writing

Pisces/Virgo Rising

~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ 1 Comment

The naming of things often mystifies me. I get the planets; apparently the ancients liked Gods, but for their own planet they separated Earth and State and pulled an old Germanic word for “ground” or “soil.” How original. They should have just called it “Here.”

We looked at the stars and planets again the other night, and Saturn hung just to the left of the nearly-full moon, both just under the scales of Pisces. Pisces the Fish. And that’s where you lose me. When a dear friend gave us a beautiful telescope and deep space binoculars, my brother bought me a book about space stuff, including the constellations, and other than the dippers, which really do look like kitchen utensils, and Orion, which I recognize because of the old Orion Pictures reel, I don’t see Bulls or Crabs or Fish. Some ancient astronomers stretched it to be sure. I suppose if I lived in a Dark Sky area, the dominant stars of any particular constellation would pop and I might say, “OH! okay, look, Twins!” But no, not so much. And there are eighty-eight constellations, none of which share stars. That’s a boatload of sky and necessitates some serious imagination.

Look at Pisces above. The blue guide lines of my Space App show me where the “fish” is, but honestly, no–it’s not a fish–a tadpole at best. Taking the blue lines only it more resembles a penis, but I suppose the Penis Constellation would not stand up to scrutiny and no one needs to hear “Constellation Penis is rising in Virgo tonight.” But look again. Not a fish.

And here at soil level we’re not doing much better. Euphemisms abound so that I can’t recognize what the hell some people are trying to say, leaving way too much room for interpretation. In April of last year I was at my sister’s in Pennsylvania when our mom’s nurse called. She quietly and respectfully told us, “Your mom is transitioning.”

What? Honestly, for a split second all I could think of was, “Now? She’s ninety-one! But Go Mom!” It was only a heartbeat later I understood the very new (to me) diction of death. “She’s dying” is apparently not acceptable anymore. I think the reasoning is if they tell us Mom is transitioning, they’ve delivered half the message, and when our minds convert “transition” into “dying” we end up, oddly enough, telling ourselves what is happening, letting the nurse off the hook. Granted, I’m not sure I would want Dr. House to come in and go the other way with it. “She’s just about dead, Bob” probably wouldn’t help at all.

Pets cross the Rainbow Bridge after they are put to sleep. People are between jobs not unemployed, unhoused not homeless, horizontally challenged not fat. I could go on but I am trying to avoid being honest to a fault. Or Rude. Same thing.

Here’s one: Last week a student on campus committed suicide. Wednesday morning, early in the building where my classes are, he killed himself. But the community did not know that. What they were told by the college (and I suppose the police) was that there was an “incident” involving a student and death, but no one else is in any danger. This narrative should have only remained for as long as those in charge needed to verify what happened. At that point, everyone had a right to know exactly what happened. Instead, euphemisms relegated us to some vague interpretation at best, a complete misinterpretation at worst.

Officials then made the news of this tragedy worse by treating suicide like something they literally refuse to even mention by name to be addressed and discussed. Instead, rumor mills ran wild while students and the community wondered how he died, if someone else was involved, and on and on, because “incident” makes the truth as unrecognizable as the Constellation Penis. “A student took his own life today” should have been the first words (after the truth was verified) from the college, and absolutely the lead on any story in the media. Life is too complicated and moves too quickly for euphemistic speed bumps. Everyone wins when everyone knows exactly what everyone else is trying to say.

Ironically, Pisces is actually represented by two fish swimming in opposite directions to represent reality and fantasy. Diction-wise that translates to “being blunt” swimming past “beating around the bush,” I suppose.

But I still can’t help but believe that some Babylonian shepherd standing nearby the Pisces founder had to say, “Oh come on. What fish? That’s messed up. I’ll tell you what I think it looks like.”

The Sound of Violins

~ aviewfromthiswilderness ~ Leave a comment

Ukraine has sent drones to bomb sections of St Petersburg, Russia. Good. I know where those drones hit. I hope they did severe damage without killing anyone I might know. I know the location as well as I know anywhere. I know well the backroads and alleys of St. Petersburg, Russia. I know the coolest little cafes and late night jazz joints, have (had?) friends in shacks serving Georgian wine and shashleek—a kind of shish kabob—in a small room with low ceilings and dirt floors, the Gulf of Finland pounding at the sand outside. I returned again and again to long embraces from friends like Igor and Dima and Valentine, the crazy and brilliant artist.

At first, I simply taught American culture at the college, endured endless people wanting to practice their English, but that grew into Victory Day celebrations on Palace Bridge year after year, and year after year I mourned the losses of people during the siege with veterans who sat telling me their stories all the while holding my arm, connecting to me through touch. I became friends with these survivors of the siege.

I prayed with old nuns in shrines, climbed the rubble of the ruined St Catherine of Alexandria Catholic Church with American priest Frank Sutman who raised enough money to rebuild this first Catholic Church in all of Russia back to its glory from the ruins of the storage facility it had become during the Soviet Era. I met musicians in old bars—Gypsies—and played music with them until the sun came up, read my own work at the famed Stray Dog Café surrounded by the ghosts of Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky.

What a time it was.

With friends I toured palace after palace, attended private concerts by quintets from the Kirov who played before dinner at the Nikolaevsky, walked the halls of the Summer Palace and wandered about the infamous Amber Room, learned every crevice of the Winter Palace and its five building complex that is the Hermitage Museum. Had drinks in the basement of the Yusopov Palace where Rasputin had drinks just before he was killed for the fifth time. Walked the grounds of Galinka Palace, the Church of Spilled Blood, St Isaacs, St Nicholas, Trinity, and more. I climbed to the top of the tower of Smolney from which St Seraphim supposedly fell the ninety feet to the ground when he was ten but landed softly and got up and ran toward canonization.

I learned where to buy vodka and where not to sip it at all. I found the best places for authentic borsch and had Beef Stroganoff at the Stroganoff Palace.

I ate at McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and more western joints filled to the gills with Russians loving the taste of America, drinking in the swell of western culture, surrounding my friends and me trying to fit more English into their Cyrillic mouths.

We took canal rides and saw folk shows where more than a few times I was dragged on stage to dance with the Russian women and men as balalaika music filled the packed arena. I’ve seen Swan Lake at the Marinksy Theatre more than a dozen times and have seen Hamlet in Russian.

