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Aspirin as an Effective Treatment for Writer’s Block

25 Aug

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. – Gene Fowler

Writing is easy. It is not simple, but given the time and a life, or an imagination, or, better, both, there is sufficient fodder for writing. William Sansom told us “A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all.” This is true. Given such astonishment, all there is to writing is looking at the world with that astonishment, discovering what of that experience is communicable and putting the words into an order words have never been in before to say something no other person has ever said or say it in a way that has never been done so a reader can see something completely new in a way which makes it feel familiar or something familiar in a way that appears to make it astonishingly new. That is it. That is all. The hard part is finding the time.

Most writers do not write full time. As perhaps one of the most important professions over the ages, it is one of the least paid. Poets would be within the court of the king but serve at his pleasure. So we now serve at the pleasure and vagaries of the public. We have bridges and streets named after us but rarely do we get paid in a way that allows us to write and write and write.

To pay the bills, to give my wife the time needed to get her practice off the ground, I teach writing at a public school. A public middle school. Five classes a day and sometimes seven. I train students to pass state tests. That is my job.

I cannot do this. Instead, I prepare them for college, for Advance Placement classes, teach them to do literary analysis and critique, to think. We read Plato, Alan Watts, Bradbury. We barely open our textbooks but we write poetry, publish poetry, win contests and, in the end, gain some of the best writing scores ever seen by this state. From parents and students, I receive thank you cards, presents, pictures. From administration I receive time-outs.

In between, I keep records, meet deadlines, appear mean, being cruel in order to be kind. I tell them no, no no, when the school rules tell me I must, to students who do not want to be in class, in school. I tell them they may not go to the bathroom, must make their bodies slave to a clock, be chained to the forty-seven minute increments and a chime, we separate things not naturally separated and learn this now, that then and stop at a bell. We become subjects of conditioning and divorce our bodies from nature, marching in four minutes from class to class.

I eat at certain times, as do they. I use the bathroom after holding it too long, as do they. I switch gears at the sound of a bell, like them. And, like them, never do so smoothly or wholly. I hold off drinking and hydrating so we can get through classes, as do they. They are training their bodies to do what mine does not, live by a clock and all day, I think, as I teach writing and hold my bladder, what I want to be doing is writing and drinking. Water and words.

I hate this. It is detestable. It feels criminal, violent. Friends tell me I should be honoured to teach. I am so honoured I can barely purchase a house in the county in which I teach. I should be enthralled to make such an impact on my student’s lives. I am but need not be in such an environment to be effective. They tell me to be happy I make such a difference in their lives. I tell them to get the degree and do it themselves if they think it so important.

I cannot not meet the needs of my students. I don’t not know how to do something in a way other than well, no matter what it requires. The weird students flock to me. The writers stick to me. I’d stop today. Now, if I had the chance.

You must do it, I am told, because you love kids so. I am told this repeatedly. No, I answer. I do it for the money. Mind you, I would teach for free any children who wanted to learn and had interest. But the job I do for the money. I get quizzical looks, strangely cocked heads on people suddenly looking like confused puppies attempting to understand a strange new word. It pays better than adjunct work at the community college. It pays better than private schools. I had never planned on teaching in the public schools but then I had not thought of my wife in medical school. I went to college for an advanced degree. It was not the one I wanted but it was the one available where I was at the time and would fit my work schedule. I was going to travel Asia with my Sweetie and teach English as a Second Language. Then she decided to go to med school. I took on teaching because, it seems, there is only thing I was qualified to do by my degree: teach.

More time is needed. It will end, I’m told. I’d like to believe that but it certainly feels as though it will not. I am trying to give it more time, but frustration wins over patience. The day to day absurdity seems to pummel any sense of equanimity into paste where one day looks like the next, and each is a place I don’t want to be.

I think of leaving, going to Europe or Japan. But, what about the books I’m working on? The theatre I hope to create? I cannot afford a second household, have found work which pays only what I make now or less and this is not enough for a another home, no matter how modest. I look for work where I live but incomes are low, will not allow time for writing. Even with the few weeks-off teaching appears to give, I find I must take classes, gain credits, recertify. If anyone tells you teachers have scads of time off, tell them it is a fallacy. Then kick them.

And I must write. I do so early in the morning before school. I get up and write. I do so at night. On weekends. Hold poetry readings, perform, record poetry, write essays, write plays and do all this around teaching school. I must, or else all I do is teach and shall find I have become nothing but a teacher; else I have given up what I am, to live in order to work only. Otherwise I am but an income and, at that, not a great one.

And I am exhausted. Still, I know I will not give up that which is congruent with my self to become fully incongruent. Yet, I go to bed at night, thinking, feeling, if I did not wake, it would be not so bad. If I did not wake, I would not have to go to work.

I wake in the morning wanting to say, starting to say, with my head on the pillow, “It is a new day, with a new sun. I can make this day what I choose it to be…” but always come up short and, despite my best efforts, silently exclaim, desperately, “Crap, I have to do this again.”

I think things I should not. I wonder, do we have aspirins in the house? How many? A bottle? Two bottles? How much would be enough? I could calculate this but am afraid to learn just how little.

I didn’t know aspirin could kill. My daughter taught me that and paid the price with an ulcer. She took half a bottle. Too many and it would have been enough. How many for me? I think how easy it would be to take them and lie down, enjoy fully my sleep knowing it would not end in classes the next day, the same damn thing again and again and again. The same pressure over and over. To get into bed knowing there were no more staff meetings, professional development plans, parent conferences. Sometimes, I am hard pressed to see why this is a bad idea. Sometimes is more and more often.

My doc tells me it is the epilepsy. That it drives one a bit crazy, especially if one is a control-freak. I’ve read up on this. Epileptics tend to be very physically healthy. They live to ripe old ages but often do not make it with their minds fully intact. If they do not make it, it is often due to suicide.

I use to say I could never end up famous. As a poet, I just was not crazy enough. Look at the really famous poets and one will discover most of them are off more than a bit. Drugs, disease, mental illness. Perhaps there is hope for me yet?

I have not mentioned this to anyone. People ask me how I am. I answer fine. I have, at times, given rather strange responses to that question only to hear, “Glad to hear it,” “That’s great,“ and the ubiquitous, under-meaning “Good.” All rather funny after answering “I lost my head to a marauding swale,” “Deplorable,” or simply “Tired.”

The question is asked pro-forma. When asked the question “How are you” in any of its many similar forms, people are expected to answer in the positive or, if not positive, to give light, short, nearly cliché complaintive responses. “Ready for the weekend.” “I need a vacation.” We all are liars. Anyone asked who actually, honestly answers the question is looked at blankly, the way we look at and listen to a developmentally disabled adult while we think how we can’t wait to escape. We consider them a bit off, fringy, whining, needy. When asked how we are, we can lie or whine.

But I am high-functioning and this is not always to my advantage as I get the job done and done well regardless of how I feel. Depression does not decrease that functioning or, if it does, such decrease is not of any noticeable amount as to call attention to my health or well-being. I can appear cheerful, calm, happy. And so it goes.

On occasion a friend notices I am not as well as I seem, as together as I pretend, asks why I said nothing. I answer that I did not want to seem as possessing any of the above mentioned qualities. I do not want to be needy, whiney. I am chastised. Told the question was asked sincerely. I have no doubt. Told I am wrong to dissemble and that it does not give the friend a chance to help. Told such behaviour is selfish. True, perhaps. I believe the sincerity of what is said. Yet, in answering truthfully, what is gained? Are any problems solved? And if others then worry? How shall that be a help? How shall I knowingly worry friends with that which they cannot help, cannot change?

And so I have not. Until, perhaps, now. I have written this. And what should be done with it? I should do the equivalent of burning it, trashing it by hitting the delete key, by not saving. Don’t save it, don’t save me. Maybe I should actually print it and take the physical being of the words and paper, burn them and send them skyward as wisps and smoke to disperse into air, thinner and thinner till naught can be seen of it above and what is left upon the ground is unrecognizable as anything but that which once was.

