Flash Fiction Thursday (or, I’m Too Tired to Write More)

In the bottom drawer, on the day of Big Papa’s funeral, the boy found the pistol, worn shiny bright. He stuck it in the waistband of his goin’-to-town clothes, where it clung to the small of his back in the Georgia heat. Ten years later he was shocked at the loudness of the shot, even though he never heard the scream.

Lost Threads

Making a career out of writing about the inability to write seems impossible. Of course, making a career out of merely writing also seems impossible to me, at least. Yet again ideas flit like hummingbirds into the garden of my mind, only to be chased off by the distractions of bad news, social media, and the attendant anxieties. In a world of flashing lights, my mind is a crow: observant, apparently intelligent, and overly fascinated with shiny objects. I am a compliant victim of self-inflicted diffusion.

This diffusion is irritating. The mind unfocused and swirling like a cloud of starlings over a meadow. There is no cure for it, aside from putting everything out of my head and latching on to one thing or thought. In my case, I find that near impossible, too. Most days when I can persuade myself to put down the phone or tablet, the one thing I grab hold of is food. Food and cooking. And thinking about food and cooking. The thing becomes the thought and vice versa.

To give you perspective, one day last week at work I just could not keep my brain on task. Not that the tasks were onerous, mind you, but they were not grabbing my imagination. Consequently, between queuing up music to stream (a bizarre intersection of electronic dance music and stoner rock, mostly) and desperate attempts to get things done, all I could think of was dinner. Specifically, a good sandwich from this local Italian deli I’ve come to favor. They call it a Roman. It is prosciutto, cappicola, and provolone layered on an Italian roll slathered with hot peppers. Yes, it is delicious, and yes, it had the strength to prop me up so I could power through the workday.

This deli has a television mounted up above the main dining space. I don’t typically cotton to such things when I dine out (hello, distraction, my old friend) but the management mercifully keeps the volume down to a background murmur. Easily drowned out when the place is busy. What is interesting is the set is usually tuned to an Italian station. News channel, it looks like. Even when I can hear the station I cannot understand the announcers, an unfortunate side effect of an inability to comprehend the Italian language. Between the ticker at the screen bottom and the video I can usually get a good idea of what is happening. Most of the Italian words and phrases I know are food related, but a few words I can suss out and the context of the video fills in the big gaps. What I do know from watching is that human misbehavior and mayhem are universal constants no matter where one is in the world. It just sounds better in a different language.

Dinner. Tucking into my goal for the day and watching the world burn in Italian triggered something, shunted my lollygagging mind onto a track hidden in the shadows. I had in my hands the luxury of a hefty meal. In my eyes I had a shipload of migrants encountering a navy vessel somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. No stretch to say chances were good those folks had gone without decent food for days or weeks. My reaction surprised me in its strength and duality, of good fortune and humility. For the first time in weeks, strangely, there was a gap in the cloud of depression which plagued me. The breath caught in my throat, brought on by illumination and disquiet. I chewed and chewed watching the humans on the screen. That the world chews us up, and that we cannot survive except by the destruction of something else. These thoughts would not leave my head, disturbing me and comforting me. Can something be melancholic and uplifting simultaneously? The evidence suggest this is possible.

The story changed. The scene changes from desperation on the water to something involving a beautiful woman and some unfortunate escapades in personal turpitude. Or so I gathered from the tableau on the television. My meager ability for translation of Italian had exhausted itself seeing as it was definitely outside the realm of food. The basic gist I was gleaning from the video. Downing the last bits of the sandwich, it came to me that this meal had hit the trifecta of human fascinations of existence. The great rivers of food, death, and sex intertwined into a roiling confluence that swept me away. I leaned back in my chair, belching quietly.

The news was over. The plate pushed aside, crumbs brushed off the shirt, and a few steps back out into the warm summer evening. I could not divine where this big river would flow whilst I search for the lost threads in my life. The important thing is that it carry you into and through experience. Oh, and enjoy every sandwich along the way.

Window By The Sea (Chasing Vapor)

Field notes: 3:53 PM in the pewter light of Saturday. Fat snowflakes wafting down. Writing about writing, in the drift, wondering where to go from here.

Sunrise over the shimmering jade resplendent before the headland. Tea gone cold in the bottom of the chipped porcelain mug hovering outside the arc of my elbow. Small whitecaps spied through the glass find their mirror in the scattering of crumpled paper that obscures the desktop. I had been writing since Orion began his descent from the dome of heaven. Snow, nothing but dirty snow in the form of wasted paper.

Tired eyes can see many things, some of which may be true. Seals out past the sandbars melt into selkies. Or maybe it was the other way around. My weariness deadened the certainty of my senses. With shaking fingers, I laid the pen to rest in the crook of my journal. Today was not the day for truth or fiction, that was certain.

