“It’s time to make mistakes again, it’s time to change the show

It’s time and time and time again to find another way

It’s time to gather forces and get out of yesterday”

—John Denver

Catalogue: One

When I was not yet seven, maybe earlier, I lay on my back in the grass on our front lawn and saw a face in the sky between the clouds. I have no idea who it was. He smiled. It was not a dream, though it might have been a concussion.

I fought with Lee Pierce because I had a crush on Essie, his girlfriend. We became friends. Lee and me, I mean. Essie never knew I existed. This was fifth grade.

I didn’t want to move off of the Island.

I should have taken tennis more seriously.

I spent that first southern summer riding my bike everywhere around Virginia Beach—sometimes up to one hundred miles in a day—and I learned the city, especially the beach area and the state park, so well. It was then I decided to ride from Williamsburg, Virginia, to Coos Bay, Oregon. I should have.

The first girl I had a crush on was a neighbor, Karen. I mean the first one that knew I actually existed. I’m not counting the little red haired girl in third grade I threw the card at. I suppose her if you count third grade.  

I’m glad we moved off of the Island.

I really wanted to go to Chapel Hill for film school.

Truth: I believe I overcompensated for my insecurity as a professor by being arrogant and impatient.

I should have listened to more music.

I should have taken music more seriously.

I should have taken college more seriously.

I have always been accused of not taking anything seriously enough. I take some things very seriously. Hence, anxiety. I love connections.

I should have headed to NYC instead of Tucson when I left college.

I should have headed to LA instead of back east when I left Tucson.

I should have joined the Peace Corps right out of college.

No kidding. I should have ridden to Coos Bay.

I should have stayed in NYC instead of moving to New England.

I quit working for Richard too soon.

________

I believe everyone has a half dozen or so events they know they should have missed and as many they should have made. I believe regrets are not a waste of time if they help us correct our behavior.

Truth: I more often felt bad for what I didn’t do or say then for what I did do and say.

Truth: I just assumed everything I wanted in life was somewhere else so I kept moving. When I stopped moving I learned the truth. I walk a lot now.

I should have taken the job at Peter Trimbacher’s castle in Austria.

I never should have moved to Pennsylvania. I’m glad I did.

Truth: I remember the first year of Pennsylvania like it happened yesterday and have completely forgotten the next two.

I never should have gone to Penn State. I should have accepted the film school thing at USC.

I should have accepted the management position at that small inn on the Outer Banks.

I should have sailed away in my boat before it sank. Fixed it first, I mean.  

That Peace Corp thing is bothering me.

I never should have believed it could work, that trip. I never should have helped. We were so young. We were so arrogant.

I was qualified on paper to teach college but for the first fifteen years I had no idea what I was doing in a classroom. As a result, I was not a teacher; I was an entertainer.

I should have taken the Division Chair position.

Truth: I have made more bad decisions in the last five years than I did the previous thirty.  

I never should have left New England.

Truth: umm. No. This one is too real and too true and will remain mine. Besides anyone who needs to know this one I’ve already told.

I should have gone back to Mexico.  

I never should have jumped on that hand grenade. On the outside all seems fine, but it blew me apart inside.

I should have gone back to Spain.

Truth: I will.

Truth: I never should have asked anyone for help. Irony: I need more help now than I ever have. Lesson learned: We all do.

We should have come home from Siberia through Canada. I never wanted that trip to end.

I should have asked more questions and followed, as my colleague Michelle Heart notes, “The road more traveled.”  

Truth: People with depression don’t pretend to be sad, they pretend to be happy.  

I should have kept playing. Tennis. Guitar. Whatever. The play is the thing.

Truth: Most of the time I’m hanging on by a thread, and that’s with meds.

I should have answered the phone that morning, about seven.

I should have gone to the dentist more years ago. That’s what happens when your first dentist was a Nazi. No kidding.

I should have left Pennsylvania right after that phone call. Right then I should have sailed to Antigua or Monserrat or St. Somewhere. Sometimes something seems devastating at the time but years later it turns out to be motivating. Truth: all my life’s a circle

I should have canoed the Chesapeake. For Fun

I should have learned more about finances.

I should have stained the house a lighter color. And put in a basement. And bought the land next door.

I should have gone back to Spain.

Truth: I told Dad it was all fine but it wasn’t. This wasn’t about him. I just didn’t want to let him down.

I miss Bobbie and Dave. I miss Cole. I miss Joe. I miss Trish. I miss Eddie a lot.

Truth: I wish I were as thoughtful as my brother and caring as my sister. I wish I was as adaptable as my mother and as instinctively kind as my son. I wish I had my Dad’s gentleness.

I know small villages in foreign lands better than I do Brooklyn or New York City.

Truth: Sometimes I’m only kind of paying attention. The rest of the time hardly at all.  

When people ask where I live I say Deltaville. When they ask where I’m from I have absolutely no idea what to tell them.

I never studied in college. Or high school.

I am a lousy teacher; I am an excellent motivator. There is a significant difference.

The best job I ever had was working for Richard Simmons. The worst job I ever had was digging cement blocks out of deep holes in 95 degree heat for two thirty an hour. That lasted one day. Maybe four hours.

I am deeply uncomfortable around people unless I’m talking to either just one or two, or two to three hundred.

Truth: More often than not I am deeply uninterested in anything so I walk and write in my head until something interests me, then I come back to my desk, write it down until it sucks on paper, and I go for another walk. That’s being a writer.

I can’t help thinking much of the time, “What difference does it make? The sun is going to explode in a few billion years anyway.”

I need a dog.

Truth: I was not wrong to fight back. I was wrong in not immediately fighting my way forward again.

I’m still frozen. It’s like PTSD. It’s like a breakdown. It’s like a suddenly-exposed truth. It’s like playing monopoly and suddenly I forgot all the rules and I’m getting creamed.

I need to listen to more Jason Isbell:

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.

It takes a lot to change a man; hell, it takes a lot to try.

But maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.