No Idea

The sun shone in under the roof over the open-air dining area at the bar. It was one of those salad days in Arizona: January cool, but desert warm in the sun, aching blue sky, ruddy cheeks, sexy smiles. I faced those who had gathered to better see their faces as I went over the developments in the Prison Writing Project. A film-maker from Hungary with piercing green eyes drilled her gaze into me, a reporter from the SBS newsletter took notes, the head of the English Department looked over the top of his IPA and listened with real focus, grad students mused, under-grads sat outside the inner circle, my mentor took in the scene. I talked up the reasons for pushing ahead with both the workshops and a literature course at the prison. Heads nodded. There was much to digest: creativity, rehabilitation, humanity, rising rates of detention, the flaws and casualties of the criminal justice, mass-incarceration, prison-industrial complex. I had to pinch myself. Was this really happening? Who was this person talking to this august gathering? Certainly not bitchy little old, self-defeating me. The beers were tall and cold, the sun welcome, the music loud, the world spinning in ways I could never predict. I have no idea where this is going or what might happen. The ride is wild, wonder-filled. Faces appear before me. Men waiting, hoping that someone, somewhere, might hear their voices, the ones they are honing to perfect pitch.

Bigger

The excuses are legion: my heel burns from the still mending tendon; I am tired; I need time to myself; trash is overflowing; my bikes need maintenance; and on and on. And there are things to do, things that are bigger than my little litany of complaints. Being small of horizon and low of ambition, those callings to something bigger than myself are recent phenomena. Mainly, the tug out of my little me-me universe happens on Saturdays, when I go to the prison to meet with men and talk about their writing. I have to sidestep all the Lilliputuan strings of habit and limitation and go for the larger life. Yes, I am a bit embarrassed to say, I believe in the power of creative self-expression enough to give up my Saturdays to go out to the prison to practice it. Now, it wouldn't have to be prison. I could just convene a writer's group and meet on the front porch. But that wouldn't have the urgency, the focus, the immediacy that the prison workshops have. We would be a bunch of comfortable individuals dabbling in our hobby, not hanging onto the hope that the key to freedom of mind might be found in arranging words, would not hold the pressure of life or death. It's sometimes hard to see the bigger picture. I have to squint as I head down Wilmot Road, to see the faces that wait for me down there. Well not me exactly, but the opportunity, the possibility, that a heart might find form for a wild hair of an idea, might discover a reason to carry on, to do the hard time living larger than the easy way. 

Out of Whack

Again, I am up with the cat. Three hours before sunrise, and here I am in the dark, wide awake. When the rest of the world gets up, I'll be a zombie, dragging my heavy feet off to work. Where does this pulsing energy come from? Why won't it let me sleep? And what am I to do with it? I guess I could water the plants, mop the floor, clean out the toilet and the cat box. Then I would have less to do when the sun comes up and sends me rocketing into a cloud of fatigue. Maybe the ugliness of age has invaded my rhythms. It certainly has triggered hair to grow out of my nose and ears. Hairy man, awake, sagging, on some precipice of decline, I stroke the cat. She purrs.

Strapped to the Mast

The others are hard at work, wax in their ears. Salt spray showers the deck as our beleaguered vessel plows through the storm, swells crashing over the bow. Someone has to watch for rocks, witness the crippling call of lust and rut. The pounding heart alone is going to rend the ropes that hold me fast and anchored to the mast that tips with the rolling tub that keeps us from drowning. I would jump into the freezing chop if I could, in this possessed state; worse I am than a dog paralyzed by the scent of heat, the genetic imperative to spill seed. Estrus. Fulfilling a dream. The promise of consummation, deliverance, annihilation. The wiring of the flesh is stronger than my will. Thank God for the ropes, the cords that bind, and for the desire that quickens the sleeping soul. Only there can I awaken from this repetitious slumber, this plodding of the walking dead.

