A LIGHT THAT SHINES ON ME

At the end of anything I suppose, you reflect. Walking out of the theatre last week it was a cursory reflection. The movie was alright, I stayed awake and there was a sense of closure in the end. I didn’t reexamine the plot or take issue with the acting. I know what I like but I’m not a critic. It was a movie. We are about to drop the curtain on this calendar year, 2016. I remember years that were remarkable, years when the times seemed to be inching forward, toward a safer, saner place. It depends I suppose on where you were, how you slept, if payday came and you still had some money from the week before. But 2016 has been just another year. I know about the squeaky wheel still I’ll not complain. Considering the big number on my odometer, I’m in good shape for the shape I’m in.

Talk about good years; 1962 was a good year. I was in a good place, slept well, made $90 a week and it carried me through. 1970, graduate school; the joy of discovery. I was still young and I knew it. After that, the career years were full and rewarding but it was like falling down a long staircase. Sometimes you get right side up but it doesn't last. I was still young but it didn’t feel like it. In spite of wars, riots and civil unrest, of corruption and recession, I have never been put between a rock and the a place. But I see it all around me. I wake up thinking about human inhumanity and the contradiction there. If I could be indifferent to the sorrows of the world, the sorrows of those lees fortunate, I could bask in my own glow. But that would make me a Republican by default and that would be unbearable. Being a Democrat would be painful enough but therapy and drugs might ease that load.

I have great hope for 2017. I pursue hope rather than lean on faith. I prefer open ended possibility to any brand of absolute belief.  Emily Dickinson said, “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.” That’s how I would usher in the new year. Make it black eyed peas and cabbage for good luck and I’ll turn to music for a thin thread of peace. I saw the 2016 Kennedy Center Honors broadcast this week. Both James Taylor and Mavis Staples were among the honorees. In 2010 when Paul McCartney was tapped, they sang together in his honor, ‘Let It Be’. J.T. and Mavis Staples, “. . . when all the broken hearted people, living in the world agree; there will be an answer, let it be.”  Then, in a seamless riff, they slid into ‘HeyJude’. Everybody was singing, “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better.” I anticipated the fade out; “Nah, nah, nah, nah: nah-nah-nah-naaah.” I don’t know how long it lasted but it was over too soon.

I hope this time next year I can reflect with more enthusiasm, with a clear conscience. Corny and childish as it may sound, I hope for a culture shift toward reconciliation rather than getting even.  “Though the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me . . .”

SOMETHING TO SAY

If you are going to write, you really should have something to say. Otherwise, it’s just an exercise in grammar. Prewriting is what goes on before, priming the pump so to speak. Sometimes that means writing blind. Out my kitchen window the grass still has some green and birds often land there. They move around first one way, then another with no sense of purpose. Of course they are looking for food but it’s random, trial and error. If they knew where the goodies were they would go straight to it, sort of like writers, looking for a way into an idea or story. It’s not uncommon when you finish a written work that you delete the first paragraph or two. They were part of the process and the piece doesn’t need them at all. 

So I’m pressing on, wondering if my mission this morning is going to target metaphors like ‘Priming the pump’ or maybe how some spots in the lawn keep their green. Maybe I’m supposed to be creating a story about birds or trial and error, what we do when we don’t know what to do. I’m in that gap between Solstice and Xmas. Last night I sat on the patio with a wood fire crackling in the chiminea. I listened to music, sang along with Dylan on ‘Thunder On The Mountain’ and Billie Holiday on ‘God Bless The Child’. I talked on the telephone with a friend I haven’t seen in several years. He was driving, pulled off so we could talk. I thought I was calling out of my own need but as it were, he was the one who needed to talk. 

I won a chili cook-off last year and one of the prizes was a quart of cinnamon whiskey; it’s been in my cupboard for almost a year. Can’t remember the last time I drank whiskey but I nursed a couple of shots as I fed the fire, sang along and talked on the phone. I thought about Syrian refugees and about street people in Newport Beach and Salt Lake City with their belongings in trash bags and grocery carts chained to pillar posts under bridges where they slept. It occurred to me that I’m one of the most privileged people on the planet. I enjoy benefits, incredible benefits that are unearned. All I did was chose my parents wisely and land on my feet, in the right place, at the right time. 

I had time to just sit and breathe. I thought about my pagan ancestors, sitting around their fires, taking comfort in each other. That was their good fortune. My feet were close to the fire. My shoes could take it but the hot denim burned my legs and I had to shift myself around to get comfortable. So now I"m finished with the prewriting; my something to say is this: Life is good but it’s really fragile. Whether you sleep between sheets in your own room or in a cardboard box under a bridge, it’s what we’ve got. Xmas will come and go. But I’ll feel better about the fire and the whiskey than about the birthday party.

