Hell’s Kitchen
Okay, today was not enjoyable. And by ‘it sucked’ I mean it was not enjoyable.
I had to see to a few meetings during which niceties and composures listed precariously close to capsizing until, capsizing, everything turned upside down. And by ‘it sucked’ I mean it was not enjoyable.
It’s times like this I drive home from the Big Bad World thanking God in heaven I have a warm, welcoming home to come home to. And it’s thoughts of gratitude just like that one that oft-times have me calling home to let them know I’m thinking of them and will be there shortly. I like to hear the chipper giggly laughter of kids in the background and the hum of a household fairly carbonated with life and drama three-kids strong. I like to be reminded that no matter how Not Nice the world is outside these walls, there is nothing so Not Nice that the love and acceptance I find when I cross my threshold can’t be dissolved in a big giant family hug.
And then I woke up.
From the nightmare of the day, that is. Which was quite the wakeup call, all things considered. And not a phone call. Not at first, anyway. It was a text exchange with Beta Male that went like this:
“When r u coming back?”
“45 minutes. Everything okay? My meeting is going longer than I expected.”
“Yeah we made some failure banana bread and it didn’t taste right, soooooo….yeah.”
Lord.
(calls home) “Hey kiddo.”
“Hey dad.”
“Everything okay?”
“Not with the banana bread. We undercooked it and then kept on cooking it.”
“Yeah I read that part. I’ll be home in a few minutes. I hope you cleaned the kitchen up though.”
“Don’t worry, we did. We cleaned it just like you left it.”
Which was such a happy thought that last few miles on the way to house with the yellow police tape surrounding it.
Because apparently “We cleaned it just like you left it” means I left it like a murder scene.
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Peregrinus
I remember the day he and I met and the expression on his face. It’s the same expression I see more often than not and always looks like he’s got something off-the-beaten-path interesting to talk about, just the two of us, in some corner while others make superficial observations about everything else. And, trust me, he usually does. And we usually do. Talk alone in some corner, that is. And with complete disregard for other conversations.
He’s got a renaissance tack into life that has surrendered the number of times I can count on one hand when the words, “I don’t know” came out of his mouth. Which is not to say he’s a know-it-all. At all. Because he’s not. For as broad as his experiences are, for as voracious a reader he is, for as muti-talented a human he happens to be…he keeps a disproportionately vulnerable posture to the world around him. And in the best way. Meaning he seems to live in a state of perpetual discovery and openness to creation. Or evolution. Or design. Or writing. Or politically volatile topics. Or what men in their ignorance call magic. Or what he and I both bat back and both like cats playing with a mouse before getting bored (that’d be what the world deems ‘religious’) — and one of the most conversational relationships with God I’ve ever known. In that regard, he reminds me of Edith Schaeffer, the wife of the late Francis Schaeffer. She could participate in a conversation with eighty people (I’ve seen it), without breaking stride once over the course of five hours (seen that too), meandering into, through, around, and over a vast array of seemingly unrelated thoughts and ideas—until it was just she and the last person talking long into the night (one of the best conversations I’ve ever had). And following Kendall’s range of topic is not unlike Edith’s. Which means you’re better off enjoying the scenery instead of trying to place your foot in exactly the same spot on the trail.
That’s just a little bit about Kendall Ruth. Here’s a little bit more:
1. I know you journal. A lot. If you turned one year back, would you say things have changed a little or a lot? One would only hope things changed. Damn the man who fears change. We are organic, so if we aren’t changing we are dead. Are there things that seem to rear their heads that I’d rather just lop off and be done with them? Of course. One of the bigger changes is how I perceive my past, my story. More than ever I am persistently pushed to look beyond regrets or shames, drop perceived failures by the way side, shift my position in the room to see the work of art from an angle that the Artist intended.