I’ve made friends with former Soviet Naval Captains, countless professors, writers, and artists. I’ve become friends with translators and more than a few vets of the Chechnya War who would have rather stayed home and continued their studies in Engineering at St Petersburg University than return with no legs, one arm, half a face blown away, leaning against the Metro Walls, cap in hand—handicapped, hopeless. I’ve helped friends move to Germany to avoid the terror that became Vladimir Putin.

I’ve sat on the rocks of the Gulf of Finland drinking champagne during the White Nights while one of Russia’s finest flautists performed privately for us, laughing, making us cry with Tchaikovsky and Bach. I’ve sat backstage at the St Petersburg Conservatory with a dear friend who is a choreographer, and his teacher, who used to dance with Baryshnikov, and watched them practice. Swan Lake still plays in my head from time to time and breaks me down on cold evenings.

I’ve brought hundreds and hundreds of Americans from students to four star generals, professors to intelligence officers, and writers, so many writers, to this city. We’ve had food from an Uzbekistan Restaurant, and I came to understand the plight of the refugees from Azerbaijan after the slaughter by Armenians. I’ve read at the flat of Dostoevsky with an original volume of Pushkin on the table next to me and one of Fyodor’s own manuscripts two feet away. We have wandered through the massive marketplace next door to his place and carried home to our apartment bags of fresh vegetables. Today the smell of cucumbers brings me to the Neva River where the fish Koryushka has the identical aroma. The sound of violins, too, can break me down. I don’t know if my friends are fine or are simply dead or injured now, a handful among the 1.5 million to fall in Ukraine. I miss my friends, though I side completely with Ukraine. Here’s the thing: So do they. To be Russian is to always have a battle.

I’ve battled with border patrol over textbooks, bribed cemetery guards to let us wander sacred grounds, sat in the cell that held Dostoevsky and other dissidents, and watched the ruble gain strength, take a beating, then recover, then fall. I’ve sat on benches with women who were survivors of the siege during the Great Patriotic War and talked about family, talked about poppyseed rolls, talked about the flowers that grow in the dirt.

I was there when they reinterned the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family, including Anastasia and Alexi. I was there for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city that Peter the Great called the Window to the West.

I watched as Marlboro came to town, then Clairol and every Russian woman suddenly had bright red hair. Adidas showed up and all the men wore warmup suits. I’ve walked past too many men in cheap three piece suits holding semi-automatic rifles guarding some boss’ SUV as money exchanged hands—all cash, USD, in suitcases.

I had just turned thirty-one when Communism fell and I went to St Petersburg. The city streets were dank and barren, not a single neon sign, not a single advertisement, nothing to see or do. I toured the lab of Pavlov where dogs are still used, and I stood next to the eternal flame commemorating those lost during the siege on the Field of Mars. I met Putin when he was vice-mayor of the city. I met Ambassadors. I met Sophia, who was a young teen when the Czar was still in charge, who lost her husband and son during the siege, and who sat in the shadow of the Smolensky Shrine and told me they can take anything they want from her, but they’ll never take her faith from her again. She blessed herself in the large Orthodox way and held my arm with her ninety-something year old transparent hands. She could tell me whatever she wanted. I could talk about anything I wished. I watched this county I was raised to fear fixate on all things west, becoming a strong and welcome presence in world culture and exchange. Every person I brought returned home amazed at the life that was Russia, hoping to return, knowing they had friends there.

Now, exactly half a lifetime since my first trip, I’ve watched it all go full circle. The western influence is gone–no more McDonalds, Pizza Hut, or KFC. No more Starbucks. Open readings are tolerated only if no one, no one, absolutely no one uses the word “War” in reference to the Ukraine.

I sat by hopelessly as friends wished me well and hoped we’d someday meet again. I told them, my friends, including those now in Germany and France, a few in Norway, that I cannot wait to see them again, perhaps in New York, or Paris. Maybe Oslo. Not Russia. Not until Putin is dead.

I have taken a train from one end of that massive empire to the other with my son, creating memories to last all our lives, spent late nights drinking shots of vodka with Siberian businessmen. I’ve sat in the home of tour operators and laughed and became brothers with them. I have mementos on bookshelves, on walls. I’ve written three books about my times in Russia, and more than fifty articles. I’ve developed three college courses about Russian Culture and mentored more than two hundred students who received Study Abroad credit. I miss the beauty of the architecture, the beauty of the people, and the mystical way history bathes me when I walk the streets at night. I miss my friends. I miss laughing with Valentine and talking about butterflies and angels. I miss sitting alone at this one café I love and drinking tea, making notes, listening to contemporary folk music and enjoying this magical life I’ve had the chance to live that brought me more than two dozen times to a place that until I was in my thirties, I never thought I’d ever see, and a place I always thought I’d get to see again. 







on Nevsky Prospect







			

	


				
					


	

			
After
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ 1 Comment					

				

		













I received an email yesterday from a woman from Marseilles who now lives in North Carolina who knew Letty decades ago, and when she returned to the states was so excited to catch up, but the phone number she had didn’t work. Of course. So she Googled her and came upon my written memorial to her. She was devastated and wrote a lengthy email expressing her sorrow and condolences as well as remembering when they were both so young and full of energy. I haven’t responded yet–I will–and I’ll avoid my thoughts about the fact email works all over the world, including Marseilles, as do cell phones and how we have more free time than we would like others to believe to be able to call and say, “Hey I only have one minute but you are on my mind and I just wanted to say hi.” They’ve been warned it is a quick call. But I won’t say that because I’m just as guilty. Not as guilty as I used to be, but just the same. I wait until after it is too late to say what I want to say, even if all it is might be “Hello, I’m thinking of you.” The world is more chaotic than ever in human history and taking a moment to spread thoughts of friendship and love can go a long way these days.





I receive emails fairly often from friends of people I’ve written about. I’ve received dozens referencing Cole Young as I might be the only one other than art critics who has written often about my dear late friend who succumbed to lung cancer twenty years ago. He knew a lot of people, mostly artists, and they tend to look him up–Cole had a personality that might very likely reach back at you from the beyond to say, “Think of me now, Kunzinger!” So emails about Cole are common and not at all a surprise. It has, in fact, put me back in touch with some artists I knew back in those days.





