Where Things Went Right

In some other universe you wake up confident that you did the right things. You swing your legs out into the day and confidently stride toward your destiny, the footfalls there waiting for you, molded already in clay, recorded as you pass, for posterity. People know who you are. They see your conviction, your alignment, your absolute resonance with the music running through every atom, molecule, and cell of you. Your touch has special power and you smile a lot. It's been a good life and you are grateful, but you wonder sometimes about the other possibilities, like the one in which another you fell through a crack in the system where something went wrong. A botched question or two there sent you into a tailspin of obscurity and closed doors. You think about knowing and how it leads to exile and nakedness. Eden was closed a long time ago you think as you turn to accept the latest award for your greatness.

The Cruelest Month

Palo verde  trees have exploded into bloom. The first real heat cooks the sidewalks mid day. The sun is taking its place in the summer ecliptic. But it's still cool early in the morning. You don't want summer to come yet. You want to hide out in winter, put on arm warmers for morning rides, hunker down in the dark so you can figure things out. You haven't finished what you wanted to get done, mainly edit the prison book. Fat lot of good that does. Summer is coming whether you want it or not, even though you have given away more than you can afford to give away. It's time to put on the thick skin, shut down the sensitive ruminations of what you want to be, where you want to go. There is work to do: reports, grades, obligations, classes. All of that will snap to a close soon enough, one month. And then you will be out, into the dazzling light of summer. No hiding there. So suck it up, bro cat. Life is about more than getting what you want. Try to limit your losses.

Losing Touch

I took my turn in the vortex yesterday. The vortex is a zone of creative focus where I  get lost doing some project. It usually lifts me up like the little house in the Wizard of Oz and takes me to a timeless space where I write. Yesterday I worked on the prison book. For several hours I lost contact with all of my teaching duties, my appointments, and the desire to eat. (Now that is weird.) Anyway, what was different about yesterday was that I couldn't quite get back when I left the computer and tried to resume my regular life in this world. It might be part of this brain thing that's going on. I don't want to dwell on it, but things are changing up there, and not for the better. Hmmmmm. That's a problem. I still have papers to grade, students to meet, magazines to mail out, curricula to design. So, this morning I am pushing my feet back to earth, kind of the opposite of pulling up by the bootstraps. Down, boy. Down.

Resurrection

I would not have known him without the heads-up from James and Hiram. He looked every bit the  emaciated ghost from a concentration camp: sunken eyes, stick-like arms, ashen skin, purple lips. This was not the man I knew.

The Gilbert I knew was a strapping fifty-something of a man three years ago. His was a world of letters, intellect, and his sensibility produced some of the best writing to come out of the workshops. He holds advanced degrees, is a close observer, has thrown himself into his writing in ways that open him, make him visible and vulnerable. He touches real truth.

But that sensitivity comes at a high price when a hope for release meets a denial that sends you back to prison for life. His case was up for review. I wrote a letter of support. The hearing might have set him free. The victim's family, though, blocked his plea and the judge agreed. The key went back onto the ring and Gilbert was sent back to hell.

He fell into a darkness so deep that he could not get out of bed, much less come to the workshops. For years, he wasted away, eyes staring at what no one could say.

I sent him poems and books and invitations to join us in the workshops.

The years passed, and all I heard was that he began to sit outside, that sometimes he would play chess with the younger guys. Months. Years.

Now, here he is, standing in front of me. I say his name, even though it doesn't quite fit with the walking corpse who stands there, a feeble smile forming on his dark lips. His eyes have gone flat, but flicker there, a recognition. I shake his hand, then embrace him. He feels like a skeleton.

"Good to see you," I say. I hide my shock, bite my tongue. Don't say anything about how he looks, how he has imploded.

He smiles faintly. He takes a seat at the table. We begin the workshop with a reading about the merits of, and human response to, failure. I think about a line from one of Gilbert's poems: "life is about losing things."

When it's time to read, one of the younger guys has written about how he has found solace and camaraderie the workshop. He says the workshop is "like being with the knights of the round table." He wants feedback on the work.

I ask Gilbert what he thinks.

He takes a moment and I think he will say nothing, but then he finds his voice, and addresses not just the writer, but the circle of men. "The idea is strong, but some of the language is too familiar, too overused. I don't want to say hackneyed, but it is not as fresh as it might be if you spoke something particular to your experience."

The writer takes notes. Other men at the table nod. The discussion begins and does not slow for twenty minutes. In it the men offer suggestions, ask questions, provide examples. Possibility sits at the head of the table and smiles. Yes, she thinks, this is where I want to be.  