Perhaps I should put it away for a year, look at it then and see what time has wrought, imagine how I could feel as I did, laugh or sigh. And if I feel the same way, cry over my old words for all the good they have done me. Or publish it before I change my mind.

Sixty-eight five hundred milligram tablets.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on August 25, 2006 in Culture, Family, Social, Suicide

 

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Body Modification

18 Aug

I was sitting with a friend of mine the other night. She’s a model on a site called Suicide Girls that specializes in chicks (her term) with tattoos and piercing and whatnot. What makes her stand out, aside from some obvious attributes (I’m not saying and no fair guessing) is that she actually has no body modifications.

So we were talking about piercings and tattoos and rivets and brands and hollyhanna I’m not getting any of that stuff done. I mean, I get tired of the colour of my sofa let alone want permo-pics penned on my pecs. Please!

Still thinking… do I really have no body modifications? Aside from the pain and anticipation, or, rush or whatreasonhaveyou people have for getting body mods, for the most part, once done they are done.

I do have a body modification. It’s a doozey too. Lots of folks do. And it is hard won, took much more than money, required dedication and grit, trial, vigilance, error, review and introspection.

It required physical labour, sometimes sacrifice or denial, always commitment. If going from a size 40 to a size 30 isn’t a body modification – if going from a double extra large to a small isn’t a body mod – if flattening one’s stomach, gaining biceps, and getting our bodies to the point where they can walk miles and miles non-stop when we started not being able to negotiate a set of stairs without huffs, puffs and frequent rests isn’t a body modification, then I don’t understand the concept.

And it takes not a moment, not a pinch, it doesn’t happen when one is drunk and isn’t discovered done in the morning. It takes a commitment to make it happen and a lifetime to keep it that way.

Sometimes I screw up, miss exercise, eat something I should not, feel it slip, worry it won’t last. Sometimes the lapse lasts a day, a week, and then I regain, restart and know I learned something, must cut myself some slack. It can be scary. This is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the squeamish, it is not for the week.

If this is you, congratulate yourself – you are doing one of the hardest things anyone can. You increased exercise, which is not a natural thing, and you have decreased food, which we all need and often goes contrary to what our bodies want. Buck up! You are amazing.

You are modifying you body and your life.

If this is you too, All Hail Us!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on August 18, 2006 in Culture, Food, Social

 

St. Adamus Day or The Slackers Jubilation.

05 Aug

It is my birthday party today. I just got this email:

In order to take no chances in offending the Gods (and or Saints) I have duly
pronounced the Ode to St. Adamus this morning. In my underwear of course
and toasting with a large glass of ice water (it’s hot here!) I’ll say it again on Friday just to make sure that the word goes up on high that I am a follower!

This is from a lady who, unlike me, is not afraid to admit she is wonderful. I’m learning. I’m a slow learner. Here is my response.

See, it’s a movement!

And I’m going to take a page from your book and proclaim, to everyone far and near, as they arrive, welcome to “me and all my awesomeness!”

A movement it is. St. Adamus started quite a few years ago and is now celebrated, though that may be a bit too energetic of a word for it, by lucky, lazy observers in many locals. Here is this year’s invitation:

You are invited, you lucky person you, to The Feast of
Saint Adamus

August 5th about 6pm

This year, we shall hold the feast at the sacred shrine. The shrine is located at Darwin Manor House at Peepton Hill, The Lap of Luxury (Palm Bay).

The Feast of Saint Adamus, also known as the Slackers Jubilation, is a newly created Ancient Tradition. Being traceable as far back as the necrotic period, records have indicated this to be one of the most hallowed of days, significant for the sheer number of people who kept the Holy Day, which comes as no surprise when one discovers the truly devout celebrants were required to do nothing more than lounge around in their underwear and snack.

Held on the Eve of the Ides Of August, or the Saturday night following the anniversary of the illustrious Saint’s day of birth, or whatever day is most convenient, during the dog days of summer when Canis Major rides high in the night sky and inertia and laziness prevail, when things seem dead and doing anything, exerting any energy for any reason, seems not only useless and futile, but impossible, The Feast of Saint Adamus festivities consisted of a costume party and pot luck. In ancient Mesopotomy, prizes were often given for the best Feast of Saint Adamus costume and usually went to infants and slave girls. This begins to make sense when one looks further into the customs of this most advanced, civilised culture and discovers that an ancient Mesopotomus hardly ever wore anything more than underpants, and infants and slaves less.

Food offerings consisted of gifts of leftovers brought in adoration of Saint Adamus. Anything hanging around the house would do, as long as it took little or no preparation, bespoke of no creativity and left hardly anything to clean up or wash. Utensils were considered an abhorrence to Saint Adamus, unless they were made of candy and entirely edible. Of course, in true homage to this beloved saint, as yet, no-one has ever taken the time or initiative to create these.

One must remember, the hallmark of the Celebration of Saint Adamus and the Feast bearing his name is that nothing special happens. A sort of Super Sabbath, celebrants are required to do nothing more than pay homage to their saint and each other by bearing witness to our mutual inertia. And let us do as the pious have done for centuries uncounted. This Feast of Saint Adamus, let’s get together and do nothing.


No-one ever goes to the trouble of coming in costume. Good. Some do come in their underwear. Excellent. Some come dressed and in their underwear: wearing it outside, on their heads, stuffed in, overflowing from, pockets.

When someone does manage to follow the rules, I find a prize. Since I never plan for this – it would be too much trouble – I just pick something off my shelves – candles, knickknacks, a flute – and hand it to them. I have too many things anyway.

People circumvent the rules by all sorts of strange means, like religions everywhere. Can’t use an elevator on the Sabbath? Just turn it on to stop at every floor from Friday afternoon to Saturday night. Can’t drive to temple? Drive mostly there and park down the street. Letter, not spirit. Likewise, people tend to make… Well… Here is another email:

Oh I have made something sinfully good for your party

My response:

As long as it’s a leftover. You can’t make something ‘special.’ then you
aren’t bein a slacker!

(Thank you)

Re-response:

It’s leftover. I made it yesterday 😉

What am I to do? One of the reasons I chose leftovers was to keep people from working to out-do each other. Also, I wanted a party that was not based in food, delectable, delicious, diet-shattering delicacies need not arrive. I want to talk, not chew, sing, not drink. You get the idea.

So, I started cooking in advance or picking up food I liked. Food, most likely, only I’d be eating. Not that others can’t enjoy them if they like. But, chances are, I’m the only one who’s going to drink the kvas and eat the cold-smoked mackerel. Today, I am smoking a rather large, a bit over a foot long, beef tongue. Smoking it means it’ll still be pink. As a centerpiece, I have a feeling that will keep a fair number of delicacies off the table I’ll be eating from.

A few hours of delight and pleasure need not end in extra pounds. I am serious. Really.

Besides, I’ll be far too busy throwing out Mardi Gras and being entertained by the masses there to celebrate the awesomeness that is me. Unless they read the Ode to St. Adamus, which, of course, is recited every year.

Ode to St. Adamus

A man named Adamus, a saint,
Had but a single loud complaint:
His workload nearly made him faint-
His time was not his own.

The other saints, he’d explicate,
Had time to sit and contemplate,
Philosophize and meditate,
Or solve an ancient koan.

But he alone of all the bless’d
Got not a single moments’ rest
He’d end each day dog-tired and stressed
His hands worked to the bone.

This sorry state continued ’til
The tired saint had had his fill
I need a day to just sit still!
The neighbors heard him groan.

Amidst the papers in his room,
A lovely thought then pierced his gloom
A way he might escape his doom
And find the time to zone.