WHAT WAS HE SMOKING

This is an important day; of course every day is important. As today ticks away, tomorrow slides in without missing a beat and it's still today. But December 21 is likely the oldest observed holiday, ever. I remember it in my blog every year. True, the numbers of people who observe it as a special day are few but remember, people seldom move against the current. Winter Solstice: that day in Earth’s annual trek around ‘El Sol’ when daylight is short and darkness would have its way. You know the science. 

The longest night might not seem so special but it is in fact, the original resurrection story. God, whatever that means, the undeniable mystery, had turned its back on mankind but on this day it turned back around. Beginning the next day, shadows would begin to shorten, longer days, the promise of spring. Everybody knew what that meant. Abundant life would flourish again, there was reason to hope. Cold, dark winter was a time to hunker down and you needed something to help you through. If that ain’t the seed for religion, I don’t know how you get there. So those old pagans marked the shortest day as a new beginning, bolstered to face the harsh, barren season at hand. 

The more I learn about primitive people the better I like them. Solstice is just one way to make that connection. The earth, its rocks, air and water; it’s pretty much the same as it was a million years ago. Same sun. The elements; H, C, O, N, P, Fe, K, they get recycled through people, generation to generation. All of us are made of the same molecules that moved through our ancestors (the very same ones.) Old world Asian and African religions were centered on the elders, ancient ones, on the blood line. Those spirits are links between our own flesh and those who came before, they are key to the journey ahead.

Pagan peoples conceded to the forces of nature. Mother Earth, Father Sky; if you want to know the Creator’s will then pay particular attention to how Creation works. I like both models better than hypocritical, narcissistic constructs that have trickled down from Abraham. I’d like to know what he was smoking. 

The weather is warming. Come dark; 4:59 officially, I will use scrap wood to make a fire in the Chiminea on my patio. I’ll dress appropriately and take my laptop outside, sing along with Leonard Cohen and Billie Holiday, maybe some Dylan. I may even dance around in the dark, nobody will notice. Between my blood line and Mother Earth, I’ll send out a song that is soft but it’s clear. Can’t leave out James Taylor’s, Baby James. The great Solstice line there goes; “There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway; a song that they sing when they take to the sea; a song that they sing of their home in the sky; maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep. The singing works just fine for me.” 

MAKING A LIST

I got my guitar out last night and went through my song book. I’m out of practice; been a long time since I gave it any serious attention. There are so many songs there, I’ll never revisit most of them. So my task is to make a play list that I can work on. I am predisposed to playing with the music rather than working at it. Not a musician, I tend to tell my songs. Music is calibrated, with a rhythm; you should be in sync with it. I don’t do at that very well. I change tempo, pause for effect like a storyteller and I think it’s too late to change that. So I don’t play with other musicians. They get frustrated when I lose track of the meter. 

If I don’t set a limit the list will be too long and I’ll end up playing with all my toys rather than working on the ones I want to do in front of people. I’ll set an arbitrary number and the final cut will be plus or minus a song or two;15 sounds right. The first four or five will be easy. By the time I get to ten and eleven, it will be increasingly more difficult. I want two of my own songs, they would be ‘Angels’ and ‘Catch A Dream’. Then my fall-back standards: ‘Summertime’, ‘Saint James Infirmary’ and ‘Wonderful World’.  Each one now gets tougher because you start sensing songs you love that won’t make the cut. No.#6 has to be Don Mclean’s ‘And I Love You So’, probably the best love song ever. The lyrics are so tight and so profound they never get old. Tempo is just right and I can handle the guitar part. No-brainer. 

I’ll agonize over the rest. Holiday season we need to finish with a Christmas song. I like ‘Silver Bells’. Then I have to put my homework in a thin notebook and be faithful to it. If I got paid to play and sing, then I’d have to please an audience. This way I sing for myself. If it doesn’t sound great, it feels wonderful. Some songs, the lines are perfect, you can’t mess them up. “Light up your face with gladness. Hide every trace of sadness; although a tear . . . may be ever so near . . .” Natalie Cole. When she sings it you can find yourself not breathing. I’ll play with it until it feels right. It’s all I can do but it’s enough. 

I DO THAT

I don’t know if I should say “I belong to a group” or “I hang out with,” or just what but I usually spend a few hours on Wednesday with a long, table full of folks who refer to the gathering as, ‘Gnawing For Knowledge’ originally a philosophy study group, inevitably straying from formal philosophers to any number of heady subjects. That’s almost a run-on sentence. I do that. I seldom have opinions. My niche is the one to ask oblique questions. After I have my say, the discussion will veer off in a new direction or they will ignore me and go on as if I weren’t there. 

