Moved

Its raining in Bellingham. Not a suprise in the winter months, certianly not as January comes to a close. We have just moved and it has been a long week, both my wife and i are racked with stress and emotion as we said goodbye to our house on King St, a place we lived for close to three years. I've touched on this before, but there are a lot of memories in the walls of our house on King St. Our oldest son started to walk there, learned to climb trees, became a junior paleantologist, searched out new worlds, fought epic battles and learned to ride his bike. We will never forget that little house. Our youngest son came into the world with that house as his dwelling. It was hard for the boys, moving, changing, leaving some things behind and discovering some new. A world of change awaits them but it breaks my heart to see them confused and scared and concerned.

My wife and i stood in the door of our old house last night for the last time and looked at the empty space and the clean floors and naked walls and i was close to tears at the leaving. While we lived there, towards the end, the idiosyncrisies of the space drove me crazy but in leaving i was drawn in and found it much harder to walk away than i anticipated.

But here we are, boxes piled four and five deep, and the things we have gathered around us for comfort and convienence are hidden and reclusive and this place does not yet feel like home. It will, in time, but for now my heart aches for home and comfort we left behind.

A Poem for Tomorrow

Tomorrow i will wake up and the earth will still be spinning.
The sun will rise, behind the clouds, and cast grey light
so i can see clearly the rode ahead.
But first i must make it through today,
one step at a time. The gruelling rigors of life notwithstanding,
i breathe in and out,
and the moments will tick by because slowly the day will end.
And the earth keeps spinning
whether i make it through today or not.

Its Time to Move On

Moving, working, life ticking forward. Sometimes it seems like everything is connected to a giant time bomb about to go off at any minute and life's urgency drives us forward in an epic race to beat the timer and stop the explosion. I'm finding that with children in school (my oldest is in preschool and will go to kindergarten next year) a new layer is added to the chaos. Getting married changed everything, having kids changed it again. Getting them into school has changed it all yet again. Nothing will ever be the same. From here on out its school lunches and after school activities and pretty soon there will be conferences and fund raisers and school friends and playground fights and cliques and gangs and sports and grades.

So i guess this is growing up.

It all happens whether we are content or not. Whether we find fulfillment in jobs, in hobbies, in whatever surrounds us. Making the change, to pursue human passions, is complicated that much more once kids are in school. Layer up layer of be here and go there until we've sliced off slivers like a layered cake and make our way through each one. I don't want to be a carpenter for ever but every day i continue to swing a hammer i feel like the move to another career is going to be just that much more complicated.

My goal has been to go to a career counselor at Western Washington University--they have a program for alumni--and it is still the plan but things seem to be lining up to put that off another week here and there and soon I'm a month behind what i was originally planning and it is my fault. I am an opportunist and committed to putting food on the table and making sure we have the rent, so here i sit, a bit burned out, but having pulled a bit more carpentry than i expected and career counselling is still in the future.

It is becoming very real, very fast, that as we grow--this family matures and evolves--we become embedded in our world based on the situations and opportunities that are available to us. We make plans for the future based on the present, that's all we have to work with. I am ready for a change. I have been for some time. But it seems that with each passing day i commit a little more to the status quo. I have a responsibility to provide for my family, in-
doubtingly, a responsibility i don't begrudge or regret. But i have a yearning for something bigger than what I'm doing now.

This week we are moving into a new house. Next week is a clean slate, i have nothing planned and no work lined up. Perhaps now is the time.

Our House on King St.

I was looking back at my blogger archive, scanning over posts from earlier this month, which is the beginning of this blog. Each post relates to the situation this family was dealing with, perhaps indirectly, but the stress of working, living, loving, being is evident--to me--through what I've been writing in this blog. What struck me most was how much has happened in the space of the odd month which I've been writing here. Christmas is a distant memory and the promise of the season has worn thin already. February looms ahead the future remains consistent only in its uncertainty. This i am learning is life.

We are preparing to move, this week actually, to another house in Bellingham. But preparing to move has layered another element of complication to our lives. The process of packing is chaotic at best, the house filled with boxes and things slowly disappearing from shelves and drawers, nooks and crannies into boxes to move or bags to through away. Getting rid of the fat in life is somewhat cathartic, bags and bags of miscellaneous stuff to the local Goodwill, things listed on craigslist for sale, somethings we are giving away--you can't always take it with you.

Part of the process of moving is a very real and practical re-evaluation of materialistic priorities. My inclination is to hold onto things, moving this this and that around on the shelf and through a process rearranging making space for everything. I can see usefulness in almost anything, not to mention the aesthetic value i see in parts and pieces of old tools and machinery, and it accumulates rapidly. As a poor carpenter and aspiring woodworker i collect lumber fall off and rippings from various job sights, letting my collection of interesting and unique wood varieties grow--albeit slowly--until the accumulation is almost out of control. I don't collect haphazardly, rather with a future vision and purpose containing the very best intentions. Good intentions are only good intentions and eventually i have to let go. Another side effect of moving is the realization that things in this life are temporary.

