Gifts I did not know

Woke from a dream where I was in a terrible realm

All my sails were ablaze I was chained to the helm*

The early years of my adult life were like this. Stuff was on fire, yet I drove on defiantly, deciding that it was just "no big deal". I worked hard to operate in every environment and to skillfully be thoroughly unimpressed. Night after night knowing that the very ground I lived on was sitting in the top of an hourglass in which the grains of foundation were disappearing with expected precision. 

Chemical rationalization was helpful in maintaining this ride. I was taught that maintaining was everything. Maintaining was the old school way that said, no matter how messed up you are, you operate as a productive member of society. I had the good fortune of this only affecting myself.

As I watch my sons navigate the transition into real life. I have been incredibly impressed by their choices, discernment, and the tools they have used in figuring out those paths. Even though I was considered to have the wisdom of an age greater than I was at their age, I had nothing on them in comparison. What they have gleaned from me has surprised me greatly. From my fight for survival, that have pulled key points and principles that I did not perceive were possible as I was running the course.

I find that I am constantly learning from them. It is in how Liam demonstrates a stereo system for me and with intention chooses Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones. The richness he found in this song speaks volumes. Gimme Shelter is a song about contrasts. The 1960s which a large peace and love movement was everywhere, it did not stop the 60s from being one of the most violent decades of our time. The song is drawing a line in the sand and states that, we are stepping over this line to a better day moving forward. It is a great piece of abstract art, lyrically, musically and in canon. 

The other night, Noah and I were talking about music. It is so interesting to sample what he loves to listen to. He knows his 70s and especially 80s very well. He has a knack for finding musicians today that actually still have talent, just when we thought talent died 30 years ago. What is great is, those artists clearly have influences from those decades and he finds it in deep complexities within the music.  It is so molecular that others may never see it, but he does.

Despite being told that our children will learn more from us than we can comprehend, I could never have imagined it could be as deep as it is. That the very nature of it is mostly subliminal. They are the ones teaching me. Fresh young minds. Those who do not compare today's life to the greatest decade 50 years ago. I try to keep an open mind about things, but when the intelligence I am receiving is that old, I am certainly sure to be swept away in the wake of time. That aggressive thing that I have fought and kept ahead of all of these years, foolishly thinking I could beat the adversary. Playing with cards that no longer exist equals devistation at last. 

As each day passes, I better understand, this is the time to sit an listen. Beautiful ideas, creativity and intellect abound around me. It is a sweet garden to live, and I don't want to miss it by seeing only contrast. The one thing we have always had was today. Today was not something I accepted very often, but I have learned, it is the most precious of gifts.

*song "Mockingbirds" Grant Lee Buffalo 1994  

Rewards at the Kitchen Counter

For some reason, I am the type of person who needs a return on investment for all aspects of my life. This includes going on vacation. Vacations are not something that I do often or easily. I know that I am wrong in this, so I do try to break the cycle. 

If I go out to eat at a restaurant, it is a disappointment if I am not inspired to add a recipe to my portfolio. It doesn’t have to be the exact meal that I had at the restaurant, but I do like it when it sparks something and made to create something that I would not have otherwise. 

Seeing what someone can create in a dish can be an artistic expression about is in there her and soul. It is very much like reading a poem or a paragraph in a novel that brings tears to your eyes, food is the same way. It fascinates me that food being something that we all have in common, that we must eat every day, that there is not nearly enough awareness of its power to heal, celebrate, nourish, and elevate.

Please don’t get me wrong here. I also know that there are so many people in the world that scrape crumbs together just to find sustenance and even then it’s not enough. This is certainly a tragedy that should never happen and yet is the most prevalent. I will not pretend in this composition to have any cure for that.

I just got done reading Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kat Flynn. She had recently finished culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in France. She was in a grocery store and she observed women walking around with nothing but processed food and frozen dinners and their shopping carts. She started asking questions and out of that she found nine volunteers to attend a several month cooking class that she gave weekly. The goal was to demonstrate why process foods are unneeded, unhealthy, expensive, and do not save time. The nine volunteers that she found were very different from each other, so I would say that she covered a grand spectrum of people representing all walks of life. 

