BLUE EYED BOYS

  From 563 posts in 9 years I do not remember much about subjects or details from previous blog entries. Neither do I have an assistant to catalog themes or buzz words. My titles may shed some light on what to expect but don’t count on it. I lift a few words from the text with the expectation the reader will notice while reading. When (if) they come back they may look at the title and wonder where and how it will fit into the reading. I doubt anybody actually does that but it is habit by now and it works for me. Often my efforts defy titles anyway. If you write fiction then the story is like a time capsule, unique to that set of characters and plot. But I lose track of where I’ve been, what I encountered and what was on my mind at the time. Some people think out loud, I think on paper. It’s not a problem, just that I identify with birds that feed on cherries from my choke cherry tree. Flying away they leave their host a tip on the windshield. Like me and my writing, they lose track of the last draft and what was in it.
The reference to birds was spontaneous; I do it without thinking. I notice birds in the air, birds perched and on the ground, I always have. They can fly and I can’t and that’s enough. The Joy Of Discovery is an empowering thing that is supposed to strike sometime in middle school but if it struck at all it missed me. Still, like discovering chocolate, it is never too late. In my first year of college, at age 25, I tapped into biology. From the world of the living I acquired a deep, abiding affection for Dragonflies and Frogs, Kit Fox and Killer Whales. I love Sycamores and Cone Flowers, even Lily Pads. But birds are my favorite, they always have been, even as a blue eyed boy. They find their way into my stories and reflections without me trying, like choke cherries on the windshield. 
In my case, the Joy Of Discovery was precipitated by nature and the natural world. I have a son whose Joy was born of things with wheels, things that go vroom-vroom. Making tires squeal was never enough. He had to know how fuel gets into the cylinder and why valves take turns opening and closing. Gear ratios and exhaust back pressure were irresistible and his Joy has never waned. My Joy came with metabolism and replication, semi permeable membranes and the way (+) potassium & sodium ions drive nerve impulses. That Joy has never lost its way either. It has only expanded and here I am in the pale of old age wanting to learn something, something I missed on the first go ‘round or even something new altogether. That decade in the 1950’s when I was treading water and should have been making waves, I’ll never catch up.
Somewhere today, I don’t know where, a blue eyed boy with short attention span sits staring out the window, studying birds perched on a power line. His teacher is coming down his row collecting assignments but he hasn’t finished, he has barely begun. Someday, when the place and time are right, Joy will strike; not like a lightning flash but like unfolding petals on a purple cone flower. That unfolding can last a lifetime. It happened once so I know it can happen again, maybe even again after that, tomorrow, some other place, another blue eyed boy. 