This realization has been hitting this family, me at least, in a very real way over the course of this past year. At one point in the summer--I was unemployed, side work had dried up, and my eligibility for unemployment insurance was questionable--i remember walking around our small house and looking at the things we had acquired. Nice things like my coffee pot, our computer, pots and pans, cell phones, coffee grinder, tea pot, mp3 player, my mt. bike, and other things that are essentially non-essential but bring a great deal of comfort and to our lives. I remember thinking that in a flash, if i didn't have work or unemployment didn't come through, or something, a minor thing glitched in our bank account it could all be gone. Nothing around (I was home alone) me had a permanent quality about it. Moving has a similar effect except the dwelling we call home is changing. A by product of renting is that we never own where we live. We attempt to take ownership over the space by implementing our own decor and taking on little projects with an outcome we desire, but ultimately the space belongs to someone else and what we do will be changed and eventually we will move on. This is, also, the nature of life, we grow and learn and change in an ever evolving story.

I am excited to move, to have more space and new projects and a greater degree of ownership over our space but the process of getting there is filled with hard work and a degree of mourning i didn't expect. Formative moments were spent in this place and we will always look back with fondness at our house on king st.

Thoughts of Writing and Education

I didn't feel like writing yesterday, for a while i slammed away at the keyboard trying to talk about beer. How i really, really like it and my excitement for the various seasonal brews available. But its hard to find inspiration to write about beer when I'm sipping coffee and the time for work looms ahead. I was saved from a tragic, rambling, post when my 9 month old woke up in need of attention and nourishment. Hence a poem from the my archives. A poem i suppose I'm not to fond of on closer inspection. I read it a few times yesterday and this morning and have decided that I'm not sure if the poetry I've saved is poetry worth sharing.

I haven't spent a lot of time in that area lately, poetry. I sit to write and nothing emerges. I used to jot down lines and thoughts in a poetic form during church sermons but even then I've lost the natural instinct for it. Poets, like most writers getting paid for their writing, I'm sure, are crafts-people. What they do takes a large degree of discipline and work and an infinite number of revisions and drafts to bring a poem to a place that is acceptable and genuine. There is a stark irony there, of course, of revising to bring out the genuine qualities of a poem and of course the danger is that the very aspect that makes poetry so accessible--genuine, candid, and captivating--is edited out in the long run and the poet must return to the original thought and start again. How often that happens with writing as well.

I have never been a writer who spends a lot of time with poetry (obviously!), preferring, instead, to let the first draft, the original inspiration, stand on its own. The only thing i change is the rhythm. As a consequence, i discovered yesterday morning, while i fed my son, that the poems i have saved are somewhat flat. But, i generally think that of most of my writing after a time has past. So, i wonder, is writing timeless?

Always, the writing of today will be most accessible to the readers of today. As the writing ages and new readers are exposed to it, the writings qualities will either be exposed to prove it is a work that will span generations or not. Some books where not made to be read beyond the generation for which they were written. Some are works that remind us of the past and the human propensity for inflicting tragedy on the world around them. Others are works of survival and the tenacity and enduring spirit of human nature. These are the kinds of books, essays, short stories, and poems that last. On these kinds of works we've built a literary tradition, a cannon, on which instructors, teachers, and professors build literary education. I feel that my literary education was based far to much into the now. I have read books from the past, and spent a great deal of time with books written far before i was born. But actual study and literary criticism is lacking.

What i got was an invitation to go it based on the cultural paradigm of my generation which happens to be a knee jerk reaction away from the influence and traditions of the paradigm my parents live in. As i look at my poetry the tradition of great poets is lacking. The influence of Keats and Tennyson, Shakespeare, Whitman, Emerson, Eliot...even my prose, while influenced strongly by great writers lacks a connection to a tradition of great writing.

My education failed to cultivate a knowledge of a tradition of writing. As a student i was even trained in such a way that I'm sure i would have resisted any attempt to level that tradition on my, my writing, and my naive attempts at prose and poetry. What i got instead was an introduction to the "lone wolf" method of self publishing, small presses, chat book poets, and subversive cultures of zines and pamphlets. What kind of bullshit is that for a student who wants and dreams to be a writer? But students don't really know, all they can do is trust the instructors point them in the right direction.

Education doesn't really happen in the classroom--it happens through experience.

A Poem

Beginning Again

The sun rises over the trees.
Slowly illuminating what was previously cool and
damp from dew,
silent and asleep.
From my seat in the kitchen—
coffee cooling more quickly that I would like—
the sun floods my periphery,
forces me to a squint and
pulls my attention away from the task at hand.
Out of my slumber and thought.
Out of my dreams and comfort.

Resigned, I get ready to work.

The Places Music Goes

To this point, blogging has been relatively easy. Even the days when nothing seemed available to me to write about I've been able to write about the lack of inspiration and ingenuity. Today my mind is truly blank. Well, that's not completely true, i have a refrain from a Tom Waitts song running through my head: "It is the same with men, as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die." But i can not tell you what it means to me, exactly. All i can say is that lately I've been obsessed with his album "Bawlers" from the box set titled Orphans. While I've been installing hardwood floors in a tri-plex, Tom Waitts has been my companion. His knack for turning somewhat pleasant tunes into deep, dark, melodies has captivated me completely. His cover of "Young at Heart" is, to me, about the end of life and his build up of the darker parts of life--loss, love, pain, heartbreak, loneliness--peaks with the last song: "Young at Heart." I don't have, completely available to me, the vernacular to write about music. All i can give you is my opinion from my experience, and Tom Waitts, to me is a great musician. I love his understated melodies, his guttural and raspy voice, and the dark nature of his music. It is easy to get lost in his songs, and the album "Bawlers" plays as out as a life story for some unfortunate soul. Tom Waitts co-starred in the movie Shortcuts, directed by Robert Altman and based on the short stories of Raymond Carver. If Carver's short stories are snap shots into the dark and smelly underbelly of the middle to lower class lives of seriously fucked up people and families, the Tom Waitts has written the perfect sound track.

