The Keys to Happiness: An Adventure

The man said, “I’m so depressed that falling down would feel like getting up.” Fortunately, I don’t feel that way. I feel bolstered, happy, content. I have joy in my life over simple things: running a vacuum when I thought I might never be able to again. I do want things, but not having them has not cut me low. I wish I had more time, money, money to take the time and pay for travel. But wishing and wanting are okay things unless they eat away at you. Wishing keeps you goal-oriented as long as the wishes are reasonably attainable. I can’t run for President because of an accident of birth, so wishing to live in the White House is not a reasonable goal. I might run, anyway, but with no expectations. Wishing to return to Holland is more reasonable, given enough time to accumulate enough money for the trip – hence my wishes listed above. Goals keep you going. They lift you up. They give you hope. They encourage you to get up every day. All these things are fine with me. Whatever time I have, I will do the best I can. There are moments. Tuesday was one. Di had a doctor’s appointment late morning and we were ready to leave in plenty of time, but as soon as I closed the front door I realized that I had left my keys inside. Di did not have hers, either. I went to the back of the house but the back doors were locked, as they should have been. We thought our son might have a spare, but when we tried to call him we discovered the cell phone was dead. I tried the credit card trick but immediately discovered I have no talent for breaking into houses. So we walked down the hill to our neighbor’s house. Fortunately, she was home. From there we got hold of Nik. He was sure he did not have a key, but would look, and would be right over. Meanwhile, with highly stressed intonation, Di called the doctor’s office to explain why we were not there. Fifteen minutes later, Nik arrived, keyless. It was decided that a new door knob was cheaper than a house call by a locksmith. So Nik took my aluminum bat to the lock. It took a while – I felt somewhat encouraged that the lock was so hard to bust – but it finally gave way and we got inside. We rescheduled the appointment. I then went to our local hardware store, Sliters, to get a new lock. When I got the lock home, I could not figure out how to remove the strike-plate attached to the main mechanism. Not wanting to break it, and not opening the instructions in case I had to return the item altogether, I packed up all the bits and went back to Sliters. By now the air was more blue than the sky. The people at Sliters helped me, between finally opening the instructions and using their muscle (if they broke it, I would not feel guilty, or nearly as stupid as I was feeling). Meanwhile, I had them make two spare keys. I returned and the new lock, with four keys, stands ready to guard against all evildoers. Nik now does have a spare, and I keep one in a logical spot. And our front door has a lovely, distressed, broken into ambiance. Now we want a new front door. I hope to get it soon, installed of course, with lots of spare keys.

Apology

Apology It has been a busy week. Not wild, but very, very busy. It seems that, since my heart attack on February 6, my time has not truly been my own – though I am grateful for the time! Whoever might own it! Still, I have had little or no time to write and especially to polish my words into a blog or a poem. As short as those forms might be, they still need a concentrated dose of time to do them justice. So I apologize: this is April, which is Poetry Month. During which we are encouraged to write and post a poem a day on whatever website we prefer; I have some catching up to do. As to the blog, I sort of promised myself not to let such huge gaps occur between entries and, again, I have slipped from the path. The hardest part is getting started. It always is. I have talked about distractions in the past (often, being often distracted). Being busy is a major distraction. My mother used to say, “If you need something done, find a busy man.” He will find the time, he will find a way. But the truth is, having a busy schedule wrecks the mood. It is positively daunting to sit down at the keyboard to write even a short piece like this one, knowing you have to leave for therapy mid-day (which includes a forty minute drive each way), or prepare and enjoy dinner soon after you get back home. By then, tired, you begin to think about tomorrow. I know, this sounds like an excuse as I read it back. If you remember from an earlier blog, excuses are often welcome in a writer’s garret. We open the door when they knock, invite them in, offer them coffee, and bemoan to them our fate that we just can’t seem to find a good solid block of time to get started. And then there are the novels I plan to write, long term commitments that might or might not turn out. Writing a novel is like committing to a relationship, fraught with the fear that you will disappoint. And that is a heck of an excuse. So all I need now is to get started, and all I need for that is a solid block of time. Oh, wait, dinner’s ready.

