Bits and Bytes

Yesterday's important is today's meaningless. At work a couple days ago I found myself digging into network drives and folders in a quest to reduce the number of stored files as part of a larger corporate quest to free up storage space for new and improved important stuff. Years ago we did as much with paper files: periodically purged cabinets of 20-pound copy paper, of manila folders, of 3-ringed binders. Most of the ones and zeroes I disposed of this week were years old, artifacts of then-crucial projects meant to improve the company's bottom line as it had never been improved before. We worked hard, and we worked happily. We arrived early; we skipped lunch; we stayed late; we worked the occasional weekend not just because we were asked to, but because we had some pride in what we were doing.

I, of course, was much younger then, more enthused about giving my all to keep the company's shareholders happy. The technology enthused me, and I was glad to be working with people bent toward creativity and doing things differently. Some of these people I have known for over a decade in a couple places of employment, and some of these people still work with me. And some of these people were part of one or another layoffs and have moved on to other places. Some of these former coworkers were represented in those files I deleted from the network drives, and I found myself opening each folder, scrolling through each file, trying to recall by the files' dates just who was working on what and when. Some of these coworkers I have not seen in a long time, and a couple I still communicate with and see regularly. A couple I even conisder friends.

Remarking on the disposability of corporate souls is not new, but in today's social and economic climate the risk of being disposed of is only a single executive decision away. Where I work, we have been advised that there will be no training budget, no "non-essential" travel, and no raises next year. In their benevolence, though, our 2 top executives are taking a cut in pay, and they have told us that the company will continue to contribute to our 401k plan. I should feel lucky, I suppose, that I still have a job, for I know there are many others across the country who do not (my brother-in-law, for one). I do not fear losing my job, for I have been through the process before and I came out of it fairly well.

When all of the files were deleted, I continued with a couple of my current projects, making sure I backed them up to the drives on which I had freed so much virtual space. I felt as though it was my duty to leave traces of myself there--the folders and files so crucial to the company's business.

War of the Words

This previous Saturday morning found me seated comfortably around a table with a group of writers whom I have associated with for the last couple of years. These writers--poets, really--have more writing and reading experience than I can ever hope to acquire, and I felt humbled to be among them as each of us read and critiqued poems and poets. I was openly proud at having brought for discussion a new poem for 2 consecutive meetings though neither poem has been especially refined or long.

After our meeting I stopped at home for a couple of hours then left for yet another meeting with a writer, this rendezvousing with Kominski who took time away from his own literary endeavors to meet me almost halfway between our respective abodes. And this time I was blessed with gifts: music, movie, literature hand-crafted by Kominski himself. I offered nothing and even let him buy me a beer. We wandered past forlornly empty and abandoned independent bookstores, but found some joy in the more corporate type. Topics of discussion included children, wives, baseball, writing, reading, Chicago, mothers and fathers, dogs, girlfriends, places of employment, music.... Part of the discussion included even the notebooks we favor, which may make us seem as a couple of old men with little more to discuss but truly does not. Writers--real and faux--dwell on these things, the tools of the trade. I have come to enjoy fine pens, as well, and own 3 nicely balanced wooden ones including a beauty purchased several years ago in Newport, Rhode Island. Regular pens are adequate when nothing else is around, but for serious work a good pen goes a long way. If they made me a better writer I would be doubly blessed.

After dinner and reluctant to stand outside in a cold wind that chilled us both Kominksi headed west and I headed east. I put the new music, The Who in concert, into my car's CD player and turned onto the freeway toward a moon full but for a slice of shadow at its top. In no hurry to get home I stayed in the right-most lane so that non-Who listeners could lead the way toward Sacramento, the buildings of which were illuminated brightly.

On the seat beside me were the movie and Kominski's literature, as well as a new Rhodia notebook that now begs for ink from one of my wooden pens. As if I need more notebooks, more empty pages, since most of my writing is accomplished on one of these infernal computers. Overall, however, the day's company of writers must have left an impression of some sort, for the next morning after a good bike ride I managed to sit down and type about 700 words of a novel I have been considering. This is part of the first chapter. And if you've ever tried writing a novel, you probably know that first chapters are a piece of cake because they require so little thought, so little plot. The real work comes later.

On a Whim and a Prayer

Back from yet another short and loosely planned trip to the PNW and feeling as rested as 2.5 days away can make a person feel. The trip included things domestic (appliances), things festive (Christmas), and things social (yep--with real people), all highlights in their own way.

Of note, however, was an introduction (probably a re-introduction, really) to the McMenamins concept: transform old buildings into unique destination spots where grub and grog are readily available. On this trip my hosts to me to Edgefield, where the company, the dining, and the glass of Pinot Grigio were quite nice in the cool Oregon air. My host's friend and I exchanged war stories. My host was hostful. I watched a couple of women transform molten glass into wonderful works of art (one of these women would also gladly exchange some of that art for some of my money.) Drinks were served in the Little Red Shed. Dinner was served in the Power Station Theater & Pub.

I am already plotting my return to Edgefield, perhaps accompanied by my spouse who might enjoy a visit to the onsite spa while I hide out in Jerry's Ice House, an extremely small shack with an extremely good sound system and television through which nothing but Grateful Dead music and videos play. Though I am not a Deadhead by any means (spent too many hours listening to Paul Simon, for Chrissake), the Ice House was cozy and welcoming enough that I pictured myself with my notebook and/or laptop and some good beer, all the while trying to conjure up one Muse or another. Kominski, he of great Grateful Dead knowledge and affection, is probably more suited to the Ice House than am I, and he would be good to have along to provide insight into the Dead mystique. (If you encourage him, perhaps he'll share some of his Dead experiences.) There is, also, a short golf course if you are maschocistic or even if you simply enjoy the game.

One unexpected gift from the trip was the first paragraph of what I think could be a fun novel to write. Okay, one stinking paragraph doesn't mean much, and I have no clue what the second paragraph will be, but I had fun sitting in PDX and scribbling lines onto a piece of scrap paper I found in my pocket. Now, that second paragraph.....

What a Long, Strange Trip

With a bit over a week to go in the semester, I am ready for and looking forward to an extended break. My students, too, are ready, and I do not hold this against them. They have suffered through 240 minutes a week of my standing in front of the classroom ostensibly there to enlighten them about the secret to good writing. Fat chance. Instead I have told them that the secret to good writing is spending a lot of time practicing it--like meditating or playing shortstop.

Several--always the same ones--of these young people have tried my patience for 16 weeks. One young man, who has made no secret of his somewhat violent youth and who now trains as a boxer and a extreme fighter, last night objected to my request that he remove his headphones as he completed the course final. "It's not bothering nobody," he said, even though I told him that because this was a departmental requirement, it was also mine. He stared at me in a way that let me know he wanted to (and most assuredly could) pummel me into submission. I pictured myself rolling on the floor with my lips split open, my teeth shattered. But, like a dog, I stared back just because... why? Who knows. He ended up putting his precious iPod away, finishing the exam, and leaving without measuring his knuckles against the width of my cheekbones.

Others in the class have challenged me in similar ways, speaking aloud against required assignments, at due dates, at work they see as frivolous and meaningless. Two of these darlings come 15 minutes late (together) to most classes, often not bringing their textbooks, usually shaking their respective heads at what they are asked to do.

Many nights I have come home discouraged--with the students, with this avocation, with my sometimes obvious inability to articulate why I ask them to do something. I want to say there is rhyme to my reason, that I am hopeful they will someday need to be able to write and will do so effectively. Each night I must weigh this discouragement against the small sparks of progress I see in some of the students' writing, against those students who seem to take the classwork seriously and who are considerate of others in the classroom.

This semester there is Josh, who has written about his troublesome childhood and stints of homelessness as his mother was drunk. He has also given me some of his creative writing to read, and I have said that I will do so though at times this semester he has tested my patience with his childish remarks and behavior. There is Karen, who left an abusive, alcoholic husband and is now trying to get her daughter into rehab of some sort. There are Tiffany and Janice, who rarely speak but who check and recheck their in-class work and who use every possible minute of allotted time for in-class tests. And there is Will, who is quiet and intelligent and who talks football and soccer and baseball with me, and who is majoring in Liberal Arts with a goal of teaching elementary school. And there are others who have alluded to abuse of one kind or another, to broken families, to dreams they have for their futures.

And there are several who have already registered for the course I will teach next semester, a course I have promised will be more difficult not because of its content requirements, but because I will know what they have studied this semester.

At the start of the next semester, I hope to have forgotten my discouragements, just as I hope to have learned from my own mistakes.

