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Resolves, Part Two (On the Bright Side)

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2022 was a truly tremendous year. For me anyway. Good days, bad days, “going half mad days,” of course. But if I were to drone over the past twelve months, my general consensus would be I’ve been terribly lucky (fortunate, blessed, tapped by Buddha–whatever).

There’s the obvious, of course. Professionally, my book The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia, launched (it didn’t “drop” folks–stop dropping things) to rave reviews. While that was going on, a dozen or so other pieces appeared and I am in negotiations for two separate books, Front Row Seat for one press and Wait/Loss for another. I’ve got two other projects here on my desk, and this blog is up to over 1500 unique readers each week. Plus, I STILL don’t write poetry–so there’s that.

My son and I hiked dozens of trails in as many state parks from the Potomac to the York. We spent more time outside in the last year than I ever thought we would, and he shot pictures which hang in galleries and private collections.

I sat on a pier on Lake Ontario and talked about life, about the passing of time, about the regatta to the east and the sunset to the west. We laughed about the things friends laugh about and sat in an understanding silence when we thought about our dads, about the inevitable change of seasons and generations.

In May my siblings and I brought our mother to dinner for her birthday and we laughed until we cried. We always do, and we sat remembering our father who lived a long full life, and celebrated our mother who is still very much her self, the matriarch as well as the focus of our jokes. I drove home appreciating her sense of humor and her absolute goodness that seemed to have leaped over me and into my son.

I hiked to the wind caves in Utah and we spent four days finishing each other sentences, each other’s thoughts, and laughed, and we walked in silence. We drove out to the salt flats of the ebbing Great Salt Lake and drank champagne and watched the sunset, and time didn’t stand still so much as we no longer cared about such measurements. We simply watched the sunset much like we had thirty-six years earlier two thousand miles east and toasted friendship, toasted whatever celestial changes brought two random paths together again. Maybe not so random.

I sat on my porch and watched deer, hummingbirds, osprey, and eagles. Michael and I stood on the sand at the river and watched sunsets, changing tides, talked about caminos and trainrides, talked about what’s next.

I had coffee with one of my dearest friends last week and we laughed for an hour about how beautiful life has been. I had a dozen lunches with another one of my closest friends, and we put aside our writing careers and talked about dads, we talked less about words than we did the quiet that comes between them, the grace of a smile, the love of a glance. He told me of the wildlife in South Africa and I told him of the snow in Utah.

The thing about time is we can make it stand still if we want. Go watch a sunset with someone, go sit on a pier and talk for hours, have lunch and laugh, have coffee and cry–the clock stops, the earth stops spinning, and everything that should be right is and everything that went wrong fades into something like a mist.

It was an extraordinary year. It was one of six decades of extraordinary years.

I woke. I got out of bed and watched the sun come up over the bay. I laughed. I spoke to my mother or my brother or my sister or my son, and at night we watched the planets and stars.

It was a year of moments I’ll never forget. I’m still sitting on the salt in Utah watching the sunset. I can still feel the calm waters of Ontario, I can still see Michael crouching down with his camera catching just the right angle of the sun on water.

I still understand perspective and the absolute power of love.

2022 was just fine.

Resolves

~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ 2 Comments

2022 kind of sucked. For me anyway. Good days, bad days, “going half mad days,” of course. But if I were to drone over the past twelve months, my general consensus would be I need a do-over.

So it is.

I won’t bother with the details, but it was challenging; thankfully, not nearly as much as it was for most other people, including some loved ones, but challenging just the same. And yet, here I am at the end of it both metaphorically and literally as 2023 is sitting right in the path just a few feet ahead of us all.

Interesting, I don’t find myself beaten down or discouraged; no, just the opposite. I feel a sense of resolve. We usually don’t notice during the trials of life that they can also be wake-up calls, preparation in a way for what’s next. I am faced with new beginnings and I really don’t mind. It’s as if I was given the materials to build new wings then pushed off a cliff and told to figure out how they work on the way down. We either land on our feet or we learn how to fly.

Well it usually does take a shove off the cliff. We are so resistant to change, aren’t we? I mean, theoretically we welcome change, we enjoy the variety and new experiences; but realistically it is scary, especially when rocketing toward sixty-three years old. Still, with a little contemplation and retreat, plus just the right amount of caffeine, I’m able to see how I could only arrive at this place I find myself by suffering through the scratching and peeling that occurs when shedding an old skin. And now that I’ve had a moment to regroup, process, rationalize, and meditate—I believe I’ve come up with some basic resolves.