The weirdest email was from “Eton Churchill.” Mind you, that is the name of my friend, playwright, professor Eton Churchill, who steered my Penn State Graduate degree and performance to a Pennsylvania Humanities Award. He died many years ago at a young sixty-two, so when I received an email from “him,” it did somewhat freak me out. It was, in fact, from his son who at the time was living in Asia. In fact, the first line was “I bet it is strange to receive an email from Eton Churchill. But I’m his son.” He also had read a tribute I wrote to his father and wrote to reminisce more than anything else. It reminded me of the time at my father’s funeral a man Dad used to work with came up to us with articles about my dad that this man had saved. He explained that none of my father’s coworkers had ever been to New York, let alone Wall Street, and Dad was the Yoda of their workplace; they all looked up to him and respected him. It is a moment I will never forget and will always appreciate. That’s a perspective we never get to hear. So Eton Junior’s email was more about appreciating that others appreciated his dad. Yes, we did. Very much. I’m just sorry I didn’t express that to him when he was alive. He passed away too soon. They always did.





Fr Dan knew our relationship well; we were more brothers than friends, and while he died unexpectedly, I never felt like I should have said more. I just wish I had. My college friend Dave, however, I had so much I wanted to say, so many thanks and memories to exchange, but he denied others the chance to say, “Hey, my life is better because of you. Thank you for forty-five years of friendship. I love you.” I wish I could have said that, and the “he knew that, Bob” comments are not sufficient. We know that doesn’t matter. It needs to be said. We need to give people the chance to tell us these things.





Letty knew exactly how I felt, of course, as did my mom and dad, but not so for Eddie, not Bobbie, not the other Dave and the other friend’s who left so much unspoken. I’ve received letters from friends of all of these people because of something I had written. The common denominator is their regret at having not told the person how they felt while they were still alive. Instead they told me. Which is nice, but there’s nothing I can do about it. 





I’ve learned from these letters, however. I am glad I had a brief, lucid conversation with my dad. I’m glad my mom’s eyes were open long enough for me to say, “I love you, Mom,” as they welled up with tears and an hour later she was gone. I’m satisfied she knew. And I hope she knew I understood her love for me.





So then why do we wait? Why do we put off telling others how much they mean to us? It is simply speaking truth and demands no response at all. We can even tell them that: “Don’t respond, but I love you and I’m glad you’re in my life.” The closest we come now is “I appreciate you.” When this expression burst on the scene less than a decade ago (depending upon where you are from), I was resistant at first. I don’t appreciate them, I appreciate what they did. Someone holds the door open for someone else and they say, “I appreciate ya.” No. You appreciate not having to open the door yourself; you don’t even know the person holding it. 





But yes, I’ve changed my tune. I do appreciate anyone who is nice these days in a world where anger and blame and aggression and excuses, lying and deception and downright rage is rampant. Maybe it is all the cellphone and Wifi waves in the air around us screwing with our nervous system; maybe we are losing faith, maybe we are losing hope. So the “I appreciate you” comments are not only welcome, they just might be necessary. Where else do we find hope and support anymore? 





Listen, seriously. I appreciate  ya. 





Memorials to some of my friends: 







Cole









Eton









Rachel









Dave









Fr. Dan Riley, ofm









Eddie









Letty















			

	


				
					


	

			
Flip Flops
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ Leave a comment					

				

		






This work was originally published in “Barely South Review” about twelve years ago. It has since been anthologized and often pops up around 911. 





“Death plucks my ear and says, ‘Live. I am coming. Live now.’”





–Virgil





I went to the local hardware in Hartfield and bought a sickle—a huge rake-like piece of
steel only instead of a rake at the end there is a double-edged sharp, wavy blade made to rip
through branches, thick weeds and other bone-like growth. Eighteen dollars.





The front of my property is wooded, and on a few acres toward the river, I spent some
time clearing out brush and unwanted vines. I piled it up to haul away, but before that could
happen, other more tenacious weeds—small trees really—took over the area. Some I pulled out,
some I mowed, but I couldn’t grasp to tug out the tougher ones—so the sickle. One warm
morning while alone I put on shorts and flip flops, grabbed the sickle and walked the six hundred
of so feet through the woods to swing away at a small grove. None would rip out easily, so I
aimed for the fences, came down from my right with major-league force and tore through the
vines like an axe through balsa. I attacked one after another, muscles taught so that sweat came
fast, and I made progress. Then I stepped to swing at what looked like a thick, knotty growth at
the bottom of the stump. It was a Virginia creeper vine. Sometimes these monsters look rooted
but aren’t. But what do I know; I’m from New York. So I swung at it like A-Rod. The blade
passed through as if the weed were nothing more than a figment of my imagination, and with all
my energy plus a good deal of inertia, the metal blade ripped into my left ankle.





I like flip-flops. I grew up on the beaches from Long Island to Virginia, so I’ve been
wearing them since I’m a kid. I actually had one pair for ten years, sometimes rigged with a thick
paperclip to hold them together. My feet from April to October have a thick white stripe across
the tops seen only when my flip flops are off. I teach in them. I walk in them. I even mow the
lawn and chop wood in them. Despite what many have said, they are not the cause of the blade
Tarantino-ing my ankle. I don’t remember my foot slipping. I do remember almost not going out
to cut the underbrush to begin with because I couldn’t find my flip flops. What a different story
this would have been had I not come across them on the back porch. 





When it happened, blood exploded like water in a hose that’s been held back by bending
and then released. My ankle, foot and flops looked as if dipped in bright red paint. I hobbled the
six hundred feet to the back of the house to wash off the wound, bandaged it, then went back out
to cut more wood; I was wired from adrenaline, my ankle didn’t hurt too badly, and to be honest
I had a lot to do.





That night I iced it. I kept it clean. I was fine. Really.





A week later my leg was pitting a bit when I pushed my thumb into my shin. Excess fluid
I figured. Prior to the whacking, I had been running up to eight miles a day, prepping for the
Rock and Roll Half, so one evening when I was feeling a bit more hyper than usual, and the
swelling moved to both legs—a feat I could not comprehend from injuring one ankle, but I don’t
have a medical degree—I stopped at Kroger and spotted a blood pressure machine. This can’t be
right, I thought, when the first reading came up 270 over 190. I did it two more times and both
readings came pretty close to the same. At the checkout I let them know the machine was
broken. We all laughed at my numbers—even the bagger laughed and put the laundry detergent
on top of the bread. It was that funny.





