on the road

He's walking now. The street winds his insides tight. It’s much too loud with tires ringing and the screams from boy’s exhausts desperately trying to prove their nonexistent manhood. “This should be good for me,” he attempts to convince himself. He knows better. This walk is not about feeling good. It’s about getting from here to there. He’s walking with purpose but without a goal. No time to meander or to consider the danger. He walks and tries to keep his mind on fantasies of how things might have been. The noise is too much though, and he really shouldn’t be indulging those thoughts anyway. His life is good as it is, for all he knows.  He sees a figure in the distance, and he fights back an impulse to be afraid. He can be a coward sometimes, but he’s walking now. At least he’s walking.

threshold people

I meet you where the world falls away. It’s quiet here but it might as well be deafening.  In this vast place your words lose their meaning. What matters here is this moment of connection. Our feelings don’t count either. Who knows what they are anyway? Feelings are often indescribable colors bleeding into one another. Fresh wounds, old scars, consoling embraces—none of that matters. We’re here now. We’re in this world where everything falls away—except our connection. It’s only here where we see each other with a sight beyond what our eyes provide. Nothing else gets in the way. I wish we could stay here, but we’re not allowed. Time is warped here but the world can only fall away for a moment. Distractions will flood back in, and we will return to the normal world of details. For now, let’s see only that thing that keeps us connected.

wires

There is a US government-built spacecraft more than 15 billion miles away from us traveling at 38,000 miles per hour. It was launched 47 years ago when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. Voyager 1 is still collecting data. It operates electronically. And, obviously, there is not a single wire connecting it to conEdison, Exelon, Duke Energy, or any of the countless for-profit electrical companies that enjoy near-monopolies in most areas. My question is this: if great minds can engineer a still-functional electric vehicle that can travel 15 billion miles over forty-seven years, why are we still stringing wires on poles that fall and break whenever there’s a big wind or ice storm, or spark and cause devastating fires and then fall and break? I’m sure there are a thousand rational reasons to continue to use this often dangerous and mostly ugly century-old technology. I know nothing about electrical transmission or its infrastructure. So I’m left with my convenient theories and one of my theories is that profits in the pockets of energy executives and political campaign accounts might have more to do with our inability to engineer safe, sustainable, point-of-use power systems than we care to acknowledge. I have power lines in my backyard that fail every time we have a hurricane or energetic windstorm. My more affluent neighbors have the wires underground. That’s some improvement (for the wealthy). The only point-of-use systems around me are gas-powered generators that drone on endlessly after an outage. The giant pylon beasts that march single file through our forests, our lakes, our neighborhoods seem inevitable, unstoppable. Are we made to see them as a juggernaut when they’re really only a scheme of short-term convenience?  Are there only Quixotic actions of resistance lowly citizens can take against these behemoths? Greater minds must answer. For now, I’ll try not to admire the beauty of their form as they stride into a distant vanishing point.

tongues in trees

Duke Senior was the rightful duke of the land but was forced by his brother to live in exile in the Forest of Arden. While there, Duke Senior embraced his predicament and found comfort in the natural wonders surrounding him.

He was a meek duke.

If stones could preach, what would be the lesson? One entitled “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth” is my guess. All creatures great and small practice meekness, many humans, on the other hand, do not. The meaning of the word as it was used in the original sermon relates to a quality of adaptation or flexibility. Nature’s creatures have already inherited the earth, so it makes sense they would want to teach us that bit of wisdom. A plant, for example, senses the light is pooling in an area a distance off, so it reaches toward it. A puma hears the buzzing of new construction, so it finds a new habitat.

Meekness is a strength, a wisdom, a subtle force. In humans it manifests itself through openness, compassion, and vulnerability. It’s the opposite of rigidity, aggression, and certainty. The meek embrace ambiguity and are comfortable with liminality. They see beauty and potential in the shadows. They know that when they stare into a forest of trees, grasses, and ponds, there are thousands of eyes starring back. And they’re okay with that because they find “good in everything.”

