R.I.P.

So suddenly. So soon. SO sad.

Because whatever your opinions and thoughts of his foibles, his strangeness, his proclivities, his parental drama, his body issues, his face issues, his hair issues, his wives, his children, his siblings, his money, his decisions, his estate, his animals, his childishness, his politics, his hopes, his dreams, his re-inventions, his setbacks, his life ...

... there was always the music, the movement, the smile, the vision, the electric joy, and an unparalleled talent.

I hope you are moon-walking on the Moon.

Rest in Peace, Michael. Good peace.

Playing Tag with the Sun

It’s the first day of summer, and I am still waiting for the sun to take up its rightful residence.

Sure, she arrived with the Spring. She blazed to warm the earth. She politely yielded to the rains in respect all the things that needed growing, but then she seemed to forget to return. And, now she seems loathed to do so.

Rain, rain! Go away! Come again some other day!

Didn’t work.

April showers bring May flowers.

Yes, but what do May showers bring? And, June thunderstorms that shake the very earth?

Baby, can you stop the rain?

Apparently not.

Say - Can I PAY someone for a … sun-fluffy-cloud-blue-skies dance? Really.

Meanwhile …

It’s the Summer Solstice. That longest day with shortest night. That celebration of the triumph of all that is green and warm and full-out blooming mixed with the recognition that the power of the summer god must now begin to yield to the silver god of winter. Why are all the god chronicles so very, very neurotic?

Meanwhile …

The paranormal, metaphysical ones consider THIS solstice a special solstice (link here), complete with planetary vibrations heralding a new age, complete with connections to both the Mayan calendar and the Harmonic Convergence. There is the expectation of a rising wave of energy that can remove the things that have been clogging up your mind and soul. Have something you would really like to happen? Focus. Make plans now. If not now, when? But, isn’t that always so? Umm … what are you waiting for?

Meanwhile …

I am sick of hoping for the sun. I am sick of rushing out to bask in an hour of sunbeams. I usually love rain, but enough. So this afternoon I vowed to chase it. Yes, you have a solar system, a sky and a horizon. I only have a car and a will.

Silly me.

Tag! You’re it!

Blessed Solstice.

Dogs in Paradise

Once upon a time we adopted a beautiful dog, and named him Raistlin (after a thief in a fantasy novel, for crying out loud). His mother was a wire-haired terrier who conveniently went into heat while on a camping trip out west with her family. Biological imperative drove this well-behaved dog to escape into the wild woods, eluding her searchers until she found satisfaction with some wild dog. Raistlin looked like a white German Shepherd with wiry hair. He had gentle brown eyes, and flowed like wind through the grass when he ran. And, having inherited his mother's gift for escape, he ran frequently. Our neighborhood was his hunting ground, and he was king (let us not discuss the unfortunate incident with the Senator’s prize miniature rooster).

But, there came a time when Raistlin could no longer move without pain, and when my Mother saw that we could no longer ease his suffering, we had him put to sleep. Hot bitter tears, that night.

The next evening, my Mother dreamed of Raistlin running through a bright green field under a brilliant sky and shining sun. He ran as if he could fly. He ran with delight. He ran up to her to say: “All is well. I am well. Farewell.” And, then he was gone.

Yesterday, a good friend of my Mother’s wrote to say that she had to put down her beloved dog, Panda. Driving from the vet, she had a vision of Panda “… running in an open field (like the one in our neighborhood where she liked to go). She was healthy, it was green, sunny and she was running toward me, almost smiling like she could do. Ears flapping, tail twirling … I told her to go to Jesus in Heaven. She looked peacefully at me, and then she was gone.”

Two stories, two visions, so similar that somewhere there must be endlessly green, sunlit fields beneath brilliant skies were all dogs run like the wind in paradise.

Sunday Walk/Drive-Bys

Geese vs. Cars in PA?

Geese always win.

May was a good month. Even the rain seemed filled with purpose.

But this June, the rain is driving and relentless. I've felt cloistered, cut off, submerged. Each time I thought the sun had returned for good, thunder rolled overhead, the lightening flashed and crashed, the skies opened, and the rained poured. Again.

But not today.

Today the clouds yielded, and the sun called. Time to be out.

All is overgrown green in Pennsylvania.

Or working hard to be.

We are as attached to our ruins as the brush and vines.

Not everything made it through the winter,

but for every naked tree, there are a thousand Goddesses of the green.

Random rabbit on the path,

competes with random corporate art,

competes with temporarily impotent clouds.

History is thick in Valley Forge,

with covered bridges

preserved log cabins

Monuments to George Washington

and his Revolutionary soldiers

And, just when I think the clouds are making a come-back,

the sun shines through with a last burst of light.

Happy Flag Day.

Crazy Wimmin

I saw a tiger ...