I’ve made promises before. I’ve guaranteed people I’d get things right, and more so, I’ve promised myself I’d complete certain tasks or put certain things behind me, and I’ve fallen short of those intentions.

Here’s why that won’t happen again: I’m growing old, and that comes with it a certain self-awareness that “it’s now or never.” And I’m not good with never.

First though, in making these resolutions, I had to reach back into some former motivational training. There was a time I was paid very good money to assist people with their resolve to change. Thanks to lessons learned from my old boss Richard, I’m acutely aware that we don’t lose fifty pounds by losing fifty pounds. We lose fifty pounds by losing one pound, then another, then we gain a few back and then lose a few more than that, and eventually we realize we’ve made progress. So my list must be patient; it must not contain bravado or climatic moments at every turn. A friend reminded me last night that if there is a tree in our path, we don’t pick it up and move it–we can’t. We cut it into doable doses, and slowly rid ourselves of the blockade.

Second, my list must be tempered by experience. One of my favorite character traits revealed in The Great Gatsby is when his father, after Jay’s death, is reading the list of resolves his son wrote when just a boy. In one of them the young Jay had written, “Save $5.00 (crossed out) $3.00 per week.” We learn Jay has ambition but understands his limitations. My list must show hope without setting myself up for discouragement.

Third my list must not bring me down the old paths I’ve walked aimlessly hoping to bump into something good. Nothing falls in our lap; we will not win the lottery, talent without effort is as common as corn, and the famous truism is as true as ever—the definition of insanity is doing the same thing hoping to reach different results. No, my list must be specific, take advantage of this clean slate before me, appreciate the challenges I still carry, blend my talents with a determined work ethic, and be unabashedly honest.

It is how my resolutions should have always been of course no matter my circumstance, whether one of comfort or not. I would tell the health club members that a list of resolutions can be created any time of the year, from any point of momentum or despair. And while obviously I know that, my past resolutions were often lofty and quickly abandoned, and I almost always waited until either the New Year or my birthday to implement change.

And finally, I must appreciate those aspects of my past which worked, which I rely upon to know who I am, and which I refuse to abandon. It is brilliantly acceptable for a list to include, “I will continue to…” several times. Many things in my life, after all, worked out fine and I have no intention of resolving them away. So any successful list must include not only new approaches to the old failures but reliance upon tried and proven traits which keep me sane.

In the end, this year is no different but for one minor aspect—my future is completely unpredictable for the first time in three decades, and the attention I pay to these resolves will be the difference between making the same mistakes or making it all worthwhile.

So here I am at the break of this New Year, and I came up with a short but solid list with which I can move forward with confidence and hope. I do like the New Year best for these sorts of things. Before that, though, two items to rule out of resolution lists: First, no more weight loss plans. Come on, I’m not an idiot. How hard is it to know what is good for me and bad for me? A primary way to not have to worry about changes in health care laws is to attempt to avoid the need for health care at all, and one of the two ways to do that is to eat right. No sugar, no salt, no late night eating, etc. We all know the list so there is no need for it to be on our “resolution list.” Just freaking eat right, Bob. Second, exercise. This is yet another way of avoiding doctor’s visits, and we know this. Oh my God we all know that if we move around we stay healthier. This isn’t rocket science. To include it on the list is to imply I’ve got the attention span and discipline of a five-year-old. Exercise and healthy eating have no place on the resolution list of anyone who can think clearly. The exception to this would be legitimate addicts (which also would apply to the group dedicated to quit smoking and drinking). If you are not an addict then just be disciplined and stop making excuses. If you are, then the resolution should be to seek professional help immediately so the New Year begins with a program to move away from old habits. Besides, many rehabilitation programs already have the greatest resolution list ever created: To accept the things I cannot change and to change the things I can. I don’t attempt so much for the wisdom part.

