After reading my last post, it dawned on me that in all my dramatic assertions the bigger point I was trying to make might have gotten obscured. I'm not wholly satisfied with this post after all because of a lack of clarity. So I've decided to provide a better and clearer outline of the things I was trying to say.
The point wasn't necessarily to bash on the kid who threw the Big Gulp cup. Really I was describing a stereotypical young and disillusioned boy from an economically downtrodden part of town. It might have sounded like I was criticizing the boy and his actions without looking at a bigger picture. At least the "bigger picture" wasn't very well composed. I was trying to describe his alienation from society and the actions that stem from that alienation, his sad life and the effects he has on the world around him. I don't hate this boy, I empathize with him. My point is that he was born into a situation that is truly impossible and his actions reflect an anger at an enemy he can't see or understand. His lot in life was cast generations ago by large social forces and it is this that I'm trying to highlight. We can't pretend to advance as a higher species until we address the issues that create a group of angry young men who only think of meager short term goals. If we are to be proud of ourselves, if we are to live together on this planet, then we must look at this boy without animosity so that we can solve his problems. As well, we must get over our own initial response to these young men. It's easy to curse him then move on with our lives... it's much more difficult to face the situation with a mature attitude and an open mind.
Hopefully the reader finds this a little more helpful. Thanks.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Life in America
On a weekday afternoon, at the beginning of the summer, I witnessed a sudden and small violence that crowded my thoughts in the ensuing months. By small I mean no person was hurt. No sad creature lost its life from hard deprivation. It was an action of complete disregard, and I keep dwelling on it as if it was more important than I know.
I was driving... making my way east on Navarre Avenue in the east side of Toledo. I was nearing Navarre Park next to the Sun Oil Refinery. For many who have driven around this area they know it mostly as a bleak and depressed part of town. Most of the houses were probably built in the Twenties, when plots were narrow and deep, and the houses were all two stories high and five feet apart from each other. Back then immigrants would move into these houses and form neighborhoods and work towards a life. But as time moves on so do their children, and those children spread out from the old neighborhoods into areas further out on the highways. The old neighborhoods became commodities and the houses were converted by the next owners into duplexes for cheap rent. Poor, lower class families moved in. Over time these proud old neighborhoods became surrounded and cut off by industry, ugly highways, and lousy strip malls. It doesn't matter, necessarily, that I'm speaking of an old suburb of Toledo... Everyone in America knows these parts of town. The differences between the east side and some low down part of Philadelphia or Charlotte is only superficial. And the boy I'm to speak of... well everybody knows this boy.
The house is probably about twelve feet above the street with a three foot retaining wall and the sidewalk right on the street. He must have parked in a garage off an alley behind the house and walked around the side to the front. He was probably either seventeen or eighteen years old, and as I approached (in my Prius, to add a bit of irony), he swung his arm out away from his body and cast out into the street a Big Gulp cup filled with soda from some gas station carry out. That's it. This is the act of violence I spoke of. It was as if he was making a dramatic statement, an impertinent gesture, holding out his arm after the throw as if he were Kobe Bryant posing in the process of draining a game winning three pointer. He must have felt my presence as well because as I passed the house and the sad thrown cup he turned back to the west and held his chest out as if he were about to be confronted for this pathetic sabatoge, and he was ready for a fight.
I can tell you my first reaction was shock and disgust. A younger and less civilized Sean Lynott would have pulled his car right into the middle of the road, put it in park, gotten out, picked up the cup, ran up the stairs to his stoop and shoved that cup right in his face, yelling "finish your dinner boy! There are starving people in China!" The problem is, we all know the futility of confronting a kid like that... We know that we would be talking to a brick wall of obstinance, and nothing would be accomplished. So we drive on, filled with angst and hating the world.
After the anger subsided, I thought more about that kid and the way he threw the cup. Always, I question motives, and putting aside my own ego and self righteousness, a whole world of intuition opens up. Contained within that Big Gulp, besides Dr. Pepper, are all of our civilized ideals. The slow descending arc of the tossed garbage is a perfect metaphor of the disdain this kid has for all of your petty theories of economics, environmental degradation, and sense of communal living. The glittering drops of soda are as important as all the great battles of history. Build your monuments to the past, they are nothing to him. No learning, no civilized advances, no technological breakthroughs, no art, no atomic bombs, nothing can penetrate this boy. Everything humanity has built, everything we hold dear, comes tumbling onto the street with an unceremonious... splat. Try to talk sense to Joey. Try to explain to him all the ways he is wrong to throw that cup into the street. All your reasoning, logical though it may be, true and honorable as you are, will be met with three simple words. I. Don't. Care. Joey from the East Side is one of the true outcasts of this world. When the equation doesn't balance, he is the Remainder. We've all seen him before. We've watched him spend what little money he has on cheap Nike rip-off clothes and gregarious NBA caps. We watch him walk into a fast food joint with his high tops untied and his shorts down below his waist. We've seen him get into fights with his dad, get his girlfriend pregnant, fight with her sister, lose jobs, fail at school, and join the army. He abuses weed and shitty beer, he yells offensive gangster rap lyrics in public, he drives like a maniac and gets lousy tattoos. We, who are invested in this world, hate this boy, and his response to that is to create mayhem in his life. He will spend the rest of his shortened life railing against the world.
It's easy to hate Joey. When faced with such a stubborn mule as this my blood gets up. I have been fighting against this kind of rude boy my whole life and he is just one of an entire class of rejects. They trash every part of town they occupy and the rest of us avoid the area like a quarantine. When I look at his neighborhood, I see a kind of grimy squeezed out essence of all the things that are wrong with the world. These boys, they are taught from birth to Want. They are told to look into the store window, to want all the pretty things inside, then left alone to keep wanting without any of the resources necessary to obtain the pretty things, or even to ask why they want the pretty things. This desire for the world of material objects, coupled with an angry home, or an underserved education, creates an alienated beast. He feels no ties to the people around him, indeed they are all more or less combatants. His only goal is to get his. He immediately looks to satisfy his senses because he feels empty inside. Communion with other people would help alleviate his loneliness but he avoids it because he's angry. Eventually he'll lose whatever women he gets in his life, and he'll alternate his time between his job and the bar. This is a true American.