I think it is the time in my life, i a drawn to the darker side of music. Or, maybe, the aspects that i can most closely identify. When i was younger, high school age, i swore that country music was a category for un-talented sellouts. While i still may hold to that on some level, I've also gained a deep appreciation of the foundation of country music and in the new category of country music radio people and music commentators are calling Americana and Freak Folk. It is inspired by the roots of country music and folk and informed by a new generation and tradition of grunge rock. It is the clean sound of the music that draws me in. There is no distortion and there is a poetic and honest quality to the lyrics that seems to be missing from other genres. And, i think on a very base level, i connect with the sound.

I grew up in a cowboy/farm town and country music was a common, if not default, sound all around. I, in typical not-a-cowboy-farmer-redneck kid kind of way, rebelled against it strongly once i hit high school. But the roots of that sound brings me back to the small town feeling. I should note that my parents didn't really listen to popular music when i was a child. The sounds of the 80's completely passed me by and it wasn't until i was 15 or so that i truly began to discover my own taste in music. That tastes was strongly informed by my friends and by the AM radio in my dad's old ford. On that old radio we would drive through the mountains listening to the "oldies" station. Those songs, pop music from the 50's and 60's may have had more to do with my music background than anything else. I am quite sure, that for a long time, no other music existed for me.

Now, grown and corrupted by the sounds and experiences of a life away from my parents and the small town i grew up in, i can not listen to those songs. The remain a profound and impacting part of my memory and there is very little i remember better than those long days of fishing and hunting and the three of us (one of my brothers, my dad, and i) crammed on the bench seat of that old ford pick-up sipping cokes, eating Hershey miniatures, and listing to the oldies.

My dad has a new truck now, has for some time--though the old one remains parked on the side of the house--and he listens to different music as well. There are c.d.'s in his truck and an FM radio and a back seat. The simple pleasure of riding three across the front of the truck in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon is alive only in memory now. My brothers and i have lives of our own and live, if not far away, far enough away that it doesn't happen any longer. Yet, when i reflect on music long enough if brings me back to that old truck and all the memories attached to it. I remember clearly and with the most pleasure, hunting and fishing with my dad. He was, in my memory, truly content on the river and in the mountains, happy to let us fish--or not--and hike along side him, eventually carrying our own guns, as we looked for deer and grouse.

My memory of music isn't about the music, it is about my dad, and though our tastes in tunes have changed dramatically, the roots of my appreciation have not.

Running in Sand

I don't particularly like talking/writing about sports. I don't have a deep vernacular to draw from and so my language always feels flat and dry and the physical act of writing about sports is like running through sand for me. Even the sports i really enjoy and participate in, i find it terribly difficult to write about them. I suppose i can talk about it ad-noseum but writing is another beast altogether. So, if you read my thoughts on American Football and were disgusted and bemused then not to worry, i do not digress into sports often.

But then, i don't have a lot of responsibility to anyone, per say, for what i write. I find that i write what's weighing on my mind. If nothing is prominent and available then the very act of writing is like running through deep sand, not just writing about sports.

I work on this blog pretty early in the morning, its 6 am right now, and i don't think that my facilities are always fully lucid. I think I've touched on this before, but if i wait to write the day has contaminated my thoughts and the baggage of the grind is to heavy to bring to the computer. A fine balance between the lingering effects of sleep and the corrupted events of the day. The mind is a strange and beautiful thing, that God designed me to think and act on those thoughts and express those thoughts from the depth of my mind and the breadth--limited though it maybe--of my experience. One informing the other, constantly, giving rise to my character and personality. Thankfully people change, we emerge from high school one way and from college another and after 5 to 10 years in the real world we have changed again and again and again. The capacity to adapt to the world around is generally attributed to the resourceful animals that make their homes in the heart of urban America but I'm beginning to believe this is also a great attribute of humanity, that we can survive any number of catastrophes and setbacks to emerge well suited to rebuilding and moving forward.

Perhaps it is a bye product of the nature of life. There comes a point at which there is nothing to do but wake up the next day, the sun rises again, it always rises again, to begin another day. And that is life, one day at a time. That is all we are capable of living, try as we might to map out the future with concrete plans and expectations.

This living one day at a time has been life for my family for the past two or three months. My boss told me to expect to be laid-off before Christmas but he has kept me working, through the holidays, the new year, and we are fast approaching February and the work keeps coming. I don't question it, honestly, i am prepared to show up today and have it be my last, but i don't dwell on the fact. Honestly, with work right now, i don't put today with yesterday or tomorrow, today is today and yesterday is over and I'll deal with tomorrow come what may. I have no capacity to live more than one day at a time and if i did, i certainly don't have the energy.

I can only run so far in the deep sand.

American Football, A Few Thoughts

To start, let me say that i know most people really like football, American football, to be precise. I however do not. Please, don't be offended, just as i accept that not everyone likes soccer or mt. biking, i don't like football. Actually, i can't stomach it at all.

