Tag Archives: Perspective

Reiteration

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Top of The Hill

Write something. You’re a writer- write. Writers write.
Even the word looks wrong, the pen feels foreign and slightly out of alignment.

There are several mistakes and cross-outs already by the fourth sentence.

This is stupid now. I’m just filling up space with ink. Exercise for my quill hand. Oh look, that familiar penmanship has returned. Good morning, Mr.Hyde.

Exercise not only for the muscle, but the brain.
Slow to the speed of the pen.
Watch the ball roll across the paper, magically depositing universally-recognizable symbols to communicate distinctly and eloquently the vaporous rambling in which I am now mired.

Okay. I haven’t “really” written for a year. More cross-outs.

I can’t tell you how many compositions I’ve begun. How I intended and wanted to write when I get to the right time and place. How good it felt to take some short laps, play nine writing song lyrics or a meaningful blog comment.

Well, whad’ya know. Turning a page in the journal. I’ve filled 29 college-ruled lines. (OK, 28 ’cause of the cross-outs) 70 square inches of dribble, writing about not knowing what to write about or doing any writing in a year.

Cross-outs again. That was a stupid line. Another 28-er.
I’m not sure- can’t quite see myself posting this particular piece to the blog. I’m in a Salinger-esque mood and slamming things together into enunciations as if I am speaking aloud and the pauses and inflection will carry me through. Ooh! I see a segue coming. Get ready.

I was walking through the pantry, my ever-whirring mind at mid-throttle.
“Tone it down a little.” I spoke aloud.
I almost startled myself with the noise. It was comical and amusing that one’s own utterance could be startling.
And but also it was like a rocket, sent from a million miles away from deep within the far reaches of my brain’s right hemisphere. It was telling me that I had overwhelmed myself with options. A have a few small responsibilities and a dozen compelling options for the application of my time otherwise. This amounts to a LOT of time, really.
Now I’m not saying “a lot of time” like “on my hands”, like implying boredom or anything. Just the opposite.

I have so many pursuits, hobbies, interests and passions that sometimes it’s difficult for me to choose one. Crazy, right? Some are easy, like stopping at the kitchen window to watch birds at the feeders and the other goings-on out there. Or a few minutes on the couch watching the woodpecker at the suet feeder on the south porch.

*************************************************************************

Several days later:

I’m writing constantly in my head. Everything I see and do on a daily basis I am describing in well-constructed sentences. I wish there was some magic machine that could record and transcribe all of these ethereal bits and pieces then print them out for my perusal at a later date. I write in my head all the time but find it difficult these days to commit to the assembly of a respectable composition. Do you want to hear the ten-thousand excuses or are you a writer (or other artist) that already knows them all? Somehow my brain tells me these hobbies and pursuits are frivolous wasting of time. There are responsibilities to be responsible for, work that needs to be worked on, chores that need to be chored. How can one stop and play when the work is not yet done?


When I was a kid, my mom would ask me to clean my room. She’d remind me several times and wait. Then one day she would sweep all of the toys and clothes and what-have-you into a pile in the middle, and upon my next arrival home would announce: “No going out to play until your room is clean.”
I suppose I’ve only compounded the problem with my hyperactive accumulation of “interests”, and my propensity to take up “pursuits” which are complicated and time-consuming like writing and painting and music. Why couldn’t I have stuck with some simpler things like tennis and crosswords? Sometimes I stand in place and turn circles like an excited three-year-old in a candy store. I’m torn in multiple directions, unable to choose because I want to do everything all the time. Then I hear mom.
“No play until your room is clean.”

I’m cyphering these things out now as I embark on “Year 2” as a man in later life, suddenly and unexpectedly single. Widowed well over a year now, the black crepes come down and it’s time to get on with the living of my life from here forward.
I’ve been running a lot in the past year from one thing to the next. Perhaps denying each the proper amount of attention. The blogs have fallen by the wayside a little, for no reason other than being overshadowed by other activities.

Writing, however, is not about making blog posts for me. It is an inexplicably enchanting siren that calls me to return to the craft of it.
Diction and grammar and dynamic components that compel the reader ever on, through the commas and the semi-colons; the dangling participles, to the very punctuation mark that signals its end, like singing along with a song until it is over. For the longest time (roughly before blogging existed) my writing consisted of journaling my own personal experiences. In a way something of a diary, yet the commitment to paper seemed to imbue relative value on the thoughts and recollections.

These journals are part of my journey, the entries within like the proceeds of the way I “spent” my time. For each day recorded we count the till and revel in our profits. Once catalogued, these pages remain as receipts, proofs-of-purchase, warranty registrations. Here are all those things we can take with us when we die, iterated in physical form.
Rewarding works, triumphs of the soul and spirit. Adventure, wonder, curiosity. Beauty, nature, the arts. Community, camaraderie, company and companionship.
Living, laughter, love.