To each saint is a feast assigned
And patronage of those whose kind
The saint’s good works were most aligned
With, when his works are known

Saint Adamus then beamed with glee.
It seemed that he would soon be free
His own feast he would now decree
Ere one more hour had flown.

A day of utter laziness
Steeped in the summer’s haziness
A break from all the craziness
Would be its general tone.

And so it is at August’s peak
When heat runs high
And will runs weak,
We gather, some relief to seek,
And sit around like stone.

Mind you, this was not written by me, Oh, no. It is by Jeannette Westlake. See, I have fans. It’s a movement.

I think I’ll need more knickknacks by the end of this evening.

Room for one more, Honey

 
3 Comments

Posted by on August 5, 2006 in Culture, Family, Food

 

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Playing at Playalinda: Mindful Self-indulgence at the Beach.

01 Aug

Playing at Playalinda: Mindful Self-indulgence at the Beach

We planned another day at the beach, Evanne and I. The last day at Playalinda was enjoyed so much that another day was planned on the way back from the first. It certainly lived up to its name: beautiful beach. Evanne pulled out her planner: a notebook with self-drawn calendar inside. Evanne’s keeping of a calendar has been the best thing for my social life. That is what I told her in the car. I misspoke. Social, yes, but artistic more-so, as every time we are together feels like an artistic expedition. It is not that I use Evanne’s scheduler. I need no calendar on paper and keep it, instead, in my head. But others do not and it has always been a difficulty. They must check their calendars, look at their schedules, get back to me later. Evanne knows now with the flip of a page. So, yes, I misspoke. With Evanne’s do-it-yourself dayplanner, we can work in tandem. With a date picked, Beth was called to make sure it was a day she could make it, or arrange to, and it was done. Thus, our day was set.

A trip for five was in our thoughts. We had just heard about a shipwreck and wanted to investigate; knowing Evanne’s husband Jack would be as interested as we. I looked forward to the mile or so walk up the most unspoiled seashore in Florida to the derelict, supposedly on the shore. My wife, Lee, may or may not go for the walk but was definitely up for an afternoon of laying out on the sand, wading in the water, enjoying her Atlantic Ocean. A trip for five and, as today, not a single bathing suit would be packed.

And for two weeks this was looked forward to. We would leave at ten to keep Beth out of the afternoon sun.

During the next two weeks, times changed; later, earlier, who can go, who might be working and but week was left.

We spent the week painting my son’s room. This had been planned for over the last two months and the time was here. By ‘we’ I mean Evanne and Alek from a design by Alek. I was tapemeister. I can be trusted with masking tape. Paint is another story.

Black squares, red squares, black and white checkerboard walls, graffiti ceiling, a black wall full of Mindless Self Indulgence. That is to say, the wall is covered from top left to bottom right with lyrics written in silver Sharpie. It was amazing, the process of taping, painting and moving a room from stark to startling in three days. What was more amazing was to watch the process of Evanne writing on the wall, word by word, letter by letter. Just as startling, no six inch square section of the lyric wall does not contain a curse-word, an expletive, a derisive term. I measured.

Pictures were taken, digital, emailed to his friends. They think it is cool and can hardly believe his parents, us, allowed the room painted in such a way. My son thinks it would be more cool if we thought it was less so. He’ll have to deal with that. My wife thinks it’s cool. I think it’s cool too but I don’t get the lyrics. I understand the parodic nature of the band. I get it as anti-pop. But I also don’t see the artistry, why anyone would want to look at it day after day after day. The world from which that music would come is not the world I’d want to live in.

I too have started writing on my walls. In silver Sharpie. Our back room, that which use to be a shed, is painted in dark swirls blue as new denim, dense as cirrus clouds. It is the conservatory of our manor home and it contains two drum-sets, a dulcimer, a base guitar, an amp, four full floor to ceiling bookcases, an old sofabed, a fifty-year-old Castro Convertible table. It is ten by nine and slowly, the walls become home to a hypergraphic storm of poetry and prose.

It was two weeks ago I had said, in an off comment, if I lived alone, I’d write on my walls. I said this again, later, to Evanne, Evanne said this to my wife. Surprised, Lee thought this was splendid. Why not?

Soon, we’ll start on our bedroom: denim, patched walls. Rivets and seams. Lee has already picked up a denim comforter. On the walls will be the signs for the directions. Painted around the room, emerging from the fictionalized aging of the denim, within the discoloration over time, a part of the creases from wear, the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Tibetan Buddhism. What do we constantly face? What do we take in through the eyes, in what do we immerse ourselves? What do we make ourselves and what do we become?

Lee is talking about a wall of hieroglyphs.

She is also saying she can’t go to the beach. She has taken patients for that day originally scheduled for a day she had to drive to South Florida. We are four.

Friday comes, Jack is called to work. Ultimately, this is a good thing for him. Construction, remodeling, building and rebuilding is decreased here. This is recent. It is hurricane season. So now we are three and it is time to leave. Driving together, in Beth’s car, we are lost, end up on US1, much like old Florida, roadside attractions, rustic shops, antique malls, flea markets. Scrub and river. Forty-five minutes and we find our way. We drive to the last lot as Beth, a biologist by training, cannot believe there is so much unspoiled, conserved land. We must come back to hike. We must return to the sanctuary. We will, but on to the beach.

As usual, the parking lot for the clothing optional section, the last section, is the most crowded. It is next to one of the many small domed observatories dotting this coast, used to track launches. A white two story bubble with a mohawk crest, surrounded by a fence. We see them everywhere here.

We look to use the restrooms before unloading the car: three chairs, a small plantable umbrella, and a cloth bag stuffed with two horseblankets, some towels, extra clothing and our water. The bathrooms are composed of a room the size of two port-a-potties with a slanted toilet embedded into the stainless steel wall. Next to it is a lever coming out from the floor, extending upward about three feet and slightly off ninety degrees; long enough to reach my waist. The ladies bathroom, and I have this on authority only, contains a spider large enough to require a personal name, wide enough to play frisbee with. As a result, I guard the men’s room door while it was occupied Evanne. It has two locks. I guard it anyway. There are few honours left men these days.

We have taken sneakers with us and small bags to hold our clothes. We grab those and the umbrella, take out the blankets, put back the chairs. Off we go, walking past the observatory, giving it a wide berth. NASA is close by, fences everywhere, guardposts. Our boys in the government, here to help. A wide berth.

The beach is crowded, especially considering the distance one must travel to get to this beach, to the end of this beach, to the last lot at the end of this beach. We walk toward the water and the cooler sand, north, out of the crowd and, at a place Beth and Evanne decide is a great spot for a blanket, settle. Down the blankets are lain, out comes the umbrella, Evanne opens it and I grab the handle quickly as she is jerked suddenly northward. I take the umbrella to make exactly the same error in case anyone did not see it the first time. Shall we open it into the wind, she suggests. Absolutely. Into the ground, no hammer, rocks gathered, sand piled around the base and, when all is done, we have earned an oblong patch of shadow large enough to keep the one o’clock sun off a toy dog.

And, by the time I have the sand piled around the umbrella pole, the clothes are off and the ladies sit, looking out to the ocean. How easily one can get use to a new way. No trepidation. I’ve nothing to do but join them.

I pull the sunscreen from my bag and make sure it is available, visible. I am reminded we should watch each other to make sure no-one burns. I don’t forget the spots I missed last time. You are parental just when you need to be, I am told. A compliment. Appreciated.

Into the water. It feels cold to start and warms slowly. I know the temperature of the water has not changed but only how I feel it, perceive it. We become accustomed to a thing. Our perceptions change. Our senses adjust. Plain becomes beautiful, cool becomes warm and the change has been us, not the thing itself. But, in the end, who can tell. With no external witness, it is the location of two points in an otherwise empty space. Which one has moved and in what relation to the other cannot be told. Reality is plastic.