Fogged

Driving south on Highway 99 last night, heading home from class, the thousands of us were moving at 65 miles an hour through a nice blanket of fog. In California, this is what we do: maintain or increase our driving speed as the conditions worsen. I stayed in the right-hand lane so the less timid could get to where they were going faster. Ninety minutes earlier one of my students had commented on how much he hates the fog, and he didn't understand why some of us actually like it. "It's easier to hide in," I said, but I suppose he's young enough that he doesn't yet need places to hide.

The local Classic Rock radio station is doing an A-Z countdown, and as I merged onto the freeway Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" began, and the song fit the environment quite well. I seldom listen to this station (how many times can we re-listen to music that's 30 or 40 years old, for crying out loud!), so I was glad to have tuned in when I did. Hemmed in by a rather tall concrete median strip (meant to discourage rubber-neckers) on one side and an even taller concrete sound-deflection wall on the other, I felt comfortably hemmed in by walls and fog. The fog seemed to reduce all things visible to bits and pieces of light: headlights and taillights; dashboard lights; exit-ramp lights. Quite enjoyable. Even the green exit signs over the freeway, with their white and occasionally yellow lettering, seemed bright.

As I drove, I remembered other times I'd been in literal fogs. Once, my wife and I drove to Phoenix (partially on Highway 99) in March, leaving town at 3 in the morning. Fifty miles after we started we hit a layer of fog that lasted until Bakersfield in Southern California. She slept most of the way, and in my little Honda Civic I drove the speed limit and tried keep the red taillights of the cars and trucks within sight. If she'd been awake, she (being the smart one) would've told me to slow down, that god knows how quickly things can happen when you can't see. Another drive was on what must have been our first Thanksgiving with our first son. Driving home through California's delta region, I could not see beyond the hood of our Datsun pick-up truck. She was awake, the son was asleep, and I kept my speed down to--what...10 miles an hour? I remember having to use the centerline on the road as a guide. A third experience involved no cars at all, just an excursion to the banks of the American River after some friends and I chewed mushrooms (my only time) and thought it would be a good idea to wander through the woods along the river. Everything that night seemed overly bright, even in the fog. I think I could have walked there forever. We returned to the party a few hours later no worse for wear, and hunkered down to listen to Led Zepplin's album Physical Graffiti, one of the finest rock albums ever. Don, one of my friends at the time, seemed especially pleased with the music, and he vowed then to buy a copy of the album.

Around 4 this morning, I climbed out of the warm bed, dressed in my running garments, and went outside to find that the fog I'd hoped for hadn't lingered. Still, the dark was enough to hide in, and "Are You Experienced" kept rolling through my head, especially the final 3 lines:

Have you ever been experienced?
Not necessarily stoned, but
beautiful.

Not sure exactly why I remembered those lines, but they seemed a good way to end a relatively pointless entry here....

Animal Tales

Several years ago during a lunchtime walk at work I came within one step of a large rattlesnake that was polite enough to rattle and hiss to let me know I was too close. The path I'd been walking was covered with instep-high wildflowers that were both nice scenery for me and nice cover for the snake. The rattle and hiss were nearly simultaneous, and before I could think about what the sound was, I knew--propelled upward by some deeply rooted genetic sense of danger that I much appreciated. A couple of men were driving by in a pickup and they stopped first to laugh at my contortions, second to see if they could find the snake that one of them wanted to take home for his small collection. Together we watched the think slither calmly into deeper grass, and I estimated it at about 3 feet long and as thick of my forearm. Then the snake was gone, the men were gone, and I went back to my cubicle where I sat down and thought, That was fun.

At work this morning we received an email letting us know that the security people had noticed a mountain lion and its cub wandering not far from where I'd seen the rattler, and we are advised to not walk or jog or ride our mountain bikes in that area. We were told that Fish and Game was notified. In all my hiking through valleys and foothills and mountains, that was my first snake-encounter, and I have yet to see a mountain lion though I concede that one may have seen me. I'd love to see one, preferably one that is not hungry and not after it has latched onto my neck. Indeed, my encounters with large creatures in the wild outdoors have been few: seen only one bear, that in Kings Canyon in Southern California as my friends and I were, perhaps ironically, returning to camp from hanging our foodbags in trees so bears would not get our victuals. One of my companions had left a loaf of french bread in his backpack, and perhaps there is more irony in that he was the most experienced of us and knew well enough that he'd messed up.

Riding my bike today along the American River, I startled a coyote off the path and watched it trot away. I slowed my bike and looked at it looking back at me before I put my head down, shifted gears, and continued on my way. This last summer I startled another coyote in the same area as it stalked a squirrel. When I got close the squirrel scampered up a tree, depriving the coyote of its immediate meal. Sometimes the coyotes along the river are considered "nuisances" and must be killed because they harass hikers or hikers' dogs. I often see large, wild turkeys on my rides, and the other day I saw a deer.

And this afternoon a little mouse got squished in our dishwasher, this after we trapped 2 yesterday and another a couple days ago. I saw 2 others today, a grown-up and a baby, so I figure our traps will be active the next few days, though maybe some of the critters will linger until after our Thanksgiving feast. I find mice harmless and less annoying than the ants that sometimes invade the house at different times of the year. If I were a coyote (and maybe a mountain lion) I would find mice perfectly fine fodder for an evening's ingestion. The dogs that wander freely throughout my house seemed mildly interested after I got them to sniff around the dishwasher. The older dog has some experience with rodents: many years ago a family of rats found shelter in our garage, and would actually carry dog food into the engine compartment of my car, where they also chewed through some things that I assume were there so the car could keep running. We also had another dog then, and the 2 of them got lucky a couple of times and took care of the rats.

I spent many summer days as a kid chasing gophers, creatures more photogenic than rats though often just as bothersome. In the schoolyard near our house, a schoolyard that then was surrounded by cornfields, my friends and I would go to the nearby creek, fill up buckets with water, and pour water into a gopher hole. My childhood dog greatly enjoyed this, and she would paw at the water and when a gopher stuck its head up for a breath of air, the dog would grab hold and shake. I'm not sure if this was cruel on our part, but I think we thought we were doing the school a service by ridding the playground of gophers. If we'd had snake (gopher snake, of course), we could have simply fed one to another.

In a different school a few years later, I was sitting in Mrs. Barrett's seventh-grade class, looking out the window when I should have been paying attention. (This continues to be a habit, and if I am in a meeting in a conference room that happens to have windows, I am lost.) The school itself was bi-level, and our class room was on the second floor from where we could look out over a wooded portion of the schoolyard. From my seat near the window I watched a raptor of some type dive into the trees, its wings back like an angry dog's ears. I had never seen anything like it, and all these years later I remember (or think I remember) that bird. The event itself would eventually work its way into an essay in graduate school, oddly enough.

And, though I cannot see exactly how, these events are somehow connected today, perhaps only as tidbits of memory that have congealed into something that must congeal.

Prodigal Sons

Three months after graduating from high school I was marching around navy boot camp in San Diego as PSA airplanes flew overhead. Two nights before heading to the recruiter's office and the van that would take me to the Oakland airport for the late flight to San Diego, my girlfriend, my then-best friend and his girlfriend, and I drank too much but nevertheless survived. I had told my parents that my girlfriend would be taking me to the recruiter's office, and when she showed up to do so I hugged my parents as we congregated in the kitchen, probably said goodbye to whichever sisters were there, then got into my girlfriend's car for the short ride to the awaiting van. We sat in the car for many minutes before I got out, and that was the first time I had a woman cry on my shoulder. Christ, that was painful, and all I could think of as I walked up the sidewalk away from the car was her sitting there crying.

Nine weeks later I was home again, my hair shorter and my posture straighter, where I would stay for 2 weeks before saying goodbye to everyone again and heading to Pensacola, Florida, for my technical school. The plane was full, but as we lifted and into the darkness, I felt more alone than I ever had. I remember writing lyrics to a Rod Stewart tune as I sat there, lyrics that I hoped someday to give to my girlfriend but never did. Then, somewhere in those 4 months in Pensacola, I found reason to believe that my girlfriend and I should break up, so I took the coward's way out and said as much in a letter. She called at some point and I stood in the phonebooth on our barracks and listened callously as she cried. I was heartless but it took me many years to know it.

After another short visit home that included a visit to a party that did not end well, I was off to Japan where I would stay for over 2 years. When my tour was over, I returned home to a minimum-wage job delivering furniture that I quit when I started college. I was glad to be home, glad to not have someone telling me what to do all the time, where to stand, when to eat, what to where--that necessary stuff that goes along with the military. I bought a car with money I'd saved, and I reaquainted myself with my neighborhood, the city, and old friends, some of whom behaved as though they were still in high school but nevertheless were good to be around. Only after graduating from college and finally getting a "real" job in San Francisco did I move away again, this time with a wife and son. Always, though, even for brief visits, I was glad to step back into my parents' house; I sometimes felt that I'd never really been gone.