In “Year 1” I thought I had recoiled a bit, an almost-over-corrected reaction and change in my attitude toward the World. I had for the longest time been developing an allergy to it, and my wife’s death provided a worthy excuse to extricate myself from it. It became something of an unintended sabbatical, and now I am woe to return to “civilization” from the perfect and beautiful sanctity of my mountaintop lair.

In fact, I am resistant to doing so. I’m cashing in my chips and retiring from the working world. Probably another two weeks and we’ll be ready. Now at this very cusp of my dream life, my mind and spirit are listening to those sirens, impatient for the days when I can give each of them their proper due.

It’s 17 degrees F today, March 28, ’22. With wind chill 8. Now it has risen as the wind gusts dropped to 12 miles per hour. I have decided to sit at the table- my favorite place in the world- and write. Even if I don’t come up with some Earth-shattering concept or Pulitzer-winning poem. Even if I just write words.

You’re a writer- so write.

Slainte,

Paz

Richest Man In Town

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Snowy Sunrise

A nod to Frank Capra and his Christmas masterpiece, It’s A Wonderful Life.
When a simple, joyful life becomes a yoke, then subsequently is befallen with disaster, George Bailey looks around the fixer-upper he, his wife and three children occupy, and can see only his disappointments and shortcomings and failures.
Restless and angry, he lashes out.
“Why do we live in this drafty old barn? Why do we have all these kids?”

This line became a running gag between my wife and I, surviving some impressive winters in our own “drafty old barn”, The Ark of Engleville. It’s as big and as old and indeed as drafty as that home in the movie. Each year I go about sealing cracks and stuffing holes and promising to do better next year. Still, when I lean into the kitchen window and a slight breeze arises from between the sashes, I am greeted with the wonderful aromas of the world outside this portal. The scent of the wind and snow, the smell of 115-year-old clapboard siding, hints of human inhabitance; smoke from a wood fire. It is invigorating and nostalgic and genuine all at once, and never does the thought enter in that this is not an economical window.

But this post is not about the Ark or windows. It’s not really about the movie, either. It’s about perspective. In the story of George Bailey, he feels all is lost from his perspective when things go wrong at his family business. He already lived with the sense that he had sacrificed his worldly hopes and dreams to care for the institution founded by his father and uncle. He is young in the grand scheme of things, with school-aged children at home, and many years to face of toiling away as an everyman at an everyday job.
He accuses a prominent businessman, Mr. Potter, of being “a warped, frustrated old man.”, and when things turn bad, his words are echoed back to him.
“And what are you now, but a warped, frustrated young man?”

I’ll not spoil the movie for you with too much detail, in the event you haven’t seen it. Suffice to say that after a long personal trial of himself, George realizes the greatest gifts in his life did not come from globetrotting escapades or success in business or social prominence and status symbols. He sees the true and real value in his life; having a father that took pride in his children, not his income; saving his brother from drowning when they were young boys; friends and a community that respected and revered him because of his character and kindness and generous nature; his wife, his children.

The contrast is Mr. Potter, an aging bachelor whose only “children” are the myriad business holdings he owns. He is painted as selfish and miserly, always looking to take advantage of others for his own monetary gain. Indeed, he is without a doubt the richest man in Bedford Falls, the fictional location of the tale.

The story involves a tremendous financial disaster that occurs in the family business, one the family does not have the resources to solve. George is faced with bankruptcy, and possibly a jail sentence for embezzlement. When, after the trials of the story, he puts things into perspective, he sees that his life is filled with precious and beautiful things, and is worth the living even under dire circumstances. Friends and community rally to raise the funds needed, and in the final scene, George’s brother (the one whose life he saved as a child) raises a glass to toast him. While Harry may be referring to the money raised in support of the family business, we know George is thinking about more important things for which he is supremely grateful. His brother; his wife and children; his mother; his uncle Billy; this little town with a big heart, an endless stream of friends.

“To my big brother George,” Harry proclaims, “the richest man in town.”

Here in Engleville, the sun is just setting now. The beauty of December’s snow has been melted away by the day’s rain. The wind is up, and that means I need to run around now and pull closed the heavy drapes in the parlor and at the front “coffin” doors, stuff the draft stopper tightly against the south porch door, clean the pellet stove to fire it for the night. I’m glad it’s above freezing because I have neglected to plug in the heat tape in the cellar to keep the water pump switch from freezing. I left the storm windows out for the Thanksgiving company’s benefit, and the single pane view is nice, albeit chilly.

I’m closing curtains and turning up gas heaters and asking the dog and my wife’s spirit and this ancient Ark: “Why do we live in this drafty old barn?”

A smile stretches across my face as a tear wells in my eye.

I know damn well why I live in this giant old Victorian Ark with its giant old windows and its sagging floors and crumbling foundation.

It is my mansion.

And I am the richest man in Engleville.

Take care and keep in touch.

Paz