Beth walks out. At an inch shy of six feet, thin and long, the waves wash around her, take no notice. Evanne and I get knocked over again and again, washed in, washed out. We are buffeted and I turn to the side, grab Evanne’s hand to keep her from falling back as she is hit by another wave. Beth stands tall in the distance; we are getting buried on the sand. Still, the hot air, warm water, cooling breeze, open to the world, even with feet covered, sand over my ankles, I am in bliss and, then I am on my backside and washed over by a wave.

So we walk. We think of getting our sneakers, putting them in our bags with some clothes so, if the shipwreck is found, we can climb, clamber, explore. Instead, we opt to leave them behind taking only one small bag and a camera, choosing the freedom to walk unfettered, unburdened. And walk we do. A mile, two, three. No shipwreck. Then, darkness at the surf’s edge. Rolling rippled darkness visible through the sand. Tar? Stone? Stone is unlikely here on this central Florida shore. I reach down and feel for the texture. It is not stone but gives gently, dense and spongy. A fingernail comes up with softness under it. Softness and moistness like soil, compost. This is wood; sea-soaked, decomposing wood. We have found our shipwreck and there is nothing here to explore. We walk it and it is visible over a hundred feet long, look out and it is wide by at least forty, disappearing into the waves. We walk on.

And walk. We pass all people, everything. There is nothing in sight made by a human. Nothing to hear but waves, birds and our own laughter. We are alone on the beach from which we are separated by nothing. Evanne says something I do not remember but it results in a hug, my arm around her waist for a moment as we walk.

And walk – the three of us, all light, bright, reflective. Ohio, Nebraska and Massachusetts have given three bodies to the South and we look it. We are white and pink, not tan, beige, bronze. And we are walking together in the July sun.

The sandpipers are running up to the receding surf, away from the incoming waves. Along the shoreline as it moves in and out. Evanne does the same, yelling she is a sandpiper, a sandpiper, a sandpiper, running up to the foam as it leaves, away from the surf as it arrives, in and out, up and down following the shore. It is a perfect imitation as she jogs and bobs with them, her little body in perfect mimic of the tiny birds.

They are redubbed Evannebirds.

It may be too much for Beth, the heat or the distance or the incline of the shore and we turn back, passing a couple kissing by the surf. In the distance, the observatory, small like a newly popped mushroom. The closer we get the more people we pass, then chairs, towels and, at last, our blankets, umbrella and Beth heads to the water to cool. Then back, wet, to the blanket to lie, looking up at the sky, blue and clear.

As she rests quietly, Evanne and I talk. Who is offended? Why should so few beaches be open to this? We are comfortable without wet cloth, we are not cold. Not covered in dry cloth, we are not hot. I frame it as a health issue. Evanne frames it as a freedom issue. Why not at least half the beaches? If there are people who are really offended, why not set aside a beach for them. At the end of the road. The last lot. Past the last lot. But those who wish the least constraints are nearly always put upon to travel the furthest. It is the way, it seems, and seems to have always been so.

And now it is time to return to constraints. The clouds are coming in: dark and rumbling in the not-so distance. I do not mind getting wet, walking in the rain, but I would like to put away the umbrella and blankets before they are sodden. Once this is done, we make a mistake by looking at a watch hanging on a bag. It is past four o’clock. We have taken our time, took no notice of tomorrow, no thought of yesterday. Just now, now and the sound of the waves. In the moment. Mindless.

We do, indeed, go.

Clothes are put on with great reticence. We have eaten saltines, apples, oat-bars. Real food is called for. Where to go is asked by Beth, who is driving today, as we pack. They know I am careful but I do not try to put my diet on them. They know I will not keep them from going where they want but know I should eat as well and want to know where we can go. Anywhere with vegetables is what I tell her as we drive the long road out of Canaveral. Down US1 or to 95? Truly, I do not know. We choose 95, driving through Titusville and find a sub place. This will do and we park as Lee calls. Dinner? But the girls are hungry and we are forty minutes away from Lee.

Vietnamese is what she wants. I’d love it myself. Beth and Evanne have not had and, Beth, considerate as she always is, suggests putting dinner off a bit and joining Lee. I am glad of this. Since Lee still has an errand or two, the timing works. Beth drives and Evanne holds my phone out between them as they sing her a song, one they created about a “pokey woman” and dedicated to their favorite physician; my Lee. She laughs and laughs over the cell.

We meet at the Vietnamese restaurant. One of us is short and the meal is covered. It’s no big thing. It is no thing at all.

 
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Posted by on August 1, 2006 in Culture, Nature, philosophy, Social

 

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Outta Gas

31 Jul

I am at a gas station today. It is a Sunday. After picking up a fence panel in the morning late July heat and spending the last bits of morning and most of the afternoon at Wickham Park, I stopped for a soda.

I had not intended on staying as long as I had. The festivities were due to start at 12:30. At nearly two pm nothing had started. The autocrat was waiting for people to arrive. Each event held, the time seems to be later and later. People learn to show up later, stay home longer, spend less time in the heat, out of doors. The more they do, the later events start, the later they start, the later people show. The training is simple, effective and penalizes those who show up on time. The worst thing about being punctual is there is never anyone to appreciate it.

So later than I had anticipated, I readied to leave the park. Beth had show up, just coming from work, and I knew Evanne would have a ride home, would not be stranded. That’s all I needed and off I went.

I drove a mile or two to US1 and, at the corner, found a Kangaroo convenience store. Convenience stores seem to have some of the rather strangest names one could imagine for a business. Stop N Go, Circle K, Cash N Dash, whose name simply begs it to be robbed. Kangaroo.

In and Out, that’s another one and that’s what I was, exiting with a bottle of soda and getting into my truck, a short-bed with an eight foot by six foot privacy fence panel laying on and over the bed, held at top and bottom by bungee cords, tight but appearing precarious. Inside, crossing my seat-belt over me as he crossed the parking lot. Passing my truck so closely, tracing the front perimeter in such a way I knew he was headed for my driver-side window. As I position the pad pinching both the lap and shoulder belt together so we short-folk don’t choke on the upper belt, he taps on my window. I roll it down. A bit.

Tattoos over most of his torso and no shirt. Shorts. Several teeth are visibly missing. He’ll want money.

“Hey Brother, Me and my brother are just down here from Kentucky. Man, we came down with some girls…”

At one point, I knew no-one from Kentucky. Lisa moved there and I visited, discovering people actually live there. Lexington is actually on of the most literate cities in the nation, according to the Connecticut State University study done each year. This year, it is twenty-seventh nationally. Just forty-five minutes south, in Berea, over one hundred and fifty years ago, abolitionists set up a college for Appalachian students of any color and anyone in the county can attend free. The Dalai Lama spoke at Berea College in 1994.

The land is beautiful in a way which is beyond description, the east being a land of high natural bridges and mountains which appear as though a child-god created the mountains of mudpies and left the land between. It is a place I have hunted moonshine, hiked to mountain-top potters and saw moonbows in Cumberland Falls.

Kentucky has beer cheese. Beer-cheese grows as you eat it. It is the only food I have ever experienced where there may be more of it when the meal is done than before it starts. It is simple, beer mixed with cheese. Sometimes Cheese Whiz. Eat fast. They also have hotbrowns. A hotbrown is both a cause of and a reason to chance a heart attack. Kentucky is not known for slim residents.

Lisa took me to a small restaurant on a small river with a cable ferry – a raft that holds a car and is pulled by a motor and a cable from a tower on either shore – to enjoy these. Once is enough.

Kentucky is full of Ale-8. It is bottled in Winchester. I have visited the bottling plant and was given a tour. It is much more interesting than one might think. It really is quite an experience. Soda tastes different fresh. You an see the formula being made, tested, refined but don’t ask what’s in it.

Kentucky is also full of bluegrass music and arts fairs beyond par. It is also full of dry counties where alcohol cannot be bought. Three-fourths of the counties are dry in a state with one of the highest rates of alcoholism.