Something else I like to do with the list is tell someone I trust to be honest with me, someone who isn’t afraid of me becoming irritated by the reminders and nagging. But most importantly, the list cannot be thought of as “goals for the year.” It has to be a list of resolutions for today, just for today. That’s it. So taking exercise and healthy eating as examples since neither should be on the list anyway, we must not think in terms of “this year I am going to…” but instead, ‘Today, I will…” and do that every morning. And if need be, make it, “For the next hour I will (or will not)….” This is how people achieve success in all fields; they certainly have an ultimate goal in mind, but they almost unanimously work in terms of the “now.” As time goes swiftly by—and it does go by swiftly—the hours and days add up to new ways of life—and before you know it you build your wings and you learn to fly.

Even a leap of faith begins with one determined step.

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Encounter

~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ 1 Comment

I sat on a bench on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach early Wednesday morning and talked to a man at the next bench who had a sign tucked into his backpack. I could see the words “food” and “work” and “less,” this last one I assumed was the second half of “home.” I asked if he was a vet and he was, and I asked if he was from the Beach, and he wasn’t—he’s from Pennsylvania originally, but he stayed in the area after leaving the military since he had received care here at the clinic off of Shore Drive along the Bay. Until he didn’t. He managed a HVAC company for a while, but his bills outpaced his contracts, his medical conditions outpaced his insurance and money, and his constant stumbling got the best of him. He borrowed from family, from friends, he took jobs until he couldn’t concentrate and had to leave, he sold whatever he could to try and keep it going. No one wanted to help him anymore. But I get that, he said. Just look at me. At some point they said they’ve helped me all they can. I’d have stopped too, he said. He hadn’t shaved in a while, but he had clean clothes and had showered. He told me the church at 19th Street helped him out. He said he’s really running out of options. He added that several friends of his he served with in Afghanistan had killed themselves and they weren’t even homeless, as if they missed a step—they should have had to go through homelessness to get to death was his implication.

I asked what keeps him going. Something good might happen to me, he said. Not today, though, he added and laughed. But something good gonna happen. I got a friend with an apartment gets my mail for me. I keep hoping someone will send me some money, get me back on my feet. I asked what happened all the other times they sent him money; why didn’t that get him back on his feet, thinking about the times I’ve stumbled, thinking about the times I felt lost.

He shrugged. People don’t know what it costs to get out of a foxhole, man. I don’t know what it costs. I wish I did; then I could have said I need this amount and I’ll be fine. But I don’t know. More than what I got. More than what I had. Maybe this week I’ll have enough to get my ass straight again. Probably not. Anyway, that’s why I’m not dead. Something good will happen. Not today though.

I told him I was on my way to meet a friend of mine who received some bad news recently. We were quiet for a few minutes, I said something about how calm the water was. He nodded but stayed in his head.

Friend of mine…I said, and I told him what was going on. See, he said, this is what I’m talking about. Things ain’t so bad for me. You and me sitting here watching how calm the water is. Things ain’t so bad really. I could use a little more help, but not really. You know?

I knew exactly what he meant. I only had five dollars with me but I gave it to him, which he refused at first but then took. He didn’t do it hesitantly. He took it the second time and said, Yeah, thanks, I really could use it. I hate begging.

I asked if he ever hears from family. They stopped answering him. And this year he’ll be thirty, he said. He looked mid-forties at least. Thirty. I asked what he thought it would take to get things right again.

I just gotta decide to do it, he said. You know? I knew.

I told him I’d see him again, but I won’t, and I left wondering exactly who helped who.

Really incredible how calm the water was. Like glass. Like a mirror.  

Books for Christmas–Number Three Desired Gift

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$20 includes immediate shipping. Buy a copy of The Iron Scar, I’ll include Blessed Twilight: The Story of Vincent van Gogh

More Praise for The Iron Scar:

“What a joy the prose is. Rhythmic, driving– the sentences like a train through the wild expanse of the page.”

–Gerry LaFemina, author of The Pursuit: A Meditation on Happiness

“What a wonderful ride The Iron Scar is; I loved every mile of it!”

–George Drew, author of Just Like Oz and Drumming Armageddon

“The Iron Scar shot to the top of my list of favorite books. Not only because I felt like I was onboard with the author and his photographer son as they rode this “oasis” across the wilds of Siberia, but because my father was onboard with me as well, and my sons, and all of my hesitant plans and second-guessed ambitions. Take this ride!”