The next day, worried about my ankle, I washed off my flip flops and went to the doctor.
He took my blood pressure. Again. Again. He asked why I was stupid enough to wear flip flops
while doing yard work. I pointed out I wacked myself above where any shoe would have come
anyway. He asked if I were doing cocaine, heroin, or any other substance, asked if I had
shortness of breath, dizziness, if I had thrown up, fell down, or otherwise felt corpselike. He took
my blood pressure again. He asked how long I felt hyper. “Years,” I said, and he took my
pressure again. Then he sent me to the emergency room. Average BP—260 over 175.
Tests. IVs. Tests. On and on it went for several hours. Nurses came, two doctors stopped
by, some punk there to visit a friend who had overdosed came by to check out my vitals because
my blood pressure was the talk of the ward. The nurses upped the meds. Finally the doctors said
based upon my blood vessels behind my eyes and various tests, my blood pressure had
apparently been that high for probably some years, and that if it wasn’t for the fact I’m totally
healthy otherwise with excellent results from blood and other tests, I’d have had a major stroke.





I asked the cause. The doctor shrugged. Genetics; in a high stress situation for far too
long; a combination, he said. They brought it down to 190 over 95 and sent me home with meds
to bring it back to normal. They told me to keep exercising and that because of my medicines I
could do the marathon, but to be clear, I’m going to be very weak for awhile until I adjust to a
life where I’m not pumped on triple doses of double shots coursing through my veins.





A few weeks later at a follow up where my pressure was at 110 over 70 the doctor told
me in complete agreement with the cardiologist and another doctor, had I not gone in, I’d have
most likely had a major stroke trying to run the half, and probably would be dead. I asked why I
didn’t have one while doing the eight miles a day prior to the Great Sickle Incident, and he was
quite professional about it: I don’t know, he said. I really don’t know. You should have. Good
thing you wacked your ankle, he said.





Yeah, thank God I wacked my ankle. And I thought how often that happens. Good thing I went back for the keys. Good thing I stopped for coffee. Good thing you kept me on the phone, or I’d have been at that intersection just at that moment.





“Good thing I watched Monday Night football on the 10th and overslept: I work on the
85th floor and I’d have been right there,” the stock broker said in the street to the television crew.
As the towers tumbled, he counted his blessings.





Good thing Larry Silverstein, owner of the lease of the World Trade Centers, has a wife
who made him go to his dermatologist appointment that morning instead of yet another meeting
in the North Tower.





Good thing Chef Michael Lomanoco of “Windows on the World” broke his glasses and
had to stop at Lenscrafters that morning to get them fixed.





Good thing Lara Clarke stopped to talk to her friend, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, in a
chance meeting down in the village that morning making her late for her job on the 77th floor.





Thank God singer Patti Austin, booked on flight 93, had to leave Boston a day early
because her mother had a stroke and she had to get back to San Francisco on the 10th instead. “I
went back and forth all day about when to leave,” she said.Thank God actress Julie Stoffer and her boyfriend had a wailing fight that morning and
she missed Flight 11.





Actor Mark Wahlburg is still haunted by that same Flight 11 to LA, which he missed at
the last minute when an 11th hour invitation to a film festival sent him to Toronto instead. He has
nightmares thinking about who took his place on the flight. He would have been sitting next to
Family Guy creator Seth McFarland who also missed that flight when his manager gave him the
wrong boarding time and he was fifteen minutes late. He, too, still has bad dreams, he says. But
thank God, he says.





It’s chance. It’s the phone call, the caught light, the traffic backup. It’s changing your mind. It’s
sticking to the plan. It’s oversleeping, insomnia, an upset stomach. It’s a few seconds. It’s the
wrong shoes. It’s the stroke of luck.






			

	


				
					


	

			
Again with the Walking
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ 3 Comments					

				

		


















Every time I go to the doctor’s, the first question they ask me when alone in the room is, “Have you been depressed?” It is a waste of their time–and mine–to consistently ask the question, and the next time I am there I am going to suggest they take that off of their “to do” list for patients. Because the last several times I have actually answered yes, said that I am in fact a little depressed, suggested perhaps it is the medicine,  they say nothing, they do nothing, no follow up, no “Oh really, how bad is it?” no “Did you want to talk about it?” no “Perhaps we can recommend a counselor” no “How close to suicide do you think you get?” Nothing. They move on to my blood pressure, which because of the lack of follow-up to their thorough mental-condition question, rises exponentially, and when they say, “Oh, your BP is up! Is there anything you can think of that would cause that?” I answer, “The outrageous indifference of people to other people’s feelings.” They suggest I eat less salt. 





Last year I actually saw my cardiologist for the first time in some years as I now have those consultations done at my GP unless he finds reason to refer me back, and when I saw him just for a check up, he asked the question and I said, “Yes, Dr, I am.” He looked at me for some time and asked, “Is there someone you can talk to? Maybe someone at work?” “She died.” “A best friend?” “Dead.” “A priest?” “Dead.” He stared at me a minute more. “So what do you think is depressing you.” Sigh. I hung my head like Charlie Brown and walked to the parking hot, a bubble of %##$%@@& symbols above my head. 





The world is burning. Drought. Floods. Political leaders are absolutely out of their minds. The Israeli Prime Minister is trying to kill everyone in Gaza, Putin everyone in Ukraine, and Trump everyone in Canada. The most significant places I traveled as an adult were Mexico, Central Africa, and Russia, and between cartels, war, and invasion, they’re no longer favored destinations. I thought about Hemingway who lost his beloved Paris to World War Two, his beloved Cuba to the revolution, and his beloved life to disease followed by suicide.   Depressed? 





I planned trips which got cancelled; I have dealt with more than my share of impatient people, and the only salvation I’ve found in the past eighteen months has been in The Netherlands, the Uinta Mountains, and the Oregon Coast. This says a lot, but it also tells me I’m not depressed when I’m not sitting still. 