All of this comes to mind because my sons are coming home for Thanksgiving, though for how long we don't know. One says things will be temporary, another will be returning to college, and yet another is noncommital. None of them has been gone either as long or as far as I was, but they have nonetheless been away on their own, each finding his own true path or at least an indication of one. I never asked my parents how they felt about my leaving, for neither was prone to self-disclosure or outward expression of emotion. That day I left them in the kitchen and walked out the door with my girlfriend, what did they think? Were they glad for me and sad for themselves? Did they know (as I have learned) that one way or another sons come home?

The Words We Write When We Can't Write Anything Else

Writing--like smoking, drinking, and wild sex--is habitual. Or, at least, it should be habitual where perhaps the other 3 should not be. Sometimes, though, you reach into the bag and wrestle with whichever you grab first. And, since I don't smoke, seldom drink, and am not exactly sure what wild sex should be, I'm left with writing...something. Though the 3 novels I've written have been written slowly, each was finished only when it was habit--maybe like flossing rather than smoking, drinking, and wild sex. Habit as in if not actually sitting my ample rear-end down in a chair and typing something, but at least thinking of something: what a character might do; how the plot might unfold; whether the setting is just right.

Distractions--the true, the invented, the imagined--are everywhere, and I am so easily distracted. Teaching as seldom as I do these days is even a distraction, and I find the characters I think about are my students, the plot is my lesson plan, and the setting is always the classroom. I wish I could add watching television to this list of distractions, but I watch only a few hours a week. I also have exercised much less than I did over the summer, but I do not seem to have gained any free time. Work, certainly, gets in the way of anything else I'd rather be doing, but it takes up only about 10 hours a day counting my commute and if I actually take a lunch break. Where do the other hours go?

Shawn, I think, is still working on a manuscript in his cabin hideaway, which is a good gig if you can get it. There are certainly dangers in isolation, but in the days I have spent at my friend's house on the North Coast, I've found that in such isolation the brain tends to work through things--the characters, the plot, the setting. In that house I have sat in a chair and stared out a window for an hour straight, something that has made me even more firmly believe the axiom that a writer sometimes does his or her best work while looking out a window. Visiting my friend Kominski's apartment several months ago, I voted to put his writing desk in front of a window not because it would be best for him and his writing, but because that's where I'd work best. I'm not sure where that desk ended up, just as I don't know if Shawn even has a writing desk in his cabin. These guys, though, can write anywhere, and I don't think either needs the same type of mental and physical setup that I do.

My view now is this: my laptop screen on my kitchen table, my hands resting on the keyboard as I type; my feet up on the chair across from me; my lifeless stereo system across the room; a bit of dark creeping in through the patio door; family photos on the bookshelf to my right; a glass of pinot grigio just to the left of my laptop. You would think that there would be stories and poems in these artifacts, and perhaps there are....

For the last week or so, I have revisited my novel This Far West and my story "The Map-Reader," revisiting the characters to see if there is any life left in either them or their lives. Ruby, one of the characters from This Far West, has remained surprisingly strong, and the more I think about this book, the more I'm convinced that the entire story should be Ruby's, that Jerry, the other main character, doesn't deserve the space he takes up. This is something I'll have to ponder. In "The Map-Reader," I've discovered a couple of flaws that weaken the entire work, so I'm going to see if I can fix things there. In fact, for This Far West, I'd like to find an impartial reader who would say, if it is true, "This is a piece of crap." That would be fine, for then I could go about fixing the damned thing. Or, maybe, put it to rest once and for all. I'd also like to revisit my latest novel, The Golfer's Wife, because it was a lot of fun to write and because I'd like to reacquaint myself with a couple of charcters who are loosely based on actual people (though I would deny such a thing were I taken to court).

All I need to do is eliminate a few more distractions.

History Lessons

The day started well, got bad quickly, turned interesting, and then got better.

Though I would rather have slept, I nonethless dragged my soft belly and large behind out of bed, loaded my bike into my car, and headed out for a ride in the cool, overcast morning. Five miles into the ride, however, first the bike's front wheel and then the rear wheel hit something on the trail, and within minutes I feel that the back tire is going flat. Not wanting to change to my spare tube, I pump up the tire as best as I can, then pedal quickly hoping to get to back to my car. I have tried this same tactic before, and it has never worked well. Same luck today. So, I drag my bike to the side of the trail and start to change the tire, when an older gentleman on an old bike stops. "Flat tire?" he asks. "Yep," I say. "You ride off the trail, or something?" I tell him that, no, I had not, that I had just hit something. As I work, he tells me stories of seeing and hearing coyotes along the trail, how they sometimes catch pet cats from their yards and drag them into the bushes. Once, he watched a coyote eat half a cat in just seconds, then bury the other half. He tells me of the various fires along the trail this previous summer, how most of them are started by the homeless who camp along the river and who seem to enjoy fire. He tells me of what he

Something, though, doesn't work right: I either pinch the new tube, or there is something sharp inside the tire itself, for when I try to pump it up, little happens. Wonderful. I put the wheel back in place anyway, figure that I'll keep adding air whenever I need to rather than walk to the car, and the man then seems to lose interest in me and rides away, saying something about "Checking the job site." So, every 100 yards or so I stop pedaling, put air into the tube, and repeat.

This, of course, means that I must venture into the retail world to purchase some new tubes, and I tell my wife that as long as I am out, I will visit my grandmother, which is something I had planned to do tomorrow.

Always at least outwardly pleased to have someone drop in on her in the modest mobile home she has lived in since my grandfather died and she moved from Illinois to California, she did not mind that I interrupted her progress on the day's crossword puzzle (though she says she can no longer do the NYT puzzle). For several hours I sat in a soft chair across from her and, for the most part, let her talk. At 95 she looks quite well, with the only obvious weakness being her lower back, something a doctor tried to fix several years ago but who apparently only made things worse. She doesn't ask about my back and I don't bring it up, and I lie outright when she asks about what looks like a scratch on the side of my face.

I am amazed at her lucidity, her still-strong ability to analyze the world as it is today and compare it to the various worlds she has experienced in her near-century of existence. Most of her monologues seemed to be stream-of-consciousness data dumps, and she ranged from the state of politics to the Chicago Cubs to our shared familial experiences to what happened before I arrived in her life, then what she thought when I did arrive: "I mostly remember you because you were my first grandson," she said. "And you were so darned cute!" (Gotta love Grandma!) We talked about my mother, my aunts, my grandfather, my cousins and their families; we discussed the Depression and the economic situation today; we ventured into politics. We talked about gardening--how my tomatoes did okay this year, and how she grew tomatoes in a Victory Garden. She and my grandfather spent years fishing in Ontario, Canada, and they once took me with them, so we talked about fishing and the wonderful taste of fresh walleye. My grandfather was a man's man, something you might understand if you are a man: no bullshit, smart, strong, gifted with his hands, intuitive about other people and their assorted motivations--fill in the blanks with some of your own ideas and you'll know what I mean. He was strictly blue collar (as was my father and his father), and perhaps that is why I often feel out of place in a white-collar occupation: there is an earthy, even coarse honesty in blue-collared worlds. A guy doesn't like you, you know about it. (I suggest many of Phil Levine's poetry for ideas about work and the people who do it.)

At a couple points during the visit I was distracted by hunger, impatient because of errands to accomplish. But, the longer I sat and the longer we talked, both hunger and impatience faded, and I was quite glad to be there soaking in what I could. Finally, when I saw how uncomfortable she was getting in her chair, I said I had to leave, and I did. Driving home, I took the long way home through parts of the neighborhood where I grew up and where my grandparents would park their Volkswagon bus on the side of our house and spend time with us after my grandfather retired. I kept thinking about one question my grandmother asked during our visit: "Do you have any good friends?" I tell her I have a few what I consider to be good friends, though I cannot speak for them. "That's good," she says. And on the drive home, I pass by the neighborhood where Kominski spent some time (merely miles from where I lived, we would learn a decade later when we finally met). And at one point I considered stopping by where one of my best friends from high school grew up, for I have heard that he still lives there with his mother and sister. We played football together, worked together after my stint in the navy, and even lived in the same house for a couple of months before I learned that after sharing a room with 40 men on a ship I did not want to live with anyone for awhile. I was also at least partially to blame for his getting kicked off the high school baseball team, and some day I will have to own up to that and offer him my apologies.