Yesterday we listened to a taped lecture about the evolution of economics in Western Europe and the USA, after WW2. Some of it seems like a no-brainer but if nobody paints the picture, you’ll likely never do it for yourself. In the fall of 1945, the USA was the only world power whose infrastructure and economy was not in shambles. Just the opposite; our manufacturing/banking community was running smoothly. Four years of a war economy had pulled us out of hard times. Our biggest problem was putting millions of returning soldiers back to work but we had the means to do it, just a bump in the road.

In Europe, unemployment was massive. They had to make a new road before they could experience a bump. In order to generate some action, England, France, etc. printed a lot of money and funded public works. Economic risk was taken on by the government. Socialized programs were necessary to get people back into the system. Health care, education, support for unions were the best cards in their deck. The unemployment rate was so high, the government funded long term unemployment benefits and time off. Pay was low, the economy was slow. One way or another, everybody shared the burden, everybody shared the reward. In the USA, things went just the opposite direction. A burgeoning economy motivated everyone. Europeans were struggling to keep heads above water and Americans were speed-scaling the economic ladder. High pay, high productivity allowed the risk be on individuals to fund their own health care and education while unions were viewed as inhibitors, few safety nets. This trend continued to play out over the next half century. What you get is what we got; in Europe, lower pay, lower productivity, social safety net. At home, we work longer, harder and reward success at the expense of the underclass. 

The advantages and drawbacks are obvious; sort of like, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. In our discussion, after only a few comments I realized I was on a different page. My cohorts lose me easily. My question was more of an observation that I hoped would guide the discussion. My nature is to question why we do as we do, more so than what it is that we do. I suggested that nations as entities don’t do much long range planning or even think about long term consequences; "The best laid plans of mice and men . . ." Even from the left, there is a presumption that our economy is the result of a clear-eyed understanding of what each step would lead to. Public perception is that we got here by choice. I think that’s like a rock taking credit for rolling down hill. During the Great Depression, before the war, we cast a big safety net with federally funded projects. Republicans still hate FDR for his treatment of banks and corporations. When they say, ‘Nobody is too big to fail.” they actually mean that failure is an integral part of the free market and should trickle up from the bottom. Stock holders should be the last to feel the pinch. 

I think my comments went over their heads like high flying birds, on their way south for the winter. We can lean forward but we are stuck in the moment. I drew an analogy about driving a car in reverse, seeing only where you have been; steering according to how yesterday’s road meandered rather than looking ahead. It seemed to resonate but the urge to humanize the math and put spin on economic fallout was too much to resist. The conversation fell back into a ‘Blame Game.’ 

Our group leader is a retired economics professor who lets us bumble along without too much intervention. I like to remind him of my story about economists. They study markets and money the same way fishermen troll their boats around the lake. When they ease up to the dock with a fish on their stringer they say with great confidence,”We sure churned up the lake today!” Oh, there’s another one. This one he likes. An economist was hired to assess a company’s business model. The economist collected tons of data and spent weeks preparing a report. When he presented the report to the board of directors it was too complicated for them to understand. “What does this mean,” asked the CEO. The economist answered, “What do you want it to mean?” He hasn’t slapped me yet. 

EXCEPT FOR GOD

When I was a child; can’t remember exactly when, but long before I noticed girl-curves, when my wits were being stretched by long division, I had my doubts. The question begged itself. I didn’t have the words, only feelings and vague awareness: Is this a grand conspiracy? Is everybody else in on it and I’m the fall guy? On one particular day, the voice inside my head spoke as clear as could be. I don’t think many admit to hearing the voice or muse if you will, but it comes uninvited and if you ignore it, it goes away. Then when you’d give anything for it to come back, for sake of sanity, it leaves you to fend for yourself. So I listen, every time. That time, I was puzzled by the way my world was unfolding. It, the voice, said, “Except for God, we are alone.” I heard the words. Now days, I take it on very good authority that the subconscious can and does communicate with the conscious, and sometimes it frames itself in language. I’ve never forgotten the moment. It was about being isolated, not about God. Moses thought God spoke to him through a burning bush but I think he was just doing what Joseph Campbell alluded to, attributing to God whatever it is that we don’t understand. 

Another time, much later, as an adult; I was sharing with a friend. Nothing serious or profound but in a moment of clarity I rattled off a story that came out of the blue. I told him that someday, I fully expected a space ship to materialize overhead and a rope to come down. There would be a voice telling me they left me here by mistake in 1939 and had come back for me. That story had never crossed my mind before; the words just came out. The segue came like a reflex arc: Except for God, we are alone, the muse and I. My friend and I laughed at the time. It was a clever thing to say but it wasn’t funny. What is it; why is it that I feel alienated from my own kind? Certainly something in my development pushed my personality in that direction. Was it the middle child syndrome, something else or several somethings? By now it really doesn’t matter what or why. But I think about it. 