This is all to say this: I started walking again. I had stopped–depression maybe, book deadlines perhaps, but I am walking again, a lot, and I noticed something significant when I’m out along the river or the bay, walking through the trails at the maritime museum or even down the hill at Aerie to the Rapp: I couldn’t care less about all of the news and the happenings in the world, and I just am. It reminds me of when my son and I walked the Camino de Santiago, and after a week of letting all the crap of life fall off of me along the trails crossing the Pyrenees, I was present, completely present in the moment, alive and at peace. Likewise, I recall how in college at retreats or just hanging out in someone’s room, we’d talk about how important it is to carry that peace with us, “bring the peace with you” as Fr Dan used to tell me. And we’d insist that we would, sometimes even making it a day or two before the weight of life settled back on our lives like a nuclear storm. So as I grew older I just assumed, as many people do, that the kind of peace I’m talking about is reserved for vacations and breaks, for mornings with coffee on the porch or watching the dolphins move up the bay. 





That’s not true. Peace can be a constant, a presence we learn to accommodate. The Camino may change to hallways or market aisles, but the atmosphere is our call.





***





Listen, I know depressed people; I mean legitimate, clinically diagnosed depressed individuals doing their best. Their struggle is chemical and environmental and real and debilitating. Those of us who feel overwhelmed by the seemingly unbearable weight of existence, who feel alone because friends and family left the party early, who feel worried about the most minute details of otherwise irrelevant minutia, we are not depressed, we are distracted, focused on the question instead of the solution. 





I walked today and found that creativity out there next to the soybean farm, and further down near the pasture with deer and rabbit I found the energy to manipulate the creativity how I wish. No wonder I have been depressed; I left most of my work down the hill on the way to the river. 





But this casual depression is very real even for those of us who have not officially been diagnosed. There are days the clock is the size of the planet and the hands are spinning like a 78 record, and I wonder how I could have screwed up my life so much that I’m constantly asking what is the point, truly, and I mean this, what is the point to anything if we’re all going to be dismissed anyway. 





And then I saw a rabbit at the river just sitting there, and last night the clouds covered the lunar eclipse but I was out there ready, and being out there ready at one am was enough to make me feel connected to everyone else out there ready. 





I walked today and the sun turned pink, almost lavender, and it glowed across the river and out toward the bay, and even a heron stood and watched, and for that moment we all brought the peace with us. 













			

	


				
					


	

			
Five Pm (and counting)
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ 2 Comments					

				

		








If life happened in a day, and Einstein is horrifically more accurate than we would like, then let’s make a 6 am sunrise birth and place death around a 9pm sunset. I’ve always preferred summers for the extended daylight hours.





And if we break a life of ninety years (I’m an optimist) into a day, we live about six years an hour, or a year every ten minutes. Goes fast doesn’t it? In fact, my clock reads 5 pm. School’s out, lunch has been made, eaten, and cleaned up, and the morning hours are so long ago I barely recall them anymore. I am just checking out the fridge to see what to make for dinner. 





If life happened in a day, we’d make sure we didn’t miss much, no matter the weather or how tired we are. We’d call our closest companions and ask them to join us—we’d go through this together. It is too bad we can’t do this again, we’d admit. I don’t want to miss any of it, we’d say, suddenly aware of how fast time goes by, how many moments we let slip away. In fact, just talking about the fleeting morning might make us miss those hours of the day’s youth when discovery is ripe and exploration is new. Those hours of life when no one but us has yet discovered the forest out back, the rapids in the creek down the road, or the view from the bent branches of a birch. We would remember what it was like to not be afraid to take chances, before the midday sun sucked the optimism from our marrow. 





Looking back at my own day, around 10 am I lived in Massachusetts in a yellow house next to a reservoir. It was a quaint village surrounded by a larger town, and across the street was a small post office and an antique store. Just up the winding road was an apple orchard where I bought bags of apples and where my neighbor the postmaster would buy me an apple pie for shoveling her driveway. I loved then, and I often talk about how I wish it was 10am again, and I again was leaving work to head to the mountain to hike to the summit to see kettles of hawks.





Just an hour later, I was gone, living in a different latitude and finding myself finding myself once again. Love was easier than it should be and shorter than I had hoped, and the lessons learned so late in the morning stole my energy for a while. Exhaustion isn’t always only because of age; sometimes it is a sudden lack of momentum. But time passes. I’d give the next six hours to have a few minutes back, but we can’t. We must look forward. If I spend too much time regretting what happened at 11 this morning I’ll blow right through the afternoon without noticing the way the light of the sun can bring everything to life no matter how late it is getting.





At noon I walked to the river with my son on my shoulders, and we laughed our way through the early afternoon, hiking through woods and eventually continents. It was just about three this afternoon we trained across Siberia, and ten minutes later hiked across Spain. If my clock battery broke between three and four, I’d consider myself a lucky man. Luckier than most, actually. Cole never had the chance to watch the five o’clock news, and Dave and Eddie hadn’t yet kicked off their shoes after work. At least Fr Dan was settling back for an after dinner drink before he left the party, but Letty never even got to pour that wine with dinner, so fast was her exit, so shortened her time. I am lucky that both my parents were headed to bed anyway, but too many people I’ve loved not nearly enough barely had a chance to finish dessert. 





What a day it has been so far. I can’t recall a single hour of my life I’d not do again. From sunrise on I’ve had a great time trying to stay one clip in front of the bend, with golden moments I couldn’t have scripted myself. Maybe that’s why the day seems so fast—I’m really having a great time.





Did you ever stop and just recall a moment from years ago like it had just happened, just now? I mean so that you can taste the meal and smell where you were, feel it, so real like it just happened, just now–complete clarity. That happened to me today, over and over and over, and now it is five o’clock, and it is happening again. Thank God it happens to be five; I need a drink.





Tonight, from 6 to 9, I’m going to take my time and do the best I can. In fact, while I know the sun is well into it’s evening slant, I’m putting on my sunglasses and flip flops anyway and go see what else there is I can do before I pass under “sleep’s dark and silent gate.”