But I do not stop at his house, though I think I should have. Perhaps the problem with having new friends is that it is often hard to speak to old ones. Instead, I continue driving home, where I tell my family of the visit and feel that I have just enjoyed 3 of the most wonderful hours a person could have on what has been a very nice day.

Harvests

I have friends who grow olives and then create award-winning olive oil, and I have heard that this year's harvest has begun or will soon begin. As with grapes, there is science involved in knowing when to harvest olives, though I refuse to discuss what I think I understand because I am nothing if not scientifically challenged. I can only hope that the crop is good and that the oil wins more awards.

This year, our home-garden consisted of tomatoes, bell peppers and hot peppers, honeydew melons, cantaloupe, and yellow cucumbers. The big tomatoes were moderately successful, while the cherry tomatoes were prolific and even now the plants are producing though the quality has dropped. The bell peppers started, stopped, and when they became shaded by the expanding cherry tomato plants, became robust (ah--is that science?). The peppers are supposed to be yellow and red, however, and I do not think there is enough growing-season left for them to be anything but green. We got 2 honeydew melons and one cantaloupe, and no cucumbers or hot peppers. This year was an experiment in unscientific gardening, which probably contributed to the sparse results. I'm hopeful that next year's garden will be a bit better. (Probably no melons. Fewer cherry tomatoes.)

As usual, however, this post is not really about the title. Rather, because I have been asked to take part in a poetry reading in February, I am already anxious not just about standing up in front of a room full of strangers, but about what the hell I am going to read. I have done this only once before, and I have required the years since to recover my bearings. The good thing about next year's event will be that I will be reading with the same 2 people who invited me before, and this should provide some comfort. The only bad thing about that previous event? The organizers passed a literal hat for the audience to contribute money that would be divided among the 3 readers, but that money never made it into those readers' hands. I do not care about that, but I do care that people gave willingly and some shithead kept the cash. . . .

Because I am neither a fast nor a prolific writer, I do not have much to draw from when it comes to new poetry. I don't want to simply read all of the poems I read before (though a few will sneak in because I like them), so I've got to come up with new material. Looking through what I've got, I see that many of the poems I've written over the last couple years concern being outside; specifically, they concern gardening, a pseudo-hobby I have acquired. This habit might have been born out of the pure fun of playing in the dirt. In fact, I doubt there is anything more profound there. So, already I am figuring how how many of these garden-poems I can get away with reading before people start thinking, "Enough already!"

In the end, however, I guess I've got to get reading and writing, since I'll be teaming up with a couple of people who are very, very good.

Fire, Fire

In my previous post I mentioned a memory of watching from my bedroom window as a house down the highway burned. I don't remember how old I was then, but I walked or rode my bike by that house countless times since it was where I would turn east if I were headed to my friend Jeff's house, and to my right if I were walking north to where my barber had his shop alongside his house. The barber himself was a big, heavy man, and he would eventually have a heart attack that forced me to find a new barber while he took some time off. For many years my haircut was easy: as short a crew cut as a person could get. I must have been an easy 15 minutes' work for him. There were two good things about those haircuts: the hot lather on the back of my neck that was removed by a straight razor, and the post-haircut scalp massage. He recovered from his little heart-thing and resumed cutting hair about the time I started letting my hair grow out a bit (I must have been in 7th grade), and the day I went back to him he must not have noticed that my looks had changed, for he pretty much scalped me. "You want to cry?" my mother asked when I got home and showed her what had happened. "Yeah," I said, but since I was in 7th grade I knew I couldn't cry. "I don't blame you," she said.

But, the fire.

I watched the house burn from a mile or so away, and I recall smoke and fire trucks. Oddly enough, I also remember seeing someone walking away from the house, though I'm not sure how accurate this memory is given the distance between us. Nevertheless, I've kept that memory for decades, and many years ago came up with a poem that was based in part on that memory. It's not an especially good poem, but I'm putting it up here nonetheless.

First Fire

I was eight years old when the first fingers
of white smoke reached up from the farmhouse
roof. An old woman walked through the yard,
stopping at the highway before turning to see
a birth of yellow heat.
The house burned for two hours.
The woman never moved--just watched,
just let the commotion of people
sing around her.
I wondered why she had carried
nothing out, and I made a list
of my own treasures to save:

the Tonka truck;
Ernie Banks’ baseball card;
a model of the USS Missouri.

Thirty years later I know other reasons
for fire: success, anger, love.
The old woman must have known too,
must have seen the same things
and more
in the years it took her to walk
from that house to that highway.

So why look back?

I imagine her saying.

Everything burns.
What rises out of those ashes
will rise.

In this poem, there are only a couple elements of fact: I owned a never-completed model of the USS Missouri, and the fire itself. I was never a toy-truck person, so I never owned a Tonka truck; I would've killed for an Ernie Banks baseball card, but I never had one--though was was an fan of the Chicago Cubs, the team on which Banks played.

A Walk Down Melody Lane

It's a virtual homecoming, for crying out loud, thanks to Google Earth.

I love maps. I love staring at maps and tracing my finger along roads and highways I both have and never will travel. It's a sickness, I think, this willingness to look at one-dimensional depictions of the world.

Now, though, I can move to virtual 3 dimensions, as though I can shrink myself, step into the map, and see things. Sicker still, I always start or end up at the same place: Woodstock, Illinois, where all things must have started for me, and where I'd probably be happy when things end. With Google Earth, I have found this--my boyhood home (at least, if my boyhood is bracketed by age 5 on one end and 13 on the other).


My bedroom was on the second floor, the second window from the right. Kinda spooky, looking at it now I hope whatever who kids spent time in that room have enjoyed it as much as I did.

What I remember...

• The garage being added.
  
• Before the garage was added, happening upon my mother and a neighbor kid's mom sitting on the side of the house. My mom smoked a cigarette as the other woman cried and I quickly changed direction.
  
• Shoveling snow off the sidewalk and driveway.
  
• The metal milk-box on the porch, and how in winter sometimes the milk would freeze in the glass one-gallon bottles. (I fell down the steps leading to the basement once while carrying one of those bottles, and the broken glass sliced my elbow and left a scar I still carry.)
  
• Watching a barn along the highway burn, and watching a house north on the highway burn.
  
• Dashing through the front door when I came home from school with my new trumpet, and being chastised for not using the back door. Having the trumpet saved me.
  
• Getting the crap beat out of me in the back yard by a couple of neighborhood bullies (probably deserved it).
• Watching through the bedroom window at the storms rolling in.
• Opening the window at night so our dog and I could fill our respective noses with cool air. This was probably when insomnia started.
  
• Looking out that bedroom window on a winter morning and finding that a foot of snow had fallen announced.
• Helping my father take down/put up storm windows.
• Sharing a room with my youngest sister when she was first born. She turned out to be a wonderful human being and sister, probably because my parents got her out of there as soon as they could.
• The last morning I lived there--a cold, overcast January day.
• Summer nights running barefoot around the neighborhood, and fireflies.
• Sleeping in a canvas tent in the backyard.
  

The Words in My Head Go 'Round and 'Round

When I was a kid, I would wake up in the morning while talking in my sleep. Or, at least, I would be talking in my sleep and then wake up, still talking. Once, another time when I was a kid, I apparently took the dog for a walk up and down the hallway that ran outside my bedroom. Not such a big deal, I guess, if you didn't know that I did this half-naked. My parents thought it was funny. I just woke up wondering where my pants were.

Anyway, back to talking in my sleep.

I never finished whatever I was writing (speaking?), but I remember I was writing novels, at least what my kid's brain thought were novels. I read a lot, so there's a chance I was only re-telling what I'd read, but I prefer to think not. Ever since then (and there has been a lot of since, since then), I have been perplexed, even frightened, by the creative process: where do these words come from? Where do these ideas come from? My pals Kominski and Shawn see the world in much larger terms than I do, and they can conceptualize grand epics and schemes that I can't fathom. I work, I think, more locally: starting small. Often, I start a poem mentally before putting pen to paper, sometimes months before. A word or two, or maybe a phrase, will appear in my head and stick there: go 'round and 'round. What's funny, at least to me, is that they are visible, not conceptual, not a bunch of letters. I see these words, and sometimes they are not even in logical order, or they appear and disappear.

This is how my most current poem created itself: a couple of words that bounced about until one day, while stuck in traffic on the way home, those words were joined by other words, and they together formed an idea of some sort. Waiting for the traffic to move, I frantically searched my car for a notebook and a pen so I could snag those words before they disappeared. I also came up with the title: "Disclosures." Then, as I started driving again, the form of the poem appeared, and I could not wait to get home to type the thing up.