Deep in the Zone: My Zepplin Moment

Every now and then, you enter the Zone so completely, with such connection and understanding, that you become one with whatever it is you are doing. It is like drinking the liquid luck potion Professor Slughorn gave to Harry Potter; knowing that “Stairway to Heaven” will be the best rock song ever; Wisconsin will beat Kentucky; the San Francisco Giants will win three world championships in five years. The Zone is a very special place that renders a feeling unlike anything else in the world: this is good. A few days ago I wrote a kick-ass poem. I knew it was kick-ass with that absolute certainty that comes only from the Zone. I posted it as part of the April Poetry Month challenge on the Linkedin discussion group, Poetry and Literature. I also posted it on Poemhunters.com, a site for poetry enthusiasts of all types and preferences, where I myself have discovered several great poets. I got confirming responses right away, from both postings. So, with humility, and knowing that many of you are not really into poetry at all, I offer it to you, my Zepplin moment: //Lament of Those Who Did Not Fall //There are those who did not fall, //Who now stand, hunched, weighed down, //Whose stoic resistance //To the embrace of Death //Brought them home to just grow old //Clinging to memories //They now wish they did not own. //Each will succumb soon enough, //Each will take their place //Among their fallen comrades, //Among the innocent no one meant to kill, //Their names one by one read //On the scrolls drunk to in Valhalla. //Memorials float on the breeze //Like the strains of Last Post //Or the guitar strings snapping //In search of long lost songs; //And in these shadows cast //By aching monoliths, //Those who did not fall //Remember only sorrow //As bugles sound again.

Where Artists Are Born

THE HUMANITY OF DEATH If I wrote a novel in which no one died a violent death, my readership would be small even if I were an established best-selling author. There are exceptions (there always are, or we wouldn’t need the word), but in most of the fiction we enjoy, Death occurs. Some of the best feature Death prominently; in The Book Thief, Death is the narrator. People die in Harry Potter; in fact, murder is the entire back story defining the main character’s importance. Without Death making her appearance, most stories are boring. There would be no mysteries, no epics, no war stories, drama and angst can exist without Death underlining the moment. Humans are violent, primitive, deadly creatures. We are not evolving quickly enough to suit me, and our stories that glorify death and Death just fuel the fire, and I know this. And yet I kill people – sometimes in most inventive ways – in my own stories, and recount other deaths in my re-tellings. The same thing that makes war seem so glorious when you are 18 and training to fight yet so heinous when you are 19 and have survived the fight, that makes the danger of being killed in a story or on a movie screen so intensely frightening and surviving the story (even by remote control) is the humanity of death. That humanity finds its roots in our fear of and fascination with the Dark Lady herself. I am guilty – I like it. I confront my demons by writing about them directly or enjoying the agony of others in a similar battle. I can rationalize by saying what I am confronting is my very own nature through vicarious actions, which is true but also a bit of a cop-out. I am human. I think about dying. I think about killing. And as long as my thinking is abstract and not confused by the reality of a real body lying face down in a pool of blood or the crushing weight of a metal box burning inside my own chest, I am safe. I believe it is accurate to say that every human being is both living and dying simultaneously, but only a fraction of us give that much thought. It is that fraction from where artists are born.