I do believe that the majority of America is winding up for the Superbowl. The archaic championship game takes place sometime soon, i seem to be seeing more and more replica jerseys and fitted caps in my travels around town. I, honestly, have no idea who is in contention or what the big story of the season has been. I don't even know who the usual suspects are. I have to be honest here, very honest, i hate American football. Let me be very clear, however, that i don't care if other people like it. I know i can't change the culture surrounding the sport and i can't/won't try to change the hearts and minds of passionate fans. I can appreciate the passion for sport, the desire to support a winning team or regional team or whatever team that, as a child, you introduced to and as a result it is the team you support now. I don't mind if other people like it. It doesn't bother me. But i absolutely can not watch football. I can't. I can't even drink enough beer to make it enjoyable.

I feel like a culture of anamilistic machismo has been woven into the fibers of the sport. There is a sense that if you can't take the hit your not man enough and if you can't or won't play injured or with an injection your not man enough. It reminds me of the "cowboy up" sticker, a saying that has been taken by the rednecks and wannabes and splashed across ridiculous trucks and pathetic cars.

At its core, there is some value to the sport. The tactics involved, running plays to confuse and beguile the other team, and driving the ball forward to the in zone--these aspects of the game are elegant and exciting and if football could be stripped of its gladiator like culture and destroys bodies and brainwashes its players and followers, then it would be a sport worth following. In my mind. Alas, the elegance is lost. The grace of the game is buried in the tackles and hits and i don't believe that the players are human after they take the field, they are truly animals with a desire to hurt, injure, and destroy their opponents. It is easy to do, hidden behind helmets and pads, they no longer see the opposition in the eyes and suddenly they are only the opposition and what element of humanity that remained once they engaged on the field has vanished behind the face mask.

There is a saying, and i don't know who said it, but i learned it as a young boy: "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by animals, rugby is an animals game played by gentlemen, and football is an animals game played by animals." Every sport has elements that take the humanity out of the athlete. For most, even soccer, the fans forget that the players on the field are men (or women) and they have families and baggage and commitments and lives away from the game. I don't know how it is that we have made some of the these athletes into multimillionaires. In my mind it is a tragic waste of resources and time.

I will concede that i do follow the English Premier League, and the soccer players at the top of their game in England (and Spain, France, Germany, and Italy) are on a similar pay level to the top athletes the U.S. So it isn't just the money that bothers me. It seems so unreal, this money they are paid, that almost seems imaginary or fake. But we fans drive it forward and legitimize the ridiculous pay packets and absurd contracts and astronomical transfer fees.

I grew up in a smallish town in Eastern Oregon, it was a football dominated high school in a football dominated town. Most of the players on the team had fathers who had played or older bothers or uncles, the ties that bind ran deep. I was lucky to be the son of a man who did not play and who had little interest in high school football. It was the passion of the town and a considerable section of the round-up stadium would be packed with people watching the game. The radio would run a live commentary and people would be hyped for the game. No matter when or who it was against. Football was big. And wrapped within this town culture that elevated high school football to an ivory tower an inflated belief that we were a big school. But not even close. My high school was a very small fish in a very big pond. Evident by the lack of team sport championships on the walls of the gym. I think that the dance team is the only competitive sport to have, ever, won a state trophy. Ever. The rest of the sports never came close. To this day, they don't come close.

It isn't as though you should only support a winning team but the culture of blindness and ignorance is hard to swallow. My high school is a microcosm in the scope of the American football culture and doesn't come close to the assumed culture in places like Texas where it is life. But it is only high school and most people grow up embarrassed or ashamed of themselves and strive to be different, better people.

The Rain is Upon Us.

It rains in Bellingham, from time to time. I don't think it rains as much as people would have you believe. It seems that the locals, or at least the embedded imports, give Bellingham a bit more credit than it deserves. When i was new to this area all i heard was how much it rained and how little it snowed. And it does rain, lots and lots and lots. This morning the rain is pounding against the windows with the sound of pebbles being tossed across the yard. I can hear the wind running against the walls and over the roof and already i dread going outside. The rain, honestly, frustrates me. I have, already, an excusist personality and i procrastinate terribly. It doesn't take much to convince me not to go for a run or a bike ride, much as i enjoy both activities, but once convinced i feel low and the self image struggle begins to pull me very deep into low confidence and personal frustration.

I could almost say that during the winter months, the "rainy season" of Bellingham, my self-confidence drops to a devastating low. The clouds are dark and the rain seems perpetually imminent. I don't know exactly what it is, I don't mind being wet and a little mud while mt. biking is sort of cool and adds a new element to the sport. Its just the rain i think, one more obstacle to overcome. In a life filled with obstacles, though, overcoming one more to unwind and have fun is a daunting task and takes a great deal of motivation and energy. Not to mention moral support and a partner in crime. But my partners in crime and i have a way of deciding to drink more beer instead of heading into the rain. Perhaps Henry V could have convinced us out of hiding and onto the field but the oratory powers of IPA are a bit stronger from the fridge than the fridge outside.

Rain is not as frequent in Bellingham as some would have you believe. We don't live in a constant state of flooding and gore-tex--yet it rains enough for me to feel like it will never end.

Coffee Revisited

I believe i understated my dependence on coffee yesterday. In fact, i believe I've understated my dependence on digestibles period. Coffee is one of the things in my life that has become almost ritual in routine. I drink it every morning, first thing. My life is, generally, well caffinated. To be perfectly honest I like good coffee, just as i like good beer, wine, and food. There is a lot to be said for small coffee roasters, roasting small batches of coffee, with an eye for detail and quality. The same could be true for micro breweries or boutique wineries, local cafes and high end restaurants. The eye for detail and instinct for flavor and quality set some apart from the others.

