Darkness

“Well everybody’s got a secret Sonny

Something that they just can’t face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag ‘em down

Where no one asks any questions, or looks too long in your face*

In the darkness on the edge of town

In the darkness on the edge of town”

- Springsteen

 

I’ve probably said this before, but you know what I like about Springsteen?  When you listen to the words of his songs, or better yet, just read the lyrics, you know that the guy has seen some dark places in his life.  The entire DOTEOT album deals with hard reality…people, as they struggle against circumstances in their lives that threaten to destroy them.  It is my favorite Springsteen album.

I haven’t written in so long that this morning when I woke up and heard words inside of my head I was actually surprised.  It’s been 6 months since I’ve added anything to this blog.  For a while the words were there, but they were too dark…too realistic.  Too much to be revealed.  Then they stopped.  For maybe the first time in my life, the words inside of me just weren’t there.  I thought I had lost them.

I’ve lost a lot of myself lately.  A lot of what I thought I controlled…embraced; a lot of what I thought would be with me forever, is gone. Most of what I have lost is unseen…unnoticed by the world around me.  On the inside of me, though, it’s been like trying to escape a house-fire in the midst of a tornado.  Some of what I lost, I needed and wanted to release.  Some of it, I would have rather kept, but knew that it could not be a part of me.  And frankly, some of it, I’ve just destroyed in spite of myself.

In my life, I’ve always had a knack for burning my own bridges…and then lamenting the fire.  Surely I can’t be the only one who has this problem.  It is, however, a lonely existence. In fact, these past months have been some of the most trying and isolating of my life.  It’s been easy for me in this “winter of discontent” to blame, to accuse, to ignore, to quit.  Physically, I’m in the worst shape of my life.  Emotionally, I’m in the same boat.  It’s not that I’ve stopped caring about the quality of my life.  It just seems that for me to face some of the problems that I’ve been dealing with, would be to open up a door to a very dark place inside of me.  A place that I would rather not ever look into to, or show to anybody.

 

Today, though, I listened to the song.  Then I read the lyrics, and it made sense to me, again. The darkness inside of me has been mine to carry, to shield, to protect, to hide from everyone.  That same darkness, is also mine to let go. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life wanting or needing someone to rescue me; to tell me that those dark places inside were ok.  I’ve even told myself that everyone struggles with their own issues, and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself about my own.  These are lies I’ve told myself, and like I usually do, I’ve believed them.

I am walking a road now that I don’t relish.  It is a place in my life where I’ve never really been comfortable.  It is also entirely clear to me that there is a purpose for this road.  Everything in my life has changed.  Very few remnants of the life that I once knew in this town remain.  This separation from that life…the life I thought I would live…has been painful.  I know, though, that this road is the only place for me to be.  It is a desert…a wilderness where nothing grows or is cultivated.

It is also a graveyard.  The graves here are filled with one of two things…all of the baggage that men like me carry through their life, until one day, they find the strength to “cut it loose”, as the song says.  Or, these graves are filled with the souls of the men themselves…those who were never able let those dark places go.

Today is a dark and groggy day for me.  I feel like I’ve just awoken from a very long sleep. While I was sleeping, the world around me changed.  Not all of those changes have been good.  I also wake up to a day of realization that the rest of my life is in front of me, and I can either drop the bags I’m carrying, or die in this desert.

Pink-Out

Kids…you can’t live with’em and you can’t kill’em. I’ve heard the same could be said about women, although I’m not brave enough to publicly endorse that point of view.

So the drill is this… Every school night at the Humphries household we prepare for the next day by getting homework done, preparing lunches (sometimes), and by all means, getting school clothes ready for the next day. This involves sorting, washing, drying, laying out according to child, etc… This is it. It’s just the way we do things. We do this because of the story I’m about to tell you. This perfect little system normally works like a charm. This morning, it did not.

Last night, as we were working the system…homework, dinner, clothes…sweet young Caleb made mention of today being Athens Pink-Out Day. He asked if he could wear his pink shirt. And, well hell, I’m all about honoring breast cancer victims and I am opposed to the school dress code anyway, so I said sure.

So for 30 minutes we searched for pink shirts for one and all, and behold the forces of nature came together and we actually found shirts for everyone. And so, everso neatly, as is our custom, the clothes were laid out. Madelyn…jeans and pink shirt. Jacob…jeans and pink shirt. Caleb…jeans and pink shirt. Luke…Khaki’s and pink shirt.

Oh, how the seeds of chaos are so subtly planted…

Flash-forward to 7:10 a.m. on this fine Friday morning. The morning production is in full swing. Breakfast…check. Teeth brushed…check. Hair combed…check. Boys sufficiently deodorized…check. Aahhh yes, all is well.