4. What’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about you? “You saved my life”
5. Now what’s the most inaccurate thing anyone ever said about you? ”You saved my life”
8. How does God speak into you most often? Speak into, as opposed to “with” or simply “to”? Hmm…numerous different and creative ways – in a grove of Aspens with the wind blowing to clap their leaves like a thousand little hands; or like the other day standing before Clifford Still’s “PH 235″ painted at the end of World War II, seeing brilliant yellow tearing through the canvas of black tar and thick texture as if to speak of hope UNDER the darkness; in moments with my soon-to-be wife as she shares her joys, her sorrows; and most consistently in the silence of mornings over the past 28 or so years that I ‘ve been listening.
9. Ocean or mountains or desert? Mountains that roll into Oceans, with good surf. Oh wait that’s called New Zealand and my time there wasn’t long enough.
10. If you spent a few hours with any person in the world to give them advice (and they have to listen), who would it be and what would you tell them? It’d be my kid(s), if I get to have one or more. Advice? Regardless of everyone’s perceptions trust your gut/spirit and you will have a much more enjoyable, generative life than if you play it safe listening to your head all the time. That said, start discovering early and regularly what is your gut/spirit and what is not. The stuff you didn’t have words for as a child yet you couldn’t help live out of? That’s closer to Reality than anything you will learn in school, read in a book, watch on a screen. People are not out to get you. Nobody is giving much time worrying about what you are doing with your life because they are just as self-centered as you are, but you won’t “get” this until you in the winter of your years. Abundance is the default of the Universe, not scarcity. Find out where the boundary lines are, because there is enormous freedom within them. And, yet, the boundary lines are much much further out than you or anybody else are comfortable with, so you have to get out of the sandbox and explore the Playground.
And finally, the only certifiable guaranteed certainty you have is that you will be dead someday…everything else is a possibility.
11. Describe your perfect day. I’ve had quite a few, so there is such a thing as more than one. Most involve some kind of adventure (many with a surfboard and an ocean), good drink, and maybe a cigar and a view.
12. Now describe the day you proposed to your fiancee. (that is if she survived the burning room thing). It was a Saturday in May. I called her dad in the morning to ask his blessing. I am not even sure he actually gave it as he was up in a tree with a chainsaw and he seemed more nervous than I was in asking. I intended to ask her the following day, but as time went on I decided to make a go of it that evening. Skipping ahead to the actual event, I said we should go for a walk as it was a perfect spring evening in Boulder. I had in mind to ask her on a playground – sensing that I’d prefer to have that metaphor as bases for our marriage. As we walked, I was leading towards a playground I had in mind – me jingling the ring in my pocket. I turned the corner to see a giant backhoe and piles of dirt where the playground used to be. It was a rather sad sight – jungle gyms turned over, swing sets on a slant. I was crushed. I kept trying to find another playground, but we eventually walked up a path that ended appropriately enough at an overlook with a bench called “Lovers Hill” – it looks out over the whole of Boulder Valley and up to the Flatirons. I hardly even recall what I said other than asking her to be my wife. Afterwards, we walked down the street each calling our parents, swinging by a friends so she could share the news. I was starving, so we walked to Pizzeria Locale and they know us well—it was like being with family as we celebrated over a glass of wine and some of their amazing pizza.
13. Time to plug yourself: tell us about your web site, your writing, that Inkling thing up north and anything else you’d like to. Give us some links, too. Go. Image + Word. I tend to regularly move between the written and the visual, one informing the other. It’s more a summary portfolio that came about when I did a showing here in Boulder, and FoxNews Business decided to broadcast for the day from the location. My photography became part of the scene setting for various interviews. For about seven years I have written blog called The Ink. It started as a practice in writing for an audience of whom I did not know and had no control over the outcomes, a getting out the door of sorts. Though, now I contribute regularly to The Curator many of the kinds of writing I once did on the blog.
As for plugs, I am currently selling a bunch of 18×12 gallery quality prints over at my Etsy store, with $20 of every sell to going to either International Justice Mission or Blood:Water Mission. As much as it’s to help pay my bills, I am more excited to be able to help these organizations. Art by its nature is generous and generative. So I’d much rather sell a piece that also helps fight human trafficking, or HIV or provides something as simple as clean water than simply to make a buck or two.
