No Drinking Birds

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, begins to take on new meanings. Listening the the radio, I hear a woman say "I am going out today to spend, it's to help the economy, right?" She is so matter of fact I want to cry. I feel something on my lap. It is my jaw.

I remember the weeks after 9/11. National mourning turned to national outrage and vehement patriotism. Flags began to appear in the rear windows of the passing SUV's, then on the little antenna's of Honda Civics, then finally in the gutters beside the storm drains and in the streams that run through the watersheds.

There is something odd about good intentions. Hell I wanted to buy a damn flag. They must have been putting something in that water for that to happen. I remember walking into a gas station thinking "maybe they sell flags here" then catching myself "WTF!" It isn't that I am not patriotic. I am just not sure how much of my patriotic sentiment is going to be captured in a piece of old glory flapping from my antenna, (admittedly it would look like the flag flying over Fort McHenry, and that kind of rustification has a certain appeal, still.)

I think about the looks on my students faces. "We don't celebrate Thanksgiving."
"Why Not!!?"
"Well, for one thing, the only person in my family that eats turkey is my wife." It is surprising how many people are actually satisfied by this statement as an answer. After all, doesn't Thanksgiving equal turkey? "None of our extended family lives close by." Heads begin to nod. I am reminded of the infamous drinking bird. Once the Drinking Bird's head is dunked in water, it will begin bobbing back and forth taking "drinks" with every bob. "With the newborn, Thanksgiving is just too hard to orchestrate." By this point I have convinced the masses. If I were running for office I might have to work harder, how much harder is hard to say, still I am dissing Thanksgiving, the holy of holies, the American holiday, I don't think you can get elected to public office by telling people that Thanksgiving is a sham. I am pretty sure that if you even suggest as much, you have pretty much signed the death warrant on any hope of public office.

Even so, our Thankgiving was actually pretty good. J. found another family, friends we've known for a few years now, that also don't have extended families close by. We combined our two dinners and actually made something of a feast. Later we played 'Apples to Apples' and 'Spy Alley' before settling in to watch the 'Reduced Shakespeare Company'. D. said it was the best Thanksgiving she had ever had. I think she might be right. At least in recent history. It had a... casualness, you might call it, about it that was deeply satisfying.

As far as black friday goes, I didn't make it to the store today, even though D. insisted that everyone go to Target, on principle, I believe. I stayed home with the baby and played the Wii, drank a beer and made quiche, salmon and twice baked potatoes so that the hearty shoppers would have something to sink their teeth into. Tomorrow, instead of going out shopping, I will head over to a clients house and hang a painting they bought last week. J said it will help pay for x-mas. I suspect she's right. Pretty soon I will make my way out, brave a few high end specialty shops, (I stay away from malls), make a few choice purchases and then settle back and rest on the laurels of my shopping acumen. No drinking birds.

Hoo Hoo!

This is an announcement
For the transcendental run
The train now standing
Leaves for higher planes
Due to a derailment
There will be no other train
So why not hop on this one?
Hear the porter's glad refrain
Each carriage is connected
As is every single train
The rails all form a track
Which is a link within a chain
The chain's connected to another chain now
You will need no ticket
If you wish to ride on this train
Chorus:
All aboard the express kundalini
All aboard the express kundalini
All aboard the express kundalini
The song is in your heart
Your heart is in the song
The song is of the earth
The song is of the sky
You are disintegrating
Into everything around
Reintegrating
The worm we dug from higher ground
You have let go of ego
Ego is no longer you
Closer to nirvana
Since the porters whistle blew

The perfect gift for exes

Stumbling around the internet looking for gift ideas I found this gift idea for the broken hearted ex

wednesday morning poetry jam

J.'s notebook rumination reminded me of a poem (such as it is) I wanted to share:

Here the here
here the quiet
here the here and now.
Here, somebody bring me another round
Before I break it down
Before its broken down.
Here 1, 2-
Here 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4; 1 2 3 4
Here the hurling hurdy-gurdy
swirling spilling down
Here the quiet (silent yearning)
Here the here and now
Here, before I break it down
Before its broken down.
Here the time of timeless turning
here the yearning for the now
Here candescent incandescent
smiling of a smiling clown
Here the turning, endless yearning
Here the faceless endless brow
Here the bush is finally burning
Here the smiling of a smiling clown.

grateful

My grandfather made a note at the bottom of this photo just before he died. You can still see the blue ink of his Bic pen. “My grandfather A.” This is my grandfather’s grandfather Anderson. I don’t know where he was born, but the story goes he came across the plains with Custer’s 7th cavalry, and would have died at the battle of the Little Bighorn, but was separated from his group in Vermillion, South Dakota after having caught the flu and was later reassigned. I have no idea how much of that story is true, but you have to admit it is a pretty cool picture to have in your family closet.