This is a competitive world we inhabit. We are a part of a great race... we strive to be better, bigger, and faster than our competitors, and when we win, we are rewarded. Success is defined by our wealth and power. Truly, it's power that we're after. The lust for power has always justified the means of obtaining it, and once it's obtained, the competition is squeezed out of existence so that the empire can remain. But with all this talk about competition and winners, it's the loser that is forgotten. For every winner there is a trail of losers left behind. And what becomes of them? Do they just disappear? Are we supposed to exile them? Should they just be left to starve by the roadside? They still occupy space. They still exist... they're still human...
When they talk about the poor, when they talk about welfare recipients, when they speak in broad terms about poverty being generational, the wage gap, Capitalism vs. Socialism, lazy shiftless people, American Exceptionalism... when this great war of words reaches a crescendo, East Side Joey stands facing the sun, chest out, middle finger up, asking the question, "what about me?"
I was driving... making my way east on Navarre Avenue in the east side of Toledo. I was nearing Navarre Park next to the Sun Oil Refinery. For many who have driven around this area they know it mostly as a bleak and depressed part of town. Most of the houses were probably built in the Twenties, when plots were narrow and deep, and the houses were all two stories high and five feet apart from each other. Back then immigrants would move into these houses and form neighborhoods and work towards a life. But as time moves on so do their children, and those children spread out from the old neighborhoods into areas further out on the highways. The old neighborhoods became commodities and the houses were converted by the next owners into duplexes for cheap rent. Poor, lower class families moved in. Over time these proud old neighborhoods became surrounded and cut off by industry, ugly highways, and lousy strip malls. It doesn't matter, necessarily, that I'm speaking of an old suburb of Toledo... Everyone in America knows these parts of town. The differences between the east side and some low down part of Philadelphia or Charlotte is only superficial. And the boy I'm to speak of... well everybody knows this boy.
The house is probably about twelve feet above the street with a three foot retaining wall and the sidewalk right on the street. He must have parked in a garage off an alley behind the house and walked around the side to the front. He was probably either seventeen or eighteen years old, and as I approached (in my Prius, to add a bit of irony), he swung his arm out away from his body and cast out into the street a Big Gulp cup filled with soda from some gas station carry out. That's it. This is the act of violence I spoke of. It was as if he was making a dramatic statement, an impertinent gesture, holding out his arm after the throw as if he were Kobe Bryant posing in the process of draining a game winning three pointer. He must have felt my presence as well because as I passed the house and the sad thrown cup he turned back to the west and held his chest out as if he were about to be confronted for this pathetic sabatoge, and he was ready for a fight.
I can tell you my first reaction was shock and disgust. A younger and less civilized Sean Lynott would have pulled his car right into the middle of the road, put it in park, gotten out, picked up the cup, ran up the stairs to his stoop and shoved that cup right in his face, yelling "finish your dinner boy! There are starving people in China!" The problem is, we all know the futility of confronting a kid like that... We know that we would be talking to a brick wall of obstinance, and nothing would be accomplished. So we drive on, filled with angst and hating the world.
After the anger subsided, I thought more about that kid and the way he threw the cup. Always, I question motives, and putting aside my own ego and self righteousness, a whole world of intuition opens up. Contained within that Big Gulp, besides Dr. Pepper, are all of our civilized ideals. The slow descending arc of the tossed garbage is a perfect metaphor of the disdain this kid has for all of your petty theories of economics, environmental degradation, and sense of communal living. The glittering drops of soda are as important as all the great battles of history. Build your monuments to the past, they are nothing to him. No learning, no civilized advances, no technological breakthroughs, no art, no atomic bombs, nothing can penetrate this boy. Everything humanity has built, everything we hold dear, comes tumbling onto the street with an unceremonious... splat. Try to talk sense to Joey. Try to explain to him all the ways he is wrong to throw that cup into the street. All your reasoning, logical though it may be, true and honorable as you are, will be met with three simple words. I. Don't. Care. Joey from the East Side is one of the true outcasts of this world. When the equation doesn't balance, he is the Remainder. We've all seen him before. We've watched him spend what little money he has on cheap Nike rip-off clothes and gregarious NBA caps. We watch him walk into a fast food joint with his high tops untied and his shorts down below his waist. We've seen him get into fights with his dad, get his girlfriend pregnant, fight with her sister, lose jobs, fail at school, and join the army. He abuses weed and shitty beer, he yells offensive gangster rap lyrics in public, he drives like a maniac and gets lousy tattoos. We, who are invested in this world, hate this boy, and his response to that is to create mayhem in his life. He will spend the rest of his shortened life railing against the world.
It's easy to hate Joey. When faced with such a stubborn mule as this my blood gets up. I have been fighting against this kind of rude boy my whole life and he is just one of an entire class of rejects. They trash every part of town they occupy and the rest of us avoid the area like a quarantine. When I look at his neighborhood, I see a kind of grimy squeezed out essence of all the things that are wrong with the world. These boys, they are taught from birth to Want. They are told to look into the store window, to want all the pretty things inside, then left alone to keep wanting without any of the resources necessary to obtain the pretty things, or even to ask why they want the pretty things. This desire for the world of material objects, coupled with an angry home, or an underserved education, creates an alienated beast. He feels no ties to the people around him, indeed they are all more or less combatants. His only goal is to get his. He immediately looks to satisfy his senses because he feels empty inside. Communion with other people would help alleviate his loneliness but he avoids it because he's angry. Eventually he'll lose whatever women he gets in his life, and he'll alternate his time between his job and the bar. This is a true American.