When Things Go South

The line for customs and migration at the Tocumen Airport in Panama City snaked back and forth between nylon tape barriers. It was going to be a while. I figured at least three hundred people stood between me and the customs officials sitting in front of the fancy computers, finger-print readers, and cameras. Might as well check my phone for any messages.

It had been a long day, traveling from Tucson to Panama. Rain had followed us as we traveled south, and a storm was forecast to hit Panama for the next four days. Rare heavy rain right in time for our visit and for time spent with Sean, but that was not the only thing hanging over, or going south, during the trip. 

My phone came to life with a flurry of texts: "Someone kicked in your front door and tried to kill Philip (a neighbor) with a shovel." "A police helicopter and three squad cars were here looking for an ex-con that somebody said you brought to the ranch." "You have endangered the community with your vile irresponsible disregard for safety." "Why didn't you tell people that someone had trespassed in your house back yard you left? Even rattlesnakes get warnings here."

It only got better from there.

Welcome to Panama and two weeks traveling, I thought to myself. Sheesh, what a way to begin...

I knew I would have a lot to clean up when I got back home to Tucson, but for now all I could do was feeble explanations and triage. They were out for blood and for someone to blame for the crisis of security.

So what does one do in such situations?

I can tell you that an ineffective response is to get defensive or to refute the concerns of single mothers worried about their children. So I caved in and took full responsibility for endangering the community, my neighbors. I would keep quiet about he had been a long-time member of the prison writing workshops, had been featured on a national news program for his writing, had been given opioids when hospitalized for pancreatitis and fallen back into drug use, had biochemical toxins pickling his brain, was desperate and had burned every bridge left for him to burn. No excuses, just what is. And none of that mattered. It served only as preamble. What had transpired was its own context, the trigger for a narrative of fear and blame. I saw that there was no way to counter that, so I would have to bend with it.

"Yes, I made a mistake inviting an ex-con to the ranch to help me remodel the bathroom," I wrote.

That helped a bit, but people wanted more.

"What have you learned from this?" "How will you ever regain our trust?"

I went contrite, rolled over, exposed my belly. The story is too long to tell I decided. I live with some risk and engage with some hot-button social realities. Sometimes things go to hell. I take it as part of playing the game, the cost of doing business in a world rife with danger and inequity.

I kept all of that to myself. I tried to see things through their eyes. Yes, they are afraid and want to protect their children from drug addicts and desperate characters. Got it and I'll say it again and again.

The fires have died down and the pitchforks put away for now.

I offered to meet with anyone who wanted to know more, but no one took me up on that. I just got a few more slaps on the wrist for being such a bad neighbor.

Oh well, there are always so many sides to to any event, so many stories competing for traction and proof that who we are is right and that the world spins according to our versions of it.To keep the peace, it's sometimes best just to shut up and listen, for now, anyway.

A more capacious narrative will take time to tell, and openness to take hold. Odds are not in my favor, but I hold out anyway. The work of framing a different way of seeing takes courage and time. Steady boy, steady. 

Over the Hump

"Lookin' pretty grey," he said as we rolled along the river trail, the route used by cyclists no longer fast enough to ride with traffic out there in the real world.

He had not seen me in a while, so the observation held water. I forget that I am getting on in years. Reminders like his still come as a bit of icy water to the face.

This slide into late mid life is not what I thought it would be. I thought that by now I would be content with my lot as a has been, washed-up, decrepit old fart. I thought it would be time for beer and TV and collapse into cardiac shut down.

Unfortunately, I am still hot and hungry for life. I want to be free, sharp, focused, and deep into some form of creative self-expression. I want to be in love. It's a bit self-centered and narcissistic I know. Also I don't know for sure if I have the talent to produce anything worth someone else's attention.

And my work life is not over yet. I am supposed to be grading papers, revising assignments, making calls, scheduling meetings, and on and on. So this life I want is on hold, private, and a stewing secret for now.

As I gain momentum on this the later season of my life, I wonder if I will ever get there, to that place where I conduct the music I hear in my heart, narrate the story I compose in my dreams.

Mola Lisa: Woman Between Worlds

The dugout was painted bright green with red trim. Lisa said the colors represented the forest and the sun. It was made by her father and was a gift to her when he died. It needed some work. We powered through the waves with a borrowed motor. Long story there. Suffice it to say that it was all but a miracle that Lisa was there at all, given all that had transpired that morning -- sickness, miscommunication, mechanical breakdown, evil spirits, and gender identity. It was only six-thirty and already a full day. We loaded up and headed toward the mainland, an hour by dugout across open ocean.