The selkies continued their languid swim, as did my vision. I leaned forward to open the casement. Keening cries of seagulls rolled into the cottage along with the salt and iron of the sea. There were no words, but sleep. My head nestled amongst the papers, my eyes closed. Wakefulness would come later, here at the edge of life.

Broken Compass

Sunrise on the headland and on the last day of the year. The storm of the last few days had broken up, rosy beams of light chasing off a few straggling clouds. Breakfast and a wee dram had not quite chased off the clouds in my head. The comfort I had drawn from my overnight scribblings had evaporated when the first rays spilled through the windows to illuminate the evidence left behind, in the the form of the salt-stained, slightly ragged notebook atop the desk under the sill. The words pulsate as I sit contemplating what I had done.

There comes a time in a man's life where it finally penetrates his skull that he has to straighten up and fly right. For Evan Whittaker, now was not that time. Not yet.

The cold had barely time to seep through Evan's coat before the snow began its slow descent into the corn stubble in which he lay. A sparse 'V' of geese, late in their travels, parsed the icy air overhead. Evan breathed out watching the birds waver and shimmer in the plume of mist. Fat flakes, pale and gravid, dotted the sky. He blinked, a torpid lizard gaze blotted by tiny crystal knives. Nearly numb cheeks registered their stings as the flakes landed upon his face. 

Evan's eyes twitched and tracked a thousand frozen messengers bearing voices on the wind. Hand in coat pocket, he clutched the bottle tighter, whispering to the snow. 

"Which ones are you, darlings? Which ones are you?" 

Being in the center of things, center of the "goddamn greatest country in the world!" as Uncle Leo used to say after a few shots of rye, had done little for Evan. He had struggled with what to make of it for so long the conflict seemed an extension of his body. The discomfort of such a tight skin had led him to seek solace in the spirit world, but it wasn't ghosts that made it numb. 

He needed to put some daylight between his belly and the bottle. He needed to sleep for a century. Drowsiness fueled by liquor was kicking in. Turning his head to get more comfortable, he did not notice when the barrel of the shotgun he had carried began to freeze to his cheek. 

Sitting back and staring at the ocean does not bring its usual clarity. The waves were calming down, but evidence of yesterday's turmoil was still there in the sporadic violence of the breakers on the strand. I could divine no prophecy in the spray, nothing in the light upon the curls, that illuminated wisdom into what I had written. Such melancholic thoughts put me in mind of a carving I had found weeks ago, washed up after a night of heavy surf.

The carving resembled to my eyes a person, man or woman I could not discern. The figure was worn down but enough detail remained to see eyes, a nubbin of nose, and a mouth. Its hands were holding its its cheeks. The mouth, gaping and distorted, could have been open in a scream or shout. The bulging eyes seemed to reinforce the idea of great stress or terror.

The day of discovery I sat on the beach and studied the figure for what seemed hours. I wondered whose hands had carved it. I wondered what they felt, and how intense it must have been to move them to create this amulet or token. They must have felt something, that much was clear from the expression on the face carved into the stone. What they felt was not so clear. Hope or despair? Heartbreak or love? Happiness or anguish? There was no true telling. 

My eyes chased the gulls skimming over the waves. The fire on the hearth burned down slow. On this last day of the year I ponder the words before me to wonder if I can ever truly know what drives me to put them on the page. There is no easy answer, only time.

Sunday Meditation #42: Sketchy

Christ, I don't reckon I know what has gotten in to me. Springtime on the headland is usually a time of joy, even for a a child of the fall such as I am. The sea looks different, feels different, even smells different. Maybe it is life blooming a bit in the shallows and the depths, stirred up by the rolling of the waves. This spring, I am different.

More restless than usual. Head full of ideas that never make it past the daydream stage. The slush of thoughts not making it to the ice of clarity. The proof is in the scratch papers, notepads and detritus piled up on my desk. They form a dune banking up to the windowsill. The paper rolls and bleeds into the dunes. It is a curious thing to have a sandbank comprised of the ideas illuminated in ink that ultimately is wasted. The scribe in me feels shame at the thought.

There is no avoiding it. Truth in front of me. The very notepad under my right hand bears little in the way of words and much in the way of idle sketches. Sketches of what, some may ask. I cannot say other than describe them as architectonic, formal follies. Mostly they depict variations on cubic volumes, shaded with crosshatches. Towers? Obelisks? Cenotaphs?

That last idea makes me chuckle. Cenotaph is fitting. Little monuments erected in honor of ideas buried elsewhere in my mind, or somewhere in the cottage around me. The sea, even! The sea. It waits there beyond my windows. Jade swells reflecting an unquiet mind. My hands stop shaking long enough for my attention to be drawn to the sky. A mottling of pewter clouds rolls in. Beneath them I can see the gauzy stain of rainfall. Spring has been wet here so far. Much has been washed away under its maulings and caresses. This I know.