BUYER BEWARE

  In recent weeks, from different sources and unrelated circumstance, I have been told that I have an Old Soul. It’s not something you dwell on but the expression has always seemed peaceful to me and I took it as a compliment. Wikipedia and Google Search are not as reliable as we might wish but they did provide some backstory. Originally the idea was linked to reincarnation, that having an Old Soul is about innate wisdom and core truths that have carried over from a previous life. Age itself doesn’t have much to do with it. You can be really old and still be more wise than one’s age would allow. If you don’t buy into reincarnation then maybe a loose-fitting sense of good karma will do. 
I came across a  paper published in a psychiatric journal listing a dozen traits that correlate with Old Soul personality. Not that one causes the other but they often show up together. To that end, people with Old Soul persona may step back and see the Big Picture while others scrutinize the worm on the hook. They wouldn’t care much for status quo or embrace popular culture, more likely to question what they learned in school or were taught by their parents. Having an Old Soul, the deeper worth of ideas and relationships would prevail over the pursuit of material wealth. Lateral thinking would be employed more than the linear alternative. The list goes on. If you matched up on most of the traits it would suggest that you may have an Old Soul. Still, it’s not a recipe. 
Introducing the idea of Core Truths set off alarm bells with me. Human nature is self serving, both physical and emotional. If it can’t be measured objectively, carry out three places from the decimal, then the core truth is whatever we say it is. The difference between having an Old Soul and being both immoral and dangerous just depends. After all, who would see Old Soul virtues in someone whose values conflict with their Faith, politics, moral or cultural traditions? 
In my world, an Old Soul profile would be more about reflection and less about reaction, pose more good questions than right opinions. I would think that heroic Old Souls reject condescending (Either-Or) absolutes in favor of the open ended (This-And) possibilities. I would gravitate, regardless of age, to fair-play. It should be a pattern, not an off the cuff anomaly. I had a great mentor in college, a coach who emphasized, “If you can’t afford to lose, you can’t afford to play.” He also said, “Be concerned with preparation. Winning will take care of itself.” In some ways he was a wise old soul. It struck a nerve with me. 
Since those formative college days, I have been not only collecting but leaning on quotes that ring of innate wisdom and core truths. I’m sure my heroes are not everybody’s heroes. Still, what works for me still works. I use those quotes like stepping stones to where I need to be. They can come from famous or obscure sources but when looked at altogether, one gets a good idea to what’s cooking in my kitchen. John Muir said, “When you tug on any single thing in nature, it is connected to everything else and the universe tugs back.” 
Michaela Coel is a British writer/actor whose recent book, Misfits, is a personal manifesto. She details how the world prizes uncommon talent but then burdens those uncommon talents with traditional expectations. She goes on to say that even without that bias and ignorance, you don’t have to be singled out for your differences. Being misfit may mean you are simply someone who (not fitting in) views the world and sees it in a way that is different. I have a long response to that revelation but it is another story for another time. But I do identify. 
Wisdom is something else. Old Souls need be wise or they be just old with a soul. It requires experience, that provides knowledge, that facilitates good judgment, experience = knowledge = good judgment; in that order. I understand that one man’s treasure cam be another man’s junk. The same could be said of wisdom and folly. In the end it depends on what you’ve been conditioned to believe. Kurt Vonnegut (awesome quotes)  he said, “We become what we pretend to be, so be careful what you pretend to be.”
By my way of thinking, it takes a long time to grow wise and it needs to be acquired first hand. If it can be mysteriously endowed then I wouldn’t argue but It certainly doesn’t come in a bottle or a book or out of someone’s mouth. Propaganda is transferable but wisdom is not. It would accumulate through many mistakes and failures, necessary steps on the learning curve. On the other hand, old world thinking (tradition over knowledge) tells us that wisdom is universal. It is absolute and it doesn’t change so you can get it from a book, or from someone who read the book. That sounds like proselytizing to me, religion or politics, no difference. Of course we can observe others and listen to their story. That wanna-be wisdom can be sampled vicariously but it is hearsay at best. That is how we learn but the buyer should beware. Spoon fed wisdom runs the high risk of being no more than crafted propaganda. Buddha said in so many words; Don’t believe anything anybody tells you, not even if I tell you, not until it rings true with your own experience. I recommend Buddha. Another trait was that Old Souls tend to identify with each other easily, quickly. If someone thinks I have an Old Soul, seeing the world through the same lens would make it about them as much as about me but I would still think it a compliment. 