sand beast

The drifter reaches to return to the sea. Too much weight here. Sure, there aren’t as many parasites and hangers-on but there’s no cost that can outweigh the pleasures of weightlessness . On sand, limbs are stiff and terribly heavy. Fog is a deceit. It is water, but a kind of water that’s full of gravity. There’s no seeing where the land ends. The drifter remembers a time when it was anchored by gravity, pulled toward “the heart of the world.” It has surrendered to “earth’s intelligence” and lived its life fully grounded.  That time is gone. It’s time to float on that strong ocean current. But it’s held in place by the sand and there’s nothing to be done but wait. So, for now, the drifter stays and waits for the water to come and redeliver it to the weightless world.

the LZ

Something about aliens. They’re fun. Little green men, big eyes, funny walk. Everybody loves them. You know this because, when’s the last time you heard a news anchor talk about them without smiling or laughing out loud? And scientists, they can’t even get near the subject without giggling. (We see you Neil deGrasse Tyson) So, they must be fun, these aliens. Why, they bring joy all around. You might be wondering about all the sci-fi horrors featuring visitors with bad intent. I say, that’s just another way they entertain us. No one ever leaves a sci-fi movie cowering from the threat above. We use aliens the same way we use roller coasters, to inoculate ourselves against real terrors. There’s plenty of those around. Also, I think we all secretly hope that some good aliens will land, repair all the damage we’ve done to the earth, and give us all perfect health, restored youth, eternal life, and financial security to last until that eternity is spent. So, come on down little green men, let’s get t work fixing the place up.

tossed

Agreed, we try much too hard to remove ourselves from nature. We are made of nature after all. It’s pure artifice to live the way we do, trying to shield ourselves from it on a daily basis. But we seek protection against nature for good reason. Nature can be hellish. This last hurricane made number four for me and this one was packed full of tornadoes. I don’t live on the beach or on a barrier island, but I do live near a river close to where it empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico. And when hurricanes hit my neighborhood they have not lost much of their punch so it’s always a very anxious drive back home after the storm. I’ve been lucky. So many people have not. Nature can be a thief and a killer. But, it goes without saying, nature gives and sustains life. It offers enrichment and all kinds of nourishment. I think I take pictures of nature to remind myself of its beautiful side. What is that thing that is both beautiful and terrifying? The sublime?

our other life

There was a time in my life when I thought my dreams meant something. I don’t know, maybe I was reading Sir James Frazer and blending it with bits from Freud and Jung and James Hillman. I was convinced for a while. But then came a Santa moment when the scales of innocence fell off my eyes and I had to let go of my evaluation of dreams. I’m fairly agnostic about the usefulness of dreams now. I think they’re interesting, sometimes, but they don’t impact my waking life in any way. Except for the concept of a dream. I do enjoy the mechanics of dreamworld. Sometimes I superimpose those mechanics onto the woken world. There are those who have taken drugs to induce this perception, but I’ve found it’s easily done without any mind-altering substance. This way of seeing the world enhances my theater making. Magic, theatricality, the unknowable, and dreams make life fun and theater possible.  

silence

The world seems quieter in the fog, and in the snow. It’s as if their softness cushions the rough-edged sounds emanating from pervasive human machinery.  You can seclude yourself in a blanket of snow or fog and muffle those irritating reports from boastful car, truck, and motorcycle exhaust pipes. You can almost hide from the roar of overflying aircraft and racing boats that cut through water as if its an annoyance. There is a kind of peace in silence that’s like a meditation. Once you enter, you feel the tension draining. Of course, snow, and fog, and silence can be uncomfortable. I, for one, cannot sleep in complete silence. In fact, I think I’m most alert in places of silence, looking and listening for what might be.

solitude

There is likely merit in all the handwringing about how we have become anti-social post social media, post COVID, post you-name-it technology. And I’m sure that all the health studies that indicate benefits from being with others and harm of being alone are correct in their findings. I’m equally convinced time alone is necessary to the point of being vital to our survival. I think time in isolation is a wise teacher. We learn from the quiet. We may not like what we hear but there is value there in the quiet recesses of whatever constitutes our mind. Solitude does not necessarily make us anti-social. We’re still connected to our loved ones, our friends, and our acquaintances. They will be there, waiting. But if you do go out alone and find sequestration, be prepared to accept that what you experience there is only for you. And there is a cost to pay if you experience something unique. No validation. You will never be able to share that experience with another to the level you experienced it.  