The cottage fills with that special light of overcast as raindrops spatter and hiss on the glass panes. It comforts me in a way that sunlight and blue sky do not. My hand continues to sketch. I am building something. No, I am searching for something that I have lost the words for but my heart seems to know from someone I once was decades ago now. I recognize some of the drawings from my adolescent years, the younger me sketching out abstracts in blue and red and black. Somewhat confused by what they could mean, not knowing how to quit drawing.

The paper fills with fragments of someone I used to know. I can see him there. The rain falls harder, and weariness floods my gut and head. I watch the drops fall into the sea where perhaps they trouble it just a moment. But the ripples vanish as the sea rolls on. I take that as a lesson for my heart, rippled and anxious, but rolling on.

Head on the Writer's Block (Sunday Meditation #40)

This is no joke, people, this writer's block. Sitting, staring at the screen and the page while hoping something will turn up. The logjam will not break. With winter approaching, the pewter sky outside the window here does little to comfort me. The problem, you see, is that it should offer solace to me. Yet it feels far off.

This should not be. Fall and winter are the spring and summer to my creative intellect. Seasons of vigor and energy, of growth. Some of my best work and best efforts on life have come forth in the cooler months. Stretching all the way back to college when the best grade-point averages of my education were chalked up. Best ideas. Best efforts. Now, today, in this brown study or blue funk, uneasiness rolls in on a tide of unproductivity.

It is no lack of inspiration. Rather, no lack of source material. Current events and personal life offer no shortage of material to discuss, meditate upon, react to or use to generate a thousand and one stories. The problem appears to be one of application. All of those things to be considered cram themselves up against the forefront of my mind, a mob of unruly ideas trapping me in a riot of information. The riot is exhausting.

Something holds me in place. Fear or apathy, either could be a reasonable explanation. I do not know yet, because I am either too scared or too tired to investigate. Quite a paradox, to be frightened of that which I desire, and enervated by the mountain range between me and my creative selves.

Choir in the Saltgrass

The whirring of crickets is a hymn to nostalgia, droning in my ears as counterpoint to the scent of sun-warmed saltgrass buzzing in my nostrils. Warm breezes curled through the windows, bringing with them a gauzy doze. I could sleep here forever, lost, by the sea.

Summer on the headland is ever a surprise, the shock of the familiar after excess time away. Light takes on crystalline edges, burning out details most of the day. Most of the days, that is, when the downy clouds do not pull themselves over the cerulean bed of the sky, the jade sheets of the sea.

I have no reckoning of my daydream time at the windows facing the sea. That time has passed I can ascertain from the lengthening shadow of the lighter propped up on the sill. A small chromed gnomon serving as ad hoc sundial, the sun gleams from its rounded corners.

The lighter is warmed only by the sunlight. I have not touched it in days except to move it about the cottage. The last cigarette was snuffed out near a week gone. Lungs and heart having ganged up on the mind, the push came in the form of the desiccating heat of summer. It was too hot to fill my lungs with the smoke of burning weeds. 

The effort to acquire more tobacco had lately lost its charm, as well. Town was a short drive or a long walk, and I felt no inclination to do either. Such a journey would require the exchange of human currency. The bank of my soul was far too empty to make those transactions on credit. I had no energy for the.

No, far better to save that energy for something vital, like food or perhaps a quart of stout. Beside, there was no rush out here at the edge of the world swaddled in slow time. The larder was full enough. My pens and journals were laid out on the desk under the windows, the ones facing the sea. The cream-colored pages beckoned to me, some already incised with the calligraphy of my thoughts that seeped sporadically from the depths of my mind. Calligraphy, or crow tracks, depending on how one chose to view the words.

Crows. The thought of the wily birds, feet dipped in ink and skittering across the journals, made me smile. Raucous squawks from a pair of gulls down on the shingle broke my reverie. Perhaps they had read my mind and wanted in on the joke. I took the interruption as a sign that I should get back to work.

Work, such as it is. I turned to adjust the casement. The breeze was softer and slower. I heard the crickets whirr again in a melodic bleat that went on longer than usual. In that short span of seconds I found myself in the backyard of my youth. The sun was high, filtering through the lacy skein of leaves over my head. I was on a blanket. A book lay on my chest, my left thumb somehow acting as bookmark. I was perhaps twelve years old, a book worm, with no idea of the world that lay ahead of me. I drifted back into a cottony nap.

Another squawk from the gulls. A resounding boom and hiss as what must have been a seventh wave pummeled the shore. My feet tingled from a deep vibration that worked its way up through the sand below the plank floor of the cottage. I sat up straight, intensely aware of the afternoon slipping away. Fingers curled reflexively as if to strike the lighter.

"There is no past, there is no future, there is only this now," I muttered to the salt air. The gulls struck out over the deepening green of the waves as I picked up a pen. My hand trembled slightly as I bent my head to write. Sunlight sparkled off the lighter, while below in the saltgrass the crickets sang to me of youth and wisdom.

