Basic Title No. 1

Looking back over the past couple months, things have been kind of tumultuous.  I started a new job, working swing shift hours, disrupting my schedule of sleep and non-working activities.  But I still managed to blog a decent amount of time, and got some quality writing done.

I was also disrupted by a trip to Grinnell.  It was fun to see friends again, but I partied a bit too hard one of the nights.  I hadn't been drinking for about three weeks prior to falling off the wagon at the reunion.  I think that has had a lasting psychological effect (negatively) on me.  I was feeling very good about myself prior to the trip, ramping up to the scheduled time off.  My attendance at work was good, I was in a bit of a rhythm in going and getting through the days/nights whatever they are.

Now I'm in a bit of a rut.  Once we got back from Grinnell, I went back to work the first night, and haven't been back since.  I've been doing other things-- making arrangements, phone calls, emails, budgeting, work on my book project-- but I'm struggling with continuing with the job.  I need to do something different.

I'm sitting here right now, in need of a shower, in need of a haircut, in need of a shave.  I'm in a low mood, but I still have energy, so I'm not really depressed.  I want to do things like write, garden, fix my house, arrange outside furniture, weed control, landscaping projects, sprinkler installations and adjustments.  I want to draw, learn Audacity software, transfer cassette tapes to digital audio.  I want to organize my garage, fix my desktop computer, organize my office space.  I want to plant a garden, organize my tool shed.  I want to live an inspired life.

I made an appointment to speak with an old friend at my former employer.  He's in HR there, and can tell me about the possibilities of getting back with the City.  I don't know that I can swing it, but I have to try and find out if it's an option for me.  I feel like at least the income potential is better than what I've got going currently.

I want to read.

I want to entertain.

I want to have a big party.

Maybe we can have a big ol moving party, sell all our stuff, including the house.  Do like an artist would, where he/she gets rid of everything he/she "owns" and release, starting fresh.  There was a guy who put all his possessions into a huge shredder a few years back... was it early 2000's?  I remember seeing it in the newspaper...  Another guy destroyed all the art that he had created up to that point in his life-- burned it.  What's his name... the guy who puts the dots over people's faces in pictures...

There's something liberating about that.  Letting go of everything, little things that you've carried with you for so long that you don't remember where you got it-- or things that you hold so dear for whatever reason, something from your childhood that you take great comfort in retaining.  Say goodbye to it all, release the energy, the built up potential of your longing ego.  Let it go.  Shed your skin.  And you are born anew.

Thanksgiving in June

Well well well.  If it isn't June.  Welcome to mid-year.  A month of many celebrations.

For example, I am now 43 years of age.  My wife has a birthday coming up.  There have been graduations, there are sure to be weddings-- and there was the Grinnell College Alumni Reunion.

It was an extended weekend of conversations and imbibing libation.  We danced 'til we ached and the house lights came back on.  It was past midnight, and somebody realized that it was June 3rd.  So they sang me "Happy Birthday" and I beamed a sweaty beam.

To all who survived the many frozen winters with me in Iowa; to all who ate fried potatoes with almost every meal;  to all that sported hangovers for many a consecutive string of weekends...  Thank you.

I'm trying to give birth to something here.  I'm trying to find the words to do the feelings justice.  I want to relay the sentiment I have felt in the presence of my Grinnellian family over the years, and particularly during reunions, whether they are sanctioned by the college or impromptu gatherings at satellite locations around the country.

But words are hard to find that do the experience justice.  There's always just a little bit more than what I'm able to come up with.  The superlatives don't flesh things out enough, and are hollow and cliche.  So maybe we just need to go with what is spoken from  the heart.

Thanks to Justine for the kind words of encouragement and complimentary edification.  You help me to build whatever it is that this here blog is constructing.  I am inspired to work and toil to entertain you and rattle your cage.  So to speak.

Thanks to Mark, Danja, and Steve for their comments and honesty.  My mission is bolstered by your efforts to communicate and assist me with all things on my plate.

I want to thank everybody out there who took the time to read my little book that could, The Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos over the weekend.  The feedback has been very kind and inspiring.

Thanks to Irene for all your work in the organization of the reunion.  And thanks to Paul for keeping us laughing throughout the night.

There are so many more.  Thank you to Suzy, for being such a wonderful being and thriving socially.  You do some amazing work, and you do it effortlessly.  At least, you make it look that way.

Thank you to Melanie for wrangling me aside and making sure that I know the depth of the love that she and so many others have for me.  You stoke the fire in my soul, and bring me fresh fuel.

I know I'm leaving people out, but not intentionally.  And the band is starting to play louder, as it's time to go to commercial... So.  You keep reading; I'll keep writing.