So far, the poem has gone through three or four revisions, and I hope to get some feedback from some writer friends next month. I still do not know for sure what the poem is about, but it is a work of fiction. Here it is, for good or bad. Note, also, that the title is now "Disclosure"--singular.

Disclosure

There are things to be discussed:

How the girl who broke my high-school heart never
quite faded even decades after her cheerleader’s dress
pushed once against my hand, and how from that night on
love for anyone was defined unfairly.

For years I remained overly soft in the face of danger,
unable to choose between flight and the possibility
of cotton pleats pressed between my thumb and forefinger,
pom-poms brushing my thighs, the taste of athletic
salt on my upper lip.

Such do we carry—definitions birthed of suggestions
that covered the football field, that burdened not just the loving
but the eventually loved. But now, as I feel the curve of
your lower back in my hands, I am grateful: for that one
moment, for the burden, for this.

I have not yet determined if more is needed, if the pacing is right or if the ending happens too quickly. And, though it is fiction overall, there are elements of actual occurrences there. And this, too, amazes me about writing: how a mind can carry details, those facts and occurrences we often dismiss as trivial, until they are reborn, disclosed.

Life at the Beach

Earlier this year I recounted visit to my sister, my niece, and Maya the Amazing Basset, and I've recently been provided with photographic proof that someone was actually somewhere with someone and something else. The photograph has been altered to protect the guilty.



What impressed me--and what I remember--about the beach was its proximity to hills and mountains. The mountains are not visible here, but the peaks I recall had snow on them. Impressive. I will, someday, return to explore the towns and beaches. Oh, yes, I am like MacArthur.

It's Good to Get Away, Even When You Can't

Part 1: Leaving Town and Ending Up Somewhere Else

It’s good to get away even when you can’t do it. Or, when the people who employ you suggest without saying as much that you should postpone your 4-day vacation because who’s going to get the documentation done if you leave? The project has been a mess since its inception, but somehow a dozen pages of paper are crucial.

All right, all right—forget the lazy second-person references. I need to start taking ownership for these types of things. I could have said “so long” and delegated the task to someone else, but overall I want to be loved and who loves a boss who delegates things so he can go on vacation? So, because the person letting me stay in his house on the north coast is generous (yeah, he’s out of town, too, but what does that matter?), I’m able to reschedule the trip to start on what would have been my father’s 75th birthday. It is a good day to start something.

Entering the pre-dawn, frenetic commute, though I am not a commuter today, I head north then west then northwest then north, leaving behind the office (though 90 minutes later I will call my boss to tell her something I should’ve told her yesterday), my family, and a potential visit to a friend who says he could use some free analysis of his psyche. I know what he needs, I think, but I also know I’m not in the right state of mind to provide anything related to anyone else’s mental state considering that my own is fragile enough these days. I promise myself to get back to him, though, as the car radio sucks in my new Zoe Keating CD the same way the road sucks me in.

And the farther I get from the office, the phone call to my boss, the classes I’m teaching, and the puppy that eats my shoes, the more relaxed I become. Stopping at a wonderful bakery in Freestone, I am disappointed to find that there is no bread today, or at least not until later though I don’t bother to check when the place is actually open. Later, at Sea Ranch, I take a chance and turn east off the highway toward the Twofish Baking Company where I buy a large cookie for the road and a loaf of freshly baked wheat bread for lunches over the next few days. I open the car window to the scents of green, of decay, of air fresher than what the Valley has fed us for so many months. In the grocery store in Gualala, I pick up more comestibles: fixings to go on the bread; bananas; a six pack of India Pale Ale from the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. I am drinking a bottle of that Pale Ale now.

Finally at the house, I toss my duffle bag to the floor, enjoy some very good bread, and watch part of my favorite movie, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Have to love westerns, especially when the story is about old men who are not only butting up against a changing society, but who are recognizing their mortality. The line I notice most today is, “There’s an age in a man’s life when he don’t want to spend time figuring what comes next.”

As I eat the sandwich and watch the movie, I am pleasantly surprised to realize I made the 4-hour drive without having to consume even one 800mg Ibuprofen. (And this is good, for I have been hording my last 4 remaining tablets for weeks now.) While I can probably attribute this to a different automobile for this trip, I would like to think that the 3 massages I have had over the last 2 months have played a part. Julie, a woman with small hands but incredibly precise and persistent elbows, has been working diligently on my back. My doctor assures me that such treatment will be of great benefit to me, and since I have yet to find a reason to mistrust him, I will continue to follow his recommendation. The first massage was, to say the least, not an avenue to relaxation. I have not been naked in the presence of that many women, and even covered by a sheet and a blanket I was somewhat uncomfortable. “Relax,” Julie kept saying. “I’ve never learned to relax,” I told her. I think that was when she first forced her elbow into my arthritic shoulder blade just to show me who was in charge.

After sitting through most of Pat Garrett, I get back into the car and drive to Schooner Gulch for a short hike. But finding access to the beach forbidden and a park worker nearby to enforce the ban, I drive farther north to Moat Creek where I spend some good time on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, and during the walk I find a tree of ripe, green apples, one of which I pick and eat. I also spend a half hour at water level where I gather some shells and a couple of large rocks for the garden at home. The tide seems to be coming in, and I know a mild storm is working its way inland, so I keep a green eye on the water. Finding what I gather to be some sort of mollusk, I prod the thing with a stick, push on it with my fingers, and forget the water long enough to be caught stupid as the ocean—a mini rogue wave—pushes over my shoes and up my shins. The water is cold, and the mollusk is swept back into the small lagoon in front of me.

But, getting wet like this is good, because I know that for at least a few minutes I am able to forget everything I had hoped to put aside for a couple of days. I find a log to sit on as my pants dry, as I roll a purplish seashell I will take home to put into a bowl of collected shells and pebbles I have gathered since I first began coming here. The bowl has traditionally sat on the patio table, but one day recently it was knocked to the ground, and I have yet to gather the pieces together. My son’s puppy seems to like this arrangement, for occasionally she will carry a shell into the house and leave it for someone to find. Sitting on the log, I remember again that it is my father’s birthday, that his ashes were scattered into this same ocean; I wish him a happy birthday and return to the car, then head back to the house and this bottle of India Pale Ale. From the assortment of books I have brought with me, I find Stephen Dunn’s Different Hours and turn to this poem:

Before the Sky Darkens

Sunsets, incipient storms, the tableaus
of melancholy—maybe these are
the Saturday night-events
to take your best girl to. At least then
there might be moments of vanishing beauty
before the sky darkens,
and the expectations of happiness
would hardly exist
and therefore might be possible.

More and more you learn to live
with the unacceptable.
You sense the ever-hidden God
retreating even farther,
terrified or embarrassed.
You might as well be a clown,
big silly clothes, no evidence of desire.

That’s how you feel, say, on a Tuesday.
Then out of the daily wreckage
comes an invitation
with your name on it. Or more likely,
that best girl of yours offers you,
once again, a local kindness.

You open your windows to good air
blowing in from who knows where,
which you gulp and deeply inhale
as if you have a death sentence. You have.
All your life, it seems, you’ve been appealing it.
Night sweats and useless stratagems. Reprieves.

Part 2: Lurking in Somewhere Else

Over-fed and under-slept, I get back on the road early enough and head more north than I already am, steering the car through a light mist until I stop in Mendocino where the mist has turned to rain. In my bright-yellow rain coat and my Akubra kangaroo-felt hat, I commence to stroll through town in search of something different. For 90 minutes I step wetly into the shops and galleries, the Vibram soles of my shoes squeaking on wooden floors. In the bookstore I am intrigued by the good selection, but I remember the stack of bought and borrowed books at the side of my bed at home and decide to spend no more money. Because my government will never have an interest in bailing me out of whatever financial crisis I encounter, I also figure it best to embrace monk-like frugality for a few days just to be careful.

In a small café I stop for hot tea and a cookie, and I sit to let myself dry out a bit. (Spending time drying out can become a habit.) Perhaps because this is Mendocino, there are good vibes here, the ’60-ish kind you may have heard of: wonderful odors, organic drinks and food, organic people who seem peaceful and happy. The more time I spend in places like this, the more aware I am of a common restlessness people my age often have in our familiar cubicle environment. I cannot speak for those people, but there is a good chance that I am ready to surrender cubicles and money for… for what? Something different to do, perhaps—like looking for something different. Starting next July, I will begin earning 5 weeks of vacation per year. That seems like a lot, certainly, but that I have 8 weeks on the books now and have not taken an extended vacation this year makes the accumulation of additional time off rather pointless. While in the navy many years ago, I took 30 days of leave—flew home from Japan. For a good part of a week my high school friend Gary and I drove around Southern California, visiting Huntington Beach and Disneyland. I’d never done drugs in high school, but for nearly that entire month Gary and I and others I’d known in high school consumed no small amount of marijuana. It was a very stupid thing to do on many levels, not the least of which was the random drug tests the navy liked to spring on us. I was one urine sample away from the brig. Still, a month like that was a good thing, and I have come to envy those people who frequently enjoy such a luxury—the Puritan idea that we exist to work is, frankly, stupid.