What time is it in your world?






sunrise 012


			

	


				
					


	

			
The Lasso Way Returns
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ Leave a comment					

				

		























When my brother suggested I watch “Ted Lasso,” I trusted his judgement. He had already nailed it with a few other shows, including “Eureka.” The first time through I enjoyed it immensely, the acting, the writing of course, the timing. It took a few episodes to understand this was not simply a series of set-up/punchline comedy, a method I despise. And it took a few times through the entire three seasons to recognize the primary overall theme at the heart of creator/producer/writer/star Jason Sudeikis’ efforts: This show is all about fathers and sons. And now it returns this week for an unexpected Season Four. 





When I struggled with transitioning my book The Iron Scar from the “who gives a shit” stage to the essential-to-be-published “readable and relatable” stage, the answer came while in a writing seminar in Ireland where I had been formulating the final draft of a series of letters from myself to my dad while traveling with my son across Siberia. Writer Elizabeth Rosner, almost as an aside, asked me why the chapters are formulated as letters. “I don’t know,” I told her. “Bad bad answer” she said. I pulled together a response about wanting to have three generations on board, and the reality of my son becoming an adult and moving on in the world the same time my father was approaching his final days. But I still couldn’t answer so I came home from Connemara and chopped my manuscript to small pieces. A few weeks later in a conversation with a friend in Texas, I said, “Tim, I’m losing focus on the theme.” He responded, “I’m not. This is all about fathers and sons. About moving on while trying to hold on. And the metaphor of the train is nothing more than setting.” Between the time my son and I rode the train and the time I wrote the book, my father died. I heard once that the loss of a parent is the greatest loss of security we can face, even at fifty-five years old. Not because we aren’t able to handle the turmoil of life on our own but because that foundation has been rocked. 





So I rewrote the entire book as a narrative that takes place on the trans-Siberian railway, with all the characters and unknowns that trip entails, but that’s not what it is about. It’s about relationships, about being between two generations who are about to transition. 





Back to Ted.





Sudeikis masterfully weaves every possible father-son relationship into what on the surface is a comedy about an American football coach hired to the helm of a British premier league football club. 





Right away we have the estranged father as Ted Lasso separates from his wife, and his young son remains with his mother. We also soon learn the powerful impact his own father had on him and the fallout from his father’s suicide when Ted was just sixteen. In England we meet the team, including Jamie Tartt, whose father is physically and verbally abusive, Sam Obisanya, whose father is more of his best friend and mentor, Nathan Shelley, whose Dad is demanding of his son’s talents and seemingly never satisfied, Leslie (male) Higgins who is the proud and dotting father of five boys, Roy Kent, who becomes a surrogate father to his niece, and of course Ted himself, who moves into the father-role to the entire team, the individual players with which he has various degrees of parental conflicts and resolutions.





This is listed as a comedy, but it absolutely fits the bill as a drama as well, placing it in the same vein as shows like MASH which walks that thin line between laughter and tears. 





Both the Mother and Father figures in our lives have served to keep grounded the best efforts of humanity throughout history. We need either to recognize the example or play the part. Almost all aspects of society rely upon those roles to set the strong example with seemingly unconditional love as we push through difficult moments. When hope seems fleeting and one feels “lost in a pathless wood” as Frost proclaims, that Maternal strength or Paternal guidance is almost always enough to help us keep going, knowing that whatever happens we’ll be okay. Even if we lose, we suffer those losses together, and we move on. 





Sudeikis so thoroughly designed the first three seasons of the show to investigate all possible Father/Son relations, he completes the first three seasons with a montage of the characters’ post-Lasso lives with Cat Steven’s “Father and Son.”  





There seems to be a lack of parental symbolism in the world, in the nation, in our lives. In fact, more often than not those who should be in those roles these days are appearing more like Jamie Tartt’s abusive and untrustworthy father. It would be perfect if we could always rely upon Sam Obisanya’s Yoda-like dad to turn to, but that’s not the hand we’ve been dealt. In fact, it feels like we’re a player down right now and this time it’s the captain of the team who is absent. That loss of security can be overwhelming. Ted Lasso’s season four comes just in time. 





Watch Ted Lasso again starting Wednesday for Season Four. 





As for this coachless world in which we find ourselves, well, we might have to switch our game plan, but we’ve got each other’s backs, and that might be enough. 





My brother, my son, and my dad, 2015






			

	


				
					


	

			
Baggage
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ Leave a comment					

				

		


my black satchel






My son is leaving for Spain and Ireland in a few days–he’ll be gone about five weeks and while he kinda sorta knows where he’s going to go and what he’s going to do, he mostly has no idea where he might go or what he plans to do. He’s been there before several times and for extended periods of time. He’ll be fine (though he’s been warned about the heat, the surface of the sun that is current day Spain on the Meseta). He’s got one relatively small orange duffel bag. That’s it. Everything gets shoved in there. It works for him





Carrying just one bag used to work for me, actually, though mine was a backpack I carried for years, from Mexico through Massachusetts and well into Pennsylvania. My second favorite though was a black satchel I’d throw over my shoulder and carry from Russia to Ireland and Prague, and western New York. I liked having it with me since my important information, journals, and more were in there, but I also liked not having to carry it by hand leaving my arms and hands free. It also hung at my side which was more secure than on my back like a “take what you want” gift shop. We get used to bags, to luggage, to wallets and storage containers and just the right pockets in our winter coat we wear every day to the point where it becomes as much a storage area for our daily items as the junk drawer in the kitchen. My favorite was an Osprey backpack I carried from southern France to the Atlantic coast of Spain on the Camino de Santiago. For one summer everything I could possibly need was in that bag. It still is. 





I still use a tan messenger style bag like the old black one, and every once in a while I dump it on the bed or the floor and go through the papers and envelopes and other crap I shoved in there without thinking. Matchbooks and old cards, some flyers from an art gallery, a KitKat bar. I dump it all out and trash as much as possible, pull my list pad out of a front pocket, rewrite the list on the next page of the notebook and throw away the pages accidently bent back from bouncing around the bottom of the bag. I rewrite the list and tuck it neatly back inside until I rewrite it in a few weeks, I put my school keys and ID back in an interior zipped pocket, and if I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll vacuum it out, wipe it clean. 