14. e-reader or organic book? Defend your choice. So far organic is still my go-to. I am still adjusting to ipad reading, but there is a limited space that comes with a book. I make too many notes in the margins of my favorite books and though you have the option in a digital realm, it’s lacking tactile feedback. Plus, you can’t dog ear a screen. It’s a singular thing that requires full attention when it’s a physical book and I have enough shiny objects in life to….15. Anyone you’d like to hit? Anyone who takes themselves too seriously.
16. Your dog gets really sick. The vet says he needs an operation which will completely cure him but will cost $10,000. Gonna pay? What if it’s your cat? No pet is getting ten grand unless it’s a monkey that can write like Shakespeare.
17. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? Wasn’t that how this all started? “And the Spirit moved across the waters…” I suspect most of us could say Life feels very much like this. I mean, what person has not thought their life is a mess – an act of insanity – only to discover with time that something creative beyond their own imagination was actually taking place?
18. Barry Manilow or pour hot tar in your ears? (had to ask) Tar, unless it’s Live Manilow and you are on your fifth ga..um, er..greyhound.
19. Here it comes: the super power question. And I’m taking Flying out of your choices. Everyone picks flying. Impress me. Something along the lines of Nightcralwer’s, without the blue skin and tattoos or tail. Teleportation with invisibility in the shadows could make for all kinds of fun. Plus, you’d save a fortune on air travel.
20. Last one: if Happiness was currency, what kind of work would make you rich? Far too many people of faith lack an honest, charitable engagement with ideas or faith that they don’t understand or agree with, with the Arts, with much of anything that might feel like a threat. This dumbfounds me. And there are plenty of intelligent people of no faith that carry the same threat posture, if not condescending pretension.
O Christmas Tree, O Christm—dammit.
The season, the snow, the happiness filling every hoping heart; the quick dashes out into the festive shops to grab a few surprises and dart back home in time to—sonofabitch.
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God Loves Me And Wants Me To Be Happy
This might seem like a product endorsement but it’s not. And though the product in the photo up top is quite worth an endorsement, believe me, that’s not what I’m all amped up about.
So yesterday we decided to go to (brace yourselves) church. As a family. As in together. As in there was a time I wondered if ever doing that again was wise considering the time we went to Las Vegas. As a family. As in together. As in I’ve been half-expecting the next time we all walk into church at the same time will be the day “Family Bursts Into Flames” is tweeted all over Twitter.
And, more to the point, though I love the idea of church of a Sunday morning…the typical packaging? Not so much.
But somewhere in the recent months something stirred inside that found me (brace yourselves again) actually wanting to suffer through the act of getting the family up and moving and out the door and not killing each other and not fighting over who sits in the middle back seat this time and not regretting that there isn’t a cash bar at the church when families get there (go ahead and laugh…they’d make a fortune). All so we can then stand and sing songs we’re all acting like we love dearly when that is SO NOT TRUE.
Which I know is blasphemous to even suggest but I really don’t care. Most (not all, but most, sorry) songs sung on a Protestant Sunday have this one feature in them I’ve never been able to square with and can no longer keep inside. And it’s this: If it was a Tuesday afternoon and these songs came over the radio and they were the last songs on earth, we’d reach for the radio to turn it off so fast we’d careen into the guard rail and go flying over the edge of the interstate. Which would be better than suffering Lame Songs That Are Lame And Lamely Sung But We Can’t Ever Say That Because Someone Put A Fish On Them.
[end rant]
Except that the music was great. And done well. In fact, more than well. I’d actually have survived that drive down the interstate if it were Tuesday afternoon instead of Sunday morning.
And the teaching wasn’t just good. It was brilliant in so many facets…and so refreshing to hear my pastor (also a friend) speaking from his whole heart with his real voice…that I couldn’t resist emailing him right then and there to tell him so. Our pastor happens to be the very person who stirred in me a deep love (and very high expectation ever since) of rigorous excavation of Scripture. And he didn’t disappoint. So much so that I found myself (brace yourself again) picking up my little leather-bound Bible I had with me…so that…I could…
EMAIL HIM FROM THE PEW! HA!