There is an ever growing number of microbreweries, small coffee roasters, and boutique wineries coming to life in the North West. I won't speak to beer and wine so much but coffee is something I've thought about quite a bit. I can't drink, rather, won't drink, shitty coffee on a regular basis. Yesterday i talked about Costco and the coffee i get there. It is definitely not my preference but it is drinkable and passes for a good cup. It does, however, speak to the ready availability of fair to decent--sometimes good to excellent--'production' coffee. I think we can, by and large, thank Starbucks for that, a company on a mission to conquer the world before at a similar pace to Wal-Mart (I hate the word as i hate hell) and caffeinate the general populous to a point of yuppie blindness.

I confess that i like Starbucks. When I've cut through masquerade of hip-meets-comfortably-cool setting and pushed all the "its a coffee experience" aside and get a cup of coffee--pike's blend with no room for cream--and my old fashioned donut or two, i find that the coffee is good. It is worth finding on the road or that extra block in town. When I've gotten back to what Starbucks is about--coffee--it is worth it. It is good. There are an obscene number of cafes in Belling ham, in conglomeration with Starbucks, the number of places to quaff a decent cup o' joe is mind blowing and they all seem rather busy and i don't account for the drive up and through coffee shacks on nearly every major intersection in town.

It does strike me as ironic that something life coffee, something that should be enjoyed and savored has become almost McDonald's like in in its availability and i am no exception to the iron grip of coffee and its morning hold over the general populous. The only real difference is that i so rarely buy coffee. I make a big pot in the morning and enjoy a cup or two while i, now, blog and get ready for work and then i pour it in my thermos and off to work with the remainder.

A hot cup of coffee as the day winds on and on and on is a small piece of pleasure in the midst of the monotony of the daily grind. Coffee may not change my attitude or the rhythm and fate of the day but it sure as hell doesn't hurt. And i like it.

A lot.

Coffee

I've mentioned it before, i do believe, but i'd like to take this opporitunity to tell you that i drink a lot of coffee. Normally i buy the three pound bags from Costco. Now, three pounds is a lot of coffee, and generally anything in that quantity for the price (around $10 a bag) i would be a bit leary of its quality, but this is good coffee. Not the best but certianly not the worst, and if i'm going to drink copious amounts of the black stuff i can not justify a bag a week from Starbucks, or Moca Joe, or insert your personal favorite here. Occasionaly I am sent coffee from somewhere else. My sister works at a Starbucks and packages arive, time to time, with a pound of the Pike's Place Blend. My mom is a big, big fan of Raven's Brew coffee and, generally, on holidays and birthday a pound or two arrives at my door. This morning, it is Raven's Brew for me. My aunt, in Anchorage, was so gracious as to send some for Christmas, and this morning, finally, the time has come to dive in.

The biggest difference between the coffee i buy at Costco and the Raven's Brew i'm drinking this morning, is the body of the coffee as it were. Costco coffee tends to have a smoky aftertaste and a bit of a bitter taste the mouth. Not enough to render it undrinkable but definatly apparent. Raven's Brew, particularly 'Three Peckered Billy Goat' blend, is mellow, smooth, and the rich flavor lingers and leaves you wanting to continue drinking and drinking and drinking. Normally i drink coffee because that is what i do, i enjoy it irregardless of brand, unless it is really shitty, but the botique coffee's, the small batch roasted coffee, is in a league of its own and after i finish a cup of this, the Three Peckered Billy Goat, i'm left craving another cup. I don't just want to drink more good coffee, i long for it. As the package intones "...pour it hot, pout it lots!"

Coffee.

Still With Me?

I have been pondering whether to write this morning or not. I'm sort of void of thought today. And i was about to get up and go about my morning but i couldn't. I'm tied to this blog every day, except the weekends. It works so well for me to write in the mornings (see "Writing in the Dark") bu ton the weekends i wake up to late and already the boys are demanding my attention and soccer games are going on--i follow them on soccernets gamecast--and plans are taking place for the day/weekend and sometimes it seems that waking up on the weekends is waking up in perpetual motion. My oldest son does not slow down, ever. Constantly on the go, he wakes up as a fireman/dinosaur/jr. paleontologist/power ranger high bred character doing good and making phenomenal scientific discoveries wrapped in sage and wizened experience of his five years. He is wonderful...he takes a lot of energy. He is energy, the perfect embodiment of energy. The youngest, well, he's eight months, almost nine, and he needs my wife and i all the time--obviously.

So, if I'm going to write this is the time. And i have to seize these mornings and write. It is reminiscent of being in a strict exercise routine and then missing a day and the feeling of failure and guilt haunts you all day until either amends are made and routine is rectified or the exercise is slowly let go of all together and this action is then justified as it not being for you, at that time, and something else takes its place.

It has struck me, before, that writing has a part to play in my life--whether pre-determined or self prescribed, whether good, fair, or poor--and to miss a day after establishing routine and a semblance of discipline wood be a day wracked with guilt and frustration. As a person who routinely struggles with self-esteem, confidence, image, and worth minor blips as this are really challenging for me and it has the potential to wrack my day in frustration anger (something else i struggle with but that is for another day).

So, here i am. Blathering on about writing and not and all the time wondering at the value and point of what I'm doing. Point, even though I've expressed it before. There is a point to this blog and slowly I'm drawing myself into it. Already I've written more about my inner struggles and personal demons than i had intended, i hadn't realized that the craft of writing, for me, was so closely tied to the darker side of me, nor had i intended to lay bare that part of who i am for a, largely, unknown readership. But, you know, what the hell. Its always easier to lay it on the line--all the shit going on in your life--to a stranger in a bar than to your best friend. Its always easier, too, for me to write than it is to talk.