Neuroplasticity is a 20th Century revelation that explains the way the brain/mind develops and then how it reorganizes itself throughout a lifetime. It was revealed when victims of brain injury were able to transfer a particular brain function to another part of the brain that was not originally tasked for that purpose. People who had suffered damage to the speech center of the brain were able to learn how to speak again, using areas of the brain that are normally associated with something else. Until that time, it was believed that the brain develops in stages until maturity. Then it would function in a predictable manner, hardwired as it were. 

It has also emerged that the brain/mind behaves through adulthood much like we do, as a work in progress. A good analogy would be the way we redecorate and upgrade our homes. From rearranging furniture to new paint, new carpet, new furniture and lighting; how many homes remain unchanged (hardwired)?  The brain is a light bulb; the mind is the light bulb turned on. The brain is stimulated, the mind interprets and frames meaning, then initiates some kind of response. When you change your mind or the way you feel about something, the brain circuits that hold that program change, rewired rather than hard wired. It may be voluntary or involuntary. The unconscious brain works 24-7. Trying to get your head around that idea is like thinking about what is going on someplace you’ve never been and know nothing about. Memory works at different levels and when we try to remember something, if the memory isn’t there or isn’t complete, that part of the brain can simply fabricate something for us to remember that feels appropriate. The brain fills in blank spaces with its best guess. Every researcher, every judge, every lawyer, every bailiff, every court clerk; they all know that eye witness testimony is the least reliable evidence of any and every type. But collectively, we refuse to believe it. We trust what people remember more so than finger prints, more than chemistry or physics, more than credible documentation - phone records, credit card transactions and such. 

The mind's orientation can and does change. Growing old may slow down the process or limit its range but it continues, even later in life. Certainly personality is more malleable during childhood but adults reversing position on important values and beliefs is not uncommon. It’s like having your GPS guide you to a destination one way yesterday and by a different route today. When the GPS does it you expect it after all; it’s technology. Like the GPS, sometimes the brain takes us places we didn't plan on. Like nature, the brain hates a vacuum and it can give us what it thinks we need. But the brain/mind is not supposed to change without your permission. At least that’s how most of us would have it. 

I like the Neuroplasticity dilemma more than dislike. It supports a premiss that I have leaned on heavily for decades. If I’m to really believe in anything I want it to be open ended; don't hold your breath, there may be more. It tells me; Sometimes you have a life and sometimes it has you. When I respond to the voice inside my head and the risky business of knowing anything, I concede. Yes, you and I. God is busy messing with Believers. It’s just the two of us. 

EITHER OR

Snow and cold are the other side of the coin. You can’t have ‘Heads’ if there is no ‘Tails’. When I think about primitive people living off the land I’m so thankful for a thousands years of technology. If I were facing a long, dark, cold winter like a rodent, burrowed up in a hole somewhere with seeds and roots stashed away to get me through, I’d probably starve or freeze. But then maybe that’s just what we do. Rodents have adapted to the perils of winter and they come out in the spring somewhat thinner than they went in but they do come out. Birds fly south for the winter, duh! Wherever it is that humming birds go, there will be flowers, food and a mild breeze all the way to April and May. 

I had considered going to Argentina for the North American winter. I have friends there and my Español is survivable. It would improve dramatically if I had no other options. But I let that window close and I’m left, simply looking at Arizona. A cultural phenomenon unfolds there every winter. People from all over go there with their motor homes, their vans and travel trailers; they park in the desert or national forests, on public lands where there are no facilities and no fees. They have the best technology with solar panels and generators to meet their needs. You can still poop in a hole and cover it up. If nothing else, you can always spend the night in a Wal*Mart parking lot. 

I have a Ford pickup truck and a small, pop up camper. My plan is to be in Arizona the 1st week of January. I make great plans for having a plan. But as that time bleeds away, I realize I’ll be planning ahead, one meal, one day at a time. I’ll learn about the solar panels when I get there and I have no pride at all; I’ll park in the corner of a Wal*Mart lot more than I care to admit. It still gets cold at night up in the desert and you still need a good sleeping bag. But it won’t be the rodent’s dilema. 

I’ll meet people and they never disappoint me. Some are cool, others not so much but then every bell curve has its tail. Maybe I’ll find someone who will coach me on my Spanish. Maybe I’ll meet a Republican who can explain ‘Trickle Down-Ayn Rand’ Bull Shit so it sounds plausible. When I pay attention I see wealth trickling up from below. Maybe I’ll meet a Liberal who has finally figured out that people only care about themselves. Maybe we should just get over it. Maybe I’ll cave in and book a ticket to Mendoza or Ushuaia after all. Patagones son dulces y me encantan. Mis compatriotas tienen la cabeza por su culo.