When I found this book last winter in a secondhand bookstore, I knew it was going to be a treasure because it spoke to me on a level that I have been trying to express myself on for so long. I always suspected cooking was not difficult and that what it produced Could beautifully represent the person creating it whoever they were.

The result of this experiment was not a rubber stamping of techniques or procedures, or even recipes, the end result was the liberation of the person inside to be able to create healthy and delicious food for themselves for their families and to inspire others, to quote Captain Spock, “Each according to their gifts.”

You can get to know a person through the food that they are making. The more adverse the situations under which the meal has to be prepared, (except you, cutthroat kitchen, I’m not buying it) The more the makers creativity will shine.

There is one thing that I have learned from this book it is that I need to go home and deprive myself of being able to go out and buy specific ingredients and see what happens. I have lived  like that in every aspect when it comes to provisions and it is time I applied it to the culinary side.

Sometimes I do not know how to translate what I feel inside about cooking and how it comes out, but I am trying constantly. There is adventure, there is joy, there is discovery to be had. One thing that is for sure, I will keep on trying. I will not give up. 

Vulnerability

 I saw the writing on the surfaces of the streets. We were in the sun, free and exposed. The words that were written told me that this was temporary. It was almost time.

I saw her coming towards me in my million-mile view. It was almost time, or was that a hundred years ago?

As the sun set August 10th we closed the windows and could no longer could see outside. The hurricane bore down on us overnight, the airwaves promised to stay with us, faithfully not leaving us in the darkness. I was so impressed.

It makes me think of an old poem by Harold Hart Crane

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

“Fear

The host, he says that all is well
And the fire-wood glow is bright;
The food has a warm and tempting smell,-
But on the window licks the night.

Pile on the logs... Give me your hands,
Friends! No,- it is not fright...
But hold me... somewhere I heard demands...
And on the window licks the night.”

I have always loved how in two stanzas, this “less is more” composition edifies the illusion of security for what it really is. 

It is like the fabric of a tent. Inside verses outside, when is there a difference at all? On Labor Day morning of 2004, I was woke by my wife in a tent in the middle of the mountains in Corinth Vermont. She told me that there were coyotes outside. As I listened, I realized they were on 3 sides of us, which takes being in the vicinity of coyotes to a completely new level. We were surrounded and they had a strategy. I got up, it was still dark. I lit a fire. Our van was right there so I found the BBC World Service on Vermont Public Radio and turned the sound of human voices up as loud as I could. The coyotes eventually retreated back into the woods. I can tell you, the nylon fabric of that tent wasn’t so big and bad when you wake up to that sound.

Vulnerability is a combination of hardening of shelter: walls, doors, windows and the like, and of illusion: sound, perception of power and ability and cover.

That brings me to the obvious equation, when it comes to the illusion of security, one of the tools to utilize is the illusion of defense. So, make believe protection? I have to stop, I could run forever on this thought!

The cold glass truth

No more is there a rolling with the current. There has to be more than the struggle. There has to be pain. The path of least resistance is parked just down the path from me in a little maroon car. 

Where was she when this turn happened to her? Left turn into permanent residence on the road. From a distance it all looks very well thought out, but sometimes at night she cries alone.

There is a pride in which she knows that she is doing something the average person would fold in one night in her shoes. Electricity, heat, and living spaces, she reasons often that they are excessive. She thinks about it long enough to genuinely feel sorry for those who need those things, as she watches raindrops fall on the cold door glass.

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

She is winning and honestly, she does not know it. She is one incident away from being the richest and most resourceful person in the world. At three AM though, it does not feel like she is winning in any way.

She knows that soon she will have to move on. October is now less than two months away. There is a mighty reckoning coming and she has not figured it out yet. It rides with her at every moment in the corner of her eye. As she sleeps at night it is just beyond the trees that surround her. Despite the symphony of nightlife of owls, tree frogs, crickets, and squirrels, soon, it will all silence and there will be no accommodation.

Was this a decision? Was this her fleeing from something awful in which anything would be better? Was this a slip on a wet ladder rung that she imagined would be all resolved tomorrow or in a day or two? I won’t know because she will not speak.