So, if your still with me, thanks for reading.

There Are Places I Remember

Its another Monday. Last night the rain slammed against this small house and this morning the wind is still pushing at the walls. I can hear the rain, faintly, in the back drop of the wind, still coming down. Still saturating the earth around me. I hear the rain and all i think is mud. My truck will be surrounded by it and the yard will be a swamp. I guess i don't mind the rain, really, as long as I'm working inside, but when it comes to working outside in the rain, no matter what gear is available or how hard it rains, i always end up feeling wet and cold. The mornings, these rainy dark Monday mornings, stimulate the urge to stay in with my coffee and hammer away at the key board. All motivation for getting ready for work has vanished, very quickly, what little there was before. My coffee is good this morning, rich and black, and our house is snug against the weather. This is a good place to spend a morning. This house, loaded with memories.

We have lived in two apartments and this house and we are preparing to move to another house at the end of the month. And as we begin packing and making a major clear out of stuff we don't use or want any longer i am struck by the memories that are encased in the walls around me. Memories are beginning to live around me like ghosts. Just beyond clarity and reality, they hover in my vision and the growth of my boys, the joys and challenges of my marriage, the friends I've had and have, are all part of a misty horizon as i go about my day. But within the house there are things specific; milestones and events that define growing up--for all of us.

Now, in all honesty, this house does drive me nuts. There are things that need replaced and repaired, non-critical they maybe but worn and broken none the less. The layout and lack of thought in design and addition is baffling and bizarre, especially having lived here the better part of three years. It is small. It has bad paint in our bedroom. It is a rental. But it is a cache of memories and packing is a bit melancholy. The screen saver on our computer is a slide show of photos that goes back some time, i think dating back to my older son at 2, we were in a small two bedroom apartment where he learned to crawl and walk. Where a bike was stolen. Where i left lumber sails to become a carpenter, where i started playing indoor soccer. Where we shared our first Christmas dinner with friends instead of traveling to be with family. Where i sold my VW Golf, a '91 that i regret selling deeply. This house where we've grown, added a son, learned to mt. bike again, acquired a boat that is not "sea worthy", neglected the lawn and garden.

We haven't owned the places we've lived, haven't invested in them financially--for ourselves. But by virtue living and loving in the places we've been, we've made an emotional investment and a part of the small one bedroom on Elm street that our oldest came home to and a piece of the two bedroom on Pacific street and a piece of this house on King St., that gives this blog its name, belong to us and always will. Do you remember the Beatles song that goes: "There are places I remember some have changed and some the same, but these places have there meaning, for people and friends...in my way I've loved them all." A bit cliche, perhaps, but it is true, i look back on places I've been and lived and remember the people i have loved in those places. Some remain with me today and some are alive, to me, only in my memory. It is hard growing up. I am almost thirty and the process of growing and changing should be a bit more simple now and less challenging. But its not.

My oldest son will turn six this year but i still remember his first birthday and the wonder of first discovery remains with him. Our youngest will turn one and i still see him as a new born. My wife and i will turn thirty but i still feel like a I'm just starting out. I guess getting older doesn't particularly mean growing up, its all just stages of learning.

The Things I love.

Its nearly impossible for me write about the things in life i really enjoy. Mountain Biking, for example, when i put it in print, i comes out sound cliche and lame. It makes it seem like some existential quest of meaning and purpose in an other wise unfulfilled life. Soccer, too, is hard. For some reason writing about running the length of the pitch trying to shoot the ball in the goal reads similar to what i write about mt. biking. Fly Fishing, there are two great books about fly fishing--The River Y, by David James Duncan, and A River Runs Through It, by Norman Mclean. In each of the two novels the authors found fly fishing to be metapohoric of life, purpose, and the inner conflict of family and coming of age. Sex is another topic i find incredibly hard to write about. Beer, wine, food, reading all have challenges to me. All are painfully hard to write about. But, with the exception of sex, none of these things are conflicted in my mind. The only real conflict about them is when will i have the time to get on the mountain, on the river, on the pitch... As i write, more and more, i find the conflict in my current experience emerging, if not in print then defiantly in my mind.

This blog, as I've said, is partial chronicle of a journey to find where this period in life is going to take us. I've already written about the impatience i (we) are feeling to start moving forward, begin to find avenues out of this revolving life situation--work, lay-off, work--that has very little forward momentum and onto something that, if it doesn't make me rich (because it most likely will not), will be full filling and inspirational. I'd like to get paid to do what i love. The ol' cliche, right?, figure out what you love to do then find a way to get paid to do it. However, people aren't running around giving checks to mediocre, at best, mountain bikers, soccer players, and fly fishermen. Money isn't falling off trees for those of us well suited to the enjoyment of the finer comforts in life: beer, wine, and food. So the conflict is suddenly very surface and shallow. I want to do the things i enjoy. I feel that it is only recently that I've found time and, albeit limited, resources to explore, in some cases re-explore, these outlets. Really, the 'hobbies' listed are outlets from reality.

On my bike the world sort of falls away and the moment is all that is alive. Hip deep on the river, letting flies drop in perfect placement to catch the current and lure the fish out of hiding and onto my line is a singular peaceful experience. When i listen carefully, the silence is filling and the wonder and creation of God is all apparent and almost painfully vivid. Soccer brings brings me to a place of deep competition and singular purpose: win. Beer and wine and food are things that comfort me. Sex...well, its sex.

