offering

I'm writing a story that has to do with Mt. Rainier and it dawns on me I've never been to Mt. Rainier, despite living in Seattle and environs for well over half of my life. I've never been to Mt. St. Helens either, despite being obsessed with it as a child and still being prone to research the history of the mountain every so often.

Why is this? These amazing mountains are in my backyard. There's just no reason. I can feel Mt. Rainier, her vastness and sorrow and beauty and terror. But I only call her Mt. Rainier in public. When I think of her, write of her, speak to myself of her, she is Tahoma.

"Rainier is a shitty beer no one drinks anymore."--Line from the aforementioned story.

I had the most intense vision of sitting on a pile of stones on Tahoma's side, pounding out a beat on a large stone with a human bone. My feet were dirty and the air had cleansed my mind of chatter. Pounding the trance-like beat, hearing the bone strike stone, I realized I was presenting an offering. Thinking on it now, a day removed from the vision, I feel like I finally understand why people are driven to make offerings. Something powerful moves you outside and inside and you are moved to react in a way that has profound personal meaning.

Creation starts as an offering.

mother's day story

This is a one draft ditty I just wrote in fifteen minutes. I don't usually have this much coffee and sugar in a day.

Shana spent an hour gathering rocks of all sizes from her large backyard. She piled them beneath the pine tree, then pulled all the weeds in front of her until she had a rectangular patch of dirt. (There was no grass in her back yard, just weeds and lots of pine needles.) She stared at the dirt, then the rocks. She had a vague notion to build something but wasn't sure what.

Then a troll came wandering up to where she was sitting beneath the tree.

"Hello Mr. Troll. What do you have in your hands?" she asked, for the troll was clearly holding something in his clenched fist. "Come on, show me."

The troll shook his head.

"Mr. Troll, we've been through this before. Do I need to say the words?"

The troll looked very scared at the thought, and quickly dropped his treasure in front of Shana. A finger that belonged to Shana's mother. Shana recognized the wedding ring.

"Mr. Troll, this won't do at all. We'll need a proper burial. Dig me a hole six feet deep."

The troll looked unhappy, but did what Shana commanded. It took him only ten minutes to do this, because trolls can dig fast. When he was done he looked up to Shana from the bottom of hole.

"Now pull the dirt back into the hole with you."

Very unhappy now, the troll did so, until the hole had filled in enough that he was stuck and could not reach out anymore. Shana got a shovel from the garage and finished filling the hole in. Once this was done she piled all of the rocks in the middle. Perhaps later she would think of a creative design to arrange them in.

She took the finger and went inside the house, where her mother was dozing in her chair. She sat in the chair across from her, waiting until her mother woke up. Then she would give her mother her Mother's Day present. It was strangely cold in her hands.

publishing ramble

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock star. I’d fallen deeply in love with music, and by the time my sixth grade year rolled around I was obsessed with rock music. I’d dream up band names and draw album covers. I’d write song lyrics. But I knew the big obstacle was that I didn’t know how to play a musical instrument. Fortunately, sixth grade was the first year band was offered and I was excited at the prospect of learning to play music. Except, as it turned out, my parents would not allow me to take band.

I never really got a clear answer as to why I could not do this thing I so badly wanted to do. Maybe they were concerned about how much I’d gotten into rock, maybe it was a religious thing, maybe they were afraid it would cost money they didn’t have. I don’t know. All I know is that when band time came once a week on Thursday afternoons, only myself and about five other kids were left in class, unable to join everyone else in the band room. Those five other kids consisted of Jehovah’s Witnesses and one sweet, developmentally disabled girl.