It is a strange thing how history unfolds itself. How some things happen for good or ill, and we are all the time left to wonder what to make of it. I know that I have blogged about this from time to time, and yet it still fascinates me. It came up again today in church, and I found myself playing devil’s advocate with some of the things that were being said. Things like: “God is good.” and “I pray for acceptance.”

I am an absolute coward when it comes to prayer, that is, I pray in moments of desperation and then wonder at my foolishness later when things have run their course.

“I don’t think of God in these terms, rather God is something wholly other. Not only can we not say whether God is good or bad, it is the acme of foolishness to ascribe this kind of thinking to God at all.”

I was trying to say that, as far as our spiritual growth is concerned, things might seem good or bad to us, but that we couldn't really know what good and bad events will bring and more importantly that to ascribe that kind of thinking to God is really dangerous. Terms like “good” and “bad” are the slippery slope to: “why do bad things happen to good people” or “it is god’s will that some should starve with others do not.” In retrospect I am not sure if that is what I said at all.

Some would argue, in class that is, that God tries to teach us by our errors and our suffering. I know that I have been guilty of this line of thinking in the past as well. Well, one thing I heard that resonated with me was that “God is shaped by our thinking.” As soon as I heard this I knew that while suffering as a means to spiritual awareness has been described in many ways in many books and by many holy people, the kind of “suffering” that I have experienced could not be counted among them. I have it too good.

Seriously how do I suffer? Let me count the ways. Jenny and I were separated. That time has to be on the top of the list. My grandparents died. That was pretty horrible too. Crippling back pain, loss of jobs, financial insecurities, somehow in the grand scheme of things I don’t think it all adds up to much. In reality, even at my most crazy, I am pretty grateful.

I try to play a game with myself. It may sound cynical but it is nice. I try very hard to pinpoint the moment of the day when I am feeling my best. “This is the best I will feel today.” I know it sounds a little crazy but it is nice because it keeps me in the moment, for a time anyway, and allows me to find a bit of time to think, “wow, I have it really good.” As a side note, this usually occurs in the morning, sometimes in the car, usually when I have managed to shrug off sleep, the coffee is kicking in and the day is still full of possibility.

Anyway, after class I found myself thinking that I wasn't really sure if I believed if God was love, if God gave me life, or if I knew anything about God at all. I guess in moments like these all I really know is that I am grateful.

The Great Chili Cook-Off

Five thirty in the morning, cats tangled around my feet as I stand beside the stove, an array of spices, onions, garlic, sage and oregano, meat and peppers cover the counter. I am making chili. The kettle boils. Slowly I lower several ancho chilies into a cup of boiling water. Later they will be purred and mixed in. In moments like these, cooking stops being about the preparation of food and becomes alchemy, the transformation of base materials into gold.

You come to us
from another world

From beyond the stars
and void of space.
Transcendent, Pure,
Of unimaginable beauty,
Bringing with you
the essence of love. -Rumi

One of the judges looked me in the eye. “If there was a category for most… unique flavor, you would have won hands down.”
“Thanks” I say. It was a compliment.
“Your chili was really different.” She pauses, “it reminded me of a Cincinnati chili with that dark cinnamon/chocolate flavor.”
It’s called mole, I think to myself. Clearly the judge is an expert, able to discern the various regional dialects from a few scoops of meat and sauce. Feeling a bit sarcastic, I hang around and joke with my colleagues. I am not bitter.

“Your chili was sweet” Said another judge. "I liked it."
“The my kids like it that way. I respond. Everyone laughs.