Sipping my tea in the café, I watch a young couple step in out of the rain. At the counter they ask the same tall, bald man who helped me about the various pastries and breads displayed, and he joyfully provides details. The couple orders 2 cappuccinos and as many pastries, and they both seem happy. They sit near the window, leaning into each other as young people will do when they are in love. He touches her leg, and she brushes pastry from the side of his mouth. They finish before my tea is gone; I watch them leave, and he pulls a hotel key out of his coat pocket. They look good together: comfortable, relaxed, unhurried. When they are gone I don my hat, slip my arms into the raincoat, and step into the rain, heading toward my car. The sky and ocean match shades of gray, and the drive to my own lodging is just long enough. Then, inside my friend’s house again, I leaf through Ted Kooser’s Delights and Shadows, coming to this.

Walking on Tiptoe

Long ago we quit lifting our heels
like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—
though we thrill to their speed
as they flee. Even the mouse
bearing the great weight of a nugget
of dog food is enviably graceful.
There is little spring to our walk,
we are so burdened with responsibilities,
all of the disciplinary actions
that have fallen to use, the punishments,
the killings, and all with our feet
bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.
But sometimes, in the early hours,
we can feel what it must have been like
to be one of them, up on our toes,
stealing past doors where others are sleeping,
and suddenly able to see in the dark.

Part 3: Home—Home Again

After several days of mist and rain, hiking, sitting, reading, writing and grading, I am home again in the land of TV and Internet and dogs and conversation. The respite was good. I spent several hours walking through one rain shower or another, and my shoes are still damp though damp in a good way. The climate I enjoyed for those days made me want to return to Oregon again, and if I can somehow manipulate someone into offering me a free room for a night or two, perhaps I will head there in the next month or so.

Of course, there is the 3-game sweep the Dodgers managed over the Chicago Cubs to come home to, yet another predictable ending to a fine season of hope and promise. I was fortunate, even glad, to not have witnessed an embarrassing sweep, but I cannot say I am not surprised. The Cubs are certainly not the only team to have let their fans down over the years (100 for the Cubs, actually), but, geez--it's like courting a woman for a lifetime but never getting beyond second base (sorry--weak writing, poor metaphor...). I am especially sad for my 95-year-old grandmother, who more than likely cannot wait another century for the Cubs to win a World Series.

The dogs are marginally pleased to see me. Most of my students have not submitted the papers they promised to get to me several days ago. Tomorrow is another workday, and already I am plotting ways to escape.

The Women in the Back of the Room

One of the colleges that sometimes hires me to teach, a for-profit private university, requires its students to take a 6-week introductory course that covers such practical essentials as university policies, how to read a syllabus, and how to use the school's online library. In the course students are also introduced to working in a team environment, writing papers, preparing oral presentations, and performing academic research. I used to teach this course a lot, and I rather enjoyed working with the new, nervous students, which often entailed much babysitting though the majority of students were well into adulthood.

Several years ago one of my students showed up for the first 3 weeks, then disappeared. If he was not straight off the bus from Mexico, he hadn't been in California for long, and though his spoken English was passable, his writing was not so good and I told him that it was something we could work on, something that he would have to spend a lot of time working on himself. He worked as a landscaper during the day, but on class night he was clean and well dressed, and he took notes in a very nice hard-cover book of notepaper. I appreciated his obvious if somewhat reserved enthusiasm, his eagerness.

I never learned why he did not return for the 4th night, though I heard from other students that there was some problem with financial aid. Maybe so. The university is a for-profit institution, and much of its profit comes from financial aid its students obtain.

For several reasons I teach at that university less often than I used to, partially because I now teach at a local community college where the nights are shorter, the academic freedom is greater...and I can sometimes where jeans if I'm feeling particularly sloppy. For the most part, the experience is rewarding; because my classes are at night, many of my students are working adults who take their education seriously enough to show up, to take notes, to do the work, to ask questions. Often, though, there are the students I am suffering now: the young women in the back of the room who giggle, who "talk about girl things" when I am talking, who lean against the wall with their heads in their slender hands and who must wish their parents were not "making them go to school." (Yes, they said that.)

I do not begrudge these women for being in my class, and I am hopeful that they will learn how going to college because someone tells them to might not be the best reason for their presence. I know they are young and I am old, and that they see me as old. If I had started college when I was their age, I probably would have behaved as they do. But I wish I could introduce them to the man who landscaped all day and then spent 4 hours a night with me, because I really liked that guy--respected him. And, too, I wish I had had a chance to tell him how I felt, that he even now personifies the reasons I continue to slog through the papers, the quizzes, the readings, the hours of drudgery I forget every time I encounter someone like him.

A Supposedly Fun Thing He'll Never Do Again

I've read more about David Foster Wallace than I have read his writings themselves. I have one of his works on my bookshelf (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again), but over the years I've read snippets of his stuff here and there. Whether familiar with his works or not, though, I was nevertheless surprised when I read in today's newspaper that Wallace is dead, apparently accomplished through self-inflicted hanging at home in southern California.

Far be it for me to question a person's reasoning for suicide, but even in my amateur status as a scribe, I become somewhat nervous whenever I learn of a professional, famous writer deciding to see what dreams may come. Even those of us in the minor leagues, after all, usually cheer those who have made it to The Show, despite our petty jealousies.

After finishing the paper, I slid Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing from its place between Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect and Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again, and I thumbed through its pages to see what I could see. On page 4 I found this: "In late childhood I learned how to play tennis on the blacktop courts of a small public park carved from [Illinois] farmland that had been nitrogenized too often to farm anymore." I like that quote, for it reminds me of the first time my father took me to play tennis on similar courts. Later in the book though, is this:

Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers. They tend to lurk and to stare. They are born watchers. They are viewers. They are the ones on the subway about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy, somehow. Almost predatory. This is because human situations are writers' food. Fiction writers watch other humans sort of the way gapers slow down for car wrecks: they covet a vision of themselves as witnesses.

But fiction writers tend at the same time to be terribly self-conscious. Devoting lots of productive time to studying closely how people come across to them, fiction writers also spend lots of less productive time wondering nervously how they come across to other people. How they appear, how they seem, whether their shirttail might be hanging out...,whether the people they're ogling can maybe size them up as somehow creepy, as lurkers and starers.

The result is that a majority of fiction writers, born watchers, tend to dislike being objects of people's attention. Dislike being watched.

There is more, but I think the point is well made. And, just to delve deeper into writing-type things, I opened John Gardner's classic On Becoming a Novelist, and found this in the preface:

The writer asks himself day after day, year after year, if he's fooling himself, asks why people write novels anyhow--long, careful studies of the hopes, joys, and disasters of creatures who, strictly speaking, do not exist. The writer may be undermined by creeping misanthropy, while the writer's wife, or husband, is growing sulky and embarrassed.

I certainly do not know if Wallace suffered from such frustration, but I do understand how any writer might suffer in such a way. Gardner also writes that while people will encourage others to be doctors and business executives and housewives, those same people will openly point out the lack of opportunities for dreamy eyed and idealistic writers. (When I was 13 or 14, my Aunt Wanda said this when I told her I wanted to be a writer: "Why?!" If I had said that I dreamed of being a brick-layer, she might have applauded.)

Hemingway, too, has something to say about writers, and I found this in his On Writing:

You know that fiction, prose rather, is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing. You do not have the reference, the old important reference. You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true. You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and also have it seem normal so that it can become a part of the experience of the person who reads it.

Hemingway, like Wallace, offed himself, though he opted for a double-barrelled shotgun instead of a noose.

It is unfair, however, to say that writers either have or deserve extra helpings of angst, anxiety, and self-pity; they are, in fact, as a group, probably more prone to whining than are other professions. Often as I stroll through Sears or Target and see a man my age selling vacuum cleaners or plasma TVs, I try to imagine what his dreams are: is that what he envisioned for himself when he was 13 or 14?

Wallace, for whatever of his reasons, is dead, and I do not feel the same sense of loss I did upon learning that Raymond Carver was dead. People are killed or kill themselves every day, and I don't believe that a dead writer necessarily deserves more attention than anyone else. But I do think I might have missed something in Wallace's works, something I now might need to discover.