Which would normally get me The Look from Cute Redhead. But I was willing to risk it because I was in that good a mood. So I risked it.
After the service Awesome Pastor Friend saw me and (I promise I’m not making this up) got down on his knees in authentic wonder that “Todd Clary should grace us all and darken the door of the sanctuary!”
“Har har, smart ass.” He laughed. So did I.
“You actually came?!”
“Ha ha yeah. Can you believe it?”
“No. You lost? And we’re you Tweeting during the service?”
“Ha! NO! Geez. But I did send you an email during it!”
“Oh. Well I wish someone would Tweet during the service.”
*blinks* ”Um. What?”
“Yeah…I really wish someone would. I wish someone would be doing the real social networking thing and putting the word out, commenting on the service and everything else. But I can’t find anyone to do it. I can’t find anyone who can actually pay attention and be on their phone at the same time.”
*blinks again*
[.•.*•Time Travel 1981 Flashback Sequence•*.•.]
Me: *draw draw draw
Teacher: “…and perhaps Mr. Clary would be so kind as to tell us what we just covered in chapter six. That is unless his very important drawing on the desk — again — has taken up too much of his precious time.”
Me: *perfect regurgitation of chapter six demonstrating Freak Brain’s Ability To Compartmentalize And Multi-task.
Teacher: *Owned. And not happy about it.
[.•.*•Return to 2011•*.•.]
“Let me get this straight: you want someone to actually be on their phone doing the whole social network twitter-facebook-viral thing.”
“Yes. But I can’t get anyone to do it.”
“Hold on one second. (to Cute Redhead) Honey, come here a second. Awesome Pastor Friend, would you say to her exactly what you just said to me?”
Which he does. Which was when heaven split the sky open so that angels and archangels and cherubim and seraphim and the Denver Broncos Quarterback could cascade one after another and, in front of God and everybody, announce to everyone from every roof top, world without end, that God loves me and wants me to be happy. Also that Steve Jobs is the Fourth Person of the Trinity (I made that up).
Now. A closer look at my very cool little leather-bound Bible. Ready?
Here we go:
Ha! It’s NOT a Bible SUCKAH. It just looks like one. Which comes in handy when you’re in church and realize you need to kick your Words With Friends opponent’s bony rear end to the curb (which I did because they are so cheating and I can tell and cheaters go straight to Hell and I would know BECAUSE-I’M-IN-CHURCH)…
…or swipe*click*swipe on over to Facebook Land and see who’s poking who…
…ooOOOOOORRRrrrr, swipe*click*swipe on over to the flock on Twitter and tweet-chirp-twit on the latest goings on…
…ooOOOOOORRRrrrr even check in on Luke chapter 1. Which, believe it or not, I was. Without missing a beat.
As in following along. As in at church. With my family. As in together.
Which may be the last time that ever happens again because I’ve been anointed and officially (self-)ordained as the Chosen High Priest of Social Networking Of The Most High. Amen.
[Updated: So help me, Todd, if I show up next Sunday and you all have blown my super-secret, James Bond, hush-hush NotReallyABible cover, we're going to have words. Or a fake Bible Study in the back pews which is actually going to be some sort of Angry Bird Tweeting Words With Friends-athon. And I will so kick your bony rear ends. In the meantime, pick up your BookBook here.]
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Demanding
This second publishing lap around the track has brought with it a few processes and Live And Learns, not least which is the ever-expanding world of print-on-demand publishing.
I sat with a printer I’ve known for ages, discussing a whole other project not at all involving the Waltzing In Perdition Chronicles. When I discovered his ability to work as closely with me as I prefer in publishing a book, I decided right then and there to migrate everything I’ve been working on elsewhere to working with him locally (great). Which means a hands-on and much more personal way of dealing with things (non-negotiable).
Which is ToddSpeak™ for I Will Have Total Control Or Kill You All Trying.
I’m very excited about the second book in the series because, with it, I’m able to start shaping a more visible (to me) path. A Beautiful Hell was really a book I never intended. That is, every story (save two) was written years prior with no plan whatsoever to one day be published. When it turned into a book, my biggest frustration was that I never wrote anything progressively or with any continuity in mind.
