No Going Back

Human imagination works to create a future that we then live into. When imagination is underdeveloped, left to atrophy, or profoundly denied and neglected, fear sets in. Then the past becomes something we long for, a past that doesn't exist, will never exist. The frustration and anger of not being able to live in the past makes for crazy thinking. We look for scapegoats to blame for why we can't get back to a time that never was, that is a fiction. Only by taking responsibility for a future that we create can we find courage, excitement, and peace. We have to bring into being out of whole cloth a future that has never been, and then articulate that vision, put it into words. That's very important, the words part. Without the words a future is weak, and has no body. With the words we can begin to act. It's a creativity thing. It's an action thing. Gotta make it up and step forward, not back.

Time Served

Some line has been crossed, some chapter finished, because it just doesn't matter any more whether or not I get the good review, the promotion, or the kiss on the podium. I have done my house-holding time, whatever that means. This last chapter has gone on for thirty years, more or less -- teaching, parenting, toiling away under the yoke of responsible obscurity. Not that I regret any of it. They have been good years. I remember coaching soccer at Himmel Park under a harvest moon, running with my sons after a tangerine colored ball, at home in my heart and body. I remember the dust storm on I-10 at midnight when I hit a retread sloughed off of a semi; that sent the car into the air at 80 miles per hour. The headlight and bumper were smashed, but the car held straight and I lived to tell the tale. I remember cold bicycle commutes to work, book bag cutting a groove into my shoulders. Fire and chocolate, black dogs and cherries. A cold moon, sharp spines of desert loveliness.

Engagement

He found himself stranded there in middle age, left with only a few broken and imperfect objects to show for his time here on earth. They were the left-overs of his errors, the ones that had served as the guideposts for his journey. He saw them now for what they were and felt a mix of grief and relief that it was almost done. What he thought was hokey, schmaltzy, and less that serious was now embarrassingly meaningful. With reluctance at first, then with momentum fueled by joy, he let himself fall into the meshing gears as they engaged to put the wheels in motion.

Taking Up Residence

The place is empty, and you stand there with nothing but the clothes you walked in with. You don't mind because the space is what you want. That little part of you that wanted to just give up and fade away has quieted. The other part, pretty young still, wants to dance within the bare walls while trailing a ritual smudge of sage to purify the new digs. It's the emptiness you crave, the what-might-be, waiting there to be written. Light and happy for once, you let the story begin to tell you. It doesn't matter any more, really. The world will keep spinning even as you let it go, let yourself be carried by the currents that have nowhere to go but here, no mind for anything beyond movement, beyond change. You might want to back out, return to what you used to know as true, but you hold on. You remember to practice, to polish your lenses so that you see more clearly that place you want to be, that peace you want to know.

Open Ground

I have not been here before. That's the point, I guess. What I am talking about is the writing. This is uncharted territory, unbroken snow; mine are fresh tracks. I see how I could stay comfortable and write about something a bit gloomy and suggestive, like "No Man's Land," but that would not be completely honest, would be kidding myself and duping readers. I confess that I have taken the easier path with my writing, tried to wring blood out of a safe turnip. Sorry. I don't know if I can deliver on this new stuff, or if I will even make it out of this latest quest, but it's where things are at. I roll the dice and wait for the next move. If luck will let me, I might just put together a string of words worth leaving behind when it's time to check out.

Possible

If you had told me a few years ago that I would be doing what I'm up to these days I would have said you were nuts. I mean, I have been driving back and forth to Phoenix most every Thursday (after a full day teaching and attending meetings) for three months, been giving up Saturdays to the prison and to workdays in Phoenix, been talking to English faculty at the UA about the prison project, and calling meetings in bars for people interested in helping out, been calling DOC wardens trying to get passes for grad students who want to join the workshops. All of that is way outside my comfort zone. There is a book in the works, maybe a film, and I get to ride the wave of good vibes in the workshops. Dare I say I feel love, feel that I am up to what I really want to be up to in spite of my self-imposed limits to going after what it is I want out of this life? Of, course, I am a bit tired, a bit sore from stretching so far. But when I look around and see what fills my days, I am surprised if not astonished. Wow! Hey, it can happen. 

It Went That Way

You could see the curtain of rain coming. Sun shone under the clouds and lit the coming squall as it moved across the park. You sat in the car as drops pelted the roof and splattered on the windshield. A smell of wet dog filled the car, sent you into a swoon. Might as well pick up the journal and scribble a bit until the shower passes. It has been a full day, and you have been lucky to get through it. The familiar stuff of routine was manageable, but the new stuff, the having to problem solve, that was different. Your brain just wouldn't respond to it, couldn't seem to track enough to consider the options. Nothing new would sink in. Your brain was an impermeable membrane, off of which things just bounced, like the rain drops on the roof. You wanted it to be different. This was going to be a good time of your life: a little money, a little freedom. Now it just seems confusing. Even the ordinary stuff doesn't make sense. You can't seem to find a way around it, so you are just in it. Pretty soon, people will come and you can get out of the car, go work out a bit. At least your body is working still. The love, achievement, and redemption you thought you might find skips ahead of you, just out reach, pulling away, never to be embraced. Maybe next time.