This is a competitive world we inhabit. We are a part of a great race... we strive to be better, bigger, and faster than our competitors, and when we win, we are rewarded. Success is defined by our wealth and power. Truly, it's power that we're after. The lust for power has always justified the means of obtaining it, and once it's obtained, the competition is squeezed out of existence so that the empire can remain. But with all this talk about competition and winners, it's the loser that is forgotten. For every winner there is a trail of losers left behind. And what becomes of them? Do they just disappear? Are we supposed to exile them? Should they just be left to starve by the roadside? They still occupy space. They still exist... they're still human...
When they talk about the poor, when they talk about welfare recipients, when they speak in broad terms about poverty being generational, the wage gap, Capitalism vs. Socialism, lazy shiftless people, American Exceptionalism... when this great war of words reaches a crescendo, East Side Joey stands facing the sun, chest out, middle finger up, asking the question, "what about me?"
Monday, March 10, 2014
Man on the Mountain
Every time I try to wrap my mind around this modern world I get completely lost in the speed and complexity. I don't know how other people think (mind, not what they think, but how they think), but when I have time, I think in the dynamic of conversation. I talk to myself. When the first philosophers published their ideas, they did it in the form of Dialogues. It was a form of thought experiment. They offered a premise then acted as their own pro and con advocates, working out a problem until they could decipher a certitude. I find myself following this same line of reasoning when I'm alone; I imagine talking to friends of mine who I know to be thoughtful people, people who would disagree with me, and I argue with them. It's become almost an unconscious act for me, but unfortunately, many times the conclusions I reach become lost through the day, and I find myself creeping ever closer to the twilight of my life.
For those who have been paying even a little attention to my writing, you might have noticed that time is an obsession for me. Perhaps my father passing away so young after a five year stretch with Alzheimer's disease has awakened in me a fear of suffering the same fate; perhaps the idea of starting a family after turning forty has me craving a long life; or perhaps it's my own regret as I look at all the time I've wasted in my life, making me wish I had it back. Either way, I believe this modern world, with the sheer volume of people, the rushing tide of images and ideas, the swirling noises clamoring for attention, and the values of constant work and action- pushed on us from the very start of consciousness- are conspiring to rob us of the ability to sit and ponder the very times we live in. The idea of sitting still for half a day, in the middle of the week, staring at animals moving around, or a river flowing past, or the light of day changing, sounds like a dream, or a vacation day, a rarity. There is nobody in this country who could legitimately conceive of doing this two days in a row, at least no one who is tied into the modern race. This... time, this swampy, slow, contemplative mindset is an anathema to the salesmen of the world, because they know that if people stopped and looked around at their lives, they would find most of the things they value are meaningless, and that their right to free thinking has been leased out to the Sellers. I've fallen victim to this same fate... I've let myself be entertained way too easily, and I've let time get by me without a fight.
In September of 2001, we listened to the news broadcast on the radio of the attack on the World Trade Center. Our boss had a small black and white TV that we watched the footage on at lunch. At that time, I was making fun of a friend of mine for getting the internet installed at his house. None of us had bought into the cell phone trend that was jumpstarting. We waited until we got home and we watched the rest of the day as all the images poured in. It was an absolute shock and we watched for months as the war, and the hunt for the men who enacted this awful violence began. On April 15, 2013, only twelve years later, two young immigrant brothers set off bombs at the Boston Marathon. My purpose isn't to discuss crime and punishment or the validity of war, but to illuminate the changes that have occurred in our country since those two incidents exploded in our collective psyche. Now, you could almost climb to the top of a tall mountain and watch as the pulse of light from the Boston bombings shimmered across the glowing and wired network of our country. Imagine the network of electrical impulses, the web turning from a normal and efficient pink glow to an overactive hot white. The news wasn't confined anymore to the event, but encompassed our collective reaction to the event, culled from the immediate and vast onrush of opinions and thoughts. The anthill was disrupted and the ants rushed out.
I do understand our modern age. I know from looking at this example what we have become. Somewhere along the line, maybe in my lifetime, maybe it had been building to this before I was born, we turned from a desire for individuality, turned away from the lone pilgrim teaching his truth, towards a new methodology... a groupthink. Where does it lead? Ruination? Or salvation?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Return
I've been struggling with writer's block for, what seems like, a very long time. I looked back at the date of my previous post and was shocked to see it was from a month before I married my wife. So much has happened since then that to rehash all the events of the past year would be a bit like showing vacation slides... slightly entertaining at best and tedious at worst. Perhaps in time I can address some of the more life changing happenstances but for now I have to figure out why I can't seem to sit down on a regular basis and take note of my life. I have a few reasons in mind that are fairly explanatory and I think they cut to the heart of the matter.
For one thing, I have a fear that I'm not good enough. When I start a project I always shoot for the moon. I try to nail the writing on the first try and when it doesn't work I give up. Writing is a difficult and slightly mad endeavor. Especially when you're just testing the waters like I am. It never seems right when you are in the midst of it and there's no one to tell you whether it's good or if you're fooling yourself. Say what you want about whether I should feel that way, if I'm just putting pressure on myself, or that I should do it for myself anyway; it stops the pen from reaching the page.
I also wonder what it's worth. Words have become cheap now. Ideas have been co-opted and turned into commodities upon which the world gets drunk. When things like ideas and words become cheap, you can't trust them. At the very least, you don't put much weight in them. They aren't cheap in Sudan or Ukraine. Places where life is lived on the bone, where hot soup is soul enriching, words are checked and spared, everything hangs in the balance. Every day we explore our world, we comb through the headlines and we listen to the sales pitch. We find new things and learn, learn, learn. The more we learn, though, it quickly becomes clear just how unoriginal we are. Dare I contemplate how hateful we can be, as well? Has that not become clear? Not only do we hate people who are different, we hate people who hate different people! We have indulged ourselves watching the morbid circus of human folly and the thoughtful ones become overwhelmed. Time being stolen isn't just a quaint thought, it's an ongoing crime.