Now, Lisa is trying to come home. Friends down the street moved from Kentucky because they feel people should be sincere. Their grown daughter just moved from there as well with not a positive thing to say. I know others who have left Kentucky. Apparently so did this person about to ask me for money.

“and now we’re stuck, bro. What we need is some, hey, you need some fence work? Man, I can do fence…”

I moved this fence panel onto the truck this morning. I picked it up from a freecycler. It took four of us because I had help. I could have done this on my own but accepting help is a blessing, allowing others to help is a blessing. Forget the fact it was full of nails and I was a bit concerned it would be pushed, dropped, nudged or otherwise worried into me, as there was a nail between my legs, groin height, pointed toward me, threatening to make an unpleasant contact. Evanne was on one end and hers was the one set of hands that did not worry me. She wants Lee to be happy and would make sure I was kept intact.

The other two ladies had no such motivation.

Once home, I moved it from the truck into place.

“work if you need some.” I declined. “We’re stuck and got no money for gas. We came down here with these two girls and, bro, you know how women are, they”

I cut him off, “No, I don’t know how women are to you. I don’t know how you are to them. I know how they are to me. I know my wife more than twenty-five years. She is smart and honorable. The other women I know are kind, compassionate and honorable. If I meet one who isn’t, why would I hang around her? Why would you?”

He stares at me, “Twenty-five years? You aren’t old enough.” In fact, I am.

“A good woman keeps me young. Good friends keep me young. Not following strange women across the country keeps my stress down.”

His jaw opens a bit, “Can I have two dollars?”

I tell him “No thank you.” He processes what seems to be an answer wrong in every way. I have declined him and thanked him. He walks away. Across his back is a tattoo. Scrolled across one shoulder-blade to the next is the word “DEATH” in dark, unfriendly letters.

 
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Posted by on July 31, 2006 in Culture, Social

 

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My Friend and the Eternal War

31 Jul

Joseph is a soldier. He joined the war before he was old enough and, with faked papers, became a sniper. If you ask Joseph, he has been a soldier as long as he can remember, in his past lives, in his present life even though he is a father, is no longer in the military, cooks, cleans, is a massage therapist. Joseph is still at war.

War follows Joseph. He is randomly shot at, challenged, fought. He is six-four. Impressive. Imposing. Intimidating. Still, things happen to Joseph. Violent things. Hateful and hurtful.

Joseph feels this is normal. Others shake their heads, look with disbelief. To who else do such things happen on such a regular basis? In Melbourne, Florida? Fort White and Gainesville, Florida?

I suggest we get what we expect. Become magnates for what we carry, create our worlds within.

Joseph eschews help, picks up a washing machine by himself, hurts his back, bemoans his misfortune.

I want to fix this but can’t. Joseph is capable of so much compassion, care, kindness. He is the most moral of people, trustworthy. In constant battle.

It is a Saturday night. We have met at Craig’s house to sing, talk, drink coffee, enjoy each other’s company. Evanne, Jack, Beth, myself. We will create sweetness in an evening with our company, our voices. A fat songbook, a dulcimer. It is an evening of pleasantness planned after a difficult week and I know, now, Joseph is coming and the evening will change.

He will talk of war. He will talk over the singing, needing to be heard. There will be bodies, bombs, special forces, politics, shrapnel, combat. I will sing “Peace” by Tom Paxton and he will shout over it about soldiers having body parts cut off, hung in show.

Coffee is served. No-one makes coffee like Craig. He has Kahlúa and Baileys Irish Cream and I ask him if he would not mind preparing my coffee. If I make it, it will not taste the same. He does, smiling, unsatisfied until it is perfect. I appreciate Craig. More and more, as a matter of fact.

We sing, Evanne and I. Joseph comes with his family, long-time friends; beloved, respected, treasured but not always an easy friendship. “Lemmon Tree” is sung in two part harmony and it is sweet, melodic. My voice blends with Evanne’s well and creates one of my favorite sounds. She tells me she cannot sing but her voice in song is a sound of water falling from a height, of children playing at a distance, the sounds of a night-forrest. In harmony it is the sound of peace, the tones sing of friendship, they capture comfort, give it back for all to hold. Suddenly we cannot hear ourselves and Nicaragua is recreated in Craig’s living room. Or it is El Salvador? I use to know this.

I pick up my dulcimer and play “The Water is Wide.” The lap dulcimer is not a loud instrument. I am straining to hear it over a story of conflict, a history of a secret violence. Evanne is singing “Savage Daughter” and I am attempting to learn it on my dulcimer as she sings, but I cannot here the notes over the grenades.

Jeannette, Evanne, Craig and I are singing a shaker hymn, then “How can I keep from Singing”, we try a showtune and always over the notes is a cacophony of gunfire, wounded, the taking of bullets. Hymns of peace in combat with combat.

I think I should be more compassionate, but this is a constancy. At some point, compassion must include oneself and I have heard this as an ongoing saga of bluster and fear. He may be re-deployed. He may have to serve again. I keep my own counsel and say nothing. I only sing louder.

I then do that which I perhaps should not. My birthday is soon. Soon. Joseph is, of course, invited. I could not think of not having him there. I tell him, over his voice, interrupting, next Saturday, there is no talk of politics. I agree with everything he says and still, no talk of politics. My muscles are tight, my stomach hurts. I wish to celebrate my birthday with the living, the breathing. I wish for the dead to be at peace just for a few hours. I pick up my dulcimer and slip it into its bag.

I know we deal with violence. In order to handle violence, we must have a place of peace to hold fast. We can hold it in ourselves. If we can keep peace in ourselves, we bring it into our homes. If we can all bring it into our homes, each home, we have brought it into our neighbourhoods. If we have done that…

And so I should have been able to have handled it, let is flow in and through but it is a practice. It is not perfect. I am not and I spoke up for the first time in a decade. More than a decade.

Last year at my birthday, we were eating cake to stories of street violence, martial arts demonstrations, paramedic episodes. Space around Joseph became wide. In a small apartment, a large man took up more and more space, a wider swath. Is he always like this, I am asked. Yes, he is. He tells me he would take a bullet for me. I have no doubt. I would for him. No question. What I can’t do is take another night of death stories.

It is not that war did this to him. After all, he chose to go before he was of age. This is inside Joseph.

His answer? He will not show up. He will not come to my birthday. He chooses his dead over the celebration of my life. I am more sorry than hurt.

The stories continue. People leave. Joseph wonders if he chased them away. Apologises to Craig.

It is three am. I cannot sleep. I walk into the backyard and hang bamboo shades. I wonder if I should have held my tongue. When is kindness not kind? And what is kindness when it comes to Joseph?

 
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Posted by on July 31, 2006 in Culture, Social

 

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The Play’s the Thing

23 Jul

About three months ago I was asked to write a play. I have never written a play. I had no intention of saying yes.

“I’ve never written a play.”

“Oh, you can do it. I’m sure. You’re a writer.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll send you some web pages.”

“I don’t have time to read them.”

“You have three weeks.”

“To read the sites?

“To get us the play. I need the cast list by auditions in a week. The finished play can take three.”

“I have finals to write and year-end grades.”

“Then I’d better get you the books this week.”

“Did you hear what I said? I don’t think you did. I’m sure of it.”

“There are three of them. I’ll being them Tuesday.”

Talking with Evanne can be like this. Often is. My defenses don’t seem to have much of an effect.

Which is how I found myself with a set of books, stories to adapt and writing a play.

I brought my laptop to work. My lesson plans adapted. My students became test-readers and part of an actual, live language arts project. They proofread, corrected, commented. It was done. I have never written so quickly, so fully engrossed in a project.

I took several stories of the Arabian Nights and adapted them to fit into a version of the Scheherazade story. To do so I needed to create segues as well, narration, ways in and out of the stories told by the queen looking to save her head with the stories that came out of them.