That bothered me then and bothers me still.
But with On Flying Blind I’ve been able to form a direction I intend to consummate in the third book. And that excites me almost as much as getting to work with a local printer.
Excuse me while I go chain myself to the keyboard and finish this sucker…
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Making Not Taking
I’ve been asked to do this so many times and I’m finally (starting) to make good on all my Yeah I’ll Get To It I Promise. Except that I haven’t completely pulled back the curtain to show what it is I think everyone’s been asking for. That is, exactly how I’m creating certain photos. Which is because I never think about it.
That photo up top is, of course, the AfterWork. I took it on Thanksgiving day at the farm. You’re looking at what’s been called The Bottom for eons, and it’s a section of the land Cute Redhead and her family grew up playing in. We’ve quite continued weaving that fabric into the lives of the spawn and their cousins, and Thanksgiving day just isn’t Thanksgiving day without a walk to it.
A few words on how I photograph: first of all, every photo in this post was taken with the iPhone 4S. No flash (I never use the flash. ever.) (Ever.) I have a Canon Rebel XSi, which I consider a brilliant camera for certain work. But the ease and quick access of the iPhone, as well as the image editing apps I use mean that most of what catches my eye also catches me reaching for it…which is always in my pocket.
A few words on what I photograph and why: I have no idea what to tell you lol. Being asked to slow down and think out loud about what happens to capture my eye and interest to where I trip-wire into I Have To Photograph That is like stopping me on the dance floor to analyze how I’m dancing…which only makes me look at my feet. Which makes me mess up. Which is a pain and a bucket of cold water thrown over me. Which I also hate.
Nevertheless, it’s not like I don’t know how I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s just that when I do it, I’m honestly not thinking about how I’m doing. Just doing it. Just giving my soul over to what I have to capture, tilt, angle, stop and backup and checkout that shadow again…never questioning it. Ever. I mean ever. (Who does that??) I can’t even tell you why something captures my eye. Rather, I’m not going to waste time articulating every aspect of every moving part, inside and out, only to demonstrate that I could talk for a day about it and still fail to sum it up.
So it’s not taking a photo. It’s making a photo. And if I have to explain that, trust me…I can’t. And you wouldn’t understand anyway. And neither would I.
The light through the trees and the spreading shadow of the pine trees was nothing more than an obvious composition. *iPhone*point*shoot*done* Cute Redhead is used to me lagging behind, constantly stopping, long ago gave up her Hurry-upping, and left me to start messing with the image to force into the digital what I actually saw in my head when I took it. Which, come to think of it, is me using photography to sculpt, excavate, unearth, or prove in the final piece what I saw in my head.
Which is the real reality (prove that one, left-brainers! ha!)
I used several image editing apps but can’t tell you exactly which ones or in what order or in what combination of filters and effects. It never occurred to me to confine myself to one app or effect any more than I’d confine myself to what pen or paintbrush. So edit here, save the image, open another app, play around there, save it again, turn it upside down, get mad, open another, try this try that, get mad again, remember something about a weird red I remember in something else, love it, apply it, decide I hate it all over again, change my mind, burn that, contrast that corner, straighten it, turn it…and basically keep on Not Thinking until I see finally what I saw in the first place.
Which is the very top photo.
Here are a few other photos I took that day employing the same processes, right down to looking up and wondering where everyone went and how long I’d been standing there in full-on artistic Time Out Of Mind.
And one last Before-And-After I took just this morning when I decided I needed fresh-ground coffee. I slammed the door shut on the car and noticed how the frost looked like trees. I liked the blue I saw inside my head so, naturally, everything had to stop for a few minutes.
And, lastly, here is just one of the apps I use. I promise next time my mind trip-wires into Must.Capture.That, I’ll stop Not Thinking enough to note how I’m doing what I have No Idea How I’m Doing.
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Right On The Button
So I have this love affair with appliances.