— Shorefront News, Brooklyn

“The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia is a vivid and often poetic exploration of the personal and the historical, from poignant to hilarious.”

–YAHOO! News, Literary Notes

–A beautiful book by one of the most gifted non-fiction writers working today

–Amazon Reviews

“I wish every book I’ve read over the past two months had been as moving, gripping, and loaded with fascinating information. The journey becomes an emotional and thematic whole that transcends the standard “look what I saw” travel book. So many things stick with me: the royal blue station shacks, the birches with no tops, the meat and potato pastries, the smell of onions, the vodka, the wheel tapping, the once-in-hundred-year flooding, the vast vacancies of human presence, the moving village of the train, the Leningrad hero, the Leningrad ghosts . . . Just so much. Well done!”

-Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato

“The Iron Scar brought me on a journey that unexpectedly and artfully had me thinking about my own father and my sons throughout the book, as well as introducing me to the wild, warm, and colorful world of Siberia. Thank you for bringing me onboard with you and your son.”

-Martin Sheen, actor and author of Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son

$20 includes immediate shipping.

Buy a copy of The Iron Scar for $20, and I’ll include Blessed Twilight: The Story of Vincent van Gogh for free.

Venmo: @robert-kunzinger

Zelle: bobkunzinger@yahoo.com

Order today.

Spying on Hope

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I walked through the library at the college before heading home, and I talked to a few present and former students studying for finals, writing papers, eating bagels. I did not frequent the library when I was in college; I knew where it was though.

This time I sat at a table to read notes sent by an editor for a book project—ironically, about teaching college—and looked up from time to time this last week of classes. A few were on cell phones, but not many. Many were on laptops, but more were reading textbooks, writing, or talking quietly to other students with open textbooks and laptops.

My collegiate muscle memory kicked in and I thought, but it isn’t raining out, or snowing, why are all of these people in here?!

After about ten minutes, a young man, John, who had been a student for a few classes of mine some years ago and for whom I wrote a letter of recommendation for a Study Abroad in Australia, came to my table. We talked about his trip and about how he can’t wait to graduate in May. He sat down and before me was a young man only a few years older than last time I saw him but a world away from who he had been back then. It was his maturity, yes—eighteen to twenty-two is a leap unlike most others in life. But it was more. Experience, of course, travel, and the fact he was always an excellent student.

But it was also anticipation. He is just months from moving away from the bubble of dormitories and fraternity fellowship, and it shows in his eyes, the way when I asked his plans, he sat up, how he talked faster. I rarely get to see this part. I teach predominantly freshman and sophomores here, and they’re still ripe, high school residue still on their shoulders they do not yet wish to brush off, in front of them the camp that can be college when you’re away from home but not really. That’s what I stare at. I’ve been looking at twenty-year-old’s for thirty-three years, and the eyes of someone just a couple of years down the line are different. I never get to look into those eyes.

John’s eyes have that hope, they have appreciation, they have understanding. He said the polite, “I could not have done this without you, Professor,” but I know better. He could have, of course. Some students have an internal motivation that no one could defy if they even wanted to.

I returned to my manuscript written on and off through the years of teaching mostly unmotivated, unenthusiastic, unhopeful twenty-year-old’s, and I knew what I needed to do to sharpen the narrative. Throughout the work I dip into the idea of “possibility,” but sitting in the library looking at the students studying, sharing ideas, working, I noted the one aspect of collegiate life I missed out on in my thirty years of teaching first and second year students—hope. The ones at my previous place of employment as well as many of my freshman and sophomore students here move through the day like they were lucky to drag their asses out of summer break. But later, when what’s next is the next forty years of their lives, these same students will come to life, will discover what they are capable of and if they have the metal to make it beyond the confines of the classroom for the first time in their lives, which already are about a quarter of the way over.

Sitting at that table, pushing aside my own work to watch others, talking to John, talking to a few others I knew as I moved my way from the study area to the Einstein Bagels area, filled me with a sense that whatever might be wrong in the world, these people have what it takes to make it right, and for the first time since I walked by Friedsam Memorial Library at St Bonaventure in 1983 on my way to my life, things felt like they were going to be just fine.

Peace of Mind

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I never truly fit in.

