Crescent Moon

It's still dark, and a crescent moon hangs over the horizon with Venus beaming next to it. Saturn is right there in line. A cold stillness sits on the snow and trees, and even the coyotes are quiet. The air is like a knife. It cuts through my jacket and sizzles against my skin. The world sleeps, but I am sharply awake. Everything is clear and crisp with edges. For just this snapshot of a moment, the stars look still, but I know they are up there spinning away, lit by fusion and matter that will run out eventually. Maybe it has already, and what I see of them is the light they sent out while they were still young with so much time and light and gravitational attraction ahead of them. 

Teachable

What would you do if you could? she asked. No limits, no obstacles, no barriers. Well, I said, something creative -- like music, or writing, or art, and certainly some exercise. And why would you do that? she asked. Because I want to keep learning, I said. And creativity, by definition, is new, out-of-the-box, giving birth to something you didn't know before, that maybe didn't even exist before. Now that, she said, sounds terrifying. You'd have to leave the well-trodden, sleepy, checked-out way of being and actually be present with the effort to learn a new lick on the guitar, a new technique with a brush, or a twist of phrase on the page. That's real work, she said. I had no idea what she was talking about until I actually tried to leave the auto-pilot way of being and throw myself to the wolves of learning something new. This old dog has found himself at square one: a rank beginner, know-nothing novice, a clumsy, awful-sounding, mess-maker. Of course, practice plays a role in polishing new skills too, but that being teachable is a tough one; real work it is to clear away the habits of knowing and try something fresh. But that attention thing -- that looking hard, staring at my fingers as they stumble all the frets of the guitar and persevering... that takes effort, and guts. It aint easy being teachable, says the die-hard, humbled, suddenly young-at-heart teacher.

A Thin Line

There you are, cruising along, heat pumping out of the vents in front of you, tunes wafting out of the speakers, engine purring along like a happy cat. Then you hit that rough patch, that stretch of slick-as-snot ice that sends you spinning like one of those Olympic ice skaters, and you watch the fields and snow and trees and mountains play across the screen of your windshield like some amateur music video, and you watch as the ditch rushes up to you and takes hold of your forward momentum and uses that against you, like some perverse martial arts master, and then the force of you moving forward turns into a gravity-defying lift upward, and you watch as the cab tilts and all the pens, coffee cups, notepads, and book bags you have in the console and on the seat next to you suddenly lift off and fly across your field of vision as you slam into the door and come to rest on your side, music still playing, engine still purring away, dirt now blocking your view out the driver's window as sky fills the passenger door window, now above you, and you realize that you live by grace, a fine line between all that is necessary to hold the parts of you together, working in concert to keep you breathing, living, loving, and the dark night of mystery. This time, though, you take the hand offered that lifts you up, away from that precipice, and rise back up, into this the light of living, and, for this moment, out of danger.

The Dark Part of the Story

They met at night, when the hassles, chores, and anxieties of money and making a living and all the pressure to look good and follow the rules died down enough to let a person think. And feel. Darkness helped too. Not seeing anything but the colors of touch and the waves of passion were more than enough to fill the senses and satisfy that hunger that never seemed to abate. The age difference between them didn't seem to count for as much either. Skin was skin, whether taught and smooth or less than perfect. And breath was breath. He was a she and she was a he, and black was white, and I was you and you were me, and all that mattered was the electricity of the heart. Of course,  all of that changed when light crept between the curtains, and the distinction-making began to divide the known universe into this-and-that, categories and differences, taxonomies and hierarchies. It was like that in the mind, the ruler of the light, the rest of the story, the part that weighed down on you, crushed the living breath right out of you.

He Would Be 90 Today

If he were still alive, he would complete ninety years today. If he were alive, I could call him and tell him happy birthday. I could ask him how his day was going, listen to him talk about what he had learned from ninety years of living. If he were on the same trajectory he was on when he passed, likely as not he would talk of love and how much he cherished his children of his first family and his second wife and her family. He had morphed from a soldier into a philosopher in the last chapters of his life. He spent his mornings quietly, for the most part, with his companion sipping hot water while she had her coffee. They watched the birds and squirrels in the back yard. He found comfort there. Because I loved him I wanted to hear about that new life, to see for myself where he had gone, how he was doing, even if that meant that I had to accept that things were not as they had been. He was softer in his old age. Many did not like that, and wanted him to be what they knew of him before. I went to see him alone. And that's the way it has stayed. I live in no man's land now, between tribes, because I followed a father who changed. He did what he did and found love but paid a price. I saw him -- and loved him -- as he was, not as I knew him to be, and, for that I am not forgiven by those I left behind.

Conversations With a Sacred Conch

I'll be wearing a sheet, walking barefoot, looped with leis, and carrying a conch shell up to the stage. That's the plan anyway. The conch -- a prized, and blessed, ceremonial instrument of a local community -- has to be blown to call in the spirits, to cast a sacred spell over the audience, to suspend disbelief, to enter the dream realms of the little drama about Hawaiian traditional ceremonies; and that's what worries me. I'm not much accomplished as a conch caller. But I am willing to try, and have been conversing with the conch. "I don't know if I am worthy," I say. "You are a sacred object," I say. "If you are willing to let this work and ring out a nice, resonant tone, I'll take you up on the invitation to join the spirit of the season." It sits there next to me on the seat of the car, a ceremonial fetish not accustomed to negotiating conditions, keeping mum, its secrets very intact. "Meet me half way," I say. "No, less than half way. I'll meet you, if it's amenable to you." Silence. Beautiful, polished pink silence. "I'm willing," I say.

All That You Leave, All That You Find

There comes a morning when you wake up secure in the knowledge, a knowledge deep in the marrow of your bones, that time is running out. As your eyes open and adjust to the stars, you can take the terror of that knowledge and stuff it away, shove it into the shadows where you keep all of the other truths too painful to bear, the ones you don't want to face, or you can let the terror set fire to your psyche and run for the nearest relief, the pain killers of distractions or self-medication, or you can let the knowledge sink in and take shape to form the basis for your actions. Those actions are the ones that lead you into unknown territory, the places you know you need to go before the curtain comes down, if you are strong enough to embrace the hard option. Your destination may be the roof of the world or the art left undone from neglect, but you must rise and leave the comfort of habit behind. The lights won't work for you now because you travel in the dark. That is the way, my friend, but you will find the path and get used to the joy of not knowing, of being again a beginner, of taking the hard road of what is while it lasts. Peace will walk with you if let her and learn how to see her. Light grows behind the ridge in front of you; frost on the road sparkles like diamonds. Time to gather up your staff and pack your bed and rise, rise.