Water poured over the gunwales when we plowed through the heavy swells on the way to the mainland. Two by six boards had been bolted on the original limits of the dugout to make it more seaworthy, but the gap between the boards and tree wood had not been caulked. I  guessed that caulk was too expensive, if not hard to come by, here hours away from the nearest hardware store.

I bailed water with a cut-in-half gourd that was just like a big coconut shell as we talked over the whine of the outboard. Just what you do. No big deal.

Clouds hung over the summits of mountains that rose steeply from the coast. It was raining up there, hard, as it had been for several days. A big storm had blown into the San Blas Archipelago and whipped the seas into a nice swell. My shorts had blown overboard in spite of being clipped to the guard wire of the sailboat.

We rose and fell with the swells, and talked about gender roles and how women do so much of the work of the world. She mentioned that her family was short men: she had not married, her brother-in-law had died and left her sister and her niece for Lisa to care for, her father had died, and her mother too. Lisa was the head of household, a community leader, and spokesperson for women in the weekly congress meetings of her community. Her glasses hid her eyes, but I could see the gravity carried by them.

Her Spanish was excellent. She had been selected by the cacique, or silas, what we might call chief, to go to Panama City to study. She had been a star student and now spoke Guna Yala, Spanish, and English. She had been designated the "tour leader" by the tribe and now fulfilled that role with us. We were going to a sacred river to see a cascada, or waterfall, and would be permitted to wash off some of the salt film we had accumulated over five days at sea.

We asked if we could visit her village. Lisa told us that the village was under quarantine because a man had died at the hand of demons. Those demons were still around, and the leaders of the village were performing ceremonies to drive them off. No one who did not live there, even other Guna Yala, was permitted to visit the island. The whole island was under a red flag, and boats were expected to give it a wide berth.

I asked her to elaborate and she said there was nothing more to say. I turned toward the mountains and the trail we would follow up into them. 

The prospect of fresh water, agua dulce, sounded heavenly to me. I had not showered in fresh water since we got on the boat five days ago.

The trail wound past burial grounds, and we paused while Lisa paid her respects and cleaned the mounds covering her father, mother, and other family members. She told us the story of her life. It was one of work, and early responsibility.

Her family was struggling, in part, because there was no man to work on the house or to go work a finca, land used for bananas, rice, yuca, papaya, coffee, and other crops. The men leave the island communities every day at dawn and work until mid or later morning. The women stay and tend the children, cook, clean the house. The roles are quite prescribed, unless one decides to identify as a gender other than the one they were born into. Transvestites are common in the tribe, and, as it turns out, Lisa was one. As such, she was given access to cash by giving tours, with permission, of course. She kept some of the money, but paid fees to the tribe for the opportunity. With a little extra money, she could hire men to help with jobs that she, as a woman, was not supposed to do. She had made her choice and lived within the roles she was given. All very interesting to me.

She had no children for reasons other than marriage or fertility.

Still, she played to role of woman well and led us up to the waterfall with a steady narration of plant, bird, and cultural stories. One of the blossoms looked like lips. The women tried them on.

Lisa held up a sign of protection from evil spirits as I took the picture. Lisa kept invoking protection as we went along the steep, rooty trail.  I heard her speaking softly and asked her about that. She told me she was talking to the spirit world about us, about our being there. She wanted us to be in harmony and on good terms with them. She did not want to get hurt or to have any of us twist an ankle. We heard monkeys howling in the trees when rain began to fall. Lisa told us they hated rain and complained loudly whenever it began.

We passed some of the aqueduct pipes and storage tanks. The water comes from high on the mountain, travels down to the ocean, crosses underwater to the island and supplies the community with fresh water. Wow! Fresh water, no bugs because the island is surrounded by salt water, and cool breezes off the ocean -- not bad.

The trail, which had been climbing steeply for miles, suddenly dropped down into a tropical, muddy densely wooded defile. Then it opened onto a waterfall worth the long walk. Fresh water!

Time for lunch and some swimming. Lisa joined us for sandwiches. Her assistant kept his distance from the group and said little. I offered him some cheese and chocolate. He accepted with a nod but no smile.

Megan jumped in after Sean and we all began a trip down-stream following the river. We slid through various waterfalls and slides. Lisa purified us at the end of the pools.

After the purification, we headed back to the boat where Lisa showed us her molas. Lovely as might be expected. She told us how the molas told stories and were the results of years of practice and training in the stories of origin, of the animals, the ocean, the spirits -- everything that defined the place and the role Guna Yala played in it. Only women, a select few, were allowed by the tribe to make and sell molas. It was a high honor to be designated a molas maker by the community, and Lisa, holy woman, priestess, story-teller, inhabitant between worlds, was considered one of the best.