At 7:10 I opened my car door sat down and started the engine. At 7:11 Jacob followed looking sleepy but wearing enough Axe Body Spray to choke my neighbors mule. 7:13, Caleb enters the car, smiling and joyous, because that’s just Caleb’s way. 7:14…7:15…7:16…

“Where’s Luke”, I ask the morning travelers already with me. “He’s inside looking for jeans to wear”, Caleb says.

What tha????? But that’s not part of the plan. That’s not the system.

“…and he’s not very happy right now…”, Caleb added.

So, I get out of the car, walk back into the house and find the boy waist deep in dirty clothes, having already dismantled all of the clean clothes in his drawers.

“Hey bud, what’s going on”, I ask. The boy looks at me, eyes full of anger and a lot like those of a wild animal who’s been caged, and he yelled, “I can’t find any blue jeans!!!!!!”

So naturally, I try to remain calm. Surely, we’ve faced bigger problems in this life than this. “What about the khaki’s?” I asked.

“I don’t want to wear khaki’s! They’re stupid!”

By this time it’s 7:18…and my blood pressure is beginning to escalate. “What about the Wranglers?”

“They are too small!!!!!! I can’t wear them!”

I’m thinking, “…we just bought those. How can they be too small?” He was right though. He squeezed his slim frame into the Wranglers. Long enough…but way tight in the waist. I mean, he got them buttoned, but his ears had to be ringing.

So, I say “Well it’s gonna have to be the Wranglers or the khaki’s, Luke. It’s time for us to go. It’s 7:23…” Son-of-a-what??? 7:23? It’s official. We were late.

Twenty minutes later, I dropped Luke off at school. He chose the Wranglers, and I could hear him move in them… Back in 1988, that would have been cool. It’s not 1988, though, Jon, and jeans that tight are not “in”.

As he got out of the car from the back, driver’s side seat, I looked back over my shoulder at him, and said “Those are some hot-lookin jeans there buddy.”

He looked at me, eyes cold and black, and said calmly, “Shut-up.” And slammed the door.

I deserved that one.

The Mirror

Truth is, I was about halfway through my first blog post in a couple of months, when finally last night I had to put it down and go to sleep. My mind was tired and the words were short.  Almost as soon as the lights were out, I was asleep.  The about an hour ago, as the clock next to the bed struck 3:03am, I was up, feeling like I had been awakened.  Another message in my head.

Sometimes I look at the mistakes that I’ve made…all of the wrong turns in my life…and the corresponding effect on those loved ones around me, and the weight is almost more than I can bear.  Notwithstanding the literal consequences of what some of my actions have borne, my own inability to process, address and resolve those mistakes in my head have been the biggest hindrance to my progress.

This morning I woke up thinking about those mistakes…thinking about the impact of those so-called wrong turns.  In deed, it is a heavy weight. 

I don’t want to over dramatize my experience this morning too much, but after lying in bed for about half an hour feeling depressed, frustrated and generally disgusted with myself, I got up, walked to the mirror in my bathroom, turned on the light, and stared at the perceived asshole looking back at me.

For probably 15 minutes I was there.  Staring.  Looking for some clue…some answer.  Why am I who I am?  Why have I made the mistakes that I have?  Why don’t I learn lessons well?  Why do I, at my worst, tend to hurt those closest to me?  Why am I standing in front of a mirror at 3:45am kicking my own ass for the transgressions of my life?

And then something else dawned on me.  Something I’ve known but no doubt needed to be reminded of.  It was a conversation that I had with Erin once while we were separated…a particularly dark time in our life together.  I said during that long-ago talk with her that I felt like we had failed…like I was, in fact, a failure.  She said to me, “We are only failures when we quit trying.”

Simple, like Erin’s wisdom was many times.  But profound to me then, and again so this morning standing in front of the mirror.

You see…and I’m mostly talking to myself now…the mistakes of the past may have been very bad, and they may have had a truly detrimental affect on life as I knew it during that season our history.  What compounds the mistake, though, is my failure to learn from it and move forward from it.  It is only when I fail to use the experience of the past as a tool for the future that the “mistake” is truly realized, and is most destructive. 

If we allow them to, mistakes can pave the road ahead of us, and as long as we continue to move down that road…as long as we keep trying…then those mistakes can serve as a fantastic asset.  When I am at my best for my children, my family and for those that I love in my life, it is when I am moving ahead with the full scope of maturity and experience that only the past can provide. 

