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.

The Way of Art

So there you are, faced with another of the ongoing conundrums that require your attention. Now. You can fret and just pull the first lever of response out of anger, frustration, and impatience, with no care for the outcome, or you can take a breath and consider the options. The problem, unfortunately, does not have one right, correct, or pre-ordained solution. You have to think on your feet and synthesize. Pull together the middle way rather than being gored on the horns of a dilemma. Try to find some joy in the process. Ultimately, it's about doing the best you can with what you have, hoping, but not expecting the best outcome, all while offering the best of you to the situation: patience, care, mindfulness, craft, skill, and love. You pull up the heretofore unknown solution, or action, in other words, out of yourself. You leave yourself on the field. You give birth to something, whether it is a roof on your shed or colors that pop in your painting. You meet the monsters with bravery in the face of newness and joy in act of giving yourself to right now, even if you go down, or up, in flames.

Paying My Dues

Snow flies early in New Mexico at seven thousand feet on the high desert. That is what the dark, brooding skies deliver today. The cold bites through my thin Tucson jacket and the wind has the dried sunflowers dancing a swaying conga line as I make my way along the path to my studio. The studio is a pre-fab building with a wood burning stove. I'll stoke the stove so I can paint without freezing in my quiet little cave. I am not a trained painter. I don't really know what I'm doing or even why I'm doing it. I look at "real" painters like I look at real writers and come face to face with the fact that I will never reach that level of achievement. I failed as a writer, having composed over ten books that were never published. That is nothing, a painter friend told me. "The first five thousand paintings are the worst," she said. Aye. But I made more money selling a painting that took me two hours than I did on a book that took me over four years to write. I guess there is no equation for time spent doing something and the compensation one receives for doing the work. I did not write for the money, nor do I paint for money. I do these things because something inside me wants to get out and to touch some other soul. So I listen to the juniper crackle in the stove, watch the snow fly, count my lucky stars to have a moment to stare at a blank canvas before I struggle with the colors this time instead of words.

Waking

I was living in a politically active housing co-op, working in a whole-wheat, granola-eating, spirulina-swilling grocery co-op, and studying European social history with Marxist professors. It was a heady time in Madison, 1977, and I was asked by some women friends to serve as a security person for the first Take Back the Night march I ever joined. So, I, Todd X, and some other long-haired men sympathetic to the burgeoning feminist movement took our places at the back of the march down State Street. Our job was to keep counter-protesters from breaking up the march. I thought it would be easy. It was not. We security guys listened to the stories of rape and abuse over the loud speakers. It was enraging, and made me feel embarrassed to be a man. But when the march got going, things began to heat up. Beefy frat boys drinking on State Street did not like women gathered to even the scales of sexual power. They stopped on the side-walks and heckled, made masturbatory gestures over giant (imagined) phalli, and engaged marchers in shouting matches. For the first time, I was on the receiving end of the male gaze. One of my fellow security guys got into it with one of the hecklers. I had to break it up and stand between them, arms extended. Another of the security guys threw a brick through the window of an adult (porn) bookstore. Cops came. People ran. It was the beginning of a long wake-up call, still going on. My static, little world where I could just stand on the sidelines and let degrading comments about women slide ended. It was my fight too now. I could smell the bridges behind me burning, could see the friendships that had been based on bashing women explode into flame, and I got the hateful look from men who now saw me as a betrayer. Having the curtains that cover misogyny pulled back and seeing the carnage hidden behind it, there was no going home again.