When I was young I certainly had friends, but I was never completely comfortable around anyone—it probably explains my ease in front of a crowd instead of in a crowd. Honestly, I’m much better and more myself in front of two-hundred-fifty people or more than I am with three or less. The art of small talk has always eluded me; in fact, I wrote a relatively successful piece entitled just that, “Small Talk.” It’s not my thing.

I could never involve myself in the minutia of life. I was always better at big picture jobs—a hotel, a health club—where the objectives were clear and the conversation was kept to a minimum. So you can see the irony coming, right? Yes, thirty plus years teaching and discussing and reworking writing by college students, very often one-on-one. I always fell back on my health club training. That is, I became not so much a professor of grammatical skills or syntax as much as I was a motivator.

Big picture themes. That’s my wheelhouse.

So I never fit in at departmental meetings or brown bag discussions. In those places my mind shut down when endless conversation ensued about how to word one sentence of a document or the need or not the need for the Oxford comma, and on and on and blah blah blah and whomp whomp whomp…

They didn’t want me there. I didn’t take it personally; I just, once again, didn’t fit in. When I was growing up, Eddie and I would wander the state park and sing, and even with him, my best friend, conversation came with a melody and lyrics. Things don’t change.

I went to a high school reunion a few years ago. I knew just four people there. Kathy, her sister Patti, our friend Michele, and…okay three people. In retrospect that makes sense—I didn’t really do much in high school. My friend Mike and I did announcements, and that left the appearance I was involved, but I wasn’t. There was a mic, a room, and hallways between me and everyone else. Perfect.

In college it was the same. I was very involved, but scrutiny of that involvement is illuminating for me. Radio station (alone in a studio talking to the campus); coffeehouses (alone on stage in front of a crowd of people I couldn’t see anyway because of the lights); weekends with keg parties and drunken floormates found me borrowing a car and heading for Niagara Falls. I was more comfortable around the resident directors who were often alone in their apartments, or driving to Canada.

Even when I did participate, what I participated in is defined by the singular concept of “one.”

Tennis is an isolated sport.

Guitar can be played without accompaniment.  

Writing.

Walking. Hiking. In college it was the Allegheny River, in Tucson I’d drive down and wander the empty streets of a Mexican village, and in New England I’d hike to the top of Mt. Wachusett where kettles of hawks kept my attention for hours.

Nature.

I find myself more comfortable in nature because it doesn’t mind failure, it pays no attention to shortcomings and disappointments. It simply allows us to exist as we are without judgement or ridicule.

This afternoon after the storm I sat on some stones at the river and watched the choppy waters, the heron gliding across the duck pond toward the marsh, a kingfisher perched on a wire, and the distant, dark clouds building again, bringing more rain again.

It was a few moments of absolute peace of mind.

A thought about this: The peace of mind thing is not easy to obtain. It is not an absence of sounds and conversations, it is an internal escape from one’s own internal disturbances; the constant interior monologue about everything from the practical (money, transportation, deadlines) to the emotional (sick friends, relatives), to the fleeting irrelevance in life that get their claws in your thoughts and won’t release. So finding peace of mind is not easy to do just because my surroundings are quiet and natural; it just makes it easier.

So I sat on the rocks in a rare moment of internal quiet, the still waters of my mind undisturbed by some psychological pebble, and I looked calmly across the river and realized something profound: this river doesn’t want me here either. It was not created for humans, it is not set up for people. It’s why the heron flew off because of me but not because of the egret or the eagle or the osprey. It is why the tide will ebb and flow based upon the natural phenomena of the moon and the sun, gravity and storms—not because of anything or anyone anywhere.

I once stood waist deep in the Congo completely aware that no human should be there. It is the same in any natural place. In Tucson we stood on the shores of the San Rillito River during the horrific floods of 1983 and watched this once calm, low waterway—a place where kids would play baseball at low tide—snap bridges in half, grab houses off of their foundation, flip them over, and carry them on its back to some other place.

Nature has a whole other level of confidence.

Still, it’s as close as I have come in life to being myself, being out there. Hiking in the mountains, canoeing, simply walking down the coast toward some other where.

Some people never find their reason for being here; they let the world saturate their thoughts like a swollen river and swallow them, giving up, giving in, letting that minutia like money and disappointing others get the better of them. It’s easy to do; it happens. I suppose most people don’t ever feel completely comfortable around others, a bit of self-consciousness slips through. But it isn’t that, exactly. It’s that feeling of always thinking I should probably be somewhere else.