I’m doing new things in my life now.  Moving on with new circumstances, opportunities and relationships.  It’s like a new scene in a movie or a new setting in a book that I’m actually living.  I look back to all of those years in my past…to all the shortcomings that haunted me as a younger man.  That is not the man I am today, though.

Somehow or another, I have kept trying.  We have…our family…has kept moving forward. 

I guess it’s no small irony that I woke up thinking about Erin this morning.  It would have been 19 years today.  There were many periods during our time together that Erin and I had what could, at best, have been called a “love-hate” relationship.  Most of the time, it was my shortcomings that were the root cause of the tenuous feelings between us, or the strain in our relationship.  I did love Erin, and I know she loved me.  Still, I do not, and she would not want for me to romanticize our life together as some sort of Garden of Eden.

What made the time that I had with Erin unique was the fact that even in the midst of our shortcomings as a couple, we were  about our family…and we were about moving forward.  When she became ill, and it became obvious that we would not finish this journey together, we were able to put the differences of our past aside and for a brief time,  focus completely on what was really the most important aspect to our lives – the family we had created even in the midst of the setbacks.

It’s 5am now.  The world outside is beginning the rouse. Alarm clocks are ringing.  Coffee is brewing. Papers are hitting the pavement. In their rooms, my children are sleeping.  Our home is quiet and peaceful.  As a family, we have some scars – but we are here, together, still moving forward, and there is hope in that.

Post About Today

Ok sports fans…I’ve got to start blogging more.  I’m beginning to feel the pressure from all sides and have even been told by a so-called publishing industry insider that my blogging and learning to use social media is “critical” to my success as a writer.

The other day K told me that I should maybe consider occasionally blogging about…nothing.  That is to say, maybe I don’t a platform or an agenda or a deep message.  Maybe just reflections on life in general would be enough sometimes.

Brilliant!!!!

That’s easy enough, and I’m on it.  Now, I know there are some of you who prefer the “deep message” blogs…like D and P…but you guys are just gonna have to live with my new strategy for now.  And don’t worry, I still have a lot of deep stuff that’ just dying to get out, so stay tuned.

Today a lady…lets call her Bertha…called the paper with an incredible story out of Pain Springs.  She asked to speak with a reporter.  Yours truly took the call.  When I got Bertha on the phone the first thing that I noticed was the breathing.  I mean…it sounded like Bertha had been running a 10k just prior to dialing those happy digits.  She was talking faster than a car-lot-lawyer and I was only catching about every fourth word. 

“Pain Springs…tree…5:05 am…Sunday…no wind…flowerbed…incredible…glowing fireball…alien spaceship…Long John Silvers…really great popcycles…Elvis Presly…”

Ok, maybe she didn’t mention all of that stuff, but it was clear to me within a few seconds that she was telling a 5 mph story, at about 100 mph.  I asked her to slow down, and this is what I got.

“Ok…I live in Pain Springs…in a house out near Wilmer Tulley’s place.  Sunday morning I was in my bed asleep, when I heard this great cracking sound.  I looked at the clocked and it was 5:05 am. Just then I heard a big crash outside and when I looked…a 150 year old Oak Tree had fallen on my roses.  There was not even a breeze blowing and no rain. Off in the distance I saw some kind of glowing thing.  It was like somebody just walked and pushed that tree.  I remember what night it was cause we had eaten at Long John Silvers.”

About this time the questions started springing to life in my mind.  Wilmer Tulley?  Oak Tree?  No wind? Long John Silvers?  Four days ago? Before I could break in and start being a conscientious reporter, however, Bertha continued.

“And you know what the AMAZING thing is?” 

“No…I don’t”, I replied.

“Not one single rose was touched.”

Riveting!  Sounds like bad fish.

Tonight, we’re headed to the kickoff jam session for the Fiddler’s Contest.  I know it sounds crazy, but I’m totally pumped.  Mostly because I’m going to get to hear Little Red Hayes play live…with a possible performance from Johnny Gimble.  I just love Texas dance hall music and tonight should be a great one for it.

Tomorrow I turn 41.  Wow!  What a ride it’s been in these short years.  I’ve seem a lot of life that I never imagined I would.  A lot I never wanted to see…and some that I wouldn’t trade for anything.  Some days have really sucked.  Some have hurt more than I can even describe.  Some have been absolutely incredible. 

Either way, I’ve survived, I’m free, I have my kids and my life is a good thing.  A lot to be thankful for.

Sleep

Amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you. For me, sleep has been illusive at best in recent weeks.  Sometimes three or four hours a night.  Sometimes less.

Last night I found myself in Austin for a meeting with a potential publisher for “tha book”.  My original plan was to stay at La Quinta, but some last-minute persuasion by an old friend of mine found me at his place.