Book Soul, Book Heart

Field notes, 08 May 2014. Alone, expectant, waiting. For what?

Where resides the heart and soul of a book? Not the story inside it, perhaps, but the thing in itself. I cannot imagine the devoted reader that I am, cozying up to an ebook or tablet. 

There is no life in the machine. 

Digital pages do not rasp under the fingers, nor does the light reflect from them with any warmth. Silicon, glass and aluminum react to the fingertips and the blood running through them. But that blood does not carry logos on its way back to the heart. Ultimately, electronic readers seem not tactile enough to satisfy me.

Wind outside. There is no music or television chatter, so the rustling of leaves I hear through the walls. My mind loses its place. The book is replaced by the voice of Marcus Aurelius, speaking softly in the temple of my head.

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."

The book I set on the nightstand before it slips from my fingers. The wind stirs the trees again, sounding for all the world like a dead emperor whispering from the yard. I roll over, turn out the light, hoping to dream of that good man to be.

That Awkward Moment of Collapse

….when you realize that you are not living up to your promise and potential. Those terrible moments waking from a dream at godawful o'clock in the morning. A dream of collapse and loss, panting in panic muddled with fear. The seizure when you feel in your heart that you are so far from what you said you wanted to be that you will never catch up.

Pardon me. A moment, please. (Sighing)

I keep writing "you" as if I am describing the arc of your lives, you the reader. I should stop that now. What I should have written was "I". That awkward moment when I realized those awful things about my life. Not you. I cannot speak of these things in your life because I do not know the arcs of your lives in such particulars.

Waking up from such unsettling dreams as often as I have in recent weeks, it is my hope that no one of whom I know is experiencing the same. It makes for poor sleep, which in turn makes for sluggish days on which it takes far too much effort and time to get back to being in the moment.

These dreams have a recurring theme, that of losing all of my means of support. Cold sweat awakens me, wondering where my jobs went, how could I possibly lose them and the money that goes with them. I twitch awake, breathing hard. It is unpleasant, to say the least. I know these dreams have their roots in the unfortunate round of layoffs I endured starting in 2008, and the subsequent scrambling to find gainful employment. The question I cannot answer is, Why now?

What add a particular new shade of funk is that this unleashing of the succubi in my subconscious has manifested in the form of shame. Shamed by a sense of personal failure as a writer. In the cold grey sump of sunless mornings, imps have been whispering in my ears: "You will never be a professional. You squander any gift you might have possessed, you have not achieved meaningfulness as a way of life."

This is so disturbing that words are not sufficient to illuminate the heaviness in my heart. It is damning to hear those awful voices, to look back on what I have done, and think that perhaps the imps are right. Catchy titles, very short stories that exist in a near vacuum, the occasional flash of brilliance: these are things in which I perhaps have some facility.

Perhaps. Yet a solid body of work they are not. I have had a million ideas go nowhere. I have failed to produce anything I would be happy to call a book. A collection of short stories, maybe, if one cares to be generous of spirit. Yet disjointed fever dreams and notes scrawled on virtual Post-its do not an oeuvre make. Because of this, the small hours of the morning become tainted with anxiety swirled with disappointment bordering on self-loathing.

My mind overflows. My hand is stilled by a lack of ambition or surfeit of sloth, I am not sure which. The disappointment I feel fuels the crematorium of my dreams. I do not write this to depress or disturb any who may read it, forgive me if this has happened. This scrawling of mine is not a plea for pity, I wouldn't be so pathetic.

I write because of the dreams. I recently read truth from a favorite author of mine, who said "...honesty means nothing if there's no real risk to it, no self-examination". The dreams are forcing me to self-examine. I write this out of honesty, and I am enervated by what I have not done.

Rime

Snick.

Yellow flare in the glass, the flame of the lighter uplighting the mask of my face. My smile is small.

Snick.

Winter grips the headland, and the winds have not been kind to the walls that enclose my battered heart.  I don't know what surprises me more, that I am smiling or that I am still here. Slight pressure behind my ear reminds me of the cigarette I tucked there before breakfast. I close the lighter.

Snick.

The sea heaves and wallows beyond the windows, a green mosaic bedecked with white jade spume. It is many seas, I think, vignetted in the panes by ragged ovals of frost. A pleasing effect, one experienced only in the gray chill that embraces the spit this time of year.

Snick.

This nervous habit of mine regarding the lighter disturbs me. The metallic sound of the lid opening and closing is loud in the air of the cottage. Force of will has not yet conquered the motion of my hand, flicking the heavy chrome slab back and forth. The sound itself reminiscent of bones breaking, tree limbs snapping under the weight of entombing ice. I make to flick it open once more, but my other hand grabs the wrist, pulling it down to the scarred wood of the table at which I sit.