Later I pop my head into the Dean’s office. “We missed at the Chili cook off today.”
“I wanted to give the other contestants their space. You see, I won last year.”
“You won the golden spoon?” I ask, impressed.
“My team did, mostly they just let me stir the pot.”
“Care to share your recipe?”
She looks nervously at the door then back at me “Well,” she hesitates, “I can only tell you this: the secret is in the meat.”
Quickly I make a mental note of this. “Yeah.” I say nonchalantly. “I used an organic ground chuck, how ‘bout you?”
She smiles at me, but doesn’t say a word. She is good. “I’ve really said too much already.” Embarrassed for having put the squeeze on my boss, I begin to tell her about my method. “Oh god!” she said. “You should have taken your pot of chili to Turtle Creek, you would have won hands down. You got way too fancy! You have to remember, your campus is out in the country a bit. You need to dumb it down. Throw in a handful of sticks and grass next time, you’ll fare much better.”
I cannot contain my mirth at this statement and laugh out loud. “Have a great holiday” I say, standing to leave.
“You too” she replies.


post-script
There were no vegetarians entries (duh-this is TEXAS.) After sitting around watching people eat chili for two hours (I was on clean up and had to stay) I am dying for... a chili dog of all things, tofu, beans, mustard, relish and onions please!

Identity Redux

Her workshop it littered with crayons, marker, and an empty container of Elmer’s glue. Scissors snip. Bits of paper fall through the air and come to rest on the carpet. Like marble dust from Michelangelo’s chisel.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

The warm air from the heater makes my eyes feel dry. I blink until a tear beads in the corner of my eye. The radio is on. Renee Montagne is interviewing Annie Leibovitz. “…the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul — I don't think this is possible all of the time."

G. looks up at me, smiling. In her hand is a note card covered with patches of color. Her name, clearly written, is embellished with more swatches of color and a lattice of swirls and polka dots, followed by the numbers 6,5,4,3. The five is written backwards.

“I made this for you Daddy.”
I love these kinds of gifts. I tuck them in my pockets like Zuzu’s petals.

I look at the dashboard. One of G’s “butterfly” creations covers the tachometer. The air from the vent makes the edges of the paper flutter.

I think about the interview. How does an artist capture “Soul?” Definitions are definitely in order for this conversation. Are we the mean bits of clay and gristle that covers up a shiny pearl? Or is who you are the culmination of what you have done, what you do, and what possibilities lay in the future; a definition that is only complete once you are no longer doing?

I remember the conversation in church. “We are changing all the time.”

I imagine my soul like the core of identity. “Is there a soul, or just me? What would it look like?” I think about this for a minute. It is a chalice, tucked away in some little nook behind the church alter. “To hold my life’s experiences” I muse. My mind floats over the choir of some great cathedral. Gliding forward, I hover a moment before the reredos then reach down and part the wooden doors that conceal the goblet. It is encrusted with jewels. A momentary flash of light blinds me. Looking down I can see a slick oily liquid that fills the basin. I can see my reflection on the surface. Is it wine? Oil? I think about the taint of sin. Was it Adam that changed or the world he lived in?

There is something on my face. The reality of it snaps me back into the present. It is a bead of moisture rolling down my cheek. I reach over and turn the heater off. My eyes lower one more time to G’s butterfly. The soft cerulean blue oval winks up at me.

The hard stone is bitter, cold and rough. The body, enslaved in matter, twists, yearning to be free. “I’m in here” a voice cries. “I am in here. In here. In here.”

identity

The chorus sings in my head.

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Trying to make his way home

Is it because it is Sunday? Sundays are fun-days, I hum. The unbidden memory of a photograph floats to the top of the pile: an Easter photo of my parents and siblings standing in front of the church wearing home sewn shirts. It was sometime in the early seventies. Pastels and wide lapels, the smell of eggs benedict lingers in the corner of these memories, a sunny Sunday brunch at a country club, where all the guests line up at the buffet. At the end a man in a tall chefs hat carves thick slices of ham off the bone and behind him in a field of sun drenched tables covered in white linen a young woman plucks a wistful tune from an enormous harp.

“I don’t like the donuts that are left.”
“Even the chocolate ones?”
“I like the type we get a church.”
“The glazed?”
“YES. Can I have a glazed donut when we get to church?”
“Why don’t you have part of a chocolate one now and we will see if there are any left when we get to church.”
“Chocolate?”
“Chocolate on chocolate.”
“O.K.”

Sitting in the small room, we are watching a video for adult Sunday school. A stream of faceless individuals proceeds to pull off a series of colored t-shirts. On the back of each shirt a single word, a label intended to identify the bearer. At first the words are occupations. Counselor. Cook. Artist.