Smart move.

A great dinner, couple of drinks, a ton of laughs, and in bed by 10.  Maybe it was the brief respite from the day-to-day pressures that are part of the life I love in Athens, or perhaps something was slipped into that last Bloody Mary, but either way, on a night that I had assumed I’d tossing and turning in anticipation of the meeting today, I slept like a rock.

This morning when I woke up, I didn’t groan, sigh deeply or even pray to sweet Jesus that I had somehow misread the alarm clock and I actually still had four hours left.  I opened my eyes, and got out of bed feeling like a million bucks.  And amazingly…what filled my mind first was a stream of clarity that I haven’t felt in a while.  Today’s blog is about what was on my mind after my first really good night’s sleep in who knows how long.

It is so easy to decide that what defines us…what makes up the substance of our lives…is what is happening right now.  I fall victim to this frame of mind regularly.  This past week, I’ve been preparing for the meetings that I’ll have today and tomorrow. At long last, I will have an opportunity to sit down across a table from someone who can actually decide to put my brain-child of a book into print.

For months I’ve longed for this time.  I’ve hoped and prayed and cussed and dreamed and believed, and then dis-believed, that this day would even come.  Some days I feel like I’ve lost a year of my life on this project…ok, well maybe not a year, but a long time.  I’ve started, and stopped, then started again, then scrapped it all and started yet again, and with each twist and turn, there has been an education in some fashion or another…a lesson that had to be learned.

It has altogether been rewarding and degrading.  Writing this book and pursing this goal has all at once seen the fulfillment of a dream, and in the same moment, the realization that many of my dreams will never be realized.  In as much as I look back over the past several months and can see the good and the bad of such a gut wrenching process, there is one realization that fell squarely on me this morning when I woke from a long, deep sleep.  A reminder really…

I have believed that this book, and its relative success or failure is what would define me.  I have fallen into the trap of having decided that this moment was the end-all of moments, and that in the instant that I found acceptance or rejection from the so-called powers that be, I would also find the ultimate definition of myself.  And in this thinking, I have lost my clarity.  I have sacrificed my grounding and my focus to the belief that this book, and it’s acceptance, would justify me somehow.  This is not true.

Truth is, the substance of who we are and what we become…our legacy…is not about a moment.  It is about a thousand, or maybe a million, moments that, in their entirety, form and define us.  Our lives are like a puzzle, and each piece moves us toward the whole picture.  No piece is more or less important than the others.  Without all of the pieces, the picture is not complete.

This book is a piece of the puzzle of my life.  Just like addiction and incarceration and loss and love and relationships have been pieces.  I have believed that my life might hinge on the moment that I heard those fateful words from some nameless publishing executive who will ultimately decide if my work has merit enough to be shared with the world. What I see so clearly today, though, is that this process is just one small part of the whole.

Whether my writing is accepted or rejected…published or not…it is not diminished in the part that it has played in my life.  Selling a book is about money and business.  Writing a book, though, is about growing and evolving and adding pieces to a life…to a legacy.

Normally about this time in my writing, I’ll try to explain how all of this mental mumbo-jumbo might relate to someone else’s life. Not today, though.  To some of you, this will make sense.  To some it won’t.  But either way, it makes perfect sense to me and it’s what I needed today.

Nuff said.

Suffering

“As it is a comfort to seafarers to know that no matter on what strange water they may venture there are always pilots within call, so the edifying contemplation stands near the breakers and reefs of this life prepared by daily sight of terrible sufferings swiftly to render what little aid it can. Yet it cannot help in the way that a pilot helps the ship. The sufferer must help himself.” – Kierkgaard

I read this quote from time to time, and it’s words all at once escape me, and yet speak volumes to those deeper parts of myself that are best hidden from a waiting world. In truth, I have suffered in this life…in these 40 years. And yet so many times, it is at my own hands that my suffering has been so pronounced.

It is so hard to write these words and do them justice…to say enough to convey a meaning, and yet to stop short of complete revelation of myself.

Maybe there has never been a time in my life when there was not suffering. I believe the pain has always been there for me…and for all of us. From such a young age we begin to see a model of who or what we should be. The world that we live in tricks us into believing that what we become is about what we accomplish and how fast we get there.

For a long time I thought it was about a job, or a bank account or even about who I had chosen to spend my life with. I searched for validation in those things. I found failure in their shortcomings.

I believed that, if only I had more…earned more…made more…owned more…controlled more…that I could find the happiness that, in some warped way, I believed the world owed me. When my life reached a breaking point, I suffered. And when I suffered, I believed it was about something or someone else who had not lived up to my expectations.