Commuting Home and Wishing I...

Words and ideas, as of late, have been like rain in Sacramento's August: rare as a good steak. (Note: beware of pseudo-writers bearing weak similes as gifts.) Perhaps happy with the completion of a short story, I've found comfort nesting in my laurels. I do have an idea of another short story, the genesis of which occurred last year. The premise has been fermenting in the back of my fat head for awhile, and now it seems to be moving forward a bit, its parts congealing. The working title is "Sixes and Eights," but the plot and characters still need to sort themselves out.

Part of the overall problem, certainly, is the unknown audience: the few friends who have professed to occasionally stopping in here are, it seems, occupied with life's business, and there is nothing quite so futile as writing for nobody. From talking now and then to other writers, however, the hope that someone is out there reading is good enough--and it often works for me. The Internet is a grand thing, and there is always a chance that someone will stop by. It is (sticking with weak similes) like fishing: you cast the bait into the water and hope a fish is hungry. I certainly imagine some people reading; in fact, I imagine specific people, whether they like it or not. Oddly enough, there is no attempt to publicize anything here, so if there are no readers, who is to blame?

Quite often, the ideas for writing come from visiting the past. At least, from visiting the past--locations, people. The past is a dangerous place and time to visit, however, for a person can get stuck there and accomplish nothing of value. This, I think, in some ways makes writers of science fiction superior to the rest of us: if they are good, they do not suffer the past, are not burdened by it. Perhaps they carry their own brand of pessimism, however, in that they often imagine a burdensome future.

When I teach college composition classes, I impress upon my students the importance of knowing their audience; I have not, however, learned to apply that to my creative writing. I wonder if I even want to know much about whatever audience is out there, for if I did, I might try to be too specific, too particular. Perhaps not having a defined, static audience should make writing easier; who knows? When asked if he had an audience in mind when he wrote, the poet William Stafford answered, "No, it's just for myself. I'm very indulgent at the time of writing. I'll accept anything, any old trash; it can never be low enough to keep me from writing it." That's a good approach, isn't it?

What We Talk About When We Talk

The doctor says he has recently returned from a trip to Fiji, where he volunteered in a clinic when he was not diving in the clear ocean water. He says the medical care and facilities in Fiji are terrible, saddening. "Isn't it frustrating," I say, "to know that so many people could be helped with only a modicum of decent care?" He says that, yes, it is frustrating, and he says that the patient he thinks of the most is a 17-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with leukemia, but who will die soon because she cannot get chemotherapy. "After diagnosis, a person usually dies within 2 months without treatment," he says. "They are basically just waiting for her to die."

When my 15 minutes are over, after I have been probed, prodded, and pumped, after my test results are interpreted and explained, I leave the doctor's office reassured that I have more than a few good years remaining--at least unless I "get hit by a truck on the way home," the doctor says. He's a realist and has seen such things happen, I gather.

The morning air is hot as I head home, taking the long way and driving by my high school, through a couple of neighborhoods I have not seen in many years. Though I think about the young girl in Fiji, my drive is comfortable, and I am anticipating my flight to Portland this afternoon. From PDX I will drive north toward Seattle where I plan to spend some time with my oldest son, and a day later descend to Portland for a visit with a sister, a niece, and Maya the Amazing Basset Hound. Leaving the old neighborhood I stop at a stoplight and watch automobiles turn in front of me. In one, a white pickup truck, a young man leans part way out his open window with his cellular phone pushed against his face. Just as my light turns green I hear him say loudly, "Go to hell and die, you fucking bitch." I wonder who is having a worse day: him, or the person he is speaking to.

*

The flight is fine, and at PDX I find that Hertz has reserved a Chevy Colbalt just for me. Trusting the wonders of modern marketing, I anticipated that the car would have an auxiliary jack for my iPod, and I am free to enjoy several hours of uninterrupted music, stopping only once at exit 39 on Interstate 5 for a drink at McDonald's. Arriving at my destination just south of Seattle, I enjoy 2 cold Coronas with my son and a portion of my wife's family, and the next morning awake to cool, clean air and a couple acres of green trees. Late that afternoon, after a good day of conversation and dining, my iPod, the Colbalt, and I head south, and I successfully navigate thorough rain and dark to my next destination just south of Portland, where Maya and her human family greet me with kisses. The 2 days are pleasant. The weather is good.

Today, on a day good for such things, I accompany my sister to her church, where people sing, pray, and seek comfort. I also am asked if I am single, if I am a church-goer at home, and if I like Oregon. These are easy questions to answer, and I do. The pastor, who is enduring his own personal challenges, reads as though he has read poetry aloud; he reminds me of Gallway Kinnell, even Robert Bly. Part of his reading today is of Moses, of Moses' time beyond the wilderness where he encounters the burning bush. As the pastor speaks, I think of the story of Gilgamesh, which I've recently read on my friend Shawn's recommendation. Gilgamesh, too, seemed to go beyond wilderness in his quest, losing and finding much along the way.

I think of places I have been, those places beyond where I intended to go, and then think of what I have found there. The pastor also speaks of how, to paraphrase, we often find what we need in places where we believe we will find nothing.

*

After brief goodbyes to my sister and the Colbalt, I board the flight home and assume my aisle seat toward the front of the plane. The plane fills until, finally, a woman sits in the middle seat next to me. I boarded in group A, but, because she lost her boarding pass, she was relegated to group C. Still, she secures a seat near the exit. During takeoff, we trade pleasantries, brief details about where we have been and where we are going. She tells me that her husband died a few weeks ago, and she has been staying with her daughter and is now on her way home for the first time, where she will finally have to face a quiet house in which for over 20 years she cared for her husband who first had Parkinson's, then Alzheimer's. In the next hour she will show me a photograph of her husband from 1984, when he worked with the Los Angeles summer Olympics. The man I see appears vibrant and happy; his thick dark hair has as single white streak down the middle. She then shows me a picture taken of him several years ago, and she points out how different he looks though I can see his eyes are not the same eyes, the hair entirely white. "I cared for him with no help," she will tell me. She will also describe how, even when he could not speak, she continued talking to him, reading to him.

"You are easy to talk to," she says, and I want to tell her that I really am not, that others find me impatient. "You'll have to tell your wife about the old woman who talked to you on the plane," she will say more than once. As with other, similar encounters, I do not know what she wants from me, so I let her talk, and she tells me other things. Before flying to Portland, she had visited her sister in El Paso, Texas, because that sister will soon be dead, too. And she tells me that, 5 years ago, her daughter's husband died at the age of 44 while exercising. He had been a Marine, was in good shape, and died suddenly. I suddenly can't help but think that my doctor has been keeping something from me, which is why he mentioned getting hit by a truck.

There are other, more mundane things: the other daughters; the unmarried grandson; the travels to Portugal and Spain just after her husband became ill; the daughter who lives in South Lake Tahoe and likes to snowboard after years of surfing in Southern California; the 17 years of working with first and second graders, experience that, she said, prepared her to care for her husband.

*

And later when I am home, the trip's events and nonevents sorting and sequencing themselves in my memory, the person I think of most is the man yelling into his cell phone as I drove home from the doctor.

Forgetting What Might Not Have Happened

I have never seen a David Lynch movie that I have, on the whole, understood. I have, I think, understood portions of Lynch's movies. Then again....

Ethical and slightly off-topic disclaimer: I am not a movie critic. Or, I am not a trained movie critic--I can describe why I like certain movies, but I cannot always argue that a movie is either "good" or "bad" in the same educated, technical way that, say, Pauline Kael once did. More often than not, I tend to focus on dialogue: what's realistic, what's phony, what's forced. I have always enjoyed listening to people--their words and their voices--and I can hear your voice even as I type, even though I might not have not seen (or heard) yours for years.

But, David Lynch... Blue Velvet is linear enough for me to "get." Mulholland Drive is less so (but stars Naomi Watts, and that's good enough.) Eraserhead--too far gone for me. Wild at Heart-- almost as understandable as Blue Velvet. Which brings me to this: For the past year or so I've wanted to watch another Lynch movie, Inland Empire. So, on the first night of a four-day period of coming home to a relatively empty house, I bit the corporate bullet and stepped into Best Buy in search of a movie or two not just to view, but to own. Specifically, I was searching for Inland Empire itself because our local family friendly Blockbuster Video apparently did not stock the film. Best Buy, though, was not the best choice, and I had to rely on Border's to save the night.