“Will you identify yourself as an artist or a teacher?”
“I think it will depend on the situation.”
“It’s about how you think about yourself, what is most important to you art, or teaching?
“Art, I suppose.”
“Then you should identify yourself as an Artist first.”

Then the words become more… personal. Addict. Anorexic. I glance around the room to see if anyone is shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. Everyone is watching. Finally the last in a string of shirts is taken off. A young man in his early twenties, nondescript, muscular; takes off his shirt to reveal his smooth white skin. Between his shoulder blades is the word name.

The narrator talks about the story of Jacob wrestling an angel. He tells how Jacob has lied about his name to deceive his father and steal his brother’s birthright. He talks about his struggle with the angle who asks Jacob his name.

“Who are you?” asks the angel.

A string of white bonnets turn their faces away from the scene before them. Their eyes are tightly closed, as if the image of the wrestlers is taking place in the minds eye, outside of time and space.

Shall we gather by the river, the beautiful, the beautiful the river

“It is about identity.”
“The realization of who you are comes at the end of a struggle.”
“It is about coming to terms with your character defects, finding acceptance.”
“It is about living in the moment.”

I am none of these things. There is a reason I am me and not Jacob. Not Buddha. Not Christ. As a child I played the game of semantics. If Jesus is the son of God, and I am a child of God, then I could be like Jesus. I can walk on water (if I wanted to), I can heal the sick (if my faith were strong enough), and I can change water into wine. (head leans back, gurgling, “Mmmnn wine.”

I hear someone talking about the work it takes to be yourself, that it is about the work and not about being yourself. It reminds me of the Buddha. I hear myself speaking.

“The Buddha was enlightened at the beginning of his life, not at the end. He then made the conscious decision to stay behind and teach, to work.”

I am a little boy in a photograph. My puffy, pale blue shirt glistens in the sunlight. My whole life is ahead of me. I smile an awkward smile. I stare at the photo in my mind. I study the memory of it. Who is this child?

"Daddy Can I have some pirate booty?”
“Sure honey, I will get it for you.”

Standing, I look at the photo one more time. I wonder, am I thinking about eggs benedict?

Dream

I am driving. Surprising, actually, considering how much I drive on a daily basis that I don’t dream about driving more often. There is a familiar feel to being in my car, a kind of stillness that sits in stark contrast to the motion of the world around me. I am on the interstate. There’s road construction ahead and I slow to a stop. Cars begin to queue behind me. Slowly I inch forward till I am standing beside what looks to be a foreman.

I am no longer in my car. I look behind me; the other vehicles are still lined up in the same place. There is a white safety line, the kind you would see at a pedestrian intersection, drawn across the road. The foreman points to the construction. An entire section of the road is missing. Another man approaches and they begin talking about how long the work is going to take. He must be a geologist of sorts. He talks about the forces of weather, the wear of the wind, the elements, and the stability of the bedrock.

Glancing over his shoulder, I notice that I am sitting beside a cut through that leads to the other side of the interstate. There are other vehicles parked there, but there is room enough for mine to squeeze through. On either side of the interstate there is a small highway. I can double back, take the first exit cross over the interstate and drive along the feeder road to circumnavigate the construction.

I begin driving. I am back in my car. I look in the rear view mirror. The other cars are beginning to disperse. Some are following me; others are not patient enough to use the cut through and are driving over the median. Again others are opting to drive directly to the feeder road. I consider this for a moment, and recall the time I nearly got stuck in the mud and decide against it. There are cars coming. I dash across the highway and onto the opposite side of the road, only to realize that one of the cars is a police man in a black squad car. He passes me, but I see two more coming up in quick succession. I begin to accelerate and put on my blinker to merge into traffic. Suddenly a small black sports car shoots past at an incredible speed. The two highway patrolmen behind me take pursuit. For one brief instant I am sitting along side the officer, the radar reads 101.2.

“He was going over a hundred miles an hour” I think to myself. I am back in my car. The sports car has been pulled over. I pass them and get off on the next exit. The road rises over a small hill then drops down into a small country town. I take the first left and intend to circle around. I am a bit surprised that there is no bridge. No interstate either. I drive through the town a short distance before coming to an intersection. Glancing to my left I can see a short way down the road there is an onramp onto the interstate. I turn, but instead of taking the ramp I veer right and head towards the side highway.