I don’t think the same way anymore. My suffering…my pain…is about me. I own it. I have, since it found me.

Like many people who I know, I could easily recite a laundry list of failures or disappointments in my life. Most all of them, with enough rationalization, could be laid at the feet of another set of circumstances or another person beyond my immediate control.

In reality, though, I control the suffering. I control he failures. I control the setbacks of my life. Because I control me.

Today while at work I received two telephone calls from persons who wished to compliment me on the words that find their way out of the recesses of my brain and onto the printed pages of the ADR. I love those calls, and yet as I listened to the caller’s voice on the other end, I wanted to ask them if they knew who they were talking to. If they had the right guy?

It’s hard for me to take those compliments…hard for me to accept those words because the words that I have come from the suffering. They come from the pain. They come from all of the heartache and disappointment that I’ve faced. And I guess on some days, the words come from the joy too.

For a long time I thought that the suffering in my life belonged elsewhere. It doesn’t though. It belongs to me. The words that I have inside of me give the suffering a voice. That is my voice. To deny that my suffering is my own, or to deny that my pain is literally what I make of it, is to deny one of the truest parts of myself.

The words help me…help myself. And if I, or any of us, can’t help ourselves with the pain or suffering that we face, then we all at once deny ourselves of who or what we can become.

Not long ago, I wanted more than anything to be a writer. It is a desire I had wrestled with for my entire life. I suffered for the words inside of me because for so long, I refused to give them freedom. The words were the truest part of myself, and yet I bottled them up and concealed them from the world around me.

It wasnt until I let the words go, that I could become who I needed to be, and thereby, I began to overcome so much of the suffering that I’d spent a lifetime struggling against.

I believe as much could be said for all of us. Kierkgaard was right…the sufferer must help himself. It is only by becoming the truest part of ourselves that we find peace from that which causes us pain.

The pain of lost loved ones, the pain of divorce or broken relationships, of addiction, of infidelity, of incarceration, of dishonesty, of violence, of abuse, of a thousand different things that have hurt us all…unless we become true to ourselves, there can be no healing.

None of this makes sense to many of the readers here. These words are so raw, and some of them are foreign to their writer, as well. There is a truth here, though. A truth I felt in myself before I wrote these words. A truth I felt when I finally began to become who I always knew I wanted to be. A truth that has begun to overcome the suffering inside of me.

Is there a greater truth than that?

A Good Week

Reader beware!  Spell check aint working on WordPress today…

Well I guess you all thought I had fogotten about my little blog-a-roo here.  I haven’t.  Just needed a little break.  Quite frankly, between writing for the paper full-time and working toward finishing a book under a tight deadline, sometimes I think about writing in this blog, and want to gurge. 

I have missed it, though, and when I woke up today, I knew it was time to revisit my little forum here.

It’s been a tough week.  Physically, mentally, emotionally…it’s been a struggle.  Not really “bad” per se, but hard.  And not just for me.  Several times over the past seven days Ive found myself trying to be a pillar of suppot for friends or family members who seem to have run aground in dealing with some of the challeneges of daily life. 

Not to mention the fact that when I started my workday Friday morning at the ADR, I had already clocked 43 hours for the week.  Yesterday was a 15 hour day, and as soon as Im done here, I’ll be back at it for another 6 or 8 hours today.  This week Ive covered the Henderson County Livestock Show and it has kept me running at a fast a furious pace since Monday.

Honestly, Ive never really been a huge supporter of the HCLS.  Not that I had anything against the show or it’s organizers.  I just didn’t “know” it, so to speak.  This week I feel like Ive gotten a crash course in this big event in our county, and as I look back on what Ive experienced and who Ive gotten to know through it, I can tell you that Im sold.

OK, so now all of you who were hoping that I was going bust out with some poignant and emotionally inspiring blog-vomit are sitting there saying…”Really?  After not writing for a month, he’s gonna talk about a cow show?”

Well the answer is Yes, I am. Bear with me though.  You’ll see where I’m going.  Here’s a sampling of what I saw this week, that didn’t make the paper.

-  Families sitting together with other families, enjoying quality time with their kids…eating, praying, laughing and living life together.  Sure, the young competitors and their supportive loved-ones wanted to walk away with a buckle, but it seemed that there was a larger purpose for their presence there. It was almost as if there just being there together was enough.  It made me want to get my own family a friends together, put the rest of the world on hold, and just sit and laugh together.