The rest of my school career ended up a mess, and I never had a chance to learn an instrument, though I did end up screaming into a microphone a few times after a few beers. I don’t think that counts. I was—and am--of the belief that I needed to learn music young, because I have no natural talent and no sense of rhythm. Ask my wife, who doubles over laughing every time I try to tap along to a drum beat. She’s right to do so. It’s bad. When I was 20, I had a potential chance to learn to play the guitar, but I let it go because at that stage I knew I’d never be in a band and that I had already committed to a different path as an adult. I was always interested in using the guitar like a paint brush, and to be good enough to do that you couldn’t learn just enough to bust out a few cover songs. Oddly enough, many of the people in my life are involved in music on some level. But my involvement now is the same as it was in sixth grade: I listen. I don’t play.

While I wanted to be a rock star, I always felt I was a writer. It wasn’t that I thought I was a good writer or had talent; writing was simply an act as natural and vital as breathing. Writing came into my life about the same time as music, but it was an instant vehicle of self-expression. Pick up a pen and go. And I didn’t think about it, the way I did music. I just did it. Pages piled up. Pages still pile up. The more things change…

I’ve always thought it would be neat to get published, and I had a couple of poems published when I was young. But I never made the connection with other writers or a writing community, and I did not devote time into cracking the publishing code. I wasted my free time as a young adult and then the family came and all such thoughts left my mind. In fact I completely stopped writing for a time, but when I picked it up again I was more committed than I’d been since my troubled youth. I didn’t even think of publishing, though, for a while after I started back up.

I have thought of it some over the last 5-6 years. But I don’t even know what that means anymore. The publishing industry is such a mess, print magazines are nearly dead, online magazines come and go so quick and you never have any idea what might be legit and what isn’t because it changes hourly. I have submitted a few stories here and there, though the last one was three years ago. The amount of time to even explore potential locations for my fiction seems completely out of reach. I mean, as a reader it’s extremely hard to find new voices in my favorite genre—horror—because I don’t even know where to look. I have a number of great anthologies from the last decade, but they publish many of the same authors and rarely any original work. And that ain’t their fault; that’s the market. I’m amazed anyone even gets a novel or an anthology published these days. As a reader, I can’t shake this feeling that there is a lot of great stuff I’ll never find. That makes me sad. 

My in-laws, who are sweet people and have no idea what kind of stuff I write (they might not be so sweet to me if they did) like to bring up the idea of self-publishing as something I might be interested in. Self-publishing has always seemed like narcissism to me though, unless you were then going to go out and try to sell it. I barely have time to write, much less become my own distributor in a chaotic ocean of self-publishers. My in-laws mean well but that’s not my route.

I write, first and foremost, for me. I do it because I have to, I can’t not do it as I found out all those years ago. I have a family and a job and I actually have very little time to write as is, so I’ve been unwilling to stop creating to try and figure out the whole story market thing. Every once in a while—when I have writer’s block, usually—I’ll start poking around, seeing if I can take a crack at that nut. And I just get utterly lost. I’d probably have better luck trying to put a band together.

When I started writing this post in my head yesterday while working out, it made a lot more sense. I was going somewhere with it, but now I’ve no idea where that was. In any case, this isn’t meant to be a “woe is me” or a rant about the publishing biz, of which I know absolutely nothing. I’m still writing, and will continue to write, even if my audience is the three people who read this blog and the two friends who get copies of my stories. (They are always so nice about it. Aren’t friends great?) It would be easy to look back and wish I’d made a few different choices, but life would be boring if we could go back and change things. I mean, between this post and a story I’ve written 2000 words today, so clearly there are no roadblocks to creation. And I don’t think the world is missing anything by not being exposed to my muddled, boring stories. To those of you who do read (either by choice or because you’re a kind friend too polite to say no)—thank you. It is appreciated.

imposter

I am an imposter driving my new 2015 Civic. Baltimore is angry and burning. I am an imposter driving my new 2015 Civic. Thousands dead in Nepal. I am an imposter driving my new 2015 Civic. Kurt Cobain is still dead and relevant. I am an imposter driving my new 2015 Civic while the toxic discourse in my country of origin erodes the very structure of ideals the country was built on.

Human failure, my failure.