Bonus Blog: Yesterday, April 2, 2015

Yesterday was positively amazing to watch. I ran a couple of errands and picked up our mail around 11:30; on my way back home I found myself in a positive snow flurry. By the time I got home, it had gone. A little while alter, while having lunch, I saw it begin to snow again – huge flakes worthy of full-on winter. For half an hour they attacked the ground like GI’s on Omaha Beach, and began to blanket our just greening lawn and our porches. Then the sun came out and the snow retreated. A while later the snow returned, but this time its strategy had changed: this time it attacked only the front half of the house. One porch was turning white while the back porch was bathed in sunlight. And, again, the snow gave way in the end. But it was not done. There was one more assault in store. As the afternoon deepened the snow attacked the whole region of our home, and fell so hard and thick and fast that the air turned white. But the ground was still warm and even that last onslaught gave way as a beautiful nearly full moon began its slow arc across the sky even before the sun began to set. The other thing that happened yesterday was that Iran and the so-called P-5+1 reached an agreement on the framework for a more formal agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear production, dismantle their main plutonium plant and reconfigure it, and open itself up for full on inspections. It was a monumental achievement partly between two countries highly suspicious of each other – but only partly. Five other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council participated in the negotiations, including Russia and China. To think this was a US-Iranian deal is ridiculous; to think that, in any way, shape or form, the chance to monitor Iran is more dangerous to the world than things as they are, or another war in the region, is insane; to think that the deal relies on trust and not precise and careful methods of accountability, is insulting.. Nothing yet has been signed. There are three months to hammer out the fine details and to understand the full implications of the deal. What we don’t need is obstruction, especially when so many other crucial nations are moving forward. We do not need 47 senators clamoring for a course that might lead to conflict, unless those 47 legislators are going to be the ones putting their asses on the line – literally. We need responsible thinking to scrutinize and perfect the plan. We need to bring Iran back into the world of nations. We need to protect our allies in the region by stripping Iran of its capability to create nuclear weapons overtly or covertly, and this treaty, once signed, will do just that. If the United States fails in this, the term Rogue may be applied to us. And that would be as likely as snowfall in April in Montana.

Cassandra Goes to War

Cassandra Goes to War Call me Cassandra. I sometimes feel like her, walking the embattled streets of Troy issuing dire predictions to deaf ears. Father Priam frowns. Hector scowls. Paris laughs outright and Helen just shakes her head sadly: “Yes, but what can I do? I am only a woman like you, and the cause of all this.” Andromache, who will lose more than any human being should be able to bear, simply gathers Cassandra in her arms as if comforting a precocious but clueless child. It is a curse, the curse of Cassandra, to see and speak and know, yet have no one pay attention – worse, they continue the very course she sees as leading to disaster. And disaster always comes. It was her curse, passed on to me and millions like me. Cassandra was an auxiliary character, sad and fascinating in her own right. She was put into the Iliad to emphasize the inevitability of Fate when the Gods themselves are so fickle. I am even more auxiliary: I am a secondary character in my own novel. I do not begrudge the world its hubris but I continue to issue warnings only the converted heed. The ones I want to convince will not be persuaded, whether the issue is climate change, ending poverty, or preventing war. It does not fit the bottom line. The rest of us are the bottom line, or buried beneath it like Dead peasants and starving Armenians. Yet, even knowing that to be true, even knowing that all wars are waged for the profit and/or empowerment of a highly selective few, we fall for the spiel every time; even knowing that poverty kills a child every three seconds, we turn away from what we do not see; even knowing that the overall complexity of planetary climate can be influenced by human actions, we so quickly accept the opposite because it is convenient. And even though I know it will do no good, I scream against the darkness nonetheless.

The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter I feel like my figurative heart has taken over my life. Maybe that’s fair: my metaphorical heart has dominated my existence for decades. It’s the real heart’s turn. But it takes so much time! Energy! Pills! I cannot wrestle out blocks of time long enough for more than the occasional blog or a short poem, first draft; it feels as though I open up my ancient computer, check my emails, pull up a working file, and it’s time to go. Yes, that’s a complaint, yet I acknowledge that, when I do get a block of extended time these days, I would rather watch old episodes of Doctor Who than work. And that’s on me. We all are dominated by our own self-interests, and most of the time that’s good. It’s called survival, and every now and then we must pull back from the world, listen to our bodies, and hibernate. How else can we be of help to others, if we are too exhausted to help ourselves? But, I keep reminding myself, Winter is over. I know how lucky I am. So many others have it much worse than what happened to me. But I can share best my own experiences and impressions. Sharing is therapy for me and it might be helpful to someone else. It might bridge a gap in understanding your own situation, or give someone suffering from similar issues the courage to seek the help they need. It comes back to listening heartily to your own body and your own mind. So if I go back to the heart of the matter from time to time, bear with me. It’s a good thing: my heart will go on – and on, and hopefully on – for a long, long time, season after season, and word after word.