I mean, I kind of love them. And by ‘kind of’ I mean that ever since I stared at the agitator doing the Charleston in my mom’s washing machine back in the early 70′s, I’ve been subservient to this part of my brain that sort of tripe-wires anytime a washing machine goes by. And though washing machines aren’t typically wont to ‘go by,’ ours sort of did. Which means that the drive belt started whipping the drum off its base in some mad, passionate effort to get our clothes launched into the stratosphere while simultaneously leaking enough water to make you wonder how much was actually involved in the rinse cycle (answer: none). And then the washing machine did the Charleston. Which is what my mom, in her signature timid good humor, use to chirp whenever our old washing machine got all uppity and spin-danced-bounced itself around the laundry room. And by all of that I mean that my mom has no such thing as timid good humor and never chirped. She cussed like a marine and it was an education in Catholic profanity that invented new words like ‘criminently,’ (don’t ask because I don’t know). I just know that every now and then I’ll recruit that very same word in timid good humor.
Which I was completely lacking when our washing machine died. The night before we left town for the week. Which meant that for the duration of our travels I counted down the days I had to find a new one and hit the household ground running. Which went like this: research, research, research, Consumer Report, consult-consult-consult, think-think-think, research some more, agitate (ha ha), and then chit-chat with chirpy Sears Saleslady Person back home:
Me: Our washing machine died.
Sears Saleslady Person: Oh dear. And how’re we doing?
Me: …not well.
SSP: Need a hug?
Me: I need a Kenmore.
SSP: Same thing. Let’s have church. This one’s on sale. It has This and That and can do That Too and when you press These right over here All Of This happens. There’s a special dispense—
Me: I’ll take it.
SSP: That was fast.
Me: Not really. I’ve been looking since 1977.
SSP: Excuse me?
Me: Star Wars, hlewwww.
SSP: Help me out here.
Me: 1977. That’s when Star Wars came out. Ever since Star Wars, it’s been all about the buttons. And if they light up and beep, I don’t care what the damn thing does, I want it.
SSP: A ha. All guys like this?
Me: If we tell you different, we’re lying.
SSP: Do you want the matching dryer?
Me: Do you want to get married?
And that was that. I came back and woke up Cute Redhead with the good news.
Me: Well, I got a great deal an very highly rated high-efficiency washing machine. The construction is excellent quality and the measure of water conversation is eclipsed only by the six months interest-free purchase. A fine 3.9 liter addition to our household which, I must admit, begs the question: “Can anyone really survive without a front-loading washing machine, Jane? Can they?” What’s more, the price of deterge—
Cute Redhead: “—so it had a lot of buttons, huh?”
Me: *squeal-claps* OMG you should see them!! LetsGoRunALoadOfDarkC’mon!!
To alpha male from Alpha Male
See those eyes?
Good.
They’re on you. All the time.
They were the first eyes you looked into the day you were born, and they’re the eyes that step into your room in the middle of the night, fifteen years later, just to make sure that’s you under the covers and not some pillows you’ve propped up to make it look like you’re there when you’re not.
Not that you ever would.
Not that I ever did either.
Do you see the way those eyes are set — that makes it hard to know whether it’s a fierce love or a fierce discipline? Or both?
Good. Because they’re on you all the time too.
They were there the first time you stepped too far away from me and into something necessary like preschool, or kindergarten, or anything else Life has prepared to grow you.
See how that fur bristles and the back is haunched? And the way the whole body is poised, looking relaxed but belying an instantaneous and lightening-quick ability to get to you should you fall too hard…or something too overwhelming befall you?
Good. You would do well to never mistake the aspect in those eyes:
…that often believe in you more than you believe in yourself, and so have engineered experiences and tests to help you learn that you are more than you think you are…and less than you think you are.
…that would tear apart anything that threatened you.
…that would tear you a new one should you ever fail to conduct yourself as the Good, Happy, Believing, Musical, Adventurous, Insanely Ridiculous, Daring, Respectful and Courageous heart God set in you.
They’re on you, boy.
All the time.
Got it?
Good.