A certain amount of laziness can be attributed to my malaise. When I graduated from school, I thought having the degree was enough. I thought inspiration was going to strike me and I would write as if someone was doing the job for me. For a while I did write; for several years I kept journals and made searching intrigues into poetry and fiction, never finishing a story, always losing the train of thought. I forgot the first rule of craftsmanship; it requires practice. I didn't give myself a structure or a deadline. I didn't make the requisite time and I never set a place in the world. So many ideas floated through my head like a roaming searchlight. If I had learned to tame it I might have started something. In the end, the more I let my mind drift, the more I lost my self-discipline.
There's something else, though. I've been thinking longer about this ethereal problem and I find the problem to be a lot more sinister than it appears on the surface: There's an ongoing realization by some scientists, going by the Uncertainty Principle by Heisenberg, that even as we dig deeply into the farthest reaches of scientific discovery; even as we scan the most infinitesimal quantities and look into the deepest parts of space, there will always be something more, something that we will never have the capacity to see. At first, grains of sand were thought to be the smallest things on the planet. Then, elements... molecules... atoms... ions... then... quarks. The question keeps propping up, what are those made of? The ground we stand on is simply a thin crust of cool rock on top of an ever shifting current. Some of the stars we see in the sky may just be the dying light of a sun that died many millennia ago. As a writer, as a thinker, as a student of humanity, I seek the truth. The Truth, Meaning, is the ultimate prize. Many think that dying is the great Unveiling of the truth and that true meaning will be revealed then and only then. For me, this produces a real problem. It is more than a little unnerving to come to the conclusion that there is no truth in this life... that to commit to an action requires a belief in something, but that belief is based on false notions and that only fools follow paths blindly. For a man like me, it becomes a terrible maze.
Perhaps all we can really do is try our best. And be good to people. Those are things my dad taught me.
For one thing, I have a fear that I'm not good enough. When I start a project I always shoot for the moon. I try to nail the writing on the first try and when it doesn't work I give up. Writing is a difficult and slightly mad endeavor. Especially when you're just testing the waters like I am. It never seems right when you are in the midst of it and there's no one to tell you whether it's good or if you're fooling yourself. Say what you want about whether I should feel that way, if I'm just putting pressure on myself, or that I should do it for myself anyway; it stops the pen from reaching the page.
I also wonder what it's worth. Words have become cheap now. Ideas have been co-opted and turned into commodities upon which the world gets drunk. When things like ideas and words become cheap, you can't trust them. At the very least, you don't put much weight in them. They aren't cheap in Sudan or Ukraine. Places where life is lived on the bone, where hot soup is soul enriching, words are checked and spared, everything hangs in the balance. Every day we explore our world, we comb through the headlines and we listen to the sales pitch. We find new things and learn, learn, learn. The more we learn, though, it quickly becomes clear just how unoriginal we are. Dare I contemplate how hateful we can be, as well? Has that not become clear? Not only do we hate people who are different, we hate people who hate different people! We have indulged ourselves watching the morbid circus of human folly and the thoughtful ones become overwhelmed. Time being stolen isn't just a quaint thought, it's an ongoing crime.
A certain amount of laziness can be attributed to my malaise. When I graduated from school, I thought having the degree was enough. I thought inspiration was going to strike me and I would write as if someone was doing the job for me. For a while I did write; for several years I kept journals and made searching intrigues into poetry and fiction, never finishing a story, always losing the train of thought. I forgot the first rule of craftsmanship; it requires practice. I didn't give myself a structure or a deadline. I didn't make the requisite time and I never set a place in the world. So many ideas floated through my head like a roaming searchlight. If I had learned to tame it I might have started something. In the end, the more I let my mind drift, the more I lost my self-discipline.
There's something else, though. I've been thinking longer about this ethereal problem and I find the problem to be a lot more sinister than it appears on the surface: There's an ongoing realization by some scientists, going by the Uncertainty Principle by Heisenberg, that even as we dig deeply into the farthest reaches of scientific discovery; even as we scan the most infinitesimal quantities and look into the deepest parts of space, there will always be something more, something that we will never have the capacity to see. At first, grains of sand were thought to be the smallest things on the planet. Then, elements... molecules... atoms... ions... then... quarks. The question keeps propping up, what are those made of? The ground we stand on is simply a thin crust of cool rock on top of an ever shifting current. Some of the stars we see in the sky may just be the dying light of a sun that died many millennia ago. As a writer, as a thinker, as a student of humanity, I seek the truth. The Truth, Meaning, is the ultimate prize. Many think that dying is the great Unveiling of the truth and that true meaning will be revealed then and only then. For me, this produces a real problem. It is more than a little unnerving to come to the conclusion that there is no truth in this life... that to commit to an action requires a belief in something, but that belief is based on false notions and that only fools follow paths blindly. For a man like me, it becomes a terrible maze.
Perhaps all we can really do is try our best. And be good to people. Those are things my dad taught me.
Monday, May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012: Mind, Body, Spirit
When archaeologists discovered King Tutenkhamen's tomb, they found his mummified remains had disintegrated. The jewels wrapped in the cloths and buried with the child king, together with the adhesive tar or pitch used to adhere the cloth to the body, reacted chemically over eons, creating a fire, and turning the once divine king into nothing. Old cemeteries, places where the living revisit to find connection with their past, with old loves and family long passed, find the names on the headstones fading with each drop of water, each blinding ray of sun, each breath of wind. Bodily forms are lifted up from the soil, taught to fly, swim through life, and then fall back to the earth.