Counselors have said since counselors have been saying things that it is essential to find your place in the world. I agree. I’m not sure I ever will, but I certainly agree, and at least I know where to look.

I’ll be outside. Don’t come.

Not Yet

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I watched a hawk sweep down and pulverize a dove. The hawk perched on an oak branch and the dove, distracted by the wind and some seed on the lawn, stopped paying attention. It happens. The hawk isn’t fast as much as he is silent, just a simple cliff dive, stepping off the branch, and with wings out, sweeps in with perfect form with his claws out front to grab the dove at the neck. A sudden puff of feathers bursts into the air, and the raptor is gone. So is the dove.

This time the dove simply stood on the grass. She had been facing the direction of the hawk and when she turned around the hawk flew into action. The dove seemed to hunch down like she knew what was about to happen. Gone.

I wondered if she just gave in, like she’d had enough. Sometimes the natural instinct to survive is not as strong as simple resignation.

When I was in high school some friends and I went to the beach on the bay. At some point one friend and I decided to swim out to the end of a very long pier. We made it but we were exhausted and ended up helping each other back, each of us taking a turn at holding the other until we were at the breakers and could ride in. She and I just collapsed on the beach, spent. It isn’t like we weren’t in shape. We had stamina; we just swam too far out. I wonder when it is that people decide to give up. I wonder if we had been another hundred feet would it have been too far or would we have found the strength and determination to push it. I mean, did we collapse on the beach because we couldn’t go another yard or because we didn’t have to?

I wonder how often I’ve given up because I thought I found the shore when the truth is I could have probably held out for more, pushed it a bit, opted to swim a bit further.

It’s cold today, but sunny, and the hawk is around—I can hear him, though the doves are feeding on the porch rail where it is safe and out of sight. Earlier out on the river an eagle found food, and the buffleheads have returned. Sometimes some river dolphins swim under the Rappahannock Bridge, but not yet this season. I like it here. I find peace here. I think mostly though I like the area because of the water and the sand. Ironically, the first time I was in this area was exactly ten years before I bought the land to build the house. Just across the river is The Tides Inn, a quiet resort right on the Rappahannock. For my parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, my father invited us all to stay at the Inn. It was an excellent time, and we went for a river cruise on the Miss Anne, a riverboat which went under the bridge, and we followed the south shore and returned to the Inn along the north shore, turning around at the mouth of the river into the Chesapeake. I had no clue we passed close enough to my eventual home to be able to cast a line to shore and pull us in.

Thirty-five years later I’m watching osprey out across the same bridge feeding their young, while hawks stand watch in oak trees waiting for doves to stand still.

I was born a moving target; I’m not sure I ever learned the right time to collapse on the beach. The hawks have for the most part missed me up until now. When I do settle down it is usually to look at a map. Ironically, since I moved into this home, I have traveled more than I ever dreamed I would—Russia, Prague, Amsterdam, Spain, France, Norway, and plenty of states. And at night in the darkness we use the telescope to travel through the heavens out across the waters and find planets and meteors. We often joke about one of the meteors ripping through the atmosphere and hitting us in the back of the head while we’re facing the other way.

When I was in college a friend had a poster on his wall promoting Nike. It was a long shot of a winding road through open country with one solitary runner, and the tag line said, “There is no finish line.” I like that. If we didn’t know when to stop, I wonder how often we would keep moving. I’m not an advocate of indecision. But I’m a staunch opponent to settling for something when there’s still more options for the ones willing to wander a bit more. It is, to be sure, a delicate balance.

Certainly I get tired as I move forward, especially on the days when I’m not sure where I’m going or how long it will take to get there. But when I think about that swim to the end of the pier and back, I don’t often recall the collapse on the sand; I remember how quiet and peaceful it was taking turns helping each other back to shore. It was hard to tell if we were helping each other or saving ourselves.

The journey doesn’t necessarily end because we found a safe place to rest

The Rain

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The View from my Office Window

It has been raining steadily since early this morning, and it’s in the mid-fifties today, going toward sixty or more by Tuesday. This reminds me of the rainy days when I was a child and I’d lay on the den floor and watch old black and white westerns all afternoon. I enjoyed seeing the blazing western Sun and the sweat on the cowboys’ foreheads all the while our yard swelled from hours of torrents.