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Double Edge
When three people, completely unbeknownst to one another, try to pry out of me the very same answer, I realize I’m cornered and need to weigh in with what’s been going on and why I’ve been so blatantly negligent to writing on all fronts. I’m going to write unedited. Which I hate doing. Though I’m going to write somewhat generally, my aim isn’t to not say something in particular. It’s to get out of the way and touch on something else. And this is as close to any explanation you’re going to get, so if you fancy yourself the sleuth, knock yourself out. Failing that, a tavern, strong drink, and uninterrupted time is the required fare to get me to talk in detail.
I have a very solitary side, for better or worse.
At its worst, it’s the side of me that spreads a very dark canopy of distrust over relationships and, sadly, pushes far too much through that lens and ends up convinced that the dark canopy is a fitting canvas (it’s not). For better or worse.
At its best, it’s the side of me that gets all the best energy from being alone, and finds a greater energy by spending myself on behalf of all others. For better or worse.
At its best worst, it’s the side of me that, thanks to some years, has learned to distrust the judge and jury inside my head. Those are the moments I’m intentionally interrupting my desire to close off and shut out everyone and everything and make Olympic skill out of brooding.
At it’s worst best, it’s the side of me which ignores something better left Not Ignored. As my friend Veronique in New Zealand told me yesterday, “I have a character fault that I am working on bringing into balance. The fault is that I tend to only see the good things about people. And ignore the rest.” A very base fact and a very human reality. When I’m recovering from such a coil, as I currently am, I can’t help but count on one hand the times I’ve had to unclench my fist around friendship and let go what chose to let go of me first. I don’t like it.
Vague, I know.
It’s been a very hard year. For minor proof, look no further than the last time I paused and let what I enjoyed about life make its way onto the Waltz (June) (and before that, January). I have this part of me which, in only a few situations, will agree to suspension in the face of things that need to get done. Meaning that very few things will get me putting one foot in front of the other when all I really want to do is dig in my heels and work on that brooding I can do so well.
Since mid-Spring I’ve been involved in a variety of great works and a few great friendships that have devolved into situations I’m wishing I never spent precious time and energy on. That is, some things and some friends have gone so far south I’m thinking even friendly visits are out of the question. That is, I can spend more than the necessary time brooding on what didn’t work out and what’s cut than on the deeper truth tucked safely inside what Richard Rhor calls ‘deeper time.’ That is, the truth behind the truth inside the disaster under the mystery of the real journey. Which just so happens to be a (very necessary) descent into things going wrong. Which is wholly counter-intuitive. And if you’re one of those people confident in your ability and willingness to die gloriously to your self-centered heart (I used to be), then trust me: you don’t get it (and I didn’t either). It happens to be something you don’t even get to pretend you understand until you’re into your forties (sorry, kids). If you’re listening.
Or if you experience some of the loss and destruction and ending He seems to have coded into deeper time for the purpose of deeper Life. If you’re lucky.
I’ve titled this piece Double Edge because I’m alluding (only alluding) to the end of something that pains me a great deal (that’s the cut) because the end of it seems like the death and loss of a twin (that’s the Double). But this comes off as far more sadness than I intend or even feel. I’ve kept my brooding a private thing, obvious only by my exile from writing at all. Except, that is, for the Not Talking Because I Don’t WANT To Talk About It! that Cute Redhead has made me talk about. As well as done a pretty good job of leaving me alone when what needed to come to the light could only do that by finding its way through the dark. But that’s over now. I knew that when I noticed the subtle disturbing of my heart’s hardened soil, I’d know that something new would be coming. And in the same way, knew enough to trust the part of me that has learned not to trust the brooded conclusions.
As I read this I’m dead-center within a tension: recognizing the Very Unclear in what I’m writing and very tempted to take pains to articulate…and the strange comfort I’ve come to know in not understanding things I may never, ever come to understand. On one hand I despise publishing anything as disconnected and unfinished as this. On the other hand…it’s the true state of my soul these days and I’ve come to see that the balancing act, the wielding the device that Life seems to sometimes be, has a safe side and a dangerous side.
A part designed to bind together.
And a side with no apparent function save sunder.
A double edge.