Sitting in a generic corporate office, performing meaningless work for a corporation that is ignorant at best, malicious at worse. A corporation that, like many other corporations, will view this week as full of great marketing opportunities. Sitting in a corporate office, gutless. White male privilege benefiting me. I can be as insulated from the world as I want to be. I type this while listening to Killing Joke and the contradiction is not lost on me. But what good does recognizing them do? I'll end up getting a beer later tonight and maybe writing a harmless story. I'll be mad because I have to clean the litter box. I'll lie awake worried that I've failed in showing my children how to agitate for change. That things have been too safe for them. When does opportunity become complacency?

I am an imposter. I am safe and warm. I can take these events, intellectualize them and make them safe. I can throw them around my echo chamber. I can create a god and let him do the heavy lifting while I complain because my laptop broke and speculators ruin the vinyl market.

I like fire. Flames don't touch me.

So much I in this post. If I type I enough, will I hold myself accountable? There it is again.

Driving home in my new 2015 Civic I listened to the president denounce the protesters while birds chirped peacefully in the background. The radio host informed me the president was sitting in a lovely garden. And I thought, 40 miles from that garden a city is burning. I wondered what country he was president of. If the alternative to toxic discourse is dreamy condescension...should anyone be surprised cars are on fire?

Kurt Cobain's country became my country and they are the same. Not even the graffiti has changed.

I'm safe and warm and about to take dinner out of the oven. People in Nepal are sleeping on median strips. I will go to sleep in a comfortable bed with a mild case of heartburn. I will light a candle to reflect and meditate. In Baltimore they will light a police car.

I am an imposter.

wednesday afternoon thoughts on mortality

There is no death. Death is everywhere.

I'm 41. I see the world not just through my eyes, but through the eyes of my children. I see life through the filter of relationships that are sometimes 20, 30, even nearly 40 years old. There is nothing unique in this.

I've always been aware of mortality, but my concept of it changes as I get older. If you asked me at 20 I'd have said something along the lines of living each day to the fullest while being cognizant that it could end any time leads to a rich life. If you asked me today, I'd say the same thing, but I'd feel like I actually understood it more this time. And I'm willing to bet that, should I still be here in 20 years and you ask me again, the same will hold true.

I was an angry young man. I am now, on occasion, an angry middle-aged man. I think more now about how to direct that energy into something useful. In general, I've fallen short in doing so, but the effort at least keeps me from becoming permanently bitter. To do so would be to betray my kids, I think. Raymond Carver wrote of his children as his greatest influence (with which I agree) and a baleful influence (with which I vehemently disagree.) To call your children a baleful influence is a cop-out from the responsibility of your own actions. Bluntly, that's some weak-ass bullshit.

I am an atheist and I'm also deeply spiritual. These things are not contradictory; spirituality has nothing to do with a belief in religion or using particular metaphors. There's a ton of shit we don't understand, and so much we may yet learn if we, as a species, are lucky enough to stick around. (Honestly, I think it could go either way. Depends on my mood, you know?)

But I can say in all honesty I'm not afraid of death. I am afraid of any number of ways of dying, as most of us are. And I would be immensely sad to leave any time soon, with so much I still want to do and see and learn. Striving to live each day with an awareness that I only have so many of them (and I have no idea what that number may be), however, takes the fear of that ultimate transformation away. And it certainly provides a neverending wellspring of creative material. Artists would be in bad, bad business without death.

There is no death. Death is everywhere. The dead are looking for me, for you, for all of us.

oh moon!