I’m carrying less these days, and mostly stopped lugging around either a backpack or satchel. The brown bag goes with me to readings and come the fall to classes at the college. I don’t even carry a wallet most of the time. I stopped hauling books everywhere and I’ve found it better to not make notes while I’m out and simply wait until I get home to write observations or thoughts, make connections between a gull I watched this morning and something someone once said to me about birds on my porch and the passing of time. I’ve come to prefer to put some distance between the experience and my work, sometimes hours, sometimes weeks or months, sometimes two or three lifetimes during which I pick up and put back down even more luggage filled with nonsense I thought I needed but turned out I only needed it briefly.





Often I become so engrossed in something that I want to hold it close forever, for a while anyway. Eventually, though, we move it to the side to make room for more, and at some point we take it out of the bag altogether. For instance, for some time I carried a letter my friend Fr Dan had written me. I had it for six or eight weeks, more. I read it from time to time since it was the last one he ever wrote me just days before his passing. I just couldn’t bring myself to take it out and leave it somewhere other than with me. That was almost two years ago this week. Now the letter is in a stack of his letters behind my desk here at Aerie. It sits on a notebook filled one weekend I spent alone at the retreat Fr Dan founded on New York’s Southern Tier. Eventually, it will become a book I’ve been toying with since then, called These Days, and I’ll dedicate it to my friend’s memory and infectious laugh, and then I’ll be able to move the letters and journal further away from my reach, in a drawer somewhere. I find that drawers and cabinets are simply backpacks and satchels too big to lug around. 





My first car, an old light blue Chevy Monza, used to be my baggage, and I filled that thing for two hundred thousand miles across the country, through Mexico where it carried several thousand blankets to Arizona, and Canada, then throughout my years in New England, and eventually Pennsylvania, where even there it held everything I owned and I never felt like I needed anything. 





I’m carrying too much these days, from books to notebooks to letters and small stones and shells. But not on me, no. I leave my brown bag at  home and usually don’t even carry my phone anymore. The list of items I want close to me has faded, and the people I used to call on a regular basis have all faded as well. Lately I find myself back in the moment, observing peacefully without the need to gather anything. That stuff only takes up room. Instead I prefer to simply remember, my mind a makeshift backpack with perfectly stored stuff, like a stack of homemade gift certificates my son made through the years–“homemade loaf of bread,” “lunch and a hike of your choosing,” “automatic win at chess to be used when you are losing bad.” I’ll always have them. Even if they get lost, I’ll always have them. Videos of my mom, golf and lunch with my dad, and trips to Spain, to Siberia, to all the state parks in Virginia, to boat rides on the creeks of the Chesapeake with my son. Time might steal some of their color, but I know what they are. That doesn’t fade. 





I keep my hands and arms free these days, ready to hold someone else’s hand, ready to embrace. I miss people, their laughs, their sly look when we both know what the other is thinking, the songs we shared, I miss the random text or call. Better then to not carry my phone under some illusion it will ring, and better still to simply leave my bag at home. If I see something worth remembering, I’ll remember to tell you what I saw, just like I’ll remember to tell those I love I love them before they move on from this world. And if I forget to for some reason, well, I’ll carry that with me too. 













			

	


				
					


	

			
66
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ 1 Comment					

				

		













Two ways exist to approach life–at least in the “sweeping generalization of all or nothing” perspective.





Live like you are dying. Live like you’ll live forever. 





To practice the first I would have to be acutely aware that the distance from here to eighty is shorter than the distance from here to fifty, which is tragically depressing, but I can do that. I’d perhaps worry less about the shortcomings, the missed opportunities, missed relationships, missed moments of clarity, and focus instead on the truth of being here now, able to hear the wrens in the morning and the whippoorwills at night. I’d experience life more with my senses, feel the river around my calves instead of standing on the sand looking at it; I’d call people I love and tell them I love them. I’d walk more, let go of regret and guilt, let go of aggravation and hostility. I’d no longer let the punk who tailgates me into Deltaville EVERY FREAKING MORNING bother me at all; I’d pull over and let him pass, apologize for holding him up, bid him a good day when we both arrive at the 711 at the same time anyway.





I’d lighten up. I’d make that trip to the Faroe Islands, Belize, the Galapagos, back to New York to see old friends and family. I’d say yes to more things and I’d know better than to pass up a chance to be even more alive, to feel again how I felt on so many times in my life when I did something I never thought I’d get the chance to do.





I’d maybe not be as reckless as Tim McGraw, but definitely more involved in life than my former boss, Richard, who seemed to simply check out. 





Or





I could live like I am going to live forever. 





I’d let go of the haunting depression that tells me “there’s no point to learning a new language; when am I ever going to use it since I’ll be dead.” I’d sign up for classes like I have new careers waiting for me, and I’d stay in shape and eat well so I could keep going a really disgustingly long time. I’d lighten up a lot and put my focus on the positive so that when I do eventually succumb to some illness which only plagues the oldest of people, I’ll know I wasn’t a downer, wasn’t always complaining about politics and the economy. I’d talk to everyone since I know I’d have the time to start new friendships and learn a new instrument and even learn to make lemon meringue pie. I’d try not to get caught in that trap of taking others for granted, pretend they’ll always be around, because since I will be living forever doesn’t mean they will, and it is not easy being the last one alive out of a small group of people. I’d try and move forward with their memories and stories, and I’d probably pretend they’re just on vacation somewhere. Maybe I’ll run into them again on some travels in the coming decades as I get warmed up.





When you wake up, do you think you’re another day older or do you think you’ve lived another day? They’re not the same thing.





I turned sixty-six last week. It’s not really a big deal. I also swiftly skimmed up a mountain to a waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge (at my age I am allowed the liberty of poetic license). As a professor (which I never thought of as my “career”) I retired from full time almost ten years ago, but as a writer I’m busier now than ever before. The arts leave one the luxury that the longer you are at it the more recognition you get and the busier you become so that most artists never retire, not if you can stay in the game. This leaves us the notion we are not as old as others who hang up the hat and “slow down.” 





So, professionally it is time to slow down, but professionally I am just getting warmed up. 





How am I supposed to handle 66?





I suppose like I handled 33, and how I will handle, hopefully, 99. 





Like this: 





Like it or not I have regrets; and while people tell me I shouldn’t, it is exactly how I am able to not take someone’s friendship for granted, how I am able to give a second chance a fighting chance, and how I am able to change when I need to change. I celebrate regret for the lessons, for the reboot. 