Like today. The leaves are somewhere between summer and winter, with carpets of amber and red running the length of the driveway and all along the Aerie trails. Even the porch, which has remained dry because of no winds today, has scatterings of leaves right up to the log walls and on the furniture. The river is calm, and a slow endless hum of rain on the surface is both peaceful and somewhat melancholy. Sometimes when the riverfront is barren and the mist rises from the storm, I can hear some faint call of kids on innertubes, or the distant grind of a jet ski passing out toward Parrot Island. It reminds me of those beach sounds when I was young, on the Great South Bay or at Point Lookout on the Atlantic, and some music drifts from the blankets of other family’s, and the low murmur of adults talking about some trip to the city while kids yell from the surf break. Those sounds are my life’s soundtrack; they are embedded in me as much as the sound of my own voice. Sometimes some nearby transistor radio would toss over Ralph Kiner’s voice announcing a Mets’ game, and I’d tune into that while laying on my stomach on the blanket.

But today’s connection is the rain and how it sounded on the awning in Massapequa, or how it sounded in the trees of Heckscher when Eddie and I would wander the trails not minding being soaking wet, not minding the ebbing of the days of summer and fall.

That was then.

Now, the rain comes in steady streams then lightens up, then heavy again, but never stopping; not today. Outside my office window here across the driveway is nothing but woods for quite some distance, and if I look out long enough I can usually see deer, even in the rain, and opossum. At night in the flood of the porch light I can see the fox at the edge of the woods nosing her way in wet leaves looking for apple cores I leave out. She will eat a few, then she will mouth a few to bring to her kits. I have never seen her den, but I imagine it is not far and is fairly dry—or at least protected from the weather.

Today I did nothing. Earlier, I caught up on writing classes and finished an article for a deadline and then organized the area around this desk, but once that was done by late morning, I did nothing. Today is the day I decided to undo myself, neatly put my pieces spread out on the floor, clean off each one slowly, clear out the buildup from years of neglect, and then carefully put myself back together. So the rain is good—it is cleansing, it is like some late autumn baptism.

Once classes are done and the leaves have fallen and the cold air comes on, undoubtably taking me by surprise again, I will clear the leaves off the driveway, clear the paths by raking the leaves into the woods, and get the firewood ready for winter. The house is well-heated, but I like fires in the stone fireplace. It feels safe, though I’m not sure why since I never really feel threatened by anything. Still, there seems to be a difference between not feeling any threat and feeling “safe.” I know at least one person knows exactly what I mean.

In 1981 or ’82, a friend of mine and I took a van to Rochester from college to pick up a piano he bought for his campus apartment. He worked for the university. On the way home we stopped at Letchworth State Park and hiked for a while, then we stood next to the stone wall which overlooks some waterfalls. It was autumn, and the leaves were at their peak. It was like standing in a state of Grace; it was like stopping time and all civilization could breathe better. We talked about music and other normal early-twenty-year-old conversations, and then after some time of quiet, he said, “You ever think about how every year we pass the exact moment we will die?” I stared at him a minute and said, well, to be honest, no—it never crossed my mind—until then. He laughed and added, “I don’t mean that in a morbid way, but if someone died on November 10th at 11:12 am, then every year before his death he passed that tragic moment not knowing its significance.”

I made some jokes about morbidity and how he managed to bring down what had been a really good moment, and we laughed for a long time. We even sat in the back of the van and played the piano and sang while a few other tourists stood by and listened. It was a good day. Before we drove off, he said, “I guess it’s just that sometimes I wonder how many autumns I have left. Probably a lot, sixty or so maybe. But who knows.”

That was exactly forty years ago, and I’m glad to say he is still with us, though we lost touch a long time ago. But we’re both in our sixties now, and we are closer to 100 years old than we are that afternoon. So there aren’t a lot of fall days left to enjoy this suspension of seasons; this literal “change” of nature.

And so I too have decided to change. I need—must—let the old ways slip off and fall away and gather at my feet before I continue this pilgrimage. No doubt it has been beautiful—in the big picture I have had one hell of a string of seasons in my life. But it seems like a fine time to go dormant and get back in touch with my roots a bit, understand again where I was going to begin with.