I find myself wondering how I passed through the town without crossing the interstate. “A tunnel” I conclude, and while this makes no sense what so ever, I proceed with a kind of certainty that can only be found in dreams. I am on the edge of town when I see a train about to pull out along side the road. I park my car and, like Humphrey Bogart, jauntily hop on the caboose as it passes by.

The train is long and narrow. More like a children’s train that you might find at a zoo or a metropolitan park. Nonetheless I begin making my way across it, climbing steadily toward the engine. A conductor stops me and I hand him my wallet for safe keeping. As I continue to make my way forward the train becomes more crowded. A pair of young women dressed in swimwear lay in repose atop two of the carriages, one after the other, evidently tanning themselves.

I gingerly pick my way from carriage to carriage. Like the scene of a train culled from some film about nineteenth century India, the carriages become more and more crowded. Soon I find myself dropping over onto the sides of the train scaling the carriages in quick succession. Process continues to slow. Passenger cars are replaced by those carrying produce. The wooden panels are replaced by chicken wire and plastic mesh. Strawberries, peppers, and cherry tomatoes pass by. I am literally clawing my way forward.

Suddenly I have arrived. I stand up and look out over the country side. The interstate runs beside the track. I can see the construction that delayed my progress. It is slowly diminishing into the horizon. “I am going the wrong way!” The train is moving back towards the town! Somehow it has turned around. I look about frantically. I think “I need to jump off!” But the momentum of the train is too great. There are others here. A few young men, Hispanic, I think. I look at them imploringly and they return my gaze with one that is equally quizzical. We are all in the same boat. I pop a few tomatoes into my mouth. While bright red their taste is bitter, unripe.

I try to relax. “The train has to slow down as it passes back through town” I think to myself. Indeed it does, and I and two of the boys hop off with me. “I have a car” I say. We can all travel together. They nod in agreement.

As we make our way back to my car we seem to be passing through a series of tunnels, darkly lit passages that emerge periodically into terraced gardens. Progress is slow. Night seems to be approaching. As I make my way down one flight of stairs and then up another I run into yet another group of itinerant wanderers. We stop and explain our situation and they ask if they can come with. Agreeing I begin to jog forward towards my car. We are almost there. I look down and see a crumpled one dollar bill on the ground. I am afraid that one of my fellows may have seen it also and I hastily pick it up. Suddenly I remember that I had given my wallet to the conductor. “I don’t have gas money” I thought. “We will just have to make do, I guess.”

I push the dollar bill deeply into my back pocket. There is something else there: My wallet. “Where did that come from?” I flip it open, fives and tens are crammed into its folds.

“Whoa! You’re loaded” exclaims one of the boys behind me.
“I am never getting gas money from them now” I think.

My car is parked by the side of the road on a lawn of soft green grass that compliments the bright red paint of my Jeep. It looks inviting and I immediately feel a sense of relief. As I head towards the car I begin to wake up.

The predawn light is filtering in through the seems of the screen. It is early 6:30, possibly 6:45. I check the clock. It says 6:40. I swing my legs gently over onto one side and then carefull raise myself to sitting so as to assist my back with the weight.

Sitting on the edge of the bed the house is silent. Everyone is still asleep. I think about me dream for a minute. Suddenly the truth of it hits me. “Where was I going?” I shake my head and rub my eyes in a single gesture with thumb and forefinger before going to start the morning ritual of coffee.

hawking emotional loogies

Sigh. I look in the rear view mirror. G. is staring out into space. The long line of cars at the intersection has come to a complete halt as the crossing guard emphatically waves the stop sign in four directions. “STOP!”

G.’s school merged with a magnet school a few years back and went from a sleepy neighborhood elementary to a bustling metropolis sized school overnight. The infrastructure never caught up. I come to the intersection, check in four directions, make a left, and then a quick right into the circular drive in front of the building. I come to another complete halt. The cars ahead of me have opted to drop their children off directly in front of the main entrance instead of pulling forward to allow the cars behind access to the curb.

I look in the rear view mirror and the lady behind me has pulled out of line and is attempting to circumnavigate the traffic and pull to the front of the queue. I have done this many times myself, but for some reason this morning it irritates the hell out of me. I drop off G. and move forward, eventually passing her car. I glance over, fully intending to give her a dirty look, but she is busily assisting her own child out of the vehicle. I imagine what I would want to say to her if I had the chance. Nothing mean. Just “Wait.”

