All Summer in One Night

All summer slips past me in one night,

the night where warm turns cool, where fireflies vanish

and autumn begins, even if sunny August & September days seem summer again,

autumn has begun and winter’s always within;

but before this night where summer slips, there was all of summer in one night,

or thirty six hours.

August half over, panic that an unseasonably cool summer would go straight to winter,

the sense that life passes equally fast and two years have gone by largely unconscious,

I planned all things summer for one day/night (and other things summer just happened) –

unplanned swim with childhood friend, our sons meeting for the 1^st time, parallel play

not just for children, so conversation was disjointed, but still delightful,

paddle boats in the quarry with cousins, uncles and aunts, fish floating beneath the murky water like they’ve always floated in my dreams and in the lake of my youth, Leawood , Kansas, a long walk along the river, dinner and setting up camp for a sleep out, but first ghost in the graveyard, my sons first game of midnight rider, pure joy, one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four, five o’clock, six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, ghost in the graveyard, ready or not here we come…

only my oldest brother and I actually slept outside in tents, the ground was hard, the crickets loud, the night not yet cool… the best I’ve slept in quite some time…

breakfast with me at the skillet, spinach & onion, lots of coffee and fruit, a short car ride to the zoo, an August thunderstorm while we took lunch under cover, bears, elephants, kangaroos, a carousel ride too many and we barely make the tunnel before the 2^nd thunderstorm begins… I run to the car laughing, more like swim, the rain is warm, thick, the day, the summer, all of it within thirty six hours, thick, delicious, the recipe perfect, family, friends, sunshine, shade, laughter, exercise, rest, libation, presence, respite amid August before winter coaxes the season into autumn, the nights into coolness, the fireflies into slumber or where ever they go that final night when summer ends

Montauk reference by poolside at start of all summer in one weekend, reminds me of the following:

November 3, 2004 6:15 a.m.

Meet Me in Montauk (RE: Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind)

lucid day dreams or dejavu

memories of you fading,

evaporating, dissipating

and no one can save them…

“blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders”

but blunders haunt beyond the specific

smell and look of a gray winter day

forever locked in pain, the sadness

lingers the ache meanders

through grey matter even when the “blessing”

of forgetfulness erases the exact root of the ache

and thus the forgetful end up cursed

not able to search the wounded waters

of regret and hurt to find the part of themselves

that was once whole, spotless? spotted?

nearly extinct elephants in New York before Madison Square Garden

the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach Long Island

on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing

sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”

flashlight photography glimpses of the events that led to this

captured on degradable film, that led to this latest

attempt at escape

only to discover what we discover last, time and time again

that the way out is the way back in

only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again

hidden from the mind is a familiar secret

not rememberable until dead;

that when given the choice

we chose to do it all over again

we chose against the eternal sunshine

of a spotless mind

Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night

back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory

as I search for my father’s hand outstretched

from whence I came and from where

I shall return only to pause,

reflect, reform and return

to struggle to ache to yearn

too often missing the moment;

forever to be enjoyed

One Night in Bangkok, Every Night (Yeti Friend)

Forgive me father, it has been six months since my last blog.

The snow falls in Denver, sixty degrees in Chicago,
after more than a month of well below 30, well below 20,
often below 10, days below zero, but today, I'm in CO
and it is momentarily colder than Chicago.

The economy is collapsing, at least shrinking,
my belly growing, or at least holding steady,
bigger than I like, my children are growing too fast,
for me, too slow for them, maybe, maybe just right for both of us.

I miss them tonight, I'm not chasing immortality, I'm not chasing fame, I'm trying to pay for their education, food, clothes and to secure their happiness, trying to align or find my own happiness with the work I do, cuz I do a lot of work, more time than I spend with them, it's a classic catch 22, I work to support, I support because I love and I brought them into this mess or dance (depending on the day - my day), and I spend less time with them.

This is not new, this is age old, but my subtle sinking into this position is strangely ok. I'm not disappointed in myself, I'm not overly proud, I'm not disgusted like I used to be with people like me. I do want more joy.