The mind ages with the body, and the spirit depends on the mind. As the body goes, and inevitably all bodies go, we become trapped in broken down shells. We are bombarded and shelled and beaten; Cooled and heated, burned, frozen, assaulted by winds, until our backs are broken and we hate the world. The spirit, once young, once glowing and flowing like spring sunshine, now coughs from the smog of the cities. The mind, engorged on the gristle of the Modern Tribune, tosses wildly on frantic seas.
The pain started in the back. The lower back seized up often, doubling me over at times. It often migrated to the middle of my back, behind the diaphragm, bringing the image of a creased or folded mat to mind. The kind of crease you try to unfold or reverse bend to get rid of but still it remains. Then at times the upper back would contract, pinching nerves and slumping me down like a crippled man. Night after night on a bed like a rack, and soon my blood flow was disrupted. Waking to a hand tingling with need, shaking the pain away and restlessly trying to find a good way to sleep. Now both wrists feel arthritic, and I can't make the number three in the american fashion. I can't make a good fist. I can't hold a pen for long. Years of walking on uneven ground, in bad boots, on old tennis shoes, over the rocks and rubble of bombed cities, on lakeshore rocks, on hot beaches and ice, have worn the ligaments in my ankles, shins, arches, and knees. Overexertion leads to a humming pain in my hamstrings, cramps in my arches and pelvis. Sitting too long has bent me over, and my energy has waned. If I don't get coffee in the morning I get headaches, and sometimes I have that pain in my chest that I know comes not from heartburn, but from high cholesterol. This body, which I used to think could get me through anything, is rebelling against my bad behavior.
It's no surprise we become cynical in our old age. All we once were is forgotten, the memories of how we acted among friends and family is golden fogged, and we see the world now through a lens of what once was, what is now lost. Yes the world changed, but the world always changes. The population has always gone up, and the complexities of the times were merely reflections of the complexities of us, of our relations with each other. "Love is for the young." "Revolution as a young man's game." "Youth is wasted on the young." Are we so much better? Were we any different than the kids we rail against now? Do we truly know how the world is while we sit and stare at the bits and pieces that reach us from our little media machines? Our bodies, they begin to fall from grace. Our minds, at once reject and recoil at the truth of this, and our spirits become older with memory. It is a fight, an endurance test, this life. If we don't fight the rising tide, the world keeps spinning, and we keep hating each other. Let thee not sell out thy spirit to comfort, leisure, and the machinations of the world, go out into the woods, breathe in the soil, go down to the river, let the ever freshening life of warm weather feed you and reawaken you! For me, I have to change my body first, then the mind and spirit will be young again. Until we meet again...
The mind ages with the body, and the spirit depends on the mind. As the body goes, and inevitably all bodies go, we become trapped in broken down shells. We are bombarded and shelled and beaten; Cooled and heated, burned, frozen, assaulted by winds, until our backs are broken and we hate the world. The spirit, once young, once glowing and flowing like spring sunshine, now coughs from the smog of the cities. The mind, engorged on the gristle of the Modern Tribune, tosses wildly on frantic seas.
The pain started in the back. The lower back seized up often, doubling me over at times. It often migrated to the middle of my back, behind the diaphragm, bringing the image of a creased or folded mat to mind. The kind of crease you try to unfold or reverse bend to get rid of but still it remains. Then at times the upper back would contract, pinching nerves and slumping me down like a crippled man. Night after night on a bed like a rack, and soon my blood flow was disrupted. Waking to a hand tingling with need, shaking the pain away and restlessly trying to find a good way to sleep. Now both wrists feel arthritic, and I can't make the number three in the american fashion. I can't make a good fist. I can't hold a pen for long. Years of walking on uneven ground, in bad boots, on old tennis shoes, over the rocks and rubble of bombed cities, on lakeshore rocks, on hot beaches and ice, have worn the ligaments in my ankles, shins, arches, and knees. Overexertion leads to a humming pain in my hamstrings, cramps in my arches and pelvis. Sitting too long has bent me over, and my energy has waned. If I don't get coffee in the morning I get headaches, and sometimes I have that pain in my chest that I know comes not from heartburn, but from high cholesterol. This body, which I used to think could get me through anything, is rebelling against my bad behavior.
It's no surprise we become cynical in our old age. All we once were is forgotten, the memories of how we acted among friends and family is golden fogged, and we see the world now through a lens of what once was, what is now lost. Yes the world changed, but the world always changes. The population has always gone up, and the complexities of the times were merely reflections of the complexities of us, of our relations with each other. "Love is for the young." "Revolution as a young man's game." "Youth is wasted on the young." Are we so much better? Were we any different than the kids we rail against now? Do we truly know how the world is while we sit and stare at the bits and pieces that reach us from our little media machines? Our bodies, they begin to fall from grace. Our minds, at once reject and recoil at the truth of this, and our spirits become older with memory. It is a fight, an endurance test, this life. If we don't fight the rising tide, the world keeps spinning, and we keep hating each other. Let thee not sell out thy spirit to comfort, leisure, and the machinations of the world, go out into the woods, breathe in the soil, go down to the river, let the ever freshening life of warm weather feed you and reawaken you! For me, I have to change my body first, then the mind and spirit will be young again. Until we meet again...