A man once told me as he spoke from the most ironic place ever; “There is a whole lot of love in this world, you just have to have your eyes open to see it.” With eyes shut, we do not see that. We see the darker side. It is because of that she cannot tell the story. Everything becomes vulnerability. 

It makes me sad. Not because of where she is, because I admire her strength and determination. I feel sad because everyone has something to give in so many ways that could lift another person up. Many of those acts of help and kindness would not even make a blip on the givers radar. But it won’t happen because the giver is afraid, the receiver is afraid. The better something seems, the more treacherous is might be.

So we walk, our giving hands bound by fear. So we sleep in a cold damp car never trusting what could be a genuine act of kindness. The only thing we can do is fight. Fight against the small darker possibilities and for the greater possibilities of making a friend.

40 clicks back

 The music was bouncing the house. Bogus Joe was jamming out Proud Mary with his guitar strap set high. There was smoke everywhere and the sound of clanking longnecks. This was it, the here and there now. Joe Man got up and asked a woman to dance. His hair was down, I had not realized it was so long! He glided around the floor in just his way. Life was perfect.

I looked down at the itching spot on my left thigh, realizing suddenly that my Levi’s were disintegrating! Battery acid from a road call today. Time to move. Yet, life was good. We will be home later. The lights of consciousness will start to dim no matter how hard I fight. That is when Mr. Thoroughgood will blast into the station in his locomotive blasting Move It On Over. I will marvel at my old man’s tenacity and wonder, how does he do it?

John Lennon will share his musical gift with the world one afternoon. It will set the new day's theme. There is a barrier to everything now. In 18 months one major part of the barrier will have a truck driven through it and of course, I would be the driver.

https://unsplash.com/@nate_nessman

I will see something that was given to someone else. I will see things that are not really there. And although I never had them, if I could go back in time, I would give them to him, so that he could have them like he should have.

Irony is indeed the shackles of youth.

Then and Now

 Overpriced food. Musty smell in your dreams. Solving problems that never get solved. Never knowing what to dream about. What is life? There is a void. A painting of nothing but colors running together but having no color at all. 

https://unsplash.com/@pontebernardo

As I scroll through the offerings, I find disinterest and distaste. It makes me wonder where is the quest and desire for something creative and interesting. Years of numbing instinctive enthusiasm to be the most indifferent person on earth has come to fruition. Isn’t this what you always wanted?

Math. Like everything else, is changing. Some would say that you are no longer smart enough to decide, so we will make choices for you.  For me, that is ok, because accidentally you have answered my questions.

I sat at a timeless table listening to old music and saw threads weaving back and forth across the sky. They were tightly pulled in each direction and were everywhere like telegraph lines. Entire lives danced upon them and I realized the one of the treads was connected to me in Londonderry Vermont and the other end was tied to the chair in a bar where 18 year old me sat one Saturday night in South Texas. I could not say a thing. Not a word.

Stop the madness

Sometimes, I wonder what is up with me. I have taken the food business thing further than I ever have before. I absolutely am pushing forward too. I was all set to apply for my catering license which will allow me to produce and sell food made at home, but I do need to take the Serv Safe Managers Certification. That is the big one, and once I have that, apply for the license, undergo an inspection. Because I have not had the time to study for the test which is actually administered live on video with a real person, I have not moved forward in a month.

I had an early morning meeting at work yesterday which caused me to skip breakfast. At around 11, I ran up to a local gas and convenience store that had a food kitchen with a drive-up window and dared to call itself a "Bistro", desperate for something to eat. I knew it would not be good, but how bad could it be? 

As I looked at the warming bin's offerings and its ridiculous prices, I knew I was in trouble. I ignored what I knew and kept steady on the effort knowing that I must make a choice out of things I did not want to eat. Scary things that sounded interesting, such as fried hash browns with bacon egg, and cheese embedded inside of them. I could only imagine those ingredients having at some point being in a blender.

I picked up something called a "breakfast empanada". It was flaky on the outside and was shaped like those old hostess fruit-filled pies from the 70s. Other than those two words, there was no description of what was inside. Although there was a paragraph of fine print ingredients printed on the back of the label, the best I could see, it was merely a list of chemicals and may as well been a Material Safety Data Sheet. 