I wanted them funny. I wanted them beautiful and simple. I wanted some nearly silent and others a delight of language and a joy of sight. I wanted elegance and comedy, sweetness and wisdom. I thought I got it.

But how would I know for sure?

They loved it. Some of my stage direction had to be adapted for a children’s theater. Ages four to seventeen. That young, eh?

Some of my stage direction “was too beautiful to cut so we had to make it into dialogue. It reminds me of Tennessee Williams” This is one of the best compliments I have ever received.

An old woman once called me a mensch. As compliments go, it’s hard to get better than that.

And the Theater was much large than I had anticipated. That is I thought it was one of the small summer productions. No, it was in the main theater of The Henegar Center. Another surprise.

I stayed away from casting and rehearsal. I didn’t want to interfere. Once written, what right did I have to tell them what to do? I don’t know their theater, their audience, their business. Two months had passed.

Then I was asked to be a stage manager. Me? You’d make a good one, I was told. Something else I had never done. But why not? It was a summer of firsts. My first CD, my first movie (a short, student film) my first DVD, my first stint running, MCing an open-mic poetry. Why not be a stage manager?

I arrive the day before the play opens. “Scheherazade and the Tales of the Arabian Nights.” I am stage manager, dresser, prop-meister for stage left. I am seeing what I have done come to fruition, come alive in front of me, under the lights, on the stage. This is a shamanic dream during waking.

The children slowly come to realize I wrote much of their play. I have not said anything. They have question after question. How did I think of that? It came from my head. How does that happen? I don’t know.

This is so funny, the oldest actor, seventeen, tells me. The little kids love it but there is so much here my I think is funny too. Where did you learn to do that?

Underdog, I answer. And Fractured Fairy Tales. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Mel Brooks.

Opening day. The theater is sold out. Five hundred seats. I arrive at 8:15. House opens at 9:30. Places at 9:55. Costumes on, last minute glitches, costume malfunctions, pins, props, positions everyone.

The music starts and the lights dim. I can hear the audience laughing, sighing. It works. Kids want to be the hero of one of my segments, a donkey named Chaki. They laugh. People lean forward when the Nightingale sings and dies, rises again and is free, react in surprise when Amira rejects her suitors, discovers her garden again has bloomed in her new desert home. They applaud and applaud.

I had said no. I would not write this. I’m glad I was not listened to. Sometimes it is for the best.

The last show, a full balcony, no where to stand. The end comes and costumes are put away, carried to storage. Props are carried upstairs, downstairs. There is a pervasive sadness about the cast, crew. I feel it over me.

The cast party starts.

I hear there is talk about me. A certificate of thanks of some sort. I look outside the theater doors to the banquet-room across the hall and it is crowded. I walk out, walk toward the crowd.

There is a line for food. It is the first thing I see and I know better. There will be nothing there I can eat, nothing that will be good for me. Day one of the play, between performances, thee was pizza supplied for the cast and crew and I left for food elsewhere, brought it back because I was afraid if I didn’t, people would think I was anti-social instead of just asocial. I sat alone, not wanting to impose myself on anyone. Evanne sees me alone, set apart, and comes over to sit with me. I think she understands but feel I have, by sitting alone, put her in a position where she did not want me to be unhappy. While I was happy for Evanne’s company, I did not want to think her compassion for me took her away from talking with others, visiting, enjoying her lunch.

The next days I brought lunch, took a walk, ate alone and did not impose.

Now, the cast party and what to do. I walk away from the food as I see people with plates of cookies, brownies, worse. I walk to the other end of the room.

I can sit by myself or find someone I know and cling, or feel I am, and then go home and wonder if I had behaved improperly, was a pain. Did they really want to talk. Were they being merely polite. It doesn’t seem worth it. Either way, I feel uncomfortable, unsure, free-floating and anxious. People are tugging at me, congratulating me, asking me things. In the theater I knew what to do; it was clear. When I was writing, I knew what to do; writing is simple – it makes sense to me. Here, I have no idea, I’m uncertain. There is very little potential here for comfort and I’ll wonder later; wonder what people thought, what they are thinking. I don’t know why. This is something I don’t understand.

So I am kind to myself and leave, walk back to the theater, open the doors and enter. It is dark. My eyes adjust and there is nothing left on stage but a bare set and a rug. Perhaps I am not the last one out, but just in case I walk to stage right and take from behind the curtain an tall old lamp with a naked bulb and a long cord. I walk it to center stage, front, and turn it on

The ghost light.

The stage should never be dark. This I understand.

 
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Posted by on July 23, 2006 in Culture, Education, Food, Social

 

Day of the Manatees

15 Jul

US1 through southern and central Brevard County is an easy drive of sparse architecture and brilliant liquid beauty along the Indian River. The Indian River is wide and shallow, averaging three feet deep and often navigable by foot from the quarter mile to eight miles between bank to bank. Not a river at all, really, but a rod-straight saltwater sound, it is barely separated from the Atlantic by more than a spit of land.

Along the river are salt-marshes, inlets and coves and it was past one of those many coves I drove Saturday morning on my way from Palm Bay, five miles north, to pick up Evanne. That day we were making a kiln of coiled newspaper at my home, breaking into a bag of terracotta clay with about a dozen people to make runes, Tellstones, whatnots small in size. People were due at noon.

As I drove, the shoulder, commonly narrow enough only for an emergency stop, widened into a grass-filled clearing level with the lapping river. Only about forty feet deep and perhaps one hundred feet long, normally empty and affording a view of the wide river and the narrow division of land which broke the ocean and created the sound, today it was bordered, as the trees cleared, by an upright half-sheet of plywood asking, in large caution-orange paint, that we take home one of the many pit-bull puppies available. Behind it were parked what were certainly to be too many cars to be explained by free puppies. Against the shore were clumps of people – adults, children – with cameras, binoculars, pointing fingers off the bank at a space some thirty feet distant.

At fifty miles per hour I can’t see much. Cars, people, cameras and a boiling of water where they point. In the river’s tumult were dark shapes, significant in size, one breaking the surface of the water. While I cannot see what they are, by the time the tableau has taken its place behind me, as the car curves past the Honda dealership, I have figured out what they were; manatees.

I have been here a year. I have not seen a manatee though I hear about them and their friendly nature, their bad breath, the texture of their skin.

I speed up. I am but five minutes from Evanne’s and reach for my phone to call her, to ask her to be ready so, in the truck, we can go back, park, walk to the bank and, I hope, see my first manatees. The phone rings.

“Are we on for today? I figured we were because you said we were, but Jack said I should check.”

I was due to pick her up at eleven that morning. It was ten ‘till.

“I’m four minutes away. Can you be ready? I’ll explain when I get there but I don’t want to talk while I’m driving.”

I drive too fast. She is ready and gets into the truck.

“I think I passed a group of manatees right off the road. I think. I want to stop and see. We have about an hour. If people have to wait a bit for us, for this, they’ll have to wait.”

“Really? I’d love to see them.”

People rush so much. Everything, it seems, is on a time frame. For picking up Evanne on time, by a clock, at a time designated by us and marked by specific numbers on a clock, watch, cell-phone, I chance not seeing the manatees. I drove by them. I think briefly of passing them by again; people are due at my house. I drive back quickly. Too quickly. Time again. This time I stop, pulling over the double-yellow line into the clearing and between two cars.

There is a whirlpool deep with dark silhouettes of bodies long and broad. I can see this through the windshield and open the glove-box to take out the binoculars, the monocular and we get out.

Approaching the water, I hand the binoculars to Evanne. “I asked for a discount on the binoculars, since I can use only one lens, but they just laughed. I don’t see why I should pay for something I can’t use. You turn this to focus.” She takes them out of the case, I twist the wheel between the lenses as she holds them. I take the monocular out of its case and stuff the vinyl into my back pocket. I put it to my right eye and point it out to the roil in the river.