Regular writing produces better writing.  So it goes.

A Part of the Grinnell Experience

Wanted to get a word in before the end of the month and our trip away...  Going to Grinnell, Iowa for a few days to reconnect with friends and colleagues at my alumni reunion.  20 years since I "graduated" there.  It's in quotes because I didn't want to use an asterisk.

The story of my graduation is a culmination of my childhood or teenhood.  I grew up that day.  In a hurry.

I wore the gown, after having traversed the multitudinous syllabi and reaching the apex of requirements.  At least, I thought I had paid the right people for the desired results...

I had plans to pull out my wallet once I walked across the stage to face then president of the college, Pamela Ferguson (did I spell that correctly?) and settle my tab.  "What do I owe you?" I would ask her in my best theatrical voice.

But I stammered, mentally.  I got worked up and worried.  Nervous.  So I stepped in front of her, holding my wallet, and stood there.  She smiled and handed me my diploma folder.  I fumbled with my wallet, then took the folder, juggling.  I think I even shook her hand (details are not very clear).

It was now time for me to exit the stage.  My moment had passed, and I had not taken full advantage of it.  This was to be a bit of a metaphor for my academic experience while at Grinnell.  I was confused-- I couldn't see where my classmates had gone to get off the stage.  Which way was I supposed to walk?  I didn't see stairs or a ramp or anything.

So I finally acted and zigged instead of zagging.  I walked over to the back of the platform, behind the backs of the faculty and other dignitaries sitting in their folding chairs on the stage, and jumped off. 

It was totally unrehearsed, just me getting through it, muddled mind and all.  I don't recall the reaction of the crowd.  I just remember what happened next.

I stepped into the shade of one of the great trees there on central campus and opened the diploma folder.  But there was no diploma in it.  Instead, there was a note explaining that I had not satisfied the requirements for my successful graduation.

A friend walked up to me, laughing and joking with me for jumping off the back of the stage.  He saw me open the folder and experience the let down.  He commiserated with me as my thoughts swirled.  I knew that I had come up short in my French class.  That had to be it.

Soon I was surrounded by family.  I was totally defeated.  I had failed!  All that work, all that money.  What a waste of time!  I was humiliated and despondent.  I was inconsolable.

In the next couple days I learned that I had actually flunked my French final and earned a "D" in the class.  I had been so distracted by the fact that I broke up with my girlfriend the night before the final that I had failed to study well.  But the work hadn't been done for the whole semester, really.  I hated that I had to take a language class as part of my major.  Wasn't studying English enough?  And I was so nervous and anxious in those classes, so much going on and me not able to figure out what it was.  I couldn't get over the hump and relax enough to learn.  So I avoided the classes.

I was also erroneously enlivened by the fact that I had worked on and given a good oral report.  I had figured that this was my ultimate weakness-- speaking-- as I had trouble speaking up in class in a language that I had been speaking all of my life.  It was shyness, yes, but also perhaps social anxiety.  I couldn't think straight when I didn't know for sure what was going on.  I'd get self-conscious and figure that I was too dumb to learn-- or I feared that such a truth would be exposed if I tried to talk in class.  My fears were too great to allow me to learn in a relaxed, natural fashion.  So I found ways to get by, and I found my own way off the stage.

I traversed an unbeaten path to get through my Grinnell Experience.  It was my path alone.  It led to me receiving the "Closest to Earning a Degree, but No Cigar" Award. 

I've since tried going back to school and taking a language class to satisfy the requirement.  But I haven't been successful.  I've started over with Spanish but flamed out when employment challenges got in the way.  I've tried auditing a Latin course at our local university, but you have to be an alum to register or audit a class, unless you go to summer school, where language classes aren't often offered there. 

So I haven't found my path to my degree.  At least, not yet.  I had enough credits to graduate;  I just needed a "C" where I received a "D" because the language requirement was considered to be part of my English major requirements.  So I missed my degree by a few percentage points.

If I had come from a family of litigators, I might have found a way to financially motivate Grinnell to working with me.  But as it stands, I don't have the piece of paper.  What I do have, though, is a great education and access to the network of friends and colleagues through the college.  There is a fellowship that exists between any- and everyone that has gone through Grinnell, and I'm proud to be a part of that.  I'm still walking the path for my steps alone, finding my way through my Grinnell Experience.

An education is not a piece of paper, anyway.  It's the journey and the mind set.  The Grinnell Experience.

Forms of Communication (with God)

So I'm working with books these days.  Right now I'm editing electronic copies of Italian books.  The one I worked on the last couple days had a lot of Italian, some Latin, some Greek, and a few passages of English.  Just enough to get me interested.

