangled up inside. Maybe there is a book in there waiting to help me untangle the mess. Ghosts to be discovered, for sure. There’s at least one I keep recognizing in the window, but maybe that’s only ‘cause these windows are mirrors in the autumn night.

This matter should be investigated

"PLAY funky automatic love"

That’s what the four magnets arranged next to my desk at work say. I got them in the mail about a week ago from some marketing company trying to induce a sale, so they sent me this sheet of about 200 words on magnets to have. Some magnets include my name, my town, my company’s website, others were just random words, and still others included their company’s name, phone number, etc…. I took out those four from around the sheet and threw the rest away (poor quality – these free things barely stick). Anyway, this is what it says.

A break-it-down exercise:

PLAY – music, words, kids, wife, family, friends, rhythm, dance, bliss, safe, happy, stories, well-being.

funky – rhythm, stories, safe, family, music, bliss, words, kids, dance, well-being, happy, wife, friends.

automatic – family, wife, kids, friends, music, rhythm, safe, dance, bliss, well-being, words, stories, happy.

love – wife, kids, family, friends, safe, bliss, happy, music, rhythm, words, well-being, dance, stories.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I don't pretend to know anything about anything. I just looked up right now and saw these magnets staring back at me and wondered at the connection. Of course there’s a connection. So I guess I put them up there like that and arranged them for a reason way back when, but breaking it down now is interesting because I was easily able to draw the same things out of each of the four random words.

Together, they make a statement: “PLAY funky automatic love.” That is me. Separate, they appear to make similar statements but just shots, images, sparkles of something that are also me.

As I once read in an old text book from a class I took on the physics of music and the acoustical foundation of sound, I can only say “this matter should be investigated.”

508 words tonight

The best line of the night:
"I wanted to do anything but think about a dead, old piece of fruit laying on a cold, dark sunporch."

Well, shit. It can only get better from here, right?

Debate's almost on...gotta go.

perspective

An empty page is wonderful.
An empty page is sad.
An empty page is listening to ghosts in the kitchen.
An empty page is suitable for dressing.
An empty page is an opportunity.
An empty page is the calm before the storm.
An empty page is the first notes of a song.
An empty page is an empty shot glass.
An empty page is possibility and hope.
An empty page is magic and I believe in magic.
An empty page is stirring.
An empty page is the eye of the storm.
An empty page is fingertips stretching before the dance.
An empty page is a mirror.
An empty page is what Thunder Road once looked like.
An empty page is a map.
An empty page is courageous.
An empty page is sick with disease.
An empty page is little more than trust.
An empty page is the devastation of the storm.
An empty page is poison.
An empty page is medicine.
An empty page is brilliant.
An empty page is mad as hell.
An empty page is an empty season.
An empty page is nothing.
An empty page is everything.
An empty page is a broken desk lamp.
An empty page is a poem.
An empty page is a starving child.
An empty page is a maple tree.
An empty page is a license.
An empty page is a trusting prisoner.
An empty page is freedom from gravity.
An empty page is rhythm without the music.
An empty page is calling for help.
An empty page is a beautiful sky.
An empty page is broken.
An empty page is fixed.

The Write Fight

“But how much time do you have to live a life that is less than what you dream of?”
- from the Illuminated Mind blog (not that I’m into self-help, but it doesn’t hurt, right?)

“When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day, what else can change your idea and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?”
- Ernest Hemingway (via David’s email a few years back)

"The Valley Full of Clouds" Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree.”
- Terry Pratchett (no idea who he is, but I like this)

“If you have a broken heart or a battered soul, find something to hold on to or to let go,To help you through the hard nights like a flask filled with hope. Darlin' do not fear what you don't really know.”
-Brett Dennen (one of my favorite musicians…I just love the idea of a flask filled with hope, which even when filled with Jameson’s is sort of the same thing.)

I tell you what. I am completely fascinated by writers and how they write, why they write, what they do when they write, and what they think about writing in general. And I am unfortunately influenced by cheesy self-help quotes (like those above) more than I like to admit. And I think the reason why, is because since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be a writer. Now, I know I am a writer, but not technically. Not professionally. I have never been paid to write fiction, so in my head I’m no writer. And I attach myself to these quotes because this is a battle I go through every night: to write or not to write.

It could be worse. It could be to have a drink or not have a drink. It could be some other addiction or whatever. But it’s not. I’m fully capable of having a beer or glass of wine or a glass of Jameson’s without slipping down into a dark place. I’m good like that. But the one thing that gets pushed aside more days than I like to admit, is my lack of consistency in writing. And not a day goes by that I don’t consider what a loser I am for not sitting down to write.

So I sit at work and find quotes like the first one above and think, “yeah that’s right. I need to re-set my priorities.” And then I get home from work and give my wife a well-deserved kiss, play with the kids, have dinner with the family, wash the dishes, and then sit down for some chill time with my wife…and then I’m in the fight…the fight to write. And usually, I give in to the tiredness of the day and take the easy way out. And I don’t fight anything.

A month after my daughter was born in October of 2003, I did NANOWRIMO in November. I wrote a 50k word novel in one month, with a one month old daughter and supporting wife. I actually did it and even bought myself a t-shirt to prove it. I put out 2k words a day and got into the mysterious, hypnotic rhythms of writing that I’d only read about until that point. You know the whole thing about how the characters or the story just take over and you write on auto-pilot because you’re totally and completely locked in. That’s what it was like. It was amazing and I felt like a writer.

And now I struggle to nail 500 words a night, which is my latest, more reasonable goal.

And this blog doesn’t count.

I have to remind myself of this one last piece of wisdom from another (actual, professional) writer who writes about how hard it is to actually sit down and work.

"Sitting in the chair + typing words into the computer = finished manuscript."
-Robyn Amos (again, I have NO idea who she is, but she seems to fight these same fights.