Oh moon, that I could be awake for you more often. Curse this body, dragged by the rising and the setting of the sun like yoked oxen to a cart full of stones. Moon you sing inside my unquiet skull and spill out pale light that illuminates the great bloody and bruised veil of this world. Sylvia watched you shadow the yew tree and I watch you pierce the evergreens. Moon you calm me. You cast the light that prepares us for death, when we go up, up, up. Moon if it wasn't for you I would think death was the end and plants never sleep. Moon I long to lie naked beneath you. Awake, awake! Moon I am not a ghost and yet I am. The fire of mind a cool flame. Moon I would write you a song if I could play, if I could sing. Were you really part of the Earth once, did you cry when you were violently pulled out, your birth fiery and eons of slow cooling following? Your light is pale but not cold. The sun creates shadows but you give those shadows a place to rest. So many gifts moon, and I who understand so little, have only these meager words to offer. Oh moon take these words, this lost prayer. Oh moon, oh moon, oh moon!

spinning my wheels

I miss cigarettes terribly. It’s funny, the thought of missing cancer sticks. It’s not like there is anything redeeming about them…maybe that’s the appeal. I quit smoking in 1995, but I still get cravings now and then. To deal with these cravings, I imagine myself smoking a cigarette. I basically picture the entire thing—the ritual of lighting up (usually with a match), of inhaling the smoke, the taste of the nicotine. I imagine how the cigarette feels dangling from the corner of my mouth while I talk or type. I tap the ash to the ground. It’s pretty intense, this visualization. It’s basically a long con to fake out inner urges that are ultimately destructive. To placate the emotions while listening to the intellect.

I fucking hate listening to the intellect.

Lyrics from two songs:

It comforts me some that three beers suffice,
Its unnerving to think that ten more would be nice
But it kills off the loneliness, kills off the pain
And if I drink enough I won't remember your name
And I'm too drunk to feel,
And I'm too drunk to be seen
I'm just sitting here spinning my wheels,
But I'm not drunk enough to feel like I'm free
No I'm not drunk enough to feel like I'm free

--“Spinning My Wheels,” Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs

You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above.

            --“Tunnel of Love,” Bruce Springsteen

I’ve tried to write about the quiet darkness before. Failed. It’s a hard thing to pin down with clumsy tools like words. You get a sense of it in words like Star Anna’s above, but you really have to hear the grit and heartbreak in her voice to feel it. Raymond Carver captures it sometimes. I’ve tried to put a shape to it: words unsaid, the recognition that dreams don’t come true, the uneasy truce after the emotional battle, ten beers would be nice but they don’t suffice (spinning my wheels.) Snatches of old songs: one step up, two steps down. After the boys of summer are gone. These are all elements of the quiet darkness but they are not the quiet darkness in total. The coldest season is when spring brings renewal. Insights just make things harder. Continually reborn because you never get it right. Rebirth/flowering/disillusion/destruction/stillness. Hell of a cycle, that.

I had an idea for a story. I’m writing this instead. Maybe I’ll write the story. It’s not important either way.

There are stories and songs that appeal to my intellect. A lot of the art I spend time with falls into this category. This isn’t to say that this art isn’t emotionally engaging—it is. But, at the end of the day, it’s safe. Whether it’s myself or the art that is distant doesn’t matter, simply that there is such a distance. You can chuckle if you need to, or write a term paper, or crinkle your brows just so. Knock back a few beers and discuss the shape and contour and context of the work. Get passionate, but know you can park that passion back in the box if needed because it’s ultimately just a thing. A fine, fascinating thing. A safe thing. Makes ya feel good. Girl Scout cookies.

Then there’s the other art, the stuff that won’t win any awards for fancy wordplay or chord structure but it’s so emotionally real and so deeply soulful that it is dangerous. The art that gets at how life really is, how things really feel. This is the stuff that truly gets you through the day, that is there during the quiet darkness and long dark nights of the soul. Makes ya uneasy with its honesty. Gives ya hope, too, that others have felt this way (but makes ya despair at the human condition that we can’t stop going through these cycles. Evolution is a slow, slow bastard.) Look at those Star Anna lyrics above. They are artless. But when she sings them, the self-disgust and hurt and longing brings tears to my eyes. I’d link to the song but it’s not even on YouTube (aside from some not well-recorded live renditions.) That’s kind of nice, that some things aren’t in social media garbage land, but it leaves her words and my words to get this thing across I want to say, and I don’t think we are doing so well. My fault, not hers. Sorry, Star Anna.