So here's the mystery.  The quote that I was able to read, pronounce, and understand was of great interest to me.  But all of the particulars that I'm usually able to use to facilitate further understanding were in different languages, not of my comprehension.  Anyway.  So I have this puzzle that I want to try and put together.

First item.  One of the footnotes listed Alfred North Whitehead, who turns out to be a very interesting bloke.  He did a series of lectures that were compiled into a book under the title "Religion in the Making," at least I think that's what happened.  This work was noted in the Italian book that I was reading-- er, editing.  Well, you gotta read when you edit, right?

Next item.  Another footnote listed John Dewey's "Art as Experience."  The quote included from Mr. Dewey was "Communicability has nothing to do with popularity."  Hmm.  Yes.

Last item is W.E. Hocking and his "Science and the Idea of God." Oooo.  I find very interesting.  Like.

And finally, (part of) the quote that I jotted down:  "...as if Plato's eternal ideas abandoned their impassivity and at the touch of divine persuasion entered the world of change and addressed themselves to our suffrages..."

Okay.  Connect the dots.

I'll wait.

The Perfect Machine

There are lots of things swimming around in my head today, so let's get started.  Fresh.

I pause.  Where to start?  Uh-oh.  I freeze.  Could it be?

Writer's block?  No!

Maybe.  I'll just have to try and write through it.

Got something in the mail yesterday advertising this year's Bioneers Conference in October.  Really do love that organization.  They're inspiring and informative.  They provide vision and tutelage in these days of dire conditions and underwhelming mainstream information.  They complement the movements that they feature and endorse.  It's a wonderful thing.

I'm sensing that I am going to be working on my books a lot in the coming months.  Both my picture book, that I'm  now considering as less of a children's book and more of an adult story perhaps.  I don't know.  But it is still enticing me to look at it and work on it.  I want to do more work with the illustrations, make them "pop" more.  And I'll take the copy that I made to my college reunion to get some more feedback from friends and colleagues. 

I'm also feeling myself ramp up towards writing about Greece more.  I've started a compilation file of many of the blog posts that I've done and am looking to go through and expand on things.  Writing about doing this is part of the project, too.  Making myself accountable for my brainstorms.

I'm seeing things come together for me.  I am settling into a rhythm.  I can sense a new dawning of production and creativity.  I can feel myself sprouting new limbs, fresh wings.  I am transforming into the being that I want to be, the angelic temple with fortitude and moxie.  I am coming of age, awakening from my slumber.  I am bringing forth the tools to build the temple.  I have bricks and mortar and sweat.  I have mud and guts and strength.  I bring a fountain that sustains, flowing as a river.  I am finding my way.  I am creating with the creator.  I am lifting me up and stretching my lengths.

I will be heard.  I will be read.  I will write and draw and create.  I will find the answers to my questions.  I will find the path that leads me home.  I will make the perfect breakfast.  I will drink my fill.  I will turn water into fuel.  I will my way into my future.  I make my world, my reality.  I bring it up out of the ashes and blow off the dust, and thrust it into the water to the sizzling sounds of its baptism.  It emerges still warm, fresh.  Anew with purpose.  The perfect tool.  The perfect machine.

That's me.  The Perfect Machine.  Making it perfect, one step at a time.  I will walk this perfect journey to the house that holds my ideal.  I will make the trip through the rain and the heat.  I can endure, and I will.

This too shall pass.  It will lead me to the promised land.

What Price Your Train of Thought?

I don't know how to say this.

I want to work again, but I'm having trouble with the existing system.

It sucks that I only get paid ten bucks an hour to do editing and stuff.  That I can't just wake up in the morning and go to my desk and do something and make ten bucks an hour.  But no, I've gotta go sit in their office for eight hours, while they time me and rent me and make me "productive" as they want it defined.

I don't like the rules.  I don't like the system.  I should get more for doing what it is that I want to do.

I'm not asking for a million dollars.  I'm asking for enough to get by.  And that's more than ten bucks an hour, doing something I would rather not do.

If I made twice that amount, it would be better.  Maybe even okay.  Then we could breathe, economically.  Financially.  If I could collect the money from my retirement fund, the ten bucks an hour would be okay, because we'd be covering our debts.  But it's not adding up right now.

We're sinking into greater debt, there's more going out than coming in, and there's no end in sight.  No turnaround foreseen.  How do we turn this thing around?  How can I take my many talents and make a living again?

I feel like I've got to put myself out there, right out in front.  Go live, so to speak, and just have everyone stare at my big ass hairy problems as they are.  A big ol' plate of honesty.  How much is that worth?