My DVD player accepted Inland Empire as though it were a long-lost friend. Skipping through the credits, I sat back with a cold Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde (lager, not woman)--and found the first scene oddly familiar, the second scene predictable. Yes, I had seen the movie before. Don't know when, don't know where (though I suspect it was during a visit to the northern California coast).

Perfectly fine, I thought, for I have misplaced experiences many times before. My backup for the night--and this is part of the fineness--I had also bought Lynch's Lost Highway, and I knew I had not seen this one. And it is, oh, somewhere between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.

And as you might have guessed, there is more to the story--something that happened today. On the last day of this time alone, I came home from work to find that my son's obnoxious and petulant puppy, probably pissed off that I had not left yet another of my shoes within easy reach, had removed from the bookshelf David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish, turning the book's cover into so much confetti on the living room floor. There are incisor holes in many of the pages.

I want to think that this is a smart dog, that the book's subtitle of "Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity" drew her to this book and not to, oh, Frommer's Guide to Vancouver and Victoria. (I mean, how could she possibly get to Canada?) And maybe she had watched a Lynch movie while I was at the office, and she wanted further edification. And, maybe again, she wanted me to find this in Lynch's book:

"You want to do your art, but you've got to live. So you've got to have a job, and then sometimes you're too tired to do your art.

"But if you love what you're doing, you're going to keep on doing it anyway."

Which echoes what a poet/teacher told me recently when I told her that, apparently, poetry is now dead to me: "writing is breathing for us."

Maybe the dog knows this.

Warm Depths of Memory

Shit River ran beneath the bridge that connected the navy base in Subic Bay to the streets of Olongapo. Lord knows where the river's name came from, but I would guess that the sewage had something to do with it. Beneath the bridge in long, narrow boats stood women (girls, probably) dressed in the finery of princesses. Their aim was to entice the sailors to toss coins into either the boats or the water, and in the water itself were boys who would angle into the depths to chase the fishing-lure-like glitter of pesos. Pesos were worth so little, even to the most impovershed sailors, that flinging a few off the bridge was cheap entertainment. And those kids, they dove deep.

In Olongapo itself we would prowl the bars, spending too much time and too much money on women who confessed to loving us or agreed to love us for a short time if not forever. The beer was cheap; the local rock banks were loud and good; the afternoon rainstorms drew the heat from our skin while it excised humidity from the air around us. Once, alone where I should not have been, I wandered backstreets after sunset and wished I hadn't tried to walk back to the base from whatever bar I'd left. I finally flagged down a jeepney and paid my way back to the main gate, and both the driver and I were happy.

Jack, from Hoboken, New Jersey, caught the clap 5 times in Olongapo. Jack was a hoot: I once almost got dragged to the brig along with him after he'd smarted off to an insecure warrant officer as we walked through the main gate in Yokosuka, Japan. He also got kicked out of a hotel in Perth, Australia, for general misbehavior and casual drunkedness. I was in that same hotel, and we had couple of midnight vistors: police officers who woke us up to ask if we were the ones dropping beer bottles off the room's balconey. We weren't, and we said so. They didn't believe us but left anyway. My roomate and I weren't sure if that visit was better or worse than someone knocking at the door 6 hours later to ask if we wanted tea. And Jack had the best tattoo I've ever seen: a parrot smoking a cigar, right on his butt. Great tattoo. He was also aboard the ship during the Vietnam evacuation, and he told us stories of the ship full of refugees, of how perfectly good helicopters were pushed off the flight deck to make room for others. He said he would watch as the helicopters settled on the surface for a moment, then sank dutifully--worthless as pesos, maybe.

I have thought about these things because of Denis Johnson's book Tree of Smoke, which now has about 60 pages farther from the back cover than it did a few nights ago. In the book's second paragraph is this: "...Seaman Apprentice William Houston, Jr., began feeling sober again as he stalked the jungle of Grande Island carrying a borrowed .22-caliber rifle."

Me: I have been to Grande Island, which was a short boat ride from a dock at the navy base. I drank beer and snorkled there, and I remember how clear and warm and clean the water was as I enjoyed an afternoon respite from Olongapo's commotion. I didn't, of course, have a rifle.

A few pages later in Smoke: "Houston took a train from the naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, to the city of Yokohoma...".

Me: Those are other places I have been, and though Johnson's book doesn't stay long on Grande Island or in Yokosuka, I nevertheless enjoy this grounding in the story: You find something familiar in a story, you get hooked easily.

Bug Bites

The bug, if not well fed, is at least being encouraged. And if not Shangri-La on the horizon, there are a few possibilities: Chicago, Death Valley, Europe--maybe in that order of occurrence if not order of possibility. Of these, Death Valley is the most intriguing (and most definite, for that matter), for it is not yet on my list of places seen, places traveled. So, and perhaps because I've recently written a short story titled "The Map-Reader" and have been in a map-reading frame of mind, I thought it would be good to actually figure out where Death Valley is. What I found is, it's a long way from home.

The drive, from here, would require a few hours of driving east, many hours of driving south, and more hours of driving east. Which reminds me: the first poem I had published was titled "Heading East," but for the life of me I don't know if I've got a copy of it. This was before computers were household products and could save everything electronically, when I wrote first in long hand, then transferred to a typewriter, but years after I actually learned to type on an old Underwood in the solitude of my bedroom, and also years after I took a typing class in high school and managed to talk my teacher into giving me an "A" so I'd have a 3.0 GPA, which in turn would reduce the amount of money I had to pay for car insurance. If not for PE and typing, who knows where I would have ended up when it came to grades....

Back to Death Valley, which is on this fuzzy map.



And, according to my World Book Encyclopedia (1970 edition), was given its name by a "group of pioneers after they crossed it in 1849. They call it Death Valley because of the desolate desert environment." Which, to me, doesn't sound so original. The World Book again: "Death Valley is a deep trough, about 130 miles long and from 6 to 14 miles wide." And this: "Mining towns sprang up...with such names as Bullfrog, Greenwater, Rhyolite, and Skidoo. The towns died when the ores were exhausted. Today, only cluttered debris remains."

I like that: "only cluttered debris remains." Of course, nearly 4 decades after that was published, I wonder if any debris remains, or if it does, whether not it has remained cluttered.

Such road trips to such places are good for all of us, and Mapquest says that the distance from my house to Death Valley is about 455 miles following a route that might look like this:


And there are places to stop along the way: Mono Lake and the bookstore in Lee Vining; Mammoth Lakes; Bishop. Once, stopping in Mammoth Lakes on the way to a backpacking trip, my friend Tom bought 24 dozen doughnuts and ate them over a 5-day period. Okay, not quite 24 dozen, but a lot. Must've been good doughnuts.

This will not be a solo trip. Rather, Kominski, with some kind of snakes on the mind, perhaps, envisions grand mountains and deep chasms of.... what? Literary material, perhaps, the kind a person can store up for some time before needing it.

The Princess Wants Me, This I Know

First, as I have said before, let me say this: I do not believe in angels, at least not the winged sort the Catholic family I knew as a boy framed into paintings and hung over the headboards in their bedrooms.

I do, though, believe in princesses. And now, there is a princess who needs my help. How do I know this? Because she wrote me the email that I now share with you.

Dearest One,

I am delighted to write to you. I am sorry if this mail will come to you as an embarrassment or a surprise, I just felt like emptying myself to you, to confide in you, as I'm faced with total frustration and hardship.My earnest prayer is that you find this mail in good health and blessings. My name is Princess Helen Keita,The Daughter of (Late Chief Adam keita) Who lost his life in the course of the crisis here in Cote D'ivoire on the 7th of November last year on his way to his office.My late father was a cocoa merchant.My father willed in cash,the sum of $8.2 Million US Dollars which he deposited in a financial institution here in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa, I have decided to offer you $1.2m for your assistance with enabling conditions for the release of the fund which are as follows:

(1) That I must be 30 years or above.
(2) That upon request for the release of the fund,There must be evidence of investment intentions especially outside West Africa,

I contact you therefore to confirm if you can absorb me in partnership in your company or possibly assist me in any investment opportunity in your country. When I reach an agreement with you, the financial institution will release my fund to you and I will come over to your country to commence business partnership with you and as well complete my education.

All that I want is your sincere and genuine help in helping me to see that this fund is released to you and come to your country where you will also help me invest this fund in a very good business as soon as it is released. I cannot allow the money remain here, because of the war here which poses a great threat. My life and future solely depend on this fund. If you have heard from the news for the past few months now there has been intense fighting and bombing by the troops and I will like to leave here as soon as the fund is released. I expect your urgent response including your addresses, your mobile telephone and fax number.I wait to hear from you, thank you for the expected co-operation.

My regards,

Princess Helen Keita.