Would that i could get paid for that i love but suddenly it becomes business and my escape from the real world should not be business but only escape. So what if i can't write about it? The moment is to surreal to explain and the only way to truly understand where i come from on these topics is to experience them yourself.

Writing, like life, is driven by conflict and character. I can not write about that which i am not conflicted (or something that would compromise my wife and children) so i don't. What i have to write about, right now, is the internal conflict I'm experiencing. The impending lay-off and the revolving stress about what will happen and if I'll find work. The possibility of returning to school and the additional debt that will accrue as a result therein. I've been listening to one of the c.d.s from Tom Waitts album Orphans subtitled "Bawlers" but two refrains keep spinning in my head "the world keeps turning" and "I'll never let go of your hand". Bad, challenging, unfair experiences come up in life but the world keeps turning and i can't do anything to change that. All i can do is keep living, as best i can, from where I'm at and not let go of my family and friends. The only thing permanent in my life right now is my wife and I'll never let go of her hand.

writers block, really.

i have writers block today. as i type i feel like my mind is wading through mud or deep sand or both and i can't seem to get it off the ground. Off the ground, i can't seem to get it to stay awake. Already life is coming at me and i can not separate and let go of the jumble of thoughts, memories, plans, and desires meshing themselves in my brain. I feel like i have a brain of play-doh right now. Its annoying. Its frustrating. The clock is ticking itself to the time i have to get ready for work and this is all I've got. Writers block. My muse has checked out, my brain has checked into the day and my instincts are trapped in a mud bog. What is this i call writing? what is this i call an outlet? What is this i call a blog? Days like today i wonder at the point of writing at all and the perfectionist/wanna-be professional cringes at the thought of publishing this dribble, but fuck it, i think, i will post this if i want to.

Besides, who will actually read it?

Learning to Write

I was trying to write in the evening the other day. It was getting sort of late, the kids were in bed, I had the last shot of tequila from a bottle we’d had for a while and I was sipping it slowly letting its warmth spread across the inside of my chest. But I couldn’t write at night. I thought I could. I hammered out two paragraphs, relatively long, but they were a jumble of non-ideas and half thoughts and I deleted it out of hand. (Not that my writing in the morning is any different…) I have to write in the morning.

There is something about this time, early, before the kids are awake or I have seen and talked with people. Before I gotten ready for work, or eaten, or made my lunch. Before the day begins, really, before anything—before most things—I write. There is coffee and that is it. It seems that most authors write in the mornings, before the day has had a chance to contaminate their minds and now I can see why. To be productive takes a commitment and focus on the process and discipline of the craft of writing, over these past two odd weeks I’ve begun to realize the immense amounts of time and energy it would take to write for a living. But I’ve also begun to realize how much of this process of writing simply becomes routine. The very act of writing in the mornings, getting the first paragraph into words, leads to another and another and another.

So far my it seems my writing centers on writing. I’m focusing on where I’m coming from and where I’m at. The notion, from Hemingway, of starting with the truest sentence available at the time is an extremely influencing practice. And when I start from somewhere true my writing usually makes its way through my sub conscious and things come to light that I didn’t expect. Most notably I wrote recently about my darker side, the part of my mind that puts life into conflict. This dark side of who I am isn’t about succumbing to depression and angst its more about allowing it to influence what I’m writing, I have a problem creating conflict in my writing without it. Without conflict there is really no point in telling a story.

Conflict is what drives characters to develop, grow, and draw readers into their lives. In acting they call it suspension of disbelief. The ability to draw the audience in and make them forget that what they are watching is fiction, just actors and actresses on the stage playing out a story. Similarly, true characters faced with true conflict draw readers into a story.

It has been a while since I’ve tried writing short stories or works of fiction. I have lost the practice of it. But I’m beginning to get back into the routine of simply writing. 20 minutes at the computer typing away, isn’t that much for me now, soon it will be thirty and presently I’ll be able to hammer away for an hour. My goal, write continuously for an hour.

In the face of change I am looking at all the jobs I can see myself doing: teaching, construction management, design, to name a few. But what really stands out to me is my recurring desire to write. Whether its how I make my living or not, I think I will label myself a writer, in my mind at least, and someday I hope that as a writer I can make a living.

Wading in Slush

I've been writing about being on the cusp of change, of these about to happen. This about period is a long painful period to be in, like change purgatory. The days on the calender fall away and nothing is really happening. Waiting for the right timing, the last day, the new job, the next phone call and the world keeps spinning around and around and around and I'm looking forward to change but i have to wait. Nothing ever happens as fast as we decide it to. There is always a lag time.

In the mean time we just go day in and day out and slog away at the work I've got. This has become an exhausting period of time for me. Not just the work, though installing floors has really sapped my energy and strength, but also a sort of open ended work arrangement. An arrangement i don't want to question and end prematurely but at the same time it is rather hard to plan for the future, plan the next step when the step is masked from view. But, i am thankful for the work. A way to pay the bills. I am always thankful for that.