A memory floats to the surface of my mind. Five years ago G. was born. That same morning I loaded D. into the car and drove her to preschool. On the way home I followed a little black sports car through the school district by my house. Kids were walking along the side of the road and yellow flashing lights were reminding everyone of the 20 mph speed limit. Suddenly it pulled over. As a passed the woman rolled down her window and began to scream at me. “SLOW DOWN!”

I pulled my car over in front of hers and got out. As I approached her window I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I looked at the woman. I felt my blood boiling. She was still screaming at me when I leaned forward and spat on her.

It turns out spitting on someone costs about two hundred and fifty dollars.

The lady on the radio sings: Canto contra dictaduras emocional

Why this memory? Why now? I feel sick, embarrassed. I have no desire to relive this shameful event in my life again. I begin thinking about my blog. About how memories of people might not be about the people at all. They are about me.

“It seems kind of ego centric.” Said J.
“I know!” I said “Wait. Do you mean that in a bad way?”

Is it possible that my mind is my friend? I have lived so long feeling the emotional weight of these kinds of memories that I just assumed that my brain was trying to slowly suffocate me. “Maybe it is just trying to remind me of the consequences of an out of control emotional train of thought.” I think. Can this be right?

The radio sings gently on:

Pack up all my care and woe,
Here I go,
Singing low,
Bye bye blackbird,
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is she,
Bye bye
Blackbird!

Releasing the Scapegoat

I should be preparing for a lecture I am giving in fifteen minutes, but my mind keeps going back to Sunday. Standing in the hallway after “Sunday school,” another member came up to me.

“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure man, what’s up?”
“I wanted to ask you about your vote for Obama, do you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Because I was interested in Obama, and I would have even voted for him myself, but I wasn’t sure about his character…”
“His character?” I asked quizzically.
“Sure. I mean, with McCain you know what he is about. He is a man of integrity, his record shows that. But what do we know about Obama? Nothing, right? He has no record. Now I think of you as an intelligent person, and I wanted to ask you what you knew about Obama that I didn’t that made you vote for him.”

I find myself going over this conversation again and again, thinking about my response, and the futility of the conversation. I will tell you I don’t think either one of us left satisfied. For myself, I think I was mystified by the word “character.” I am pretty sure I should have asked for a definition before we proceeded. Hindsight is golden.

The category, Obama, for one hundred dollars: what is character Alex?

I talked about the differences between the two candidates, the policies that they supported, the position on the economy, Reganomics…

“But what do you know about his character. I haven’t talked to an Obama supporter yet who can answer this question for me. I am unconvinced.”

Thinking about this argument makes me a little insane. I finally realized that it is because weren’t even talking the same language. I was going to talk policies, and he was going to talk, well, character. Alas, you can win the battle and lose the war as it were.

Driving home, J. asked me what I was thinking about.

School.

In fact, every time I think about this conversation I find myself lapsing into conversation with the graduate faculty. The parallels in my mind are obvious. SO obvious that it only took me three days to realize them. How I can paint my heart out, talk about my art till I am blue in the face, do everything I can to meet the requirements, and never make any headway… We are not talking in the same language.

Usually I think about the first person I asked to chair my committee, M. Sitting in my car I find myself screaming at him. Heaping the tired old conversations that keep pinging around in my head on top of him like they are his entire fault, and if he would only just open his damn eyes my metal anguish would end.

He is a scapegoat. Carrying the sins of the people placed on it and sent away into the wilderness. But I cannot kill my scapegoat. I can only watch helplessly as it prances around my imagination. In Christianity the Jesus is the scapegoat. Heaped with the sins of humanity, he rises again as an innocent, revealing that it is humanity, and not the goat that is the root of the problem.

Sigh. I know, I know. I am the problem. I feel the palm of my hand rubbing into my eye socket. I realize that I am thinking hard about this, oblivious to the world around me. This is all taking place in my head. M. is not the scapegoat here, I think I am.

I knit my brow. I have a kind of “Say my name. Say my name”
“Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden. You freak!” moment, where the warring parts of my personality collide on one another, conversations at church and school amalgamating into one another until they are almost indistinguishable from one another and then pour out onto the head of some other son of a bitch, like Samuel anointing David. Except that, like the characters in my dreams, I have been playing all of the parts in my little play.