Clarity

Information rains down like a siren song of distraction. Be this. Buy that. Your problems are because of them. The answer is the boot. Take what is yours. Listen to my rage, my way of thinking. And on and on. The critical question of what really is escapes scrutiny. Emotions replace critical thought. It takes a powerful bullshit detector to see through the fog, smoke, and ubiquitous voices of powerful interests. And they are interests, often contrary to those of most of us (wages, healthcare, clean air and water, safe products, a say in how policies are made). When the haze clears, what is apparent is that we live in a system run by giant corporations that want only to improve their bottom line. At any cost. We live in a corporate state. If money, power, influence, and ownership count for anything, the state of things is clear. Corporations have the money and means and buy the talent to shape the minds of all of us. That is just what is. True, there are a few semi-enlightened captains of industry out there, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but mainly the big guys are out to get more by reaching into our pockets, by extracting the last teeth out of a nature already bled to exhaustion. The watch dogs are sleeping as the foxes of defense contractors raid the budget hen house, as they tweak the tax codes to further fleece the tax payers. There is no money in telling the truth, so the truth languishes on the roadside, hitching a ride to somewhere that gives a damn. The only work worth doing, if we are to save ourselves, our planet, our battered democracy is to study the way things are, to figure out what to do, and to organize, to freakin' organize, to bear witness, to act. It's that or take our turns beneath the wheels of greed gone mad. 

Missing

Not that I saw him all that much much while he was still around. He lived two thousand miles across the broad backbone of the Rockies and the sweep of the plains way up there in Wisconsin. I don't get out that much, what with my teaching schedule, my house building project, my general lethargy. I need more sleep than I used to. But now that he is gone, I find myself wanting to tell him things. Hey Dad, it snowed on the mountain and the big wash down from the house is running. You wouldn't believe the waves. It looks like a chocolate surf break down there. I got an article published in a literacy journal. Nobody really reads that stuff, but it felt good. My life has turned out better than I hoped. This writing thing has not been the most lucrative, but it has given me direction, passion even sometimes. I am slowing down. My aches and stiffness remind me of you and your crutch after the car accident. How are you doing with all that? And I can't think as clearly as I used to. There are times when I am so lost I can barely stand it. Sorry I haven't been better about staying in touch. My boys are grown. They are beautiful young men. You would be proud of them. I am. Are you there, Dad? Are you there? I don't quite know what to do about the heartbreak of missing you. How did you deal with that? Being away from the ones you loved for years at a time? I know I have to get up, get out of bed, put one foot in front of the next, do the work I was put here to do. I want to tell you about it, Dad. I want to tell you about how I keep moving, even when the weight of this feels like it will crush me, will press me so deep into a leaden immobility that I will never rise. I want to tell you. Are you there?

An Un-Ordinary Day

Rain drips from the skylight onto the towel set there to soak it up. A winter storm has the washes running with thick, foamy chocolate whitecaps. Our wash, the Rillito, is running bank-to-bank, first time in a while. Chimes ring from their suspended sentence over the porch. Wind and rain. Yum. Good thing I am up a few hours before the sun to dress in my bike togs for a 20K time trial fifty miles up I-10. Arm warmers, leg warmers, rain jacket, wool socks. Check. Pump up tires. Check. Bring license. Check. Out the door and into the storm. Wipers dancing. Stop for coffee. Listen to smart people on NPR. After the time trial, I will go to the prison for the writing workshops -- seventy miles in the other direction. I need to pick up a grad-student who is visiting the workshops today. I'll meet him down on campus, back in Tucson. We won't be done with the prison until about five or so, twelve hours from now. Then I'll take him home before heading back home myself. Sound crazy? Yeah, I agree. You wouldn't catch that guy called me doing a day like this. I'm too needy of rest and down time. But the spirit that moves within this crazy body doesn't care about that. It just does and does. It is not my anger, my fear, or my sadness. It is, however, my joy. Only miles to go. Yahoo! Just a day. One day.