I hate that I feel guilty for feeling sick like I am.  As if feeling sick isn't enough, I need a "real" problem as well.  If I could just snap out of it I would have done it years ago.  But that's not happening.  If you can actually develop a methodology and practice for the "snap out of it" therapy that works, you'd have yourself a winning product in the marketplace.  I don't think it's been invented as of yet.

But mental illness exists, and it exists with a grand stigma.  People don't talk about having mental illness, even if they do, because they don't want to be judged as "crazy" or "weak" or whatever.  You can't be president of the United States if you're mentally ill.  Well, evidently, anyway.  That's what our insane "vetting" process says, and yet we have a whole congress full of nutcases.

I don't know what else I want to say, except that we have real problems that need real solutions, and to get at those real solutions we need to be real honest with ourselves. 

If I'm going to do anything for forty hours a week, I need to benefit from it.  I need more than 400 bucks and a "thank you."  Especially when it costs me a hundred bucks for gas and wear and tear on my vehicle. 

This is not a plea for winning the lottery, or handouts, or even sympathy.  I'm entitled to peace of mind, and for that I'm willing to work.  But I don't want to paint myself into a corner.  And especially not at ten bucks an hour.

I want to get fair value for the work I've been doing.  I'm making progress, I do believe.  I'm writing much more frequently these days, and I'm approaching a consensus, or a vision.  A clarity, perhaps?  I don't know, but I'm moving along the path toward greater understanding and wisdom, I do feel that.  And I'm creating something here with this blog.  I will continue to work at it, and allow it to define itself.  It will evolve as I evolve.

And the acorn does bloom into a grand canopy of tree greatness.  In time, and at its own pace.

Through the Balcony Portal

I know I’ve written about this before, I just don’t know where to find it exactly.  When we stayed at the hotel on Samos, the main level had a bar with a large walk-through opening that led to a balcony that overlooked the ocean.  I sat and looked out through that passage and thought it to be magical; transformative.  Almost like the Looking Glass portal or some such thing.  I imagined taking a run at it and launching myself up and over the balcony and into the air, never to return to the ground.  I would take flight and find my way over and through the various realms until I was reunited with my ultimate love.

The seeds of this vision were planted by my reading of Jitterbug Perfume, where Alobar exists in a parallel universe for hundreds of years, waiting to be reunited with his long lost love.  I had visions of another character coming into existence after my taking flight.  I would separate from my body and give birth to another man’s psychosis.  This wild man of Samos would be a community vagrant, shifting around the town, surviving off the fat of the land.  The wild man of Samos would be a legend, just like the wild cat.

I would be somehow connected to both of these characters—the wild man and the soul that took flight.  I existed in metaphors with this thinking, having left my body behind at the balcony and becoming an ideal that would eventually make its way back home.  And the wild man would appear about town, not making a ruckus but being a presence enough that people would notice and wonder who he was and what his story was.

The wild man would be a lost soul, in search of the true love he had lost at the resort.  This vision tied into the vision at the water’s edge, where a royal beauty decided to walk into the water and just keep going, along the floor of the ocean, under the sea.  Did the wild man lose his one and only true love while on vacation?  Did he lose her to the ocean?

There was a vision of a hotel room, where there was a stained bedspread.  The stain looked as though it could have been blood;  it was unclear what had happened there.  But the wild man knows, and he is haunted by it.  He had been given a rose by his love, and the rose had been smashed into the bedspread by the suitcase that was hurriedly thrown onto the bed and packed with the belongings of both him and her.  He had paused to notice the stain, and fretted the demise of the gifted rose, rubbed painfully into the bedspread like a melting crayon.

The wild man would wander the town in the coming years, searching for his lost love, saying light poems to her, drinking and bathing in the fountains at the town square.  He felt that he would always love her.  He would return to the room at the hotel once a year, on the anniversary of her loss, and revisit the moments in his mind, staring into a red stain on the bed.

The wild man, it turns out, was who I might become if I were to stay and live out my life in the small resort town in Samos.  The woman that I would have lost would have been my wife, as she was adamant on returning to our life back in the United States.  There were no other options.  Either I said goodbye to her and stayed to live my lonely life as a wandering vagrant in this exotic locale, or I had to go back and face my suspended reality back home.  Or I could take flight and leave my body behind, separate my soul and entity energy from the physical being by running out the opening and jumping off the balcony.  While floating over the ground below, my soul and body would separate, and though my body would eventually have to deal with the reality of the harsh concrete below, my soul would be released, featherlike, to the wind.

My body would fall to the earth and crumple, but I would be floating, soaring.  And I would and could go anywhere that I wished to go.

So the vision wasn’t explicitly a suicidal one; it felt like I would be choosing life, eternity, happiness, magic.  There wasn’t a place in the thinking for things such as death.