Still, I smile. The wind abrades the cottage in a skirl of banshee howls. It is as restless as the ocean, a twin of lesser viscosity, but equal in its noise. The panes rattle while the door arcs slightly in under the pressure. As quick as it came, the gust is gone. The silence it leaves behind is all the stronger for the muttering of the surf. I feel the power of the waves as a gentle tremor through the floor.

The air is warm for once inside this my refuge. The hearth blazes bright as the flames hungrily consume the driftwood I placed there earlier. A larger pile awaits, stacked next to the fireplace. The sea can be a generous companion, sometimes, and my morning walks along the tideline had been fruitful. Bright, merry colors flicker and paint the walls. I breathe deep of the salt tang filling the air. I fell into a daydream of spices, seaweed and selkies.

I am startled by a thunderous crash, shaking the floor with a deep groan. The pens on the table jump slightly. They knock against the open journal before me. Seventh wave, I think. A reminder that the sea will not be ignored. Nor will the journal. It blank pages shine in mute testimony to the slow time surrounding me since the turn of the year. The smile fades.

I set the lighter on the table and pick up a pen. The cigarette behind my ear seems to grow warm, as if to entice me with its nicotine charms. I ignore it in favor of the pages. I lift the pen, it hovers. Thoughts surge forward, orcas rushing penguins along the floe edge. I shiver at the metaphor, my concentration momentarily broken when I look out the window. Wild spray from the surf catches my eye, mind quivering, and out towards the point I spy a line of white along the bottom of the rocks.

Deep in winter, and not much to show for this torpid start of a new year. A brief spike of guilt skewers my ingrained lassitude. Yet the smile returns as I watch the swell. Ice rimes the stone, but it will melt. This I know. I look to the journal, I raise the pen, ice dissolves into the sea.

Mañana Blues

The problem it seems may be one of self-priming. Without priming, the well will not flow free. Without free flow, the energy goes to waste or is never expended at all. Energy without expenditure is simply potential. Potential and a few dollars will buy a large cup of coffee.

All of the above explains the paucity of posts on this blog. It explains the dearth of worthwhile photography over the recent months. It is a condition of my creative existence that I have momentum, that I actualize the latent forces within my brain. Momentum breeds momentum. Once I get going, I find it very hard to stop. Witness the time not so long ago where on this very blog I posted and entry a day for over one year.

That is a lot of posting. While some of it was fluff and fill, much of it was inspired and heartening to me. I wonder if I ever again can achieve a similar feat.

The reason this matters is because as of late the tasks of writing and photography have acquired a difficulty I struggle mightily to overcome. The energy to get started rarely manifests for long, and I wrestle with bouts of angst triggered by comparison to my past efforts. It is the feeling of "I should be writing!" that gets me all wound up.

It is a mystery to me why creatively speaking things should be so difficult. I know the conventional wisdom is that one should write/draw/photograph/paint etc every day even when you do not feel like it, to keep the discipline up and the energy flowing. I do recall that feeling of engagement and satisfaction I get when I do get going, when the ball is rolling, when the mojo is workin'.

That feeling is wonderful. Now to overcome the lassitude between me and it.

It is no good thing to think of yourself as lazy, unambitious or lacking in imagination, but that is precisely what troubles me during these short fall days. The notion that I am waiting for something to come along and knock me out of my complacency seems all too real. "Carpe diem!" shouts my conscience, and I would, if only I could get myself off the couch.

Two Years Before the Mast or Something Like It

8:06 PM. Night is falling earlier on this slow slide into fall. A mirror of my days, methinks.

Monday, October 7th is an anniversary of sorts. The day will mark two years since I last plied the profession of architect full-time. Well, with one very small exception, plied it any time, to be precise. The demon of this particularity caught up to me in broad daylight. A mental mugging, minding my own business at a stoplight.

Hardly seems fair, I know. Enormous effort has been expended in the past two years, first on searching for a position suited to my training. Then when that became increasingly fruitless, Sisyphean even, my efforts were slowly diverted to searching for a position suited to my skills and interests.

You see what I did there? With the "training" segueing into "skills and interests"? I knew you could.

It was an inevitable transition, in hindsight. Anyone who has been laid off more than once knows that looking for a job is a full-time job. Old habits die hard, and I was up early and working the job lists and directories and cold-calling and frankly it ground down my resolve and self-esteem to the point where I had no energy to even be desparate anymore.

I was, though. The sheer effort in looking for an architecture job, with no results to show for it, haunts me even now. It is draining to think about it. The knowledge that no one seemed to be interested in a talented, skilled and licensed architect with 20+ years of experience (i.e. Yours Truly) is a puzzling and disheartening burden to carry. At the time, it was all I had and all I knew how to do.

Not that I have forgotten how to do it, mind you, but I have had almost no arena in which to practice it. So in essence I gave it up. I had to, so I could focus on other ways to preserve my sanity and hopefully make money. Thus, writing and photography began to eclipse what I was trained to do. Possibilities formed in my mind, of an intersection between the Want To and the Must Do sides of the coin of life.