Way Up West, Part III
“Way Up West,” not “Way Out West,” which is intentionally counter-intuitive as goes the common vernacular.
I had turned and looked West to the mountains but found myself able to stare directly into the sunlight above because it was mercifully shrouded in veil enough to prevent blinding me. So. Way Up West.
Have you ever noticed how maddening it is to insert into someone’s head or ear or mind’s eye whatever it is that washes over you? That is, without rival, one of my biggest frustrations with how God made things. That is, that everything from our musings to our madness to our inspirations to our visions are so anchored within our own experience such that they openly defy a perfect expression. This has got to be the largest part of what fuels the artists across all mediums: the unquenchable need to get someone, something, somewhere in the world to see or hear what we’re held by or singing to. And I don’t care what anyone says…the need to create is less an altruist gifting than it is the secret cry of the heart in a desperation to be known—which doesn’t implode under its own weight simply because it is more than a little counter-balanced by the genuine animation in which the soul luxuriates by living out loud.
In other words, the straight jacket we right-brainers wear isn’t for our safety. It’s for yours ha ha.
Where was I.
Ah.
So I put it on Facebook before I lost my nerve. I was leaving. Not going dark (which I do about once a year and on purpose). And not mad at anyone. Just missing substance and weight and recognizing that I’d gotten scared away from writing certain things and in certain ways.
I’m working on several books but had avoided working on them at all because, quite frankly, it wasn’t fun any more. Since January of this year, a lot has transpired and very little of it has been funny. We’ve a teenager in the house who is becoming more young man than I think I ever could have been at his age in my wildest dreams. I couldn’t be more proud. Or more convinced in His genius for writing into the plot the journey of a teenager and how it mirrors all too uncomfortably the exodus through desert full to the brim with forty years of lesson.
That’s one thing.
Marriage is in what I call the ‘rooting underground’ season. Augustine said it something like the season in marriage fraught with life’s wind and sun and rain and storm where the blossoms fade and the timber roughens. For all accounts and purposes it appears things are fading, to put it nicely. And in some ways they are. They really are. And none of us were told this at the altar.
But it’s okay. Because while things seem to be fading above ground (they’re really not), your roots are growing toward one another under the convulsing earth…and threading themselves safely, safely, safely together (and they really are).
That’s a second thing.
The final thing is that enough had happened to insulate me from the live-wire tension I find in the act of writing. Meaning that the work of staying in what I’m trying to write can be as cathartic as it can be anxious. I find it even more demanding than drawing has ever been. It doesn’t take everything to break down in order to rob me of the inclination to write. I almost wish it did. That way I’d have an easy explanation no one would hold against me. Such as it is, though, the writing can often be discomforting enough to get me to chicken out for the smallest reason. Which is cowardly. And stupid. Because, as I said, for as anxious as it can make me, there is little else as cathartic. It was shameful for me to forget that.
But I said forces were lined up to be sure I remembered something I was supposed to forget: that the fears are smoke screens. Mere one-dimensional Hollywood sets designed to give the illusion of fact enough to convince you things are what they seem.
Which they’re not.
I know better. I should have remembered to forget that and written anyway.
Which I’m going to.
And here’s a visual representation of why. Remember that sun way up west? Here’s what you see when I pull the camera back…
(I know.) (wait for it.)
Can you believe this? I’ve been schooling you the whole time. With the photo, not the content. That beautiful image was a screen saver. And though Colorado can more than provide the very same and then some in real life, it seemed fitting to use the photo as it lives on my laptop. I wanted to convey the rude facsimile of what can’t be duplicated electronically.
Because that’s what I felt like I’d devolved to with writing. That’s why I decided Facebook, though little more than the Virtual Water Cooler, had hijacked my better work. Which I’m returning to but without pulling the plug on how fun it really can be (and it can) to stop by the water cooler and catch up.
So…here’s to comin’ out of the shadows, Juna (shut up, Jeff) and living and writing a bit more out loud. Here’s to excavating a bit more and bringing a bit more pause to the table…not in replacement of the Facebook bits and pieces…but in addition to them.
Here’s to merely using the electronic as vehicle to the real.