The rain stopped about two paragraphs ago. It is dark grey still, and the moment of what would have been a sunset if not for the grey skies has passed, so it is getting dark. I’ll put the porch lights on soon and look for the fox, most certainly I’ll see some opossum. I’ll sit on the porch a while and have some tea and for a little while I’ll notice how beautiful the fallen leaves are having served their purpose, having made way for the new leaves to come.

Humanity Needs to be Edited. Fast.

~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ Leave a comment

Crispr is alive and well and causing controversy throughout the world of science. It’s still in the intensely early stages, of course, so I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, but in the not too distant now, scientists will be able to “edit” genes in a human embryo to prevent a disease. As a writer and a professor of writing I stand strongly behind any form of editing. It is, after all, an attempt to make something better either by adding clarity, eliminating awkwardness, or, in this case, correcting errors. It is difficult to find fault with this.

Honestly, I know the arguments. Gene manipulation of any sort can lead to “designer” babies. Sure, parents with money will be able to not only eliminate disease but order up some character traits not already fine-tuned in the sperm. Those without the means will suffer the process of natural selection and have to be satisfied with what birth brings them. Further, the embryo-envy group will insist that this could lead us into dangerous territory including cloning, or possibly creating a robot-like race.

Slow down. There are regulatory speedbumps still to overcome. In the meantime, if we can scrape the cancer out of a kid why would we not want to? And when someone suggests it really should be “God’s will” how the baby comes out, I get frustrated, pissed off, and downright angry. Of course, all of my reactions are traits that could have been removed with one more run through of gene-check when I was born. But how can anyone not become infuriated? It is God’s will that children be born with cancer? Seriously? Cerebral Palsy? Cystic Fibrosis? Oh, come on. That’s sick. How (in God’s name) do these people not know it possibly was God’s will to enable scientists to finally have this moment where in some lab somewhere someone sat back, looked up and stared straight ahead, blinked, and said, softly to herself, “Praise God. We did it”? Under the acutely pretentious mentality that it was “God’s will” that misfortune remain standard, we should have no medicines, eyeglasses, or deodorant. You can’t have it both ways; the same God that “allows” tragedy to befall a newborn might just have balanced His intent with a scientist’s capability to solve the problem.

If some baby has a dangling modifier or comma splice, I say have at it. Eliminate the gene that bends toward polio, Chron’s, leukemia, or blindness, and on a personal note, Parkinson’s and ovarian cancer. Clean up the embryonic paragraph which begins with an incomplete digestive system, a fragmented spine, a misspelled heart valve. And, my dear scientists, surgeons, or managing editors—however you will be so labeled—while you’re in there, quickly skim through the frontal lobe and fine-tune the common sense. See what you can do about the math scores on SATs and the gene that enables tailgating, stealing, lying, and pain. This little move toward disease control could be a step toward babies designed to share with others, to empathize, to help the needy and to not text and drive.

I wonder, though, if personality traits can be manipulated as easily as cancer control. If so, can we finally make a move toward understanding and compassion? Is it possible that this discovery is the end to the common trend toward gluttony and greed? These designer babies might, by design, be intolerant of hunger, might make homelessness obsolete because of some doctor who checked the fetus galley sheets and noticed a gene which still allowed unnecessary suffering and had the presence of mind to grab a bottle of amniotic white-out. “Be gone, apathy!”

In a world where so many have no issue with the swerve toward technology and computers that think ahead, robots with limbs not unlike our own, what is so wrong with a step toward humanity? Instead of improving machines to help us make life more convenient and comfortable, how about making the technology obsolete by improving the people?

How much embryonic manipulation will it take before hunger is no longer an issue? How many edits is it before the desire for war doesn’t even enter someone’s mind?

People must stop being suspicious of science and finally understand that the human race is dying; we are on a slow decline and have become more accustomed to crude comments than constructive conversation, indifferent toward arms buildup and troop movement, and infinitely more blasé about hope, possibility, and peace. When did we decide that disease and suffering were simply part of humanity and will never change?

Still not convinced that gene-manipulation might be at least worth investigating further just to understand the possibilities? Then ask yourself this: If you knew your child was going to be born with a painful disease or perhaps die at ten-years-old from cancer, and you could stop it from happening, would you?