We are two among a constantly renewing eight or ten people watching the spectacle in the water. Three manatees, it appears, one female and two male: mating season. We watch, one then the other, the one again. Breaching, tails slapping the surface, mist blowing from nostrils, grey backs above the water. At once it appears there is a jostling, it appears one has attacked another. We watch. We listen.

Perhaps the female has told one of the males she has had enough. Perhaps has had all she wants. Or one male has challenged, is ready to fight, been rebuked by the female. Then all is calm and they are taking turns again.

The sound skips over the water and mixes with, spurs on the chatter around us .

“It’s a manatee orgy.”

“Manatee gangbang.”

“She’s tired of them and wants a ciggy.”

Snickering, laughing. Rude comments.

I think to myself, talk to myself, I wonder at the anthropomorphizing. Why put them into a human frame? Have we done such a good job of it? After all, they’re the ones making love in the water, having sex in the river, taking turns, out in the open, no worries, no cares, procreating, playing (perhaps), not thinking of tomorrow, not yesterday, just now, in action and moment, life lived as present-tense verbs.

What’s our problem? We want to live, be healthy, or, at least, be comfortable while we live long. We want to live and live and live. Quantity over quality and tomorrow over the moment. We want to have things, more things, one more thing, then something else, another. More and more. We want shelter because we will be more comfortable, live longer if we are out of the cold, out of the heat, out of the sun. Longer, more, tomorrow, worry, next year, better place. Then, we look at the manatees in the river and give them our thoughts, our desires and our reactions when it is we who wish to feel like them, give up the home, live in the water, have sex on the shore, think of nothing and have only now. But for the fear, we would. But for fear of the end, we would. And so, we pretend they are like us as imagining we are them simply begs dissonance, wonder, confusion.

It is quarter ‘till twelve. Evanne reminds me we have people who will be waiting for us. I respond by going to my truck and getting my polarized sunshields – big enough to fit over my glasses. With these, I can cut out the reflection of the water, see through the surface. They are one more thing. I bring them back and hand them to Evanne. We pass them back and forth. Finally, binoculars, monocular are put away. I’m reminded it’s time to go and, back to the truck, we do just that.

We drive way from the water, out to US1, and, as we recross the double-yellow I can still see the swirling of the water in my mirror.

The afternoon comes, the company does as well. Stones are made, a kiln is built. I make a dinner of salmon and steak, both on the grill for hours now, lowly, slowly and vegetables cooked fast in a large, flame-surrounded wok.

Over dinner, Craig tells us about the park nearby, Goode Park, and the manatees. He lays on the dock, the one that floats. His hands lay in the water, waving gently and the manatees come to him and to have their bellies rubbed. Bellies rubbed? I have never heard of that. Manatees again.

I am to do a workshop that evening: a singing workshop. Old Aramaic chants. It is at Goode Park. I picked it because it was close by; six blocks away and I plan to walk there. Goode Park is on Turkey Creek, which connects to the Indian River.

Walk there we do. It is seven in the evening and the workshop starts at seven-thirty. It starts when I get there but I would not start late. I will start on time, by a clock, at a time designated by us and marked by specific numbers on a clock, watch, cell-phone, and, if there are any, I chance not seeing the manatees.

I walk with Evanne and Valerie to the dock and, as we step, it moves beneath us. I see nothing but lay down on my belly, as do the ladies. I put my hands in the water and wave them in and out just under the surface. In and out. Nearly instantly, surprisingly, a nose, four inches across, breaks the surface, closed nostrils open, hot air expelled and it smells of old vegetables., eyes are wide, focused on my face. Eyes like mahogany shooters surrounded by grey flesh. A short-nose elephant in the water.

I reach over and pat the head. It is smooth, warm, comfortable. Round, firm, comforting. Another comes up, sleekly, quietly, graceful in way I have seldom seen and I am thinking how something so impossibly shaped, so ungainly on land could be the utter animation of grace and flow and while I am thinking this another sneaks up, unseen, unheard. So large and so quiet.

I pat it with both hands, rubbing either side of its head. As I do, it snuffles at my palms, left then right, opens its mouth, licks my fingers and moves forward placing its head once more between my hands.

It turns over, deftly, silently as I rub and my hands are on it’s belly: soft, muscular, warm and I rub it as long as it will have until it moves back and my hands are on it’s chest, its flippers are thick, nails large and tough and I can’t help but feel them and I hold its hand. Hand, so much like my hand, five nails, fingers joined by skin and cartilage but five fingers, five nails. A moment passes and the hand I’m holding places, easily moves, mine back onto its chest, making its desire well and clear; it wants its chest and neck rubbed.

It is raised from the water, belly and a portion of its side above the surface, visible. On the grey skin, in the flesh, are four yellow scars, at regular distances, at the same angle, nearly and inch wide and each about a foot long. I would see this again and again as the manatees would come up, each in turn, scars and scars.

And so, our bellies to the ground, theirs to the air, we rubbed them, as long as they would have, into the warm night.

 
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Posted by on July 15, 2006 in Culture, Nature, Social

 

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Then and Now in Cocoa, Florida

12 Jul

I had been led to expect a storyteller, in the grand cracker tradition of tall-tales about the land of scrub and swamp. What I got wasn’t a storyteller, but a reminiscer. What I got, was Speedy.

Speedy has a bullet in his leg he got when he was five and his brother, on crutches, shooting mullet to fish for shark, shot a concrete dock instead and a bullet bounced and lodged near his femur. It’s still there. He was five and, for Speedy, that was a long time ago.

Long ago, when the bluebills were so think on the Indian River the ripples of the water were waves of a feathered carpet, so long ago, mullet jumping was not remarked upon by amazed youth and needlefish swarmed. So long ago, the pelicans needed only dip a bill and not dive into the muddy dredged depths. So long ago the Banana River could not be seen through the yellow hands of fruit. All there is now is the water, the name and the memory of Speedy.

Hurricanes did not come but the September Storms did. And why not? It was Florida and to be expected. Mosquito Beaters were hung by doors and used to beat away the buzzers before opening and used to beat away the mosquitoes that got in and plenty always did and a palm placed against a screen would create a living handprint of bloodthirst. And why not? It was Florida and to be expected.

Was it hot? Sure it was but we didn’t know any better, Speedy tells us. All that could be done was to breathe it in and breathe it out and Speedy never noticed. It was Florida and who knew any different?

And the WPA came in and brought jobs, and bridges and dredges. Pineapple plantations came and went along with Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy and Jim Crow and The Folkways Project, Folklife Project, Florida Music Project, American Memories Project and Florida Writers Project and public works projects and change upon change.

And then came the war, WWII, and the subs sunk off the coast, torpedoes, blackouts, shipwrecks and who knew the war came so near?

Speedy tells us what you grow up with is what you think is right until someone shows you different. “Maybe cat isn’t spelled c-a-t but who knew” is what Speedy tells us about the civil rights movement and says desegregation was not a big deal and went pretty smoothly but then, says Speedy, he was one side – what it from the other he didn’t know. “Might have been rougher,” he ads, looking at the only black lady in the room.

He was a reminiscer.

 
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Posted by on July 12, 2006 in Culture, History, Travel

 

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A Day at the Beach

07 Jul

I headed out of the house at 9:30 to pick up my friend for a day at the beach. I am light and burn. Evanne is transparent and will, if given the opportunity and circumstances, frizz away faster than a vampire in special-effects sunlight. So, of course, we headed to the beach where no suit’s needed.

I picked her up about ten. Evanne is not her real name, of course. I changed it to protect her identity. Her real name is Evan. Her father had expected a boy, it seemed, or had the name picked out already and why let a little thing like the gender of a child change an already well laid plan?