I can say I have had some minor successes in that regard. I have exhibited in a local gallery, made some contacts in the art world, garnered some part-time work in photography, sold a few prints. So there are signs of encouragement. The writing has not had the same level of interest, it continues to be a slow go, but there have been some nibbles.

Still, the hard work continues. My figurative heels are sore and bleeding from all the nipping they endure, courtesy of the imps and demons that seem to shadow me, messing with my dreams. I fight them off as best I can, but every so often the shield slips and they get through.

Today at a stop light, a chunk of the sky fell on me and I flinched. Breathing hard through a squall of panic, my mind reeled over and over, thinking I must be nuts for trying to make so much out of nothing. The voice (you know the voice) whispered from the backbrain cave that maybe it would be best to give up carving a new path in this old jungle, when there is a perfectly good path somewhere behind me.

All I need to do is turn around, retrace my steps, and I can put down the machete. The path back there is dusty, rutted and beaten down. The rocks in it, the thorns flanking it, well they can't be as bad as the unknown overgrown thickets I am thrashing through, can they? It would so much easier to go back, would it not? Simply trade the promise of uncharted territory for the drab security (which is not so secure) I used to know?

The light changed. The breath wooshes out of my lungs. The car rolls forward, I make the turn, and try to put the past behind me. Two years before my own personal mast have taken me over strange new seas and into uncharted lands fraught with promise. It would be a shame to give up the ship when there is something wonderful on the horizon.

Queasy Piñata

Today's attempt at writing has its roots in grandeur, and probably its end in mediocrity. My ambitions outstrip my ability, all because my head feels like a piñata. This is a source of great distress for me. I had grand plans and a good idea last night, but no time or energy to write it out. The backup plan was to write the kernel of the idea down in one of my handy-dandy little notebooks, then turn out the light for some sleep.

Except for one little detail. My bedside notebook had gone AWOL. Not in the drawer, not on the nightstand, not even on the floor beside the bed. I told myself that I would remember in the morning, but you can guess how well that turned out.

Upon awakening this morning I found myself in possession of a low-grade headache. It started in the base of my skull and wrapped itself around the left side of my brain, edging its way into the frontal lobe. Manageable in the morning, by late afternoon it would balloon into quite a whopper. Like someone was beating it with a stick.

A fine sandwich for lunch had no effect on it. Pain medicine? Pffft. My go-to solution of taking a nap was of no help. In fact, when I arose from the nap, my head felt even worse. The throbbing in the piñata bobbing around on the top of my neck made me slightly nauseated.

Nauseated, not nauseous. I use that word deliberately. 

Never let it be said that I cannot learn something new. As someone who aspires to be a writer, I am always on the lookout for new words and word-related knowledge. Recently, it became illuminated for me the difference between 'nauseated' and 'nauseous'. Shocking, I know, that I did not know the shading between those two siblings.

Simplifying a bit, but it turns out, that to be 'nauseated' means to be feeling sick to the stomach, i.e. inclined to vomit. 'Nauseous', on the other hand, means to cause feelings of nausea, i.e. something revolting or physically disturbing. 

A very fine line, would you say? Me, too. Admittedly the latest dictionaries seem to indicate that over time, the usage of 'nauseous' to mean the feeling of sickness rather than the cause of sickness has become so commonplace that the two words are near interchangeable. So for years, I had been saying "I feel nauseous" when what I really meant was "I feel nauseated". 

The realization made me nauseated. Heehee.

So when I sat down to write today, trying to think through the fog of fatigue, forgetfulness and headache, the only thing looping through this weird brain of mine was a riff on the new thing I learned. That is about as good as it was going to get, seeing as I lost another essay idea to the void.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, left me a little...nauseated. 

Tripped Up by Catfish - A Fable of Accidents

"You a food blogger?"

The question came at me like a bolt of lightning. It stunned me like one, too. That is not the sort of question I ever expected to hear, even though at that moment I was standing at the counter in a local seafood shack. I was wearing a fedora, casual batik shirt and shorts. My trusty Nikon film camera was slung over my shoulder. The fellow that asked the question was looking at my hat and at the camera.

"I see you got one of those old-school cameras there."

I sputtered, I stammered a bit, feeling terribly self-conscious. I managed a weak-sounding "No, no, I just have the camera in case I see something interesting, and I'm just out for lunch, heard you guys have really good fried catfish sandwiches."

The man smiled and went back to the kitchen. I placed my order---a "Po' Jack" sandwich with a side of fried okra---and went to get my drink. My ears were burning with low-grade embarrassment and confusion. Here was a golden opportunity to declare myself, announce some intention, open up some new writing territory...and I sort of flubbed it.

Long-time readers, and probably many other folks, know that I write about food frequently here. It is a topic never far from my mind, it never seems to get old and it is a subject with infinite possibility. I suppose if I had more confidence in myself, I would have responded loud and clear "Yes, sir, I am. I'm here to learn the ways of the fried fish sammitch, show me what you got!" I could have easily made a new friend and possibly gotten a kitchen tour, or at least a sample.