 Needing to cut to the chase I asked the people behind the counter what was in them, (I am not picking on them) who were the most un-culinary type of people I had ever seen.  I could picture them sitting on rocking chairs in rural western Pennsylvania on the porch of a run-down cottage. Everything was so out of place that it is still bending my mind even now. I was told egg, sausage, cheese, bacon. With tears in my eyes, I bought this abomination.  You guessed it, it tasted just like a Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich, by which I mean, dusty cardboard.

For lunch, none the wiser, I went to Walmart to get the things we needed for the house. There is that Twilight Zone-ish void that happens sometimes when you are at Walmart. You go in, walk around for ten minutes, and suddenly, you cannot account for the last hour. If aliens are experimenting on us, then most likely, they are anesthetizing us while shopping, and doing who knows what, leaving us with these gaps in time while Walmart provides the perfect cover for them.

Suddenly I realized there was no time for lunch, so I went to the hot food bar.  I already knew I was in trouble. My friend Dave has warned me about this place. He once said he had to resort to this place providing most of his meals one winter in Florida. "I don't know what sort of Satanic Nutrient Extraction Process they use on that food, but I started to notice I never felt good anymore. If I had a cut, it never healed." As I stared down the barrel of my options a friendly patron stood next to me, smiling and telling me, "They are just pulling fresh mozzarella sticks and popcorn chicken from the fryer now." I should have listened to him, but instead, I blatantly ran into the culinary dumpster choosing a 6 pack of chicken wings that was already in the warmer.

After eating this back at the office, I had to clean the area, remove the trash, and change the bag, to get the non-food, burned-down-village smell out of my workspace.  Texturally it had to be similar to what it would be like to chew through a plaster wall. The next morning, I could still smell a faint remnant but could find no surface that was not thoroughly cleaned.

It gets worse. Friday back in the office, I had lunchtime errands to run and had no time to select a decent lunch. Avoiding McDonald's and its familiar assault I stopped in Hannaford and checked their hot bar. Stupidly not learning my lesson, I grabbed the bag of Nashville hot chicken tenders, bent on righting yesterday's wrong, hammering the square peg into the round hole. What ensued was 10 hours of intermittent stomach cramps

I have no one to blame but me and I know that. But let me tell you something. We as a society NEED to get it together. This non-food food is so abundant I get worried that the real food will disappear!  We need to stop the madness! How on earth can they charge what they do for this Frankenstein like garbage? I am of course an idiot for buying this crap and that is on me.  I needed this lesson, however! Nothing lately has shown me more than how important it is that I push forward. It is not just for me or for my family. It is for the good of everyone!  I owe it to myself and yes, I owe it to you! I need to take this very bad thing and make it into a lesson and a motive to do it. It is always rage that makes it happen for me, everything else is not enough. After all, it is in the name: FIGHT FOR TASTE!

In dire fear of time travel

 On a piece of iron ore, water, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon hurtling through the expanse of space at thousands of miles an hour, the granular possibilities offer pathways spreading out infinitely like the webs of a spider weaving a complex expanse of highways reaching out for lightyears.

The night was thick, and I walked down the wooden steps to the sand, she called my name, and I turned back and walked up to her. She embraced me, and although it seemed like it had come back, it later felt like goodbye. I never found her again. I will never know why the people I was with would not leave me behind that night as I would have wanted them to. Had they done so, I would have ended up in very different places in the world.

A year later on a Saturday night, the humid night air was so thick in the deep woods you could wear it. The fire outside crackled and sparked and smoked. I knew earlier that day, the piano of awareness of what I could do with my life fell upon me from a great height. I am not sure what was responsible for the next step because I always thought it was me, but 40 years later I find out that I was caught in a web that could swallow up the power of the sun. In that one moment, a portal opened. It was so impossible, so unlikely and so destructive, and I tore off into it like I was rushing into war with rage.

26 months later, I watched the face of my father as I told him that I was leaving. I have always said it, I felt like I watched him age 10 years as I said those words. So many times, I wish that I had not said it. So many times, I had wondered what my life would be like had I not. 