More joy when home, more joy when at work. No matter what, if anything happens next, my time as this person, as this father and husband is limited and love is no less real than god, no less real than my back pain, no less real than more trivial things I concern myself with, yet it is not either or, it is not either cave of meditation with yeti, yak, snow lions my hermitage friends, or
one night in Bangkok every night drowning out the silence and loneliness with prostitute, temporary friends, noodles and beer (though I swear I've never been).

It's not natty beard, ashram, vegan sex or Wall Street, drycleaned, steam pressed ROI on a soul capriciously spent.

It is not either this or that, it is always both, it is always the betwixt the between the interbeing. My life moves back and forth trying to find balance between suits and ties and tattoos, gods, animism, cynicism, after life, belief, disbelief and rest.

My heart beats irregularly, I'm happy to be alive, a privilege to contemplate even if inane.

Peace, good night, Conan

Midlife Crisis... how mundane is that?

My therapist says I'm vanishing. I wonder is that good or bad... my twenty year high school reunion is at hand. I'm looking forward to seeing people I was not ready to see at ten years. The reunion web site lists in memory my classmates who died in car crashes, drown or whose lungs locked up. I recognize their faces, knew one guy fairly well in high school, but somehow their faces and their deaths haunt me. Certainly others I went to school with have died along with many others much closer to me - my father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends.

I'm scared of dying if I'm honest, more scared now that I'm wagering there is no Next... sad there may be nothing next especially now that I have kids. This should make every day, every moment more precious without the distraction of the promise of heavenly blissful, postponement, punishment or reward, right?

I'm feeling less flexible every day, at least physically. I'm putting my head down and working hard knowing it is what it is... I can tell myself it matters and I actually think it does, but what matters more than being with my own kids and the people I love? Rather I spend my energy with others trying to make money to pay the rent, buy bread and maybe a vacation every few years.

I'm not going to buy a stupid phallic sports car or sleep with someone else bored with themselves, but feeling embarrassingly, predictably in the middle of a midlife crisis. I think I've always been in a midlife crisis, but finally approaching midlife.

This is my house (rented), this is my beautiful wife and I'm thankful for both and all that is my rented, borrowed life. Wishing to be more at ease with it all, more prone to laughter, spontaneous song and dance, less drink, more connecting, more conversation, then no conversation, quiet, peppermint tea, a book, the idea of a book, I always fall asleep when reading, but I love the idea of a book, a walk in the misty cool of this early September eve, Summer having already begun to slip as it does every year, giving up the nights first and somewhere betwixt this season and between the next, somewhere between my ribs, betwixt the sky lies the ease I search for, not the easy way out, but the graceful way in, the way into life, this life, my life.
For now, embarrassingly predictable, mundane midlife crisis at hand, complete with all the drama of hallmark made for t.v. after school special. 4 in hand, hole in heart.

Be well. Laugh more. Smile. Enjoy. (as usual, much needed advice to myself)

The Magic and the Mundane

I compulsively pick my at my nails, any cut disturbing the smoothness of skin, noting the stuck places, the grooves within.

I pick at the inconsistency or the constancy of thought and emotions rising to the surface as blemishes on the skin of my physical being, signalling my mortality and the magic and mundanity therein.

The magic in my life, any life, to have germinated, divided, mutated quite specifically... to have eyes of this color, hair another, height, weight, width all largely determined by the magic combination of him and her, father and mother, determined, directed then polluted or purified by the magic of a mundane world.

An environment of magic in every moment though seemingly mundane the majority of the time to the human animal who has to pay bills, cook dinner and ride the train to and from work.

Mundane to a red head, blue eye who obsesses with a fictional world within skull and musty gray matter, who picks at the apparent inconsistency or contradicting states of the magical and the mundane, neither state lasting forever, sensing at times it is not either or other, but both and brother, brother and sister, fraternal twins cojoined, twisted at the hip, heads facing different directions, spiralling, gently, wonderfully tame.