ROLL ON ROLL OFF

  When my mind gets loose off its leash it doesn’t go exploring, it goes back to old beliefs and ideas. It is not boring, I am just tired of it showing up in my writing. Spending so many words on why people behave like they do, it feels like digging in the same old hole just deeper. I don’t need the repetition and I don’t need to iron out any wrinkles. What I understood and believed last month or last year will evolve but one should expect that. Still the bones of that story show no sign of shape-shifting into a new creature. No less the defense of religious unbelief, especially Western Religion and The Sons of Abraham; I have about worn that out. Still it finds its way into writing that started out uncluttered in another direction. What I do believe is that I am better with telling Story than selling beliefs or philosophy. 
Roll On Roll Off: If you know where Punta Arenas is then you get a gold star. If you know where Puerto Edèn is, you get my gold star as well. Wandering around Patagonia with no itinerary, it was June and that meant the onset of winter. In Spanish, El Fin de Mundo translates, The End Of The World, an informal reference to Ushuaia, Argentina. It is the southern most city on the planet, at the farthest tip of South America. It was snowing there when I left in June of 2005. 
The small Chilean city of Punta Arenas, an all-day bus ride from Ushuaia, is located on the north shore of the Straights of Magellan. That time of year, if you want to catch a ride north on the NAVAMAG Ferry, this is the place. After a five day cruise up and through the Chilean archipelago we would arrive in Puerto Montt. The ferry was a roll on - roll off vessel with mostly cattle trucks on their way to the slaughter house but they book passengers as well. December is tourist season, June is not. There were only six passengers, two young Brits on holiday from university, an Australian petroleum engineer and a Peruvian student from Washington D.C. double-dipping travel with a visit to her grandparents. Then there was me and a young Chilean woman whose English was as challenged as my Español. We were a good match on the learning curve to help each other. She said she would be getting off before Puerto Montt. No stops listed on the schedule but I didn’t give it a second thought. 
On the very top of the ship there was an observation deck with a railing, several benches and a huge chess board painted on the deck. The chessmen were made of painted plywood that fit together like puzzle pieces, standing tall enough to be moved from square to square without bending over. The Latino lady didn’t know how to play chess so I taught her. When the weather turned windy or cold the others went down into the lounge but we held out, speaking Span-glish and playing chess.
On the third day I learned that we would offload cargo at a small fishing village in the middle of the night. I set my alarm but no need. The slow, tight turns and blasts from the ship’s horn announced our arrival. It was pitch dark. On shore, far away village lights might have been stars but they burned steady while the real stars twinkled. A dozen fishing trawlers shuttled supplies back to their pier, taking turns at the stern ramp like trick-or-treaters at the door. I took photos, careful not to get in the way but always pressing for a better view. The young woman really was getting off before Puerto Montt, she was there in uniform, part of a small Navy unit stationed in Puerto Edèn. The town is one of the most remote places on the continent. The only way in or out is by boat or sea plane. The only avenues are deep, narrow, flooded canyons that plunge between steep mountainsides, no roads, no streets, only wooden piers and boardwalks between buildings. At times the channel between islands was so tight we moved at a crawl and I could have (in my youth) bounced a ball off the cliffs on either side. In Puerto Edèn it rains on the average of 350 days a year. With a population of about 200 souls, fishing and the military seemed to be the only attractions.
Backing up in a tight turn, with a few blasts on the horn and a fleeting backward glance the village lights disappeared and everything went silent. Two days later in Puerto Montt they offloaded passengers first, ahead of the cattle trucks. Walking past them on an elevated ramp, the stench of excrement washed out of the trucks and onto the deck was potent. We laughed at how lucky we were, the smell never reached us up front on the upper decks. 
The day would be clear and sunny in Puerto Montt. My first task was to stow my duffle bag and guitar in a locker at the bus station. Cities in southern Chile are small, maybe five thousand people at most, nothing like the millions in Santiago. The next bus back into Argentina was in the morning so I shopped for souvenirs, bought several pieces of salmon leather from a shop along the waterfront. They skin the fish and tan it the same way they make any other leather. The grain side had scales instead of hair and you can see the scale pattern with its lateral line which is absolutely cool. I stayed in a hotel with private bath and my own telephone, not accustomed to fancy tourist accommodations. The snow was deep when we crossed the continental divide the next day, thru customs and back into Argentina. 
Stories need a beginning, a middle and an end. This little vignette is too small to have legs of its own, just a story-bite from a larger story and it is all I am good for right now. 

9/11

  What I learned from 9/11: if someone wants to hurt you or your country bad enough, if they plan with diligence, raise money, keep secret their secrets, wait for the right time no matter how long and martyr themselves in the process, they can do it. Twenty years later we are still licking our wounds, grieving the loss. The ‘Never Forget’ thing is about venting frustration in the moment. Next week it will drop off the radar for another year before we make a show of remembering again. I remember exactly, where I was when the plane hit the second tower and when the Pentagon was hit. I will not be dismissed for lack of caring or someone's idea of a callous character flaw but twenty years is enough. I don’t need to relive that terrible day or comfort those who lost loved ones. Somewhere, they are still remembering Pearl Harbor and that’s alright. But I have remembered enough. When someone swears an oath to never forget I am reminded, never say never. Today has been a good day. If I wake up in the morning I will be thankful for another day. I have lost track of so many terrible anniversaries that 9/11 can’t fade away fast enough. Man's inhumanity to his own kind is incurable. I am afraid that selfish revenge will masquerade as righteous justice and no one will notice. That’s what people do with their high minded, best intentions. King Solomon was wise as they said he was. There is a time for everything, for every purpose under the sun and it is my time to bury old bones.