My college always took spring break way too early in the year, weeks before other universities. One year I decided to drive away from cold Nashville all the way down to the panhandle of Florida where I thought it might actually feel like spring. I found a camping spot in a state park called St. Andrew. The first night I had the entire park to myself. It was perfect. So, I set up the cement picnic table for my dinner of Vienna Sausages and Hi-C fruit punch. I opened the can of sausages and poured some punch in a clear plastic cup and about that time I noticed a raccoon had jumped up on the table to join me. I was not accustomed to this kind of close encounter with a raccoon or any wild animal, so I starred at it for a time to be sure I was seeing what I was seeing. The raccoon felt comfortable enough though, so comfortable it began to wash its hands in my Hi-C in preparation for its presumed meal. I obliged and we sat there together having our dinner one sausage at a time. At one point the raccoon scampered away and I congratulated myself for having this magical moment with one of the forest creatures. (This was before I learned the terrible consequences of feeding wild animals.) As I began to pack away the trash from the meal, I noticed movement at my feet. My dinner guest had brought friends, lots of them. (One of those consequences!) I don’t remember the exact number of raccoons and skunks were now at my feet vying for my attention by patting me on the leg, climbing into my car, but I do remember being distracted when something much larger joined the party. I remember carefully watching a blind raccoon bump into a surprisingly large skunk at my feet when something above my head pulled my attention away from trying to remember what kind of bath removes skunk odor. As I looked up I saw an enormous buck and doe. They were examining me as if trying to decide whether I would be allowed to stay in their kingdom. I reached up to touch the nose of the buck, but he lifted his head disapprovingly. Gradually, all the critters disembarked, and I climbed into my car alone to sleep, realizing that no one would believe me back at the college. But I tried. I’ve mentioned this to many people over the years and I can tell, no one can believe it to the extent I experienced it. It leaves me feeling unvalidated when I mention it. Even now as I write it, I feel the memory is injured in some way. This was a moment for me alone. I should have been satisfied with that and kept it to myself. Gifts that occur in isolation are best treasured in secret.

moon rabbit

Reading the image left to right, our eyes first encounter a decomposing default version of Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist Composition: White on White. “Swim in the white free abyss, infinity is before you.”  Malevich pointed to a utopia ruled by the masses and not constrained by the powerful elites. The accidental “White on White” in the photograph reminds us of what happens when no one cares. It also suggests an argument that perhaps there may be elites worth saving, like Malevich. Indeed, the idea of floating free is marvelous. Next, our eyes fall on the bail bond sign. The typeface chosen suggests the “Old West,” a place in time that may only exist in western movies. It’s unclear why the owners of this establishment wanted us to think of the wild west when considering their employment, maybe it has something to do with outlaw wanted posters. It doesn’t seem like the best choice for the innocent who have been falsely accused! Then we come to the moon rabbit, or at least what appears to be a rabbit or hare staring at the moon longingly. There are so many stories and myths about the rabbit in the moon, and there are even more tales about the moon and its influences. This little image is chocked full of possible meanings. We finally come to the person with earbuds firmly planted. Maybe they’re listening to a podcast or a selection of music to help them keep up the pace, most likely they are completely unaware of the bookshelf full of texts they’ve just passed by without even a thought of the stories contained therein.

past decay

My memories are out of focus. During high school, I worked overtime at the ice cream cone factory so I could buy an old VW bug and a Minolta SLR camera. The first trick I learned was to smear Vaseline on a UV filter to make everything dream-like in my photographs. I was displeased with the results and felt I’d wasted a good UV filter. I don’t remember why or how the images turned out, but I imagine they resembled memories. At least my memories. No matter how hard I try, my memories are grainy, fragmented, and out of focus. I’m speaking of image memories, not facts, events, relationships, or embarrassing moments. Those things are clear. But, when I try to create a recalled image in my mind, it’s always distorted. That bothers me. I’ve seen a lot of things I’d like to see again with perfect clarity. Then again, maybe I don’t want that at all. Maybe the Vaseline-smeared recollections are more interesting because they are not perfectly clear.