Since the day after Christmas i have felt tired. So it isn't just work, i know a lot of it is the stress of work ending, finding some more things to do, starting career counselling. I think, to, i am suffering for post Christmas depression. The anticipation and build up to the day, then the exciting and fun morning watching my wife and children (mostly my 5 yr. old the 8 month old only wanted to eat the paper) open gifts and all the food and drink and the next day it was over. Simply enough. Finished. Since then i have felt this funk hanging over me. I had built my late fall around making it to Christmas both with work and with high hopes and expectations. Now that it is over, a couple weeks gone, the real world is over taking me again and the fantasy land of celebration and expectation has fallen by the wayside dramatically. What is this need to celebrate? The new year has become a stereotype depression for me, as i wrote on the 1st, and going into 2010 is no different, save that there is more at stake. Each year there is more at stake than the year before and time to time i just freeze and it all washes over me like slush, the heavy, cold, wet, dirty leftovers of winter that are a by product of the end of winter and the promise of spring, but it is a dirty messy change. Not at all like the fall where leaves gradually change colors and the palate of nature is always a brilliant hue of oranges and reds and slowly the stark nudity of the trees is enough to inspire and call out the better of people. It is change made for poetry and adventure and few people would argue against the crisp, cold, sunny days of fall. But i don't look forward to the damp sunny days of late winter when the snow is melting and the lawns and sidewalks are covered with mud and slush.

Change, for me, is more like winter to spring. There is always a period of hardship and inconvenience to overcome become things begin to happen. And always it starts as delicately as new life, where one misstep or mistake could end what has promise to be timeless, beautiful, and full filing.

In the heart of winter I look forward to spring but i never think about the change in between.

Drawing out the Darkness

I wrote, recently, about waking up my muse: "My muse (we all have one) is a rather lazy young man who drinks to much and doesn't like to socialize. He sits in the dark and reads, he is fond of the darker authors and books on my list and others I haven't mentioned. My muse is hard to motivate, hard to communicate with, and won't work for too long. I've let him go to seed, bye and large, let him off the hook for too long. I can feel him becoming a bit more active in this process of blogging. The thing about my muse is that when i call on him he has to reply, he has no choice, he's mine. He grumbles and comes to work slowly and with a bad attitude but he works when i insist and when i insist writing happens." My blog has become this process of waking my muse and also finding my voice. A friend pointed the searching for voice out, recently, in an email, and he was spot on. Re-finding my voice.

It seems silly to have lost it, but as he said, often our voice is used just to fill the silence around, and i will take that a step further and say we talk when there is no need to talk, afraid of the silence, and fail to listen. There is a lot to be heard in the silence. Books to be read, poems to write, worlds to create within our minds and with our pens. In the silence, we can cultivate our voices and learn to speak out when it really matters. In the silence we can listen for God's still small voice in our hearts and allow him to speak and fill the void. I have become afraid of silence. And within this fear i have lost my voice and sent my muse into a deep sleep.

At the heart of this silence is my fear of the darkness it brings. I have been looking at writing, writers i admire, and my own tendencies towards good writing and realize that there is an element of darkness within. As i wake my muse and he begins to speak out with my voice, this darkness is beginning to surface and i have to face it and harness it and use it and allow it to inform my writing. There is no story without conflict and the conflict i face is fear. I am afraid of the darker side of my heart and subconscious and once i truly release it i fear not being able to contain to writing. Truly i am an eternal optimist and generally i see the better in people and situations, this optimism covers for me, for at heart i am dark.

I remember a writing class in which my instructor asked us to read Valencia Street by Michelle Tea i believe. A short work of fiction based on her life as lesbian in San Francisco. I found this book to be a horrible example of self absorbed literature and a complete waste of my time. My instructor saw it as a way to inspire us to take risks with out writing. The exercise has stuck and i have never been able to complete it. I can not take risks, it involves releasing something within me i am afraid of. This darkness that, as i write (as i wrote regularly in writing classes), hovers so close to the surface.

My muse is the embodiment of my inner darkness, i have given it form.

My voice gives it life.

My writing draws it out.

New Years Ghosts

Happy new year. The promise and hope of the unknown, we (I) tend to quantify new starts with new years. In the past i had always thought the new year should start in the fall, the beginning of school, the beginning of change. I felt that to celebrate the coming of the new year in the depths of winter was sort of anti-climactic, after all very little was about to change. I would return to school and what?

The new years parties of my youth were always a disappointment and i remember simply driving around, one party to the next, looking for something exciting. Something more than flowing alcohol and crowds of people loudly mixing together. I could never put my finger on the disappointment or anxiety it caused to have this need to celebrate and share the new year in the context of a deep and painful sense of loneliness and exclusion. My own demons i am sure and as hard as i fight them and push them back they stay with me. Sometimes in groups of people, all friends, with common interests and parallel lives, i find myself on the fringes looking into the circle and watching them interact. The beginning of a new year has seemed to be an exaggeration of the demons i faced. A new year never wiped out my insecurities and fears and it never panned out to starting new. I don't know if i expected a new start or there is some sort of subliminal propaganda suggesting it. I can't say, it is a jumble in my memory and experience.

Today i will go to work--work that is slowly burning out. I have a mild hangover and my family is still sleeping. Sleep deep light of my world, the new year is upon us and the promise of change hangs lightly in the air. Delicate as glass in its place in the air, plot the course ahead with care and precision. I am afraid that if we stray to far the excitement of the change we hope for will fall and shatter.

Outside, i hear the wind beat against the walls of our house and knock the wind-chimes against the post on the the deck. The rain like small pebbles against the hard dirt and mixed asphalt of the alley. The new year looms ahead and the dreams we have are available and real. I fear most of all that we fall short. I hope with all my heart that our dreams come true.