Instead, I got confused and anxious and did no such thing. I took my drink to the table to await my order, turning his question over and over in my mind. It bothered me, but why?

The answer, or at least the start of one, came to me as I was tucking in to the sandwich. It bothered me because I was momentarily flustered in public---anathema to me---and it made me ask the deeper question of: If am I not a food blogger, then what kind of blogger am I?

I write about Stuff and Things (of which Food is a subset), even the Fiction and the Poetry. I've written about death and depression and light and love. I can barely begin to answer the "What?" question. And that begs a different, deeper question: What kind of writer am I?

That question sat firmly on top of my head while I ate, like a monkey that decided it wanted to be my hat. It kept picking at me, and thwacking my skull with bony little fingers. I knew I wasn't going to answer that question during lunch, so I accepted the thwacking and concentrated on enjoying the sandwich.

The sandwich, ladies and gentlemen, was excellent. Top notch. World-class, I might say. It was simple, it was crispy-tasty, it was served right. It was, in fact, the best damn fried catfish sandwich I have had in what seems like decades. The counter lady and the fellow who questioned me---turns out he was the manager/head chef/fish guru, name of Walter---both asked me if I enjoyed the meal.

I did. Very much. I told them in no uncertain terms what I thought. I ended up having a nice chat with Walter, and told them I would be back. He let me know about some of the other specialties they make and told me a little bit about what they do, where they get their fish. They seemed pleased that I was interested, and I could hear some pride in his voice when he talked about it. We shook hands, and I left to go about the rest of my day.

I still hadn't figured out a way to let them know that I do write about food, and their food was such that I would love to write about it. Which, of course, I just did. And I will go back. At least now they know me, and maybe we can have some more good conversations, talk some shop.

Now, if I could just figure out what kind of writer I am...

Plumbing the Weird

8:45 PM. Long day, much to do, lots of low cursing. Then, more thoughts.

I had a chance to review what I wrote for yesterday's post. I have to say, it was pretty weird. I mean, weird even for me. Why that is, I cannot rightly say.

What I can say is that it is the result of a maxim. To wit, I have been exhorted more than once and by more than one source to write every day. Even if I do not feel like it or am not inspired. Write. Write. WRITE. I've also been told to not worry if it isn't any good, or maybe doesn't make sense. One doesn't even need to know what to write about. Just. Do. It.

So I did. It was difficult. I was in no mood to write, had no plans to do so, certainly had no big ideas laying around in the junkyard of my mind. I went to my computer with the intention of doing some research on some trivial thing I thought I needed, or maybe it was online bill-paying I meant to do. It could have been something important, for all I know now.

All of that is not what happened, as we clearly see. Instead of turning right, I turned left. I zigged instead of zagged. My fingers started typing of seemingly their own volition, I entered a fugue state---that is what it felt like---and about an hour later that story is what left my head and ended up on the digital page. I can describe the episode as channeling rather than writing. Upon completion, I felt drained and exalted.

I also laughed at myself. It seemed so strange, so not where my head was going when I logged in. Often this sort of thing unnerves me and creates a little anxiety. I am not the type of person who easily makes leaps into the unknown, because it is so...well, so unknown. I realize how ridiculous I appear to acknowledge such absurdity.

But there it is, this rare attempt to just write, with no plan, no inspiration, no map. I have no idea what it means, or even if it means anything. This is okay, I think. If I am to make good on my aspirations to be an author I'll have to get used to plumbing weird. I hope I can bring guests.

Spillin' It to the Page

Huzzah and hoo-raaah, ladies and gentlemen! Lend me your eyes and dig this:

I have become a published author, it seems. An essay of mine has landed on The Good Men Project, an online idea-based, social platform and media company. I have been following them almost from their start on the web, and I finally overcame inertia and fear to submit to them something I wrote.

They liked it. They decided to run it. This makes me glad.

The essay I submitted is a revised version of a post I did here on Irish Gumbo, in the summer of 2012. The idea never really left my head, so I polished, updated and tweaked, and there it went! If you would so kind as to pay us a visit, show us all some love at Salaryman in the Mist: Finding Self-worth in the New Great Depression. I would honored if you did, and thank you for keeping me inspired to write!

On the Realization of Having Gone Off the Path

April 14th, 4:39 PM. A sudden jerking awake, a popping of the bubble. Good lord, man, what happened?

It is not an exaggeration to say I had an abrupt moment of clarity, this morning, between slipping in and out of naps. Clarity accompanied by the gasp of knowing that there seems to be a lot undone in recent days. The lack of "productivity" in my life always creates a tension with which I find it hard to cope. I was disappointed that I have written and photographed almost nothing since March 23rd. Also, somewhat anxious.