we know nothing of each other

Spend any time watching people pass and stories will emerge in your imagination, completely false, of course, but rich, melodramatic stories about why this person should definitely not be with that person because…and she’s got all those bags full of proof that somebody’s been cheating, and he’s covering his ears like that to quiet the voices that tell him to scream at the injustices, oh, the injustices. These stories are incomplete. They have no beginning or end. There is no inciting incident, no rising action, no climax. Just a brief middle moment of your invention that has no bearing on the truth of that person passing by. Among the terrors of the world is the realization that we are ultimately alone, that no one can fully know us. We barely know ourselves. But that terror offers a promise of possibility. There’s a potential mystery in everyone we see. And who doesn’t love a mystery.

nagg and nell

They can be 55-gallon drums or large trash cans or both, but whenever I see two of them side by side, I can’t help but think of Nagg and Nell. Hamm’s poor parents, cast away in dustbins to live out the remainder of their lives as trash-already-taken-out and ready to be set upon the curb. The portrayal of their existence is devastating but also humorous in Beckett’s Endgame. Nagg has a line that I believe to be one of the cruelest in all of modern drama.  “I hope a day will come when you’ll really need to have me listen to you, and need to hear my voice, any voice...Yes, I hope I’ll live till then, to hear you calling me like when you were a tiny boy, and were frightened, in the dark, and I was your only hope.” It’s hard to take, but it’s beautiful because the audience can immediately ascertain that it comes from a place of great suffering. And it reiterates a truth—we all need someone to listen, truly listen, so that we know we exist and mean something.

via negativa

I lack the fortune of living in a dark place. My community spends considerable energy in their battle with darkness. Lighted streets, sidewalks, lighted signs, storefronts, lighted houses, trees, shrubs, mailboxes, and even grass, all collectively chase away the dark, the stars, and the sea turtles.  I did see the Milky Way once while traveling through New Mexico. It was as if a fourth dimension had opened. Without the shadow side of things, we would live in a flat world full of blatant facts and void of beautiful mystery. There’s good reason to be afraid of the dark. I know. But darkness makes us vulnerable, and vulnerability makes us human.

dionysus

It is understandable that people associate Dionysus with the overconsumption of wine. There is that scene in The Bacchae where drunken and crazed maenads rip Pentheus to shreds and Pentheus’ own mother decapitates him thinking he is a lion. But I’ve always found the less bloody side of Dionysus to be more useful. Dionysus is the topsy-turvy god of release, the god of double vision, the god of the threshold. Here the god is neither this nor that but something in between, something ambiguous, mysterious, uncertain. So, I think in many ways, Dionysus is the god of beauty, truth, compassion, and letting go.

waiting

I’m sitting in my college dorm window. It’s an old building, first inhabited in 1913, and there is just room enough to sit on the sill and look out onto the commons. The partial quote from Godot “…birth astride a grave” is hammering away at me because I’m sitting here waiting for something to occur instead of doing anything and I must have student-things that need doing at the very least. But I wait. I look out the window at a lifeless campus. I waste precious time and I worry that my future self might one day condemn me for all this waiting.

That was decades ago. And the memory of this is burnished into my brain as if there’s a sheet of copper in there with an image of me in the window—all pensive like.

 I am now that future self and I do condemn young me.

janus

I’m on my kayak in the middle of the Caloosahatchee; the fog is so thick my bow fades into grey and I’m unable to see anything beyond the reach of my paddle. This is somewhat precarious but, in the moment, it feels like a cloud is embracing me and I’m comforted. Uncertainty, like freedom, can be terrifying. But it pulls us in, it wants us to use our own minds, it wants us to realize each other’s vulnerability. Uncertainty is a teacher. Vulnerability is a unifier. I think I feel my humanity when I’m lost in the fog.

ghost memories

I remember wanting to vacation in Florida when I was a child. I don’t know why. Was it the postcards I’d seen in the antique stores? My parents did take me once, or was it twice, it was never enough, and it wasn’t like the postcards. Those old cards were sad to me. They represented something wished for but never really existed in the first place. “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real… It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real...” ― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

recycled

Dinosaurs drank it, Neanderthals pissed it away. Shakespeare had his sips, then Napolean urinated on the battlefield. Mary Shelly took a giant swig, and Elvis peed it down the pot. The water we drink has gone through a lot. In 1897 Richard Emile Resler might have taken a picture of the waters off  West Palm and wondered these same thoughts. Water is history.