-  You know I don’t name names in this blog, really, and I wont start now.  I witnessed somethig so selfless this week, though, that Ive had a hard tme shaking it.  Long story short….siblings, competing in the same event, having worked together to care for the animals that they would be showing.  The older sibling, much more experienced and accomplished.  The younger sibling, sort of living in the shadow of the older one…never having really won anything.  The older sibling is done after this year…competing in their last show before graduating from high school and putting these days behind them.  This was the last hoorah for the older one.  After years of successful competition, it was their chance to go out on top with a premium animal.  For the younger, just to place somewhere in the top six would be considered a victory.  And yet, inexplicably, just hours before the show, the older gave their opportunity away…to the younger.  After all, they’d won before, the older reasoned.  It seemed a small gesture, until the younger won first prize and made the sale, that is.  The older sibling did not place in the competition.  Truly selfless, classy and beautiful.

-  The head-honcho of the HCLS…o.k. that gave it away…probably had one of the most stressful weeks of his life.  I cannot even fathom the logistical nightmare of coordinating a jam packed schedule, dozens of volunteers, many hundreds of people and a veritable ark worth of animals, staying responsible for thousands of dollars, and so on.  I didn’t get to know this man until shortly before the show this year, but one of those guys I hope I know for a long time.  A real quality dude.  The entire week he ALWAYS had time to talk, always seemed happy to see the press coming (not always a common occurrence), fed me at least twice, arranged for interviews and photo opportunities for ADR reporters, and probably thanked me way too much for bugging him as much as I did.  Throughout the course of the multi-day event, this guy was both boss and janitor, a PR guy, an organizer, a delegator, an accountant, and most imprtantly, a proud father and encourager for his own children participating in various shows.  I never saw him sit, eat or drink.  Last night after the steer show about 10pm I tracked him down for yet another interview.  The look on his face said only…complete exhaustion.  He made time though, and as late as 10:40 last night was arranging a photo opp for me.  Thanks PC.  It was one hell of a show.

-  And finally…did you know there were Henderson County inmates roaming around on the fair park grounds this week?  Gasp!!!!  It’s true!  Somebody actually let these guys out of jail…just so they could spend the week at the HCLS.  tsk..tsk..tsk  Let me tell you, these guys worked their butts off this week, and even though I have no clue who they are or why they are locked up, I can say from what I saw that they deserve a lot more than just a pat on the back.  I mean they slaved away doing everything from emptying dumpsters, to helping coral rowdy animals to cleaning up excrement of various shapes, sizes and varieties.  What was most interesting, though, was how the people at the show…you know the families I told you about…took care of these guys.  For a week, they werent seen as inmates or felons, but as hard working contributors.  They were respected and treated as if they had every right to be exactly where they were, regardless of the mistakes they might have made.  It was like the people forgot that they were actually convicts.  You know what though…those men didnt forget.  Tonight, after the week is finally done, and they lie in their bed, weary for all of their toil, they will hear cell doors close, and they will be reminded of their reality.  Ill think about those hard-working, well-deserving men tonight.

This is not a sexy blog post.  Do not dispair, fair readers…Ive got some good meaning of life stuff coming up soon.  What this post is, though, is reality.  This was a great week.  Im tired today and still have stories to write about the events that are now winding down.  This week was more than just shows, and awards.  What I saw was somehow about values, and integrity and kindness, selflessness and even love, there amongst the dirt and the smell and the sweat.  I dont see that much anymore.

We could all use a little more of that.

Remembering

Memories are a funny thing aren’t they.  They live a life of their own in the recesses of our minds.  They paint the pictures that provide respite from the daily lives that govern our existence.  Some of the memories aren’t so sweet either.  There is pain there.  Memories take us away…another time…another place.

Last night I had a drink with some of the oldest friends that I  have.  Whats funny about R & T is that we could see each other everyday or every three months, and it seems like the conversation never really ends.  I think its many of our memories together that bind us.  I have shared some of the happiest, and likewise, some of the hardest days of my life with them. 

At times in my life I’ve spent top much time on the memories.  At its core, looking into the past is a lot like letting go of the steering wheel and letting the person in the back seat drive.  Not a good plan, if you plan on moving forward for very long.  I think I’ve let my past dictate a lot of who I am today.

I’ve heard people say that who we are in the present is nothing more than the intersection of who we have been and what has happened to us in the former years of our lives.  For far too long I have believed that.  I believe that this frame of mind is debilitating to a lot of us.  Certainly to me.

You see, when we dwell on what has happened or what used to be or who we have been, we start believe that the “now” should be a certain way.  When our lives don’t meet with those expectations, there is disillusionment there.  If you believe the memories, good or bad, and you believe that those memories have created who you are today, then you are confining yourself to a life of replication.  A vicious circle.