How do I kill the scapegoat? Stop being my own whipping boy? Perhaps. But Scapegoating is the act of holding a person, group of people, or thing responsible for a multitude of problems, problems which, for the most part, I have no control over. The Goat is not the problem. He is just the dumb son-of-a-bitch who gets the blame for everything. I think today I need to let him off the hook.

Interesting Gift Ideas

Only I will remain.

Pain gives greater breadth to space. I take a long slow breath. The cool morning air fills my lungs. The world comes sharply into focus. Getting from the car to the building seems like a daunting task. I try to focus on the destination, but the journey keeps getting in the way. The parking lot is nearly empty, which makes it seem larger than it is. I breathe out. “Is the sun unusually bright?” My hand, resting on the roof of my car grasps involuntarily into the void.

“You can do this.”

I rest one toe on the curb, the heel falls on the pavement; it has the unexpected consequence of stretching the muscle. It feels good. Pleasure gives me confidence. Cautiously my legs change positions. Like a runner preparing for a marathon, I find my self warming up for the long journey ahead.

Yesterday. Sitting at the computer I head a noise and turn to find S. morosely stalking up behind me.

“Pick me up.”
“Do you want to sit on Papa’s lap?”
“Unhungh.”

She climbs into the seat and snuggles in tight. Her body feels warm. Seconds later, there is no time to react, I watch as she releases a torrent of vomit over my chest and lap. I leap to my feet and run to the bathroom. We are both covered in her sick. Quickly I rinse off in the shower and then begin to pour a bath for her. G. is singing in the other room. I need to get dressed for work. I slip quietly into the bedroom where J. and baby are asleep on the bed. A pile of clothes lay neatly stacked and folded on the floor next to the closet door. I bend over to grab a shirt. I am on automatic pilot when suddenly I feel the all too familiar pulse shoot across the middle of my back. I straighten out, but I know it is too late. I’ve pulled something.

There is no use in standing here. I cannot go backwards, only forwards. I begin the long walk across the parking lot. My own short mincing steps make me think of a geisha with wrapped feet. I imagine myself in a kimono with a painted white face. The comical image makes me smile.

In some ways I am disappointed. The pulled muscle is a return to an earlier way of life. 48 days without incident. 72 days without incident. 81 Days without incident. 0 days without incident. I try to remember what it felt like to be without pain, but the pain does not allow this. I take small sips of air as I approach the door. “I am not going to fall into fear.” This sounds familiar, I have heard this before. My mind reaches out into the ether of remembrance, pulling gently on the golden strings of the past. In my mind’s eye I can see the passage, the litany against fear:

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

My hand reaches out for the door way. I remember to position myself closely to the door so that my weight, and not my back, is doing the work. The handle feels cool in my palm. I have made it. Confidently I lean back on heels and let the door swing wide. Only I will remain.

Unveiled by Popular demand

Creation

Where are good ideas born, in the heart or in the mind? Do we stumble on them by chance, or are they the product of a life’s pursuit?

S. is crying. I can hear her mewing down the hallway, or is that dream? The universe slowly comes into focus. I am lying on the couch. Mentally I do an inventory of my body, muscles and bone locked together in a delicate dance. How long have I been here? I look over at the clock. Its 6:30. I try to sort out reality with little success. Why is it so dark?

“Are you sleepy honey?”
“Un-hungh.” She replies crawling under the saddle blanket that is haphazardly strewn across my torso. Where did that come from, and why are me feet so cold? I give her a gentle kiss on the top of her head as she snuggles in close to me. There is a one in a thousand chance that she will actually fall asleep.
“Good night honey.”
Twenty minutes later we are watching cartoons on PBS.

Four hours have passed. A shadow darts across the peripheral. Was that a cockroach? I stare at my keys. There seems to be a few extras. I begin a mental countdown of the various locks to which I am given access. “Where does this go?” Unperturbed I flip through the lot again, landing solidly on my office key, the key to the back door, and finally the one to my studio.

Walking into my studio I immediately begin making a mental inventory. Piles of refuse, bits of paper and canvas, and a bag of fabric scraps litter the floor, drill and hammer, stencils, markers, and a stack of stretched square canvases unceremoniously dumped in the corners. Gingerly picking my footfalls through the debris of creation I take my place in front up the upended pile of canvas. This is going to take a while.