My son had a name before he was born. Benjamin. When he arrived, I caught him. I looked at him, handed him to my wife as my daughter, age five, readied to cut the cord. He lifted himself up on my wife’s chest and looked her straight in the eye. She then voiced what I had thought: This is not Benjamin.

We named him Alek. Four years later he was playing with a friend neither I nor my wife could see. We asked him, “Who are you playing with?”

“Benjamin.”

“Who is Benjamin?” We knew the answer. We didn’t expect the answer.

“My brother. We switched,” he stated with a broad, wry smile.

Well laid plans.

Evanne wanted to go to this beach for a while now but had no-one who wanted to go with her. For me this was an easy decision. A day with Evanne is not exactly a kick in the head. For those of you with no sense of sarcasm, remember sarcasm is the statement, as foil (a sharp contrast to point out clear differences), of the opposite of what is well understood as truth. So, I restate: a day with Evanne is definitely an event to look forward to. And looking forward to this I had been; listening, talking, walking with my friend.

Her husband is delighted. He doesn’t want her to go alone, has not been there, has no intention of going there. And, happily, he trusts me. I’m safe. At least, that’s how my wife explains it.

I’m good with that. Being safe has gotten me into some rather interesting situations.

“Help me try this on.” “Does too much of me show in this?” “Is this too see-through?” “How does this thong fit?” Can you help me put this chain-mail bikini on?” “Would you watch my nubile young daughter for me?”

All which, of course, have nothing to do with this. But it was great or making the guys I worked with, went to school with, shake their heads in disbelief.

We were headed to the nude beach.

I love being safe.

“Whoowhoo!! Nude Beach!” That’s Evanne. That’s quite a bit of sound from my four-ten friend.

She is nervous. Has brought clothes just in case. Has looked forward to this and brought clothes just in case. It is deeply ingrained, this feeling that taking clothes off is wrong. I know. I feel it each and every time I go there. I tell her not to worry but, if she wants to leave at any point, just to let me know.

On the way we talk of writing and she asks if I’ll be writing about this. Of course.

In truth, no. I will write in a cursory fashion. I’ll write of the generality, the universality. Most of what we say will never make it here. I won’t let it. It is no value to those who read it but it is priceless to me. And why should my friend think everything we say and do will be for the world? I’m too selfish for that.

Do you want me to change your name?

I would. If she wanted I’d change her name. She tells me no. No need to change her name but, if I want, I can give her a nickname instead. She’d love to see what kind of nickname I’d come up with for her.

I tell her it would take me longer to come up with a good nickname than it would to write the entire piece. Nicknaming is not a direction my brain goes in. I can’t think of a better name for her.

For some people, their names are just wrong. I take a moment to think of their names. Hesitate before calling them. Wondering if I have the name right. Not so with Evanne.

So we headed to the end of Playalinda Beach, the end of road at Canaveral National Seashore. Past lot 13. Perhaps they thought having a lot 13 would scare folk away. It was the busiest of the lots, had the most people. Of course they were happy: No wet suits.

We parked. Took the bags, the two folding cloth chairs, the water and lemonade and walked from the lot to the dune-crossover. Above our heads, the American flag and, directly under it, waving from the same pole, a yellow flag with a bright orange sun sporting dark sunglasses. The sun protected from itself.

She had been covered with Coppertone sunscreen before we left. It was the kind that has the large pink bottle and the small blue bottles that attaches to it. I must assume one solution is the girl sunscreen and the blue is the boy sunscreen. I imagine they are mixed together like epoxy, bind and make an impenetrable shield of reflection. I imagined looking at her and being fried, instantly, by the exponentially magnified ultraviolet.

I told her mine was SPF 2,316.

“Really?’

“No.” What can I say? To nearly anyone else I’d have let that go. To Evanne I tell the truth. “But it is waterproof and I won’t slide off the seat.”

I waited until we were out on the beach and made sure she had any extra she needed. I worried about missing some spots. I always worry and always do. They become evident later.

The sun has heated the sand. We’ve gotten there by eleven to avoid the most direct heat of the day. Neither on of us needs that much sun. Yet, the sand is still too hot to for me as we walk toward the surf.

We move to where the sand has been wet and the temperature is lower. The chairs are set out as we remove shoes. Two towels out of the bag. Shirts. Hesitation. Hesitation. Pants. Sunscreen. I miss some spots. I know it.

I am now comfortable. I am amazed. Not long ago, heavier, paunchier, I’d have worried. Who was looking, how did I look? There was some vanity involved, self-consciousness, and if I admit it, which I shall not, self-loathing as well. But now, lighter, thinner, I know no-one is looking, no-one cares. I am comfortable with myself. Comfortable in this chair. Not perfect, but comfortable and I delight in knowing it was my hard work and persistence which is paying off, now, in my comfort and joy, out in the sun, today, with my friend.

I know Evanne does not care. We would have come out anyway, enjoyed the day, the company, conversation. I admit it’s all me and I am out and delighted with myself. A new experience for me. I could get use to this.

We work on fleshing out my RPG character. I’m not quite geeky enough. Not yet. I need to play a Role Playing Game. That will help.

We talk of a video game that I remember as Catman Domine. That’s not the name. It involves funky Japanese music and a sticky ball that picks up cats and batteries so the King’s only begotten son can bring light back to the world. A Japanese electro-analogue of Kabalistic Christianity.

I have never played a video game. Not since Centipede. I don’t think this is the one to start with.

The sun is hot. The dunes behind us real, seagrassed, tall. Before us the waves are high, wide, long.

We talk of Russian history, the Tsars, movements to freedom stopped by well-meaning anarchists unknowlingly putting an end to that for which they fought, assassinated with constitutions in their pockets, on their way to dissolving themselves.

It’s time for a walk. We head North on the waterline. The tide is headed in and the chairs disappear in the distance behind us. People are walking. Adults, children, teens. Some by themselves. Some as groups, couples. Some comfortable with each other, some stand at distances, apart, unsure. Mixed couples. Female couples. Male couples. Laughing, holding hands, trading glances between themselves and the incoming waves. Families, lovers, friends.

“Look at that. It’s so sweet. Everyone gets along. No worries about clothing or gender or who’s who. What if it were like that everywhere?”

“Well, then we’d actually take care of things that mattered, like who had no place to live, who had no medical care, instead of who’s living with who and who says they’re married. Imagine that.”

We turn around. How long has it been? As we walk, we move toward the water. The waves are aggressive, they push and pull as the large-grained sand buries our feet, pulls out with each receding wave, grates our ankles. The water is colder than we expect. There is gasping, squealing.

Once back at the chairs we sit. Not in them but far out in front of them, in the place where the waves reach out to the shore. We sit ourselves down upon the sand, legs out, feet meeting the water, inviting, letting the water wash over us, behind up, taking the sand from beneath us. More squealing. The waves hit hard. The tide comes in. We let it move over us, over time.

We stand, move into the water to wash off the sand.

I have been careful to make sure I notice if Evanne starts to turn red, burn, become flush. I know there is no real need to take care of her, but that doesn’t stop me. We all take care of each other. I see some pink in her face, looking rosy. It’s time to go.

Moving toward the chairs, I pick up her shirt, hand it to her.

Sand off the feet, clothes on, chairs away.

We are approached by a fellow who says hello. Asks where we’re from. Have we been here before?

How far up does this section go?

Miles.

We walk to the truck as it begins to rain.

Later that day, I read he headlines. NY and Georgia both dealt with same sex marriage, anything that passed as marriage, anything that gave the semblance of marriage and some, even, making domestic partner insurance illegal; Georgia’s Supreme Court overturning a lower court ruling that said that state’s 2004 voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and the New York Court of Appeals upholding a state law banning same-sex marriages. The court ruled it was up to the legislature to decide, not us. They ducked.

While we walked in the sun at Playalinda.

 
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Posted by on July 7, 2006 in Culture, Social, Travel

 

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