A trip to the Safeway, a symphony to the attentive ear - a trip to the casket routine to the undertaker while a profound opening to the son who just lost his father - the trip to Safeway stale and inane to the same son ploughing through the long list of to-do's keeping him from getting to the living somewhere in his future or past where "real" life is, magic life was or will be found, precious life that was/will be inspired and inspiring, life that is not separate from poetry and painting, but is the steady stream of words on page, life paint, drying only slightly less lustrous as when first bled from brush, life bursting with appreciation and wonder, but here I am missing the magic again, running from the mundane, missing that the two are comingled, spiralling, gently standing still to someone half asleep.

Ode to Ollie ~ May 1991 - May 2008

17 years ago almost to the day, Ollie was born and joined my life or my life joined hers.

Named errantly a boy after Ollie's frozen custard stand outside Dekalb, IL truly a girl when heat unfurled all the furry that comes with a cat coming of age.

From Crawford's Dekalb to my Dekalb, to Palos to Bartlet, IL, to Fresno, CA, to Clovis, CA, to Seattle (Kirkland), WA, to Palos Hts, IL, to Boulder, CO, to Longmont, CO, to Naperville, IL, to rest once more.

17 years she walked with me, caused trouble, if trouble includes taking meat left unattended from the counter, waking you in the tired night, more tired once kids already disturbed the sacred quite, biting from time to time, once down to the ankle bone, provoked or unprovoked, who is to say?

She briefly had a brother, first week together she bit Max in the neck in CA and 17 stitches later he was back at home, a little more respectful of his older sister. I had to separate them later in Seattle.

She ran face first into big dogs, German Shepherds, Retrievers, she was 23-0-01 with Duchess the nasty cat in Boulder, pet to the Turks downstairs - she never tangled with big orange, not for his size, but what was in his quite eyes, psycho as she might have been, Ollie was not dumb.

And now as I type, I'm just starting to consider that she is really gone... she disappeared last weekend either dead in our house or out in the world at large... I like the latter... she stepped back into the mystery that precedes what I know of her... just weeks ago R. Nadim said quite sad, "what would our house be without Ollie?" Just nights ago T dreamt that Ollie was dead and now most likely she is.

I like to think she waited for the door to crack so she could slip back into the mystery, the before now, the before thyroid thirst, the before deaf days and rail thin body, food hard to keep down days.

17 years she invested in my life, seemingly without choice. She comforted me time and time again, she packed her bags and traversed the country as I searched for myself, Ollie always ready to settle into my lap, not sure what I was looking for, but ready to comfort me.

Rest well Ollie where ever your head rests tonight. Our house is emptier without you, my heart heavy at the loss of looking to the chair where you sat more and more, heavy, asleep yet lighter and lighter. Be well good friend. I hope I provided some comfort to you.

God's speed.

Tahoma (Ghost Mountain)

November 4, 2004 five fifteen a.m.

Meet Me in Montauk (Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind)

lucid day dreams or dejavu
memories of you fading,
evaporating, dissipating
and no one can save them…

“blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders”

but blunders haunt beyond the specific
smell and look of a gray winter day
forever locked in pain, the sadness
lingers the ache meanders
through grey matter even when the “blessing”
of forgetfulness erases the exact root of the ache
and thus the forgetful end up cursed
not able to search the wounded waters
of regret and hurt to find the part of themselves
that was once whole, spotless? spotted?

nearly extinct elephants in New York before Madison Square Garden
the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach Long Island
on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing
sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”

flashlight photography glimpses of the events that led to this
captured on degradable film, that led to this latest
attempt at escape
only to discover what we discover last, time and time again
that the way out is the way back in
only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again

hidden from the mind is a familiar secret
not rememberable until dead;
that when given the choice
we chose to do it all over again
we chose against the eternal sunshine
of a spotless mind

Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night
back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory
as I search for my father’s hand outstretched
from whence I came and from where
I shall return only to pause,
reflect, reform and return
to struggle to ache to yearn
too often missing the moment; forever to be enjoyed