During the years of the regime, I did not know so many things so all of my choices were made based on only the reality I knew. A daily familiar voice on the phone at midday was in reality the warden making the required checks. The more I think about it, the stranger it becomes. I know now that if you live in captivity but do not know it at the time, you still live in captivity. It is even worse.

When I broke free, the open road was ahead. That is where I was headed and I should have taken it. I foolishly gambled one night on a lonely road looking for someone I knew, who I never did find. In the daylight, I laid it all out for her, and yet she maintained her cool. I was still headed for the road to never return. 

The invitation came, a great diversion, it too was carefully orchestrated. I carefully spoon-fed myself the truth of what I was doing next. A lifetime turned into months, and after careful manipulative words on the phone and in writing, months turned into days. This later became such a great regret for me. This was the last time I would see my father as a whole person. I traded it for commitment as my head was being forcibly pushed underwater.

One more big one that took me down a long shadowy road. I walked along it for seconds into hours, adrenaline pumping through my veins the whole time, expecting to explode at any minute. In my futility, slowly I saw a life that was obtainable. In it, things got better all of the time.

This is the life that I arrived at and from it I gained the most beautiful sons a person could have.  When I look back on the moments in my life, those depicted above, in which my course in life completely changed on the head of a pin, in one second, I shudder.

Where I am today hangs on such tiny threads of events that were so unlikely, I am in awe. I often think about time travel. I often think about what I would do. On the lighter side, I would tell my Grandmother and Dad how much I love them one more time.  On the heavy side, I would save myself and others from greater pains, or would I?

Seeing how my family happened by such a turn of a friendly card, I realize that even the slightest vibration change in the universe could change things so that I would never have ended up where I am. I have decided, for all of the burned bridges and landscape, manipulation, pain, and losses there have been, when it comes to time travel, I never want to see it. I would choose to die here now than to ever go back. I would never risk the beautiful gifts that I have been given. 

Commentary on Greenback Boogie

Note: There is a television show that ran for 9 seasons called "Suits". It is an American lawyer drama series in which a college dropout with a photographic memory accidentally ends up in the office of a sharp and prestigious attorney and convinces him to give him a job. 

The show is very compelling hence the 9 seasons, but something about I find equally interesting is the theme song which is by an indie rock group called Ima Robot, consisting of a Los Angeles-based dance-rock band fronted by Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. The song, frequently defined as a "groove about making money" has a strange allure to it.

For me, the entire composition resonates, but not in the way in which it was intended. The collective essence of this song to me is like those associative ink blot tests that psychologists have shown their patients, and asked them what the image looks like, or the say a random word tests in which the patient names the first thing that comes to mind.

But I see more than that. This groove makes me wish to bounce through contemporary existence and document it almost like a cryptic newspaper. It is a threefold mission for me.  The groove, the ink blots, and life today. Here is the interpretation of those 3 things:

(Greenback Boogie lyrics)...(1st thought commentary)

Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash

 See the money wanna stay, for your meal... It's a ride without a landing.

Get another piece of pie, for your wife... They could not feel my obsession but could experience what was coming from it.

Everybody wanna know, how it feel... It's my carnival and you can taste.

Everybody wanna see, what it's like...From the other side of the table, that is the only way I am exploring ancient and modern caves, looking for clues. 

Baby wanna be a queen, well alright... Jean Christophe Novelli throws you out for saying that you wanna be a rock star.

We all deserve the finer things, in this life... cooking canned sardines in flour and sweetened condensed milk in a bomb shelter thanks to June.

So working on a little job, in the night... Old habits, drill sergeants, disrespect. OMG, Mel! What do you say?

It's forty dollars an hour when I, see the light... Sometimes it’s 40, sometimes it’s 60, sometimes it’s 9. You cannot cry.

The boss say you got a little time, and oh my...What you got you don't know. Somethings happened and now you do.

He'll be working in a small box, till he die...I don't think so.

Me, I gotta be free, all my life...Just never knew what that was until the spaceship landed.

I want a little cream cheese, in my pie...Turns out, I need it too.

Alright...I need a change, I need a new way, well alright.

Yeah! I'll step back, while you go dance...because watch and listen is something I have failed at.