What makes this absurdly funny is that I had no official deadlines or production schedules in that time.

Life is what happens when you make other plans...to be clear, I had a near week long visit with my daughter at the beginning of the month, followed closely by surgery (due to the events mentioned HEARnia), the recovery time I knew full well would set me back by keeping me off my feet. Even so I remained optimistic that while reclining in bed or on the couch I would still be working the keyboards and maybe even getting a jump on the Next Great American Novel. I thought I would bounce back in a snap, not unlike I did the first time I had a similar operation nearly 30 years gone.

Boy, was I ever mistaken. The surgery was just over 4 days ago, I was home the afternoon it took place, but it wasn't until now, a relatively nice Sunday afternoon, that I felt energetic and focused enough to sit down and write. Anything. Anything at all. In hindsight, I am astounded I managed to communicate to the extent I did during the last week. Even that was thanks to the miracle of the Interwebs and social media. The combined effects of surgery, anesthesia, pain medications and the fact I've been a few more years around the sun rendered me exhausted, loopy and beyond caring (too much) about typos. The smart phone was a boon, allowing me to at least dabble in the world beyond my shoulders between bouts of sudden-onset napping and just plain goofball fuzziness. I also managed to stay connected to loved ones, far and near.

My plans for literary excellence, or even increased output, were busted. It made me antsy, even as I drifted off to snooze and comprehensively map the insides of my eyelids. A curious battle between the need to rest (which really was the right way) and this need to fulfill my creative, productive urge. It felt good to rest, but laced with a ribbon of panic that golden opportunities were slipping away from me.

It's a good thing that I have people in my life who care deeply for me, for my well-being. I may have received some good-natured teasing over some typos and the loopiness I indulged in, but I also received good advice and care. Priceless, indeed. The core of the advice I needed to hear, is that my body is telling me what it needs, and I would do well to listen. No sense in trying to bang out a collection of short stories if all it does is land me right back in the care of physicians.

Having said all that, I think it's time to wrap it up. I getting weary again, the body is achy. I have some more meditations I'd like to offer to you, dear readers, based on my "from-gurney-observations" I collected whilst in the recovery room. Minor epiphanies and gratitudes, if I may. Those will wait a bit longer, after a nap and maybe some ice cream.

March Madness? No, Angst.

Ladies and gentlemen, I could not let the first day of March go unwritten. My creative output here was at an all-time low in February, and that bothers me quite a lot. The last post? That, dear readers, was my 1,000th piece on Irish Gumbo. I found that amazing and deflating. Hard to believe I've been doing it this long, but I feel like it could have been better.

Gah. What do I know.

Be that as it may, I've had many things laying claim to my time. I have been diffused, as it were. Stuff and Things to be dealt with, questions to be answered, souls to be searched. There are some questions of Art to confront, and I informally owe some information to some folks who have been kind and supportive of me on my angsty investigations of this here life of mine.

It's March. I didn't want the first day to pass without note. Hopefully, the promise of the coming Spring will catalyze my back-burnered ambitions, and I will fill these electronic pages with more of substance. And before I forget...thank you for reading.

Sleeping Dogs In My Head

Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs

If I Could Speak My Mind (Sunday Meditation #25)

9:54 PM. At my desk, on  the cusp of what I hope to be a good nights' sleep. Poems and music in my head.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
   ~ from 'The Second Coming' by W. B. Yeats

Man I've had it up to here
Gear I wear got 'em goin' in fear
Rhetoric said
Read just a bit ago
Not quittin' though
Signed the hard rhymer
Work to keep from gettin' jerked
Changin' some ways
To way back in the better days
Raw metaphysically bold
Never followed a code
Still dropped a load
Never question what I am God knows
Cause it's comin' from the heart
 ~from 'Welcome to the Terrordome' by Public Enemy

I returned home about forty minutes ago, tired but content, from a social event where I got schooled in what in means to surround one's self with beautiful things that make one happy. In other words, Art. All I know is that I stood there admiring some prints, and thought "That is what I want to do. Please."

On the ride home I had a mashup going on in my head, poetry of two widely divergent decades swirling around in my head. W. B. Yeats in a church, sepulchrally intoning 'The Second Coming' intertwined with the staccato baritone of Chuck D. knocking out 'Welcome to the Terrordome'...and I couldn't stop marveling over the power of shadow and light and words. I couldn't help but feel a tad helpless in the face of such talent and skill.

I thought of my cameras and notebooks waiting patiently at home. I wondered, given what is out there and the sum total of powerful art that has been created, if my aspirations to be a shaman (of sorts) are wildly misplaced. I like to think I see things, hear things, that maybe no one else does in those creative moments of mine. But I have much to learn when it comes to pursuing and creating art, of any kind, be it written or visual.

Yeats, Chuck D. and an artist whose name I didn't write down. I can see them on the road ahead of me. I've miles to go, people, miles to go on the road to who I want to be.