I am okay with denial and anger and depression and bargaining returning again and again for the same tragic loss. It is exactly how I know we don’t need to always move on in all aspects of our lives, that others will always be part of us and sometimes we get angry at them, sometimes we’d do anything to see them again, and sometimes we simply pretend they’re at the store picking up some Prosecco. It is how I can celebrate our lives even though I’m on my own.





I’m okay with embarrassing the hell out of myself at my age just like I did when I was nineteen in coffeehouses and twenty-four in a health club and twenty-six in love. We do stupid things and we feel ridiculous, and now, at sixty-six, my absolute best memories come from those times I thought, “I’m going to give this a shot.” Plenty of times I fell on my face; more often than not, but I’ll take a good face-plant over a “damnit, I should have said something” any day. 





Alan and Marilyn Bergen along with Carol Sayer Bager wrote a piece I’ve never forgotten. Part of the song goes, “I pity the poor one, the shy and unsure one, who wanted it perfect but waited too long.”





Oh, I’ve waited way too long way too many times. It comes from the decree “What is the worst that can happen?” instead of the declaration “What’s the best that can happen?” I’ve had an extraordinary life so far. I know this. But it has always felt like, to lyric you one more time, this one from Jackson, “I’m just a day away from where I oughta be.”





Trudat. 





So at sixty-six, with 24,116 days behind me and just 5,114 days until I turn eighty, I’m going to enjoy the passing of time the best I can. I’m going to spend as much time as possible with the people I feel comfortable spending the most time with. I’m going to “give it a shot” whatever it is at any given time. Not kidding. Sheeet, I’m sixty-six. People my age don’t kid around. 





There’s not enough time, not nearly enough. 





“To grow old is to change





to change is to be new





to be new is to be young again”





***





“Never give up





Never slow down





Never grow old





Never ever die young”








			

	


				
					


	

			
These Things we are Capable Of
		

				

						 ~ aviewfromthiswilderness			 ~ 3 Comments					

				

		


Before
















It’s difficult to know what we are capable of. No one instructs us early in life on how to recognize the difference between “that might be doable” and “you’re wasting your time and absolutely kidding yourself.” The only sure way of knowing is doing.





Some legitimate guidelines help. Finding people who already know what they’re doing either through experience or expertise; hopefully both. Taking your time and going step by step without feeling overwhelmed by the big picture of the final product. When I was young and learned tennis and guitar—both mostly self-taught—watching professionals was a double-edged sword. On the one hand I felt inspired to push hard and keep pursuing those goals. Clearly it had been done before so this isn’t a fantasy. At the same time, there is reason enough to quit whenever I watched the pros play tennis or guitar and then I’d move with confidence only to annihilate my six string or hit a ball with the corner of my racquet and watch them both fly into the net.





Each day, though, a little more, a little better. Someone nearby to tweak the progress, some down time to recognize that the difference between never having attempted such a foolish ambition and where I was at was growing, and the reach from where I was at to some form of success was rapidly shrinking. Day by day.





My son and I built a boat last week. Took about four days. It’s a fourteen-foot Wright Skiff with three benches, bumper rails, and other cool things which have nautical terms. We named her Santiago, after the city we reached on our pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and after the Old Man in Old Man and the Sea, whose skiff looks just like ours, minus the sixteen-foot marlin carcass strapped to the side.





Still, we followed instructions printed out and had a half dozen expert boatbuilders on hand to walk us through it all. This stands in direct contrast to my life as a writer where every day I begin with a blank page and toss some verbs on there to see what happens. I rarely reach the same or even similar results. But we built our boat—Michael actually did the work—along side seven other teams and the boats all mostly look the same save some cosmetics and bad measuring of the floorboards (them, not us, I think). It reminds me of how far apart math and creativity often are. Follow the instructions, follow the formula, the builders begged of us. You can’t do that in writing (unless you’re James Patterson or EL James).





Of course, it wasn’t about the boat. We spent a week working together, switching on and off, recognizing each other’s strengths, helping, encouraging, laughing through it all. It is one thing to find out what you’re capable of; it’s an entirely other milestone to find out what you’re capable of with someone else, particularly your adult son.





I’m certain I cannot follow instructions for the next level craft—my forty-one foot Morgan Outisland or my aircraft carrier. But I’m equally certain I can do more than I thought I could just a week ago.





There’s another difference in the arts vs construction conversation. My last book, for instance, has a dozen different versions with various misfires along the way, and from them I tried something else, tossed more than I should. The book before that had originally been written as a series of twenty-three letters to my father. At some point someone I trust in the writing world asked why they were letters and I couldn’t answer her, so I rewrote them all as one long narrative. It is better. It is different. I’m not sure. But stray from the guidelines in the Skiff Manual and not only will six experts make it perfectly clear you are screwing up, they’ll cut and clamp and tighten until you are right back where you started. Consistency is the value of learning a new skill, except writing. Maybe.





Still, last night I walked to the dock and looked at Santiago floating patiently, and I glanced across the creek to another skiff where she rested calmly. They’re not the same at all, I noticed. I immediately saw my muscle-taut face holding two planks of wood together as Michael drilled a pilot hole followed by a screw, then another, and another, until we moved to the next board, satisfied. I saw the rising adrenaline each morning on the way to the boathouse, the growing confidence, the sense of accomplishment from perseverance.





I stared down at Santiago and saw us in the Pyrenees talking quietly as we moved across dozens of kilometers every day. The heat of Galacia, the wonder of entering Santiago and continuing to the end of the world, Fisterra, and back. I saw us crossing fields of hope and dreams in Siberia, and I could see back even further, staring into our skiff we build this week with no prior knowledge at all of building even a Lego boat; I could see Michael at five when we first started walking these docks, taking pictures of sailboats, and later when we bought a canoe and sculled the Rappahannock and creeks.





At some point we don’t think we’re capable of anything. Writing a book, climbing a waterfall, driving a car, being a father, building a boat. But with the right advice and a lot of patience, we move forward, half the time thinking we’re making it up as we go, and the rest of the time knowing we’re just following instructions.





It’s good to find out we’re capable of more than we thought. It’s good to build a boat. It’s uncanny where that little skiff has already taken me.