Sunday, April 29, 2012
April 29, 2012: He Doesn't Belong to Us Anymore
April: Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
It was a grey day, last Friday, with that rolling April wind that comes on like it's made of silk ribbons of warm and cold air. The kind of day that seems poised on an edge, ever changing, tempestuous. Appropriate since it mirrors the way I feel about visiting my father in the Home. I love him dearly, and I realized quite some time ago, that he was maybe the only real hero I ever knew. But to visit him now, to see him as he is, it wrenches me. I don't think I'm being egotistical or unfair to my family by thinking that my father was one of the special ones. Born third of seven, he seems to have been an accessible man to all of his brothers and sisters. They all had reasons for thinking they had a special connection with him, in that way that people confirm the existence of love by certain memories, callbacks to emotional times, shared moments. He didn't stand out in a crowd, he didn't draw attention to himself, he smiled at you and laughed with you. But now, there isn't much he can do for himself. He can't talk, can't remember how to take care of his personal hygiene, and can't survive on his own. Alzheimer's doesn't hurt you, it takes you away.
Opening the door to the Home is like falling down the rabbit hole. Old men and women walk around the house trying to connect with place, with each other, with the images they see. They speak to the caretakers, to visitors, and to each other, but they say nonsensical things. Some are obsessively complimentary, some are overtly crude and racist. Some call out for help. It is an amalgam of damaged humanity. A slice of primeval mind... men and women lost in a haze of dreams and memories. In order to relate I try to imagine that feeling I have of trying to remember the name of an actor or book that escapes me... desperate to make the right connection, searching for that name that's on the tip of my tongue... endless. I have a theory that they are all in a memory loop, having old conversations, speaking to their families, enjoying the life they had again. My father has garnered praise for being quiet. The caretakers ask me if he's always been quiet, and my mother says he was, but in my mind I can only think of all the times he's spoken, a lifetime of laughter and conversation.
He seems to have had problems letting them help him with his personal hygiene, which has forced them to use drugs to sedate him a little. Although they shave his face, brush his teeth, and give him a haircut, he seems to have a permanent tuft of hair coming out of his nose, and it's always a mess. Towards the end of his time at our home, he would spend way too much time brushing his two front teeth, up and down for 15 minutes at at time. We've had to buy him new shoes with velcro because he took all his shoestrings out and lost them. If there is a napkin on the table or a piece of paper he picks it up and tries to arrange it, or fold it, always keeping his hands busy. When he stands in front of a mirror he can't connect the man in the image with himself, so he becomes obsessed with his reflection and tries to talk to it, threatens it, moves his hands trying to figure out how the man in front of him can mirror his actions. He can only walk in short, stunted steps, seemingly afraid to stride confidently forward. Just thinking about him, and the way he is now, seems to scatter my own mind. I've tried three different times to write about my father and it always seems to fall short of my ambitions. I always end up trailing off, unsatisfied with the results of my attempts to describe my feelings for him. It's so difficult to decipher these new rules. So hard to translate in the spaces we're allotted. If I had more time, if I could spend years on it, I could come up with a definite answer to the riddle Alzheimer's sets upon us. But all I can do is describe the broken pieces, try to untangle this web one strand at a time.
My mother met me at the Home last Friday, but I was early so I sat down with him, tried to coax some kind of greeting out of him, some small talk, only to come up empty. So while we waited I picked up a newspaper and told him about the Detroit Tigers and the Mud Hens... I read him some of the headlines and talked about current events, and this seemed to engage him. He perked up and listened, trying to remember the names of people in the news, watching me talk. Perhaps this is something I can indulge in with him. Maybe he doesn't need to tell me things anymore. Maybe I should tell him things. When my mom showed up she brought him his new shoes and we took him out to dinner. We went to Rudy's and had some chili dogs and fries, and since the weather was bad we took him back. There wasn't much we could do for him that day. We took him back into the house and he simply fell in line with the rest of the residents, walking behind them into the dining room to eat dinner. Mom and I watched him walk away, decided we might as well go, and walked out. As we left my mom said to me, "He doesn't belong to us anymore, he belongs to them." All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry a bit. I think she's been on the edge of breakdown for the past few years. When she feels down, she must have that sick feeling in her stomach, that seemingly black empty hole that leads to real heartache. She begins to cry then pulls back, avoiding a debilitating, paralyzing, three day sob. After all she has to drive home.
What seems to me the real crime here is how young he is. He's sixty five and my mother is almost sixty two. The golden years have been ripped away from them. Their plans to travel and enjoy their retirement are over, and it appears to me like he won't be able to even be there for my wedding. If we have children, he won't know them other than the times we bring the baby to him. My future wife will never know the man he was and her family will never know him. It is a kind of tragedy. I always knew that one day my parents would both be gone from this world, and as we've aged I've become more and more philosophical about it, but I always thought we'd have more time, more memories to make. But it's a bit of a blessing, too, because I can see now, how short life really is, how beautiful is this world and this time, how much of it I've wasted, and how I don't want to waste anymore. My future life has always seemed like a distant horizon, I could see it and I knew I was moving toward it, but always it was undefined, vague and blurred. Now I am careening toward it, actively chasing it, desperate to live a good life. It's what he always wanted for me. Until we meet again...
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
It was a grey day, last Friday, with that rolling April wind that comes on like it's made of silk ribbons of warm and cold air. The kind of day that seems poised on an edge, ever changing, tempestuous. Appropriate since it mirrors the way I feel about visiting my father in the Home. I love him dearly, and I realized quite some time ago, that he was maybe the only real hero I ever knew. But to visit him now, to see him as he is, it wrenches me. I don't think I'm being egotistical or unfair to my family by thinking that my father was one of the special ones. Born third of seven, he seems to have been an accessible man to all of his brothers and sisters. They all had reasons for thinking they had a special connection with him, in that way that people confirm the existence of love by certain memories, callbacks to emotional times, shared moments. He didn't stand out in a crowd, he didn't draw attention to himself, he smiled at you and laughed with you. But now, there isn't much he can do for himself. He can't talk, can't remember how to take care of his personal hygiene, and can't survive on his own. Alzheimer's doesn't hurt you, it takes you away.