This morning I was talking to my mother on the phone and she began to remember a time and a place from my childhood.  It was a pleasant walk down memory lane for her.  I heard the melancholy in her voice, even though she may not have been aware of it.  And while I could remember some of those good things, my memories of that time are different.  I remember bad dreams, and feeling afraid there.  For just a second, I was that little boy, struggling to sleep…afraid to get out of bed and go to his parents room.

My point is not that memories are bad.  Memories are just there.  Like god just built them into our minds.  They can help us…serve as a point of reference to us.  But to guide us totally?  I don’t think that’s how memories are intended.

I believe that our lives are what we make of them today.  As individuals, we become who we allow ourselves to be.  Sometimes we becomes something that we aren’t very proud of.  Doesnt have to stay that way, though.  We can change it, and it doesn’t really matter what happened when I used to be a drug addict, or a convict, or a liar, or a cheater, or whatever.

Sure we make some choices that affect our ability to accomplish certain things.  I’ll never be president or be elected to public office, or become an astronaut.  I’m not really talking about becoming something, though.  What I’m talking about is becoming who you want to be. 

Your past and the world today may tell you that you will never have a certain job, or hold a specific title, or achieve a certain level of material success.  What the world can never do though, is dictate the kind of person you are.  Everyday, each of us gets up, looks in the mirror, and gets to decide that.

Not long ago I changed course.  For a long time I had dwelled on the past…the memories.  They were who I had become.  I got tired of it, and I changed it.

It’s not easy and I still struggle with the demons of a thousand miles of misteps.  I’m making it, though.  I’m doing something that I always wanted, and I had wholly given up on ever doing because my past told a different story.

I love the memories of old friends and crazy times and long-lost loves, etc.  There are the other memories there that I don’t love so much either. None of them make a damn bit of difference to the man who I am going to be today, though.  They are like pictures in a wallet…in my pocket until the next time I want to pull them out.

I havent been blogging a lot lately.  Several of you have sent along your well wishes and concerns as to why the words stopped.  They didn’t stop.  They just grew quiet for a while.  They do that some.

Recently I started writing for the paper.  K says that I should look at writing like a meal.  Writing for the newspaper is like a snack…and too much snacking spoils the appetite. She reminded me of my own words on purpose, and what mine really is.

Not that writing for a newspaper is bad.  I love the job, but she was right. As I have written these words, I realize how much I miss writing as a means of cleaning the house between my ears.

A dream.

Last night I had a dream I havent had since I was a boy.  It was a pleasant dream.  Not scary in the least.  When I was younger, another time, another place…almost a lifetme ago…I dreamnt this particular dream with some regularity; each time small details might differ, but for the most part, it was the same.  Sometimes, when days were bad and childhood seemed fleeting, I would recall the dream and the memory that bore it, and it was peaceful there.  Last night, I went back to that place.  It was as if I had never left.

Stephen King writes that his childhood was like “…a fogged out landscape from which occasional memories appear like isolated trees…”   I can relate.  Some of my memories are good ones.  Some…not so much.  Some that I was probably sure I would never lose have been lost or blocked or simply tucked away into the far reaches of my gray matter.  This dream is a good memory; of a good place, and a good time.  I needed to return there, I think.

The lives we lead, or at least most of us, have a way of pounding us into submission.  It’s not that these lives are bad.  They are, in fact though, lives of duty and necessity.  So many times I wake up in he morning and immediately begin the break-neck pace, almost racing through tasks and schedules and deadlines and to-do’s.  At some point during this production of activity, I look at my watch and think to myself that time has once again flown by, and that another day is almost in the books. 

I wish it didn’t move so fast.  I wish this ride would slow down, sometimes.  For most of my life I’ve heard the elderly lament the rapid passage of days, months and years.  I can remember my own father, not long before his death, recalling the days of his life and his amazement at how rapidly they had abated.  I didn’t really understand all of that until I reached about 35, when I think for the first time I said something like My hasn’t this year really flown by.

I try not to say things like that, but in reality, as I’ve grown older, the pages of the calendar seem to find their way to the trash a lot more quickly than they did before.  It seems like my life just moves so much faster now.  Becoming a single parent of four kids hasn’t helped this reality.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect to my growing older,  my life moving so much faster and the responsibility that I carry with each day,  is that I have lost most of the wonderment that I had as a child.  Not just the dreams or the ideas, but the actual belief that I could accomplish anything if I wanted to badly enough. 

As an adult I know that there are a great many things that I will never accomplish.  Most of those things I never really wanted that bad.  Some I did, but as I’ve matured I’ve just realized that those dreams belonged to others to pursue.  Still, there are those things that I want to do…that I think I can do.  But on so many days, the day itself is about all that I can handle, and the desires of the heart and mind slip to the back burner.  Over the course of years, these desires grow quiet.