The rasp of the drill fills the room; discarded canvases are sorted into uneven piles all around me. I have been shuffling these cards like a Vegas dealer for what seems like an eternity, waiting for the shift boss to relieve me. I have managed to pick nine basically square canvases from a pile of over sixty and have organized them into a three by three grid and have begun to fasten them one to the next.

I painted this collection almost six months ago. It was intended as a monument to frustration, canvases, stretched and painted then stacked one on top of the next till it rose, like Ozymandias’ pedestal from floor to ceiling.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t use pizza boxes. Now that would have been something. They could have been dripping with old sauce and cheese instead of paint.” I brush the memory of this critique away like an old cobweb before my face as I prop the coupled canvases against the wall.

Stepping back my eyes move with wonder across the painted surface. Each canvas is an articulated work in its own right. I had originally painted then so that the drips would give depth and texture to the edges of each canvas one pile one on top of the next. But here, the swaths of paint, the discordant colors, the irregularity of the square suddenly seemed to leap off of the canvas.

Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news.

“Crap!” I said. I was never going to be able to over paint this. It was too beautiful. I stood for a moment in total wonder at the accidental creation I had concocted, like Frankenstein’s monster I had breathed life into useless parts. I wondered for a minute what people would say if they saw it. Would they see it through my eyes, or would it be the useless bits and pieces rescued from the cutting room floor, patched together in the vain attempt to resuscitate them? “I will never be able to explain this to the faculty.” I reluctantly thought. But I wasn’t going to paint over it either. Defiantly I turned back to the fifty or so remaining canvases, rolling up my sleeves and setting in anew.

Sharing

It’s one of those wonderful Saturday afternoons that actually feel like a Saturday. Maybe it’s because of the fall weather, the shorter days and the long rays of the sun the peak beneath the hem of the curtains and throws their long warm beams across the floor. Perfect for cats, small children, and lethargic adults to curl up on and close one sleepy eye to the realities of job and school.

The day after Halloween is always a bit of a let down. The carved pumpkins have already begun to melt in the Texas heat, their withered visages visibly disturbed by the warmth as the flesh begin to curl around the carved out triangles and squares of the jack-o-lanterns toothy grin and hollowed out orifices. All over the country, siblings sit amid piles of last nights spoils making trades to somehow improve their lot.

“I will give you two bit-o-honeys and a tootsie roll for your M&M’s.”
“No Way! You can have the hundred thousand dollar bar, but not the M&M’s”
“Please.” She whines. “I’ll throw in a licorice.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“MOMMY!”
“Cut it out you two!” I cried. Nothing good ever comes from these exchanges. You would think by now that they would have learned. D. has a funny way of orchestrating trades without ever letting go of ownership.

“She won’t let me play with my doll.”
“It’s not your doll, you gave it to her, remember?”
“Yeah. But I want to play with it and she isn’t sharing.”
“Well. It’s hers. She’s using it. She doesn’t have to share.” I think about this for a minute. It doesn’t sound right, but I can’t put my finger on why.
“It’s not fair! I want to play with it too!”

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. - Rumi

I have an idea for a painting. It is one I have been working on for a couple of weeks now, making a mental tweak here, and adjustment there. Sitting in the hot tub in the gym I suddenly feel the timer go off inside my head. The idea is done. Time to take it out of the oven. I begin making plans to construct the armature. I realize almost immediately that all the materials I need are sitting in my studio in C. No need to reconstruct the wheel. I need to go to C. I pull out the phone and begin to call J. Pausing for a minute I weigh the decision to go now verses tomorrow. I blink my eyes slowly. The lids feel heavy; there is a kind of internal comfort to keeping them closed. “I am tired.” I think. “I’ll never make the drive.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Nothing. Why.”
“I was thinking I might go to C.”
“Oh.” I can hear her thinking about this. “Why don’t I go to the gym after church and when I get home you can go.”
There issomething oddly familiar about this conversation. “Maybe a couple of the kids can come with me.”

On my way home I pick up the ingredients for dinner.

"What are you making?
"A childhood favorite, goulash"
"Oh I've had your goulash before."
"Really? I made it before."
"Yeah,but I didn't like it somuch last time. I think I was expecting it to be like one of my childhood favorites, American chop suey."
"I'll make it different this time."

The long beams of the afternoon sun creep out along the edges of the curtains, bounce along the floor and then up into my eyes. Unconsciously I close my eyes to the glare. My eyelids feel satisfyingly heavy. “I tired.” I think.