Opening the door to the Home is like falling down the rabbit hole. Old men and women walk around the house trying to connect with place, with each other, with the images they see. They speak to the caretakers, to visitors, and to each other, but they say nonsensical things. Some are obsessively complimentary, some are overtly crude and racist. Some call out for help. It is an amalgam of damaged humanity. A slice of primeval mind... men and women lost in a haze of dreams and memories. In order to relate I try to imagine that feeling I have of trying to remember the name of an actor or book that escapes me... desperate to make the right connection, searching for that name that's on the tip of my tongue... endless. I have a theory that they are all in a memory loop, having old conversations, speaking to their families, enjoying the life they had again. My father has garnered praise for being quiet. The caretakers ask me if he's always been quiet, and my mother says he was, but in my mind I can only think of all the times he's spoken, a lifetime of laughter and conversation.
He seems to have had problems letting them help him with his personal hygiene, which has forced them to use drugs to sedate him a little. Although they shave his face, brush his teeth, and give him a haircut, he seems to have a permanent tuft of hair coming out of his nose, and it's always a mess. Towards the end of his time at our home, he would spend way too much time brushing his two front teeth, up and down for 15 minutes at at time. We've had to buy him new shoes with velcro because he took all his shoestrings out and lost them. If there is a napkin on the table or a piece of paper he picks it up and tries to arrange it, or fold it, always keeping his hands busy. When he stands in front of a mirror he can't connect the man in the image with himself, so he becomes obsessed with his reflection and tries to talk to it, threatens it, moves his hands trying to figure out how the man in front of him can mirror his actions. He can only walk in short, stunted steps, seemingly afraid to stride confidently forward. Just thinking about him, and the way he is now, seems to scatter my own mind. I've tried three different times to write about my father and it always seems to fall short of my ambitions. I always end up trailing off, unsatisfied with the results of my attempts to describe my feelings for him. It's so difficult to decipher these new rules. So hard to translate in the spaces we're allotted. If I had more time, if I could spend years on it, I could come up with a definite answer to the riddle Alzheimer's sets upon us. But all I can do is describe the broken pieces, try to untangle this web one strand at a time.
My mother met me at the Home last Friday, but I was early so I sat down with him, tried to coax some kind of greeting out of him, some small talk, only to come up empty. So while we waited I picked up a newspaper and told him about the Detroit Tigers and the Mud Hens... I read him some of the headlines and talked about current events, and this seemed to engage him. He perked up and listened, trying to remember the names of people in the news, watching me talk. Perhaps this is something I can indulge in with him. Maybe he doesn't need to tell me things anymore. Maybe I should tell him things. When my mom showed up she brought him his new shoes and we took him out to dinner. We went to Rudy's and had some chili dogs and fries, and since the weather was bad we took him back. There wasn't much we could do for him that day. We took him back into the house and he simply fell in line with the rest of the residents, walking behind them into the dining room to eat dinner. Mom and I watched him walk away, decided we might as well go, and walked out. As we left my mom said to me, "He doesn't belong to us anymore, he belongs to them." All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry a bit. I think she's been on the edge of breakdown for the past few years. When she feels down, she must have that sick feeling in her stomach, that seemingly black empty hole that leads to real heartache. She begins to cry then pulls back, avoiding a debilitating, paralyzing, three day sob. After all she has to drive home.
What seems to me the real crime here is how young he is. He's sixty five and my mother is almost sixty two. The golden years have been ripped away from them. Their plans to travel and enjoy their retirement are over, and it appears to me like he won't be able to even be there for my wedding. If we have children, he won't know them other than the times we bring the baby to him. My future wife will never know the man he was and her family will never know him. It is a kind of tragedy. I always knew that one day my parents would both be gone from this world, and as we've aged I've become more and more philosophical about it, but I always thought we'd have more time, more memories to make. But it's a bit of a blessing, too, because I can see now, how short life really is, how beautiful is this world and this time, how much of it I've wasted, and how I don't want to waste anymore. My future life has always seemed like a distant horizon, I could see it and I knew I was moving toward it, but always it was undefined, vague and blurred. Now I am careening toward it, actively chasing it, desperate to live a good life. It's what he always wanted for me. Until we meet again...
Sunday, April 15, 2012
April 8, 2012: Copper Colored Tungsten Carbide
Perhaps it's always been this way. Perhaps throughout the vast generations of men and women loving each other and following that grand old ritual of courtship, flowing into the promise of engagement, then fulfilling the sacrament of marriage, men and women have always struggled with the disparate nature of their excitement for the impending ceremony. The timing, the levels of anxiety, that search in the other's eyes for the light of acknowledgement... the agreement of the weight of the occasion to be undertaken... this does not always occur simultaneously. It cannot be faked either. Insincerity in a relationship is quickly discovered by the lover as she or he sees the slight look away, the withdrawn muscle, the aura of falseness. No one should dare to try to sell that lie, to fake enthusiasm, because it is quickly resented, and trust is a hard thing to earn.
Since early May of 2011, when I asked for Anna's hand in a beautiful restaurant in the Renaissance Center overlooking the blue Detroit River, she has poured over details in magazines and on the internet. She has searched through examples of other weddings, cataloged countless ideas from glossy pictures of models in dresses, flowers, centerpieces, locations, and all the other untold minutiae that goes into putting together a wedding. I've watched her agonize, trying to reconcile the vision of the wedding she's always dreamed of with the desire to satisfy the needs of friends and family who will grace us with their presence. She has had to do all this while at the same time keeping up with an enormous work load. At times she has been overwhelmed. At times she has been overjoyed. She began counting down, marking each second day of each month with a smile and the question, "You know what today is...?" Up until recently, the best I could do was muster a smile, laugh and say, "Six months until our wedding day." I simply couldn't match her excitement. While the vision was being layered like warm blankets on a cold bed, I sat in the background wondering how she could invest so much into an event that seemed so distant, a light on the horizon. For me, I've held my excitement in reserve, because it would make the waiting so agonizing, almost unbearable. Time, months... weeks... days, would drag until, like her, I would be burned out, wishing only for an end to the wait, for the day to arrive.