The good thing about my dream last night was that I was reminded of a time when I thought I could do anything.  I remember the smiling faces of the people in my dream, and in a way, they are urging me to carry the dream’s message with me.  That being, that in youth, our minds are open and our hearts are free.  It is through an open mind and a heart unencumbered, as adults, that we can turn those dreams into realities in our lives.

These dreams or desires don’t have to be big.  Mine really aren’t.  They are critical, though.  To let those desires die without the proper pursuit is to say that the part of your mind that desired it was never really that important to begin with.  I believe that when people follow the path of their dreams, they become better people.  Even if they never accomplish what they set out to, they are better for it, and the rest of us are better for having seen them pursue it.

I’m coaching two basketball teams.  One consists of 11-12 year old boys; the other 7-8 year olds.  Lord knows how I got roped into this.  True enough, I love the game and I love coaching kids.  What I really cherish, though, is the dreams of these young people.  They believe they can do anything.  I believe they can too.

Ice

Very cold this morning.  Temp in the car said 22 f.  Ice on the windshield.  The ice wasn’t thick, and it wasnt a solid sheet.  Just enough ice to make driving a little tricky, and yet not enough to impede progress. The ice crystals looked like snowflakes that had been frozen, somehow, in a perfect instant.

When we walked out of the house to head for school and I looked at the windshield, I knew, immediately, that I was 10 minutes too late.  The clock said 7:22, however, and that meant drive time. 

The boys must have thought I was insane.  I mean, the ice wasnt completely concealing the view of the road ahead, but it was as though my view was reduced down to a thousand tiny little holes, through which we could see what was in front of us.  I started driving a soon realized that the ice was thicker at the top of the windshield, so I began to duck and crouch to see the road ahead.

Yes…I think that’s a car coming ahead.  Or wait, is that a jogger?  A mailbox?  The Schwann’s man?

The heater and defrost were on full-blast, but it seemed to be no advantage to us.  Tough ice.  About a mile into our trip I looked over at Jacob in the seat next to me and he too was crouching and peering.  I’m not sure he was so much worried about what we might run into, as much as he simply wanted to give an accurate report to the police when the time came.

Two miles into the trip and we’re about to get on the loop.  The ice on the lower part of the windshield is beginning to reduce, but not quickly enough.  For a minute I considered rolling down the window and sticking my head out the side….but at 22 f.?  Ok, so that wasn’t a great idea.

And then I realized something.  The problem with trying to see out of the windshield was that I was trying to see out of one hole.  In fact, there were almost as many holes to see through as there were places where the ice restricted the view.  So I sat up straight, and instead of trying to see the highway ahead through one hole, I just sort of took it all in.  Through the many holes between the ice crystals, I found that if I could focus on the road beyond the windshield, I could see. 

Focusing on one hole?  Firey crash.  Focusing on the road ahead of me, through the many holes in the ice?  We live to drive another day.

A few moments after my realization, the ice began to melt in earnest and by the time I dropped all the boys off, the windshield was clear.  And so I started thinking about the ice, and how it didn’t cover the entire windshield.  And how, I could see clearly through the small breaks in the crystals, and that the road ahead wasn’t so scary if I stopped looking through one hole, and started looking though the collective holes.  Thinking…

Two posts ago, I wrote about rejection.  In fact, I moaned and groaned about it for close to a thousand words.   The thing is, I believe what I said in that post.  I think we all want to feel valuable and accepted and when we aren’t, it hurts.  I believe, though, that the road I am on is akin to the road this morning on the way to school.  Given my chosen path, rejection is an almost daily part of life and work.  When I allow that rejection to consume me, though, and I focus on fact that I once again was told no, I’m looking through one small hole in the ice.

These past few days, I’ve started to breathe a little easier.  No, I haven’t found a publisher for my book.  What I am realizing, though, is that in order to find success in this process…the process of becoming a published writer…I must look at the road ahead of me as a whole.  I can’t focus on the rejection.  Rejection is just a part of the path that every writer walks,until the day that they get the yes.  And then the yes only lasts until they write another book and the no’s start all over again.  (Ok, so maybe John Grisham or Stephen King don’t get all that many no’s anymore…)

My writing, and my life, are like this.  Seems like I explore this subject a lot.  I guess there is something in this process of clearing my head that needs to hear these words over and again.  I think maybe I need to be reminded of the journey daily.  Today I was reminded by ice.  And in that little fact alone, the journey is a little more special today.