The greenback boogie...but it's not what you think.

Mother fing boogie...papa Dave is in the driver's seat.

Now I'm putting on a big wig, walking hard...Some days it's easy, some days it's hard.

Hanging with them big pigs, all them dogs...I can hang and then I can fly.

Got me a couple ideas, straight from God...or maybe just floating in the void.

I want a bean pie...because I have been there and back.

Order me a bean pie...and we'll talk about old times.

I'll even eat a bean pie, I don't mind...it's nice to show others I was not alone.

Me and Missy is so very busy busy making money...just make it count.

Alright...spending is spontaneous?

All step back, I'm 'bout to dance...live a little, be a gypsy, get around...

The greenback boogie...It's not what you think.

The greenback boogie...Snarky George is calling the shots.

Boogie now for me...Walking on eggshells so I don't wake Jade.

Hey!!!! I'm so busted, and I know why.

Say, it's far better, when you give it away...so later you can live like no one else.

It's called the greenback boogie...I have intention and man does it ever show!

What people don't say, I say...always holding back still because if you could see...

It's better, when you give it away...If I only knew this a long time ago.

It's called the greenback boogie...Dave keeps saying that I need some problems

Don't give it away now, I say...But sometimes you just gotta say it

It's better, when you give it away...Yeah it is but I am moving in slow motion.

It's called the greenback boogie...Doctor John is so supportive.

Don't give it away now, I say...and I want to and I have to and I got to.

See the money wanna stay, for your meal...was a time when I could not make it.

I'll say it's gonna put some love, in your life...and some fire in your days.

Don't you really wanna know, how it feel? Hold on, just a little but tighter now baby. 

Everybody wanna see, what it's like,...from the bar.

Babe you wanna be inside, it ain't lies...dangerous, wonderous, and perilous, oh my.

We all know there's better things in this life...Elle says we need to look behind us.

Yes I'll step out, on your expense...Trample my memories, my heart and my soul.

Doin' the greenback boogie...Rachel is telling it like it T.I.S.

Mother fing boogie...Boom, baby, boom boom baby.

Boogie oogie oogie....Get on up on floor.

Greenback Boogie...Kenny's got a new book.

Come on back to paradise...anytime and each year.

Come on back to paradise...I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control.

Come on back to paradise...I didn't even know there was a war.

Come on back to...the war! Come on back!

Come on back to...the war! Back!

Come on back to paradise...on the road to Shambala.

Come on back to paradise...Elizabeth domesticates and it works.

Come on back to paradise...I never seen her there before.

Come on back to...The War, come on back.

Come on back to...I hear it echoing through the complex towers.

It's the greenback boogie...Dave announces the party is over.

It's the greenback boogie...He shows all the riff raff out.

Don't give it away now...You gotta hold on!

Don't give it away now, I say...just a little bit tighter now baby!

It's better, when you greenback boogie...Every dollar has a name. 

Well don't give it away...Show it where to go and go where you are going.

Well don't give it away, I say...Freedom, Freedom, FREEDOM!

It's better...because you did not make it bad.

It's the greenback boogie...Waiting to perform, la la la.

Don't give it away...I don't care what your daddy do.

I will

 I will carry you down this path, and through this night 21 days long. I will never tire and constantly be the strength when you need a little more to see the morning come. I will sit on the floor to watch every moment, knowing that I am here and there is nothing that could stop that.

It is the ship I go down with. It is the fight I never concede. From the very spark of the beginning, I knew who you were. In that, I found out who I was. I was born so much later than I was born, and it happened in a different way when you arrived. It happened again but like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. 

There were some very dark days when I saw fear like I had never known. I was terrified I would never know what I have the privilege to know today. Today, you show me. You live by the very best that I ever wanted to be, and I know that I did not do it, you did. Yes, in some way, I am sure that I helped. But I always knew who you were and who you would be. I just did, and I cannot explain.

Will I carry you when you need me to? Will I sit with you during the dark hours talking and being there for you when you need me? Will I try to live in a way that shows you how much I love and appreciate you? In all the chaos that surrounds us now making focus difficult, the world spinning around us like a tornado, will I be holding on, always there when you need me?

I will.