For her, each new task she has accomplished has been a joyful occasion. Booking rooms, arranging for the flowers, finding a location, buying a dress, these things have been torches on the path leading to a distant hillside, at the tail end of a summer, under the warm afternoon light, in front of hundreds of friends and family, by my side. Trying not to dwell on that day has been like sailing against the wind, and I know I have been of little help to her. The fact is she knows what she wants. She knows how the room should look, how the ceremony should go, what kind of menu she wants to offer, what kind of music she wants to hear, and she knows how to go about getting it. I've listened, offered alternatives, helped her in her considerations, but the truth is all her ideas are well thought out and along the same lines as mine. While I've played a role, it has been minor, and I've been fairly stress free for all this time, able to carry on with other things while this long year and a half has dragged on. Until this weekend.
May 4 will mark the year anniversary of my marriage proposal to Anna. We will celebrate by returning to that restaurant for a meal. There will be four months left, a third of a year, of this seemingly endless stretch of time until the day we are married. That knowledge has begun to seep through to me. I see now that there are many small details that need to be dealt with, and the overall painting of the wedding needs to be shaded and detailed. These kinds of details can't be done alone, and now the things she needs from me are being more defined. The role is changing.
On Saturday, we went to a mall, to a Men's Warehouse in order to be fitted for a tuxedo for a friend's wedding I will be attending in November. While we were there we visited a jewelry store in order to find out what size ring I needed so we could order it online. We were simply looking to find out the size ring I needed because we had a pretty good idea what kind of ring I wanted. However, like many surprises life offers us, we found a fantastic copper colored tungsten carbide ring that simply jumped out at me, like it was waiting there the whole time. Perhaps this is the one thing that gives men a feeling comparable to a woman finding her dress. Anna watched me with a knowing smile as I danced to the music in the mall, and swayed in that golden light that seems to shine on true believers. I was, and am, in the trance of love, and the agony of waiting has become very real to me.
Maybe this is the way of things. Maybe this staggering of excitement is part of the ritual, ordained for the purpose of infusing new life and new energy into the couple when the hardship of anticipation is most keen, allowing the one who is working the hardest a moment of relief, a re-freshening, so that the work can get done, and the hopeful feelings of a lifetime can be invigorated. Until we meet again...
Since early May of 2011, when I asked for Anna's hand in a beautiful restaurant in the Renaissance Center overlooking the blue Detroit River, she has poured over details in magazines and on the internet. She has searched through examples of other weddings, cataloged countless ideas from glossy pictures of models in dresses, flowers, centerpieces, locations, and all the other untold minutiae that goes into putting together a wedding. I've watched her agonize, trying to reconcile the vision of the wedding she's always dreamed of with the desire to satisfy the needs of friends and family who will grace us with their presence. She has had to do all this while at the same time keeping up with an enormous work load. At times she has been overwhelmed. At times she has been overjoyed. She began counting down, marking each second day of each month with a smile and the question, "You know what today is...?" Up until recently, the best I could do was muster a smile, laugh and say, "Six months until our wedding day." I simply couldn't match her excitement. While the vision was being layered like warm blankets on a cold bed, I sat in the background wondering how she could invest so much into an event that seemed so distant, a light on the horizon. For me, I've held my excitement in reserve, because it would make the waiting so agonizing, almost unbearable. Time, months... weeks... days, would drag until, like her, I would be burned out, wishing only for an end to the wait, for the day to arrive.
For her, each new task she has accomplished has been a joyful occasion. Booking rooms, arranging for the flowers, finding a location, buying a dress, these things have been torches on the path leading to a distant hillside, at the tail end of a summer, under the warm afternoon light, in front of hundreds of friends and family, by my side. Trying not to dwell on that day has been like sailing against the wind, and I know I have been of little help to her. The fact is she knows what she wants. She knows how the room should look, how the ceremony should go, what kind of menu she wants to offer, what kind of music she wants to hear, and she knows how to go about getting it. I've listened, offered alternatives, helped her in her considerations, but the truth is all her ideas are well thought out and along the same lines as mine. While I've played a role, it has been minor, and I've been fairly stress free for all this time, able to carry on with other things while this long year and a half has dragged on. Until this weekend.
May 4 will mark the year anniversary of my marriage proposal to Anna. We will celebrate by returning to that restaurant for a meal. There will be four months left, a third of a year, of this seemingly endless stretch of time until the day we are married. That knowledge has begun to seep through to me. I see now that there are many small details that need to be dealt with, and the overall painting of the wedding needs to be shaded and detailed. These kinds of details can't be done alone, and now the things she needs from me are being more defined. The role is changing.
On Saturday, we went to a mall, to a Men's Warehouse in order to be fitted for a tuxedo for a friend's wedding I will be attending in November. While we were there we visited a jewelry store in order to find out what size ring I needed so we could order it online. We were simply looking to find out the size ring I needed because we had a pretty good idea what kind of ring I wanted. However, like many surprises life offers us, we found a fantastic copper colored tungsten carbide ring that simply jumped out at me, like it was waiting there the whole time. Perhaps this is the one thing that gives men a feeling comparable to a woman finding her dress. Anna watched me with a knowing smile as I danced to the music in the mall, and swayed in that golden light that seems to shine on true believers. I was, and am, in the trance of love, and the agony of waiting has become very real to me.
Maybe this is the way of things. Maybe this staggering of excitement is part of the ritual, ordained for the purpose of infusing new life and new energy into the couple when the hardship of anticipation is most keen, allowing the one who is working the hardest a moment of relief, a re-freshening, so that the work can get done, and the hopeful feelings of a lifetime can be invigorated. Until we meet again...
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