Did I mention she’s got a song called Burn that’s even rawer? Jesus.

I move like a ghost, sometimes.

The worst thing I could ever write would be a book called The Oblique Strategies. It would overuse the word languid. That could be forgiven. It would not be a truthful book. That can’t be forgiven. Ever.

I had to stop writing this to go make dinner. As is true most nights, I had no interest in making dinner. But things have to get done. So currently in the oven sits a pan of tater tot casserole. Tater tot casserole is a sad and truthful dinner. Sad because it’s crap, but crap you had to actually do a little bit of work to achieve (cook the meat, mostly) instead of just buying fast food. Truthful because it is what it is, there’s no pretending it’s anything but comfort food, which is our way of saying “not healthy food and I shouldn’t eat it but it tastes good dammit and it’s just as busted up as I am.” Learn to live with what you can’t rise above. I made a double batch.

I got a beer while I cooked.

It dawns on me that perhaps what I wrote above suggests the intellect can’t be engaged if the soul is. This isn’t true at all, any more than cutting open your arm and dumping it on the page proves you’re a truthful--good--artist. There’s always some calculation in songs and stories. I’m sure Star Anna and her band rehearsed Spinning My Wheels a bunch and moved things around until they felt right. Bands that don’t do this are called jam bands and truly among the most wretched of Earth’s creatures. Raymond Carver wrote and rewrote his stories. But I’d like to think that they were focused on being honest and truthful and that this guided what they created. Star Anna lived that song and can sing it truthfully. Raymond Carver lived his stories and can tell them truthfully. Details are changed (artistic license, protect the innocent and guilty) but the soulfulness rings true. They paid prices, but don’t we all? Every one of us does. That’s why we relate. Some just have the talent to tell the truth (in their work—in their lives they are no different than the rest of us) rather than obscure it or dismiss it. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.

It’s all in how it moves you, I guess. Like I have any fucking idea. You’re still alone. That part never changes. I would have made a shitty academic, it’s probably a good thing that road was never open to me. I do love mythology. But only so far as it serves the story. The unconscious dream-making.

At work today a client was rambling on about how great a book called Mindset was. How you can change your mindset if you just want to. It seems kind of crazy that you need 200+ pages to state that. I mean, I don’t disbelieve it. But those books, they kinda remind of gurus and make me queasy. They suggest you can avoid the hard truths if you just decide you want to. Maybe that works and some of us just suck at doing so. We’ve devalued introspection, though, confused it with self-importance and narcissism. It’s just not that clean, you know? It’s messy. Really fucking messy, sometimes. I used to cry easier. Now the tears hide behind my eyes because they are scared they’ll be seen as the sign of something a book can fix. Just change your mindset and you won’t need to cry anymore!  (Sorry again, Star Anna.) That beer is…ok, maybe, but wouldn’t you rather have this fine Chianti, and just one glass at that? Wouldn’t want to get tipsy. (I’m not tipsy. I’m still on the first beer. I compromise too goddamned easily these days.) I honestly don’t remember the last time I cried. Well, I do, but I wouldn’t reveal it here. Tears are truly dangerous and this is not a safe place. There are no safe places, but this place, I mean, it’s really not safe.

Yeah, I miss the cigarettes. Jesus Fucking Christ, I miss them.

Somewhere up above I mentioned that insights don’t help, they just make things harder. I had one of those the other day, something about how I compromised my dreams and those dreams may be finally disappearing for good. Dreams are funny things, they hang about even when you think you’ve beaten them down hard enough they couldn’t ever possibly get back up again. But they eventually break too, realize this isn’t worth it and head off for greener pastures (or maybe just a nice rest in the cold damp earth.) It was a gradual realization but in a way I was thankful that the channels were at least open enough I heard it. Usually I blast those things away with white noise. Hey, I need to check the tater tot casserole! Don’t brood, man, don’t brood. It’s all in the mindset.

Too many lifetimes and not enough years. Thanks for that, Star Anna.