HARDCOPY

  Falling behind with any tedious task can be disheartening to the point of walking away as if it should self engage and complete itself without you. Even though it might feel liberating, that strategy is doomed from the start. My writing has been a key part of how I process experience (the cards life has dealt me and the way I have played them). Nearly all of my (writer) writing since the early 1970’s has been filed away where they can be retrieved and revisited. More than half a century’s worth of journal and creative writing has been homogenized and stored in a computer file. I know how computerized documents can disappear or crash and never be seen again. My stuff gets backed up in the cloud now but old dogs (like me) are creatures of habit. It would be foolhardy choosing hard copy over the cloud but, call it another layer of security. I have eight, 2” and 3”, three ring binders full of my writing that date back to 1972. At the time, the IBM Selectric Typewriter was high tech and I felt privileged having access to one. Instead of all those old fashioned arms with two characters on each one, the Selectric had a single, type-ball with all the letters and characters on it. You still had to use correction tape to strike over errors but that was great, it didn’t get any better. Some of my earliest works have survived as Selectric originals. 
Some of my original typewritten work had worn thin, frayed, smudged and I retyped what I thought was worth keeping, only this time on the computer. It was floppy discs and folded print paper that fed the printer, not unlike toilet paper scrolling off a roll. What hasn’t changed is that computers still crash and documents still get lost. In the late 80’s and early 90’s I started backing up the computer with hard copy. If I couldn’t take the computer home with me at least notebooks travel well. I still back up everything with hardcopy and the pages accumulate fast while I move slow.
If I get caught up by the end of the month every month I could stay caught up. If I forget or fall behind it is easier to keep letting it accumulate like dust under the bed. When you realize how far behind you are, procrastination becomes even easier and the task compounds. I can’t blame Pandemic, I had fallen far behind before that. I had a little over three years of journaling on the bubble just waiting for a crash. Having such a backlog felt overwhelming. Still, I am the only person who could do it. If it were just printing, anyone could do that, just hit Select All and Print. If I still have it in the file I consider every written piece to still be in progress. Nothing is ever finished, like me; you can leave me in the basement for as long as you like but when I come out I will need a shave and a haircut. 
When I notice something that needs revision, I revise. That is the rule for any and every article, all the way back. Before I print the page it needs to be reread, overlooked spelling & punctuation errors need correcting, word selection may need tweaking, reframe sentence structure as needed, delete whole paragraphs that, in retrospect, serve no purpose. Editing is the real work of writing. Reassuring myself with the old axiom, “Every journey begins with a single step.” I figured; do a few copies at a time and keep the three ring binder on top of my desk where it would be a nagging reminder.
It has been over a month, maybe two since I started the 2019-2020 binder. Now all I have left to catch up on is this year. Funny, reading your old, fermented writing with New Eyes it changes things. With New Eyes, I am much more auto-critical than the creative, storytelling writer (me) was at the time. When writing is still fresh you can feel good about shaky syntax. I get little or no feedback so the critic has to be me. I don’t want to make public anything that rings of me that felt good in the moment but failed the test of time. When I was active with my writers guild I got plenty of important, necessary, critical peer review. Writers like to show off now and then with a wide and deep vocabulary or using complicated but correct, compound sentences; stuff only other writers appreciate. New Eyes are nearly as keen as Other Eyes, they notice every stroke and what felt clever or righteous at the time might not age very well.
A long time ago I stumbled across several song lyrics that my teenage daughter and I wrote, traveling in the car between Michigan and Missouri. She wrote everything down as we drove. Years later I found the clipboard and yellow legal pad with the lyrics in her hand writing. I typed a copy but misplaced the page in a box on a top shelf in the basement. Rediscovering it I shared it with her we were delighted, a snapshot reboot of a benchmark place in time. Leave it to her as an adult, latching onto the lyrics again and to serve me notice. “Put this in a notebook. Keep it in a safe place and don’t lose it again.” 
Maybe a decade later the song, Chicken Skin from that collaboration found its way into our conversation and she amended her earlier ‘Notice’. She told me she wanted all of my writing in print, hard copy. Certainly there would come a day when either the computer or I would crash and the half-century journal would be lost. “I will want all of it.” she said. 
They say, for as long as someone remembers your face and your story, your legacy lives. The same could be true about your words, the ones you put to the page. For as long as they are pressed between the pages, on a shelf or in a box, even if they go unread your story survives with a life of its own. It just has to be intact and available. I like that. It comes as close to an afterlife as anything I would ever imagine.