So I’m driving home from work last night, listening to the radio, and this screeching tone interrupts the song. You know the one – that Emergency System tone that modulates from shriek to squeal to growl for 20 seconds in a bid for your attention, as if the first three seconds is not enough. In the past, you’d be treated to this cacophony, only to hear, “This is a test. This is test of the Emergency Message System.” Lately, however, there haven’t been many tests. Lately that awful sound precedes an Amber Alert. A child is missing, and giving the statistically short window for recovering kidnapped or lost children, the police are asking for all eyes now, if you please.

The Amber Alert asked for all to be on the look-out for a missing 9-year old. I simultaneously sent up a prayer that they find her in one piece, and listened for additional information. It is in another county, so I won’t see any suspicious cars driving by. The girl’s mother was also kidnapped. By two black men.

Damnit.

I can almost feel heads nodding in this area, “Of course.” I can also almost hear others wondering if this is real or just another Crazy Wimmin hoax. I simultaneously pray for the victims and protest the jaded among us who are willing to tar an entire race as criminal because of yet another violent crime perpetrated by “black men”. And, I protest those who are quite willing to believe that this is just another woman making up an African-American bogeyman.

It’s a strange phenomenon, these women who make up attackers and color them black, as if that will male their story more believable. There was that woman who drove her car into a river with her two small children in the backseat, and blamed it on black men. There was the woman who carved a ‘B’ in her own face, and blamed it on a large, black, disgruntled Obama supporter. Surely there is a limit to the number of crazy women who do bad things and make up fictitious black assailants to blame them on. Surely a real daughter and real mother are in real danger, requiring hard-nosed investigators and dogs and door-to-door searches. Surely there are bad men in need of capture and punishment. So I prayed for the safe recovery of little girl and her mother.

I checked for news today, hoping for a happy ending. We could do without another murder – especially that of a child – for forever, frankly. Here is what I read. Seems the mother called 911 from her cell reporting that she was thrown in the trunk of a car with which she had had a traffic accident. Her daughter was in the car too. Seems the father came on the Today Show begging for the return of his daughter and ex-wife. Seems the police did indeed go door-to-door seeking leads, and later found her car in Center City. Seems there’s now some Philadelphia Airport video showing the mother and daughter boarding a plane to Orlando, Florida. Fake ID, cash payment for one-way tickets, the whole ugly shebang.

All those people looking. All those police resources spent. All that fear. The father’s tears, another daughter (left behind) writing beseeching messages on their mother’s Facebook account. All the angst and all the prayers … wasted. Well, maybe not the prayers; they are apparently not in danger.

The police are no longer looking for two black male kidnappers in Philadelphia. Instead, the FBI is now looking for a 9-year old girl and her mother in Florida.

Damnit.

Oh wait. I just checked. They found the mother and daughter, and took them into custody. The FBI must be thrilled.

My Godmother (Or Why I am the way I am)

Photo: Andy Wright

So I’m driving down the road with my Mother today … I’d tell you where I we were coming from, but my girl Rebecca-san would drive down here and smack the taste outta my mouth. {smile} Maybe I’ll tackle that one tomorrow …

Anyhoo – We’re looking at all the beautiful flower along the road. My mother points out these beautiful jewel-tone blooms, asking what they are.

“Maybe they’re nasturtiums? Or is it too early?” I respond.

“Maybe. They look like some I had in my garden. Joan Agocs gave them to me, and I planted them on the hill on Maple Avenue. She told me they would grow by themselves as long as I didn't try to move them. She was right.”

“They grew well?”

“Till I moved them. Then they died.”

“Dear God! Why’d you move them?” I laughed.

“Well I … I don’t know. I just …”

“Didn’t believe her? Wanted to experiment? Geez! Who is Joan anyway – what was her name?”

“Joan Agocs She was your Godmother.”

“Well of course that’s why I don’t know who she is! Because you appointed a godmother that I never met!” (Old argument.)

“You can’t let that go, can you?”

“Never met her. She went back to England …”

“She was funny and interesting. I liked her very much. Another very good friend that just disappeared from my life. That happens to me all the time.”

“Maybe it’s because you never call them.”

“Well … We all lead such busy lives” She sighs.

“Honestly, Mom. So what was she like?”

“She was a war bride. Came over from Bristol after the war. Her city was bombed a lot. Once she returned home on the train from a date, and the whole section of town had been bombed out. Even the train station was gone. Her date abandoned her on the tracks to see about his family. Just left her there. She had to pick her way back home. There were no landmarks left to navigate by.”

“Eesh! Sounds gruesome.”

“And, stressful. They used to have dogfights over her city. Everyone would stop and watch. Joan said, ‘We would forget about the blokes who were actually flying the planes. We would watch it like it was a football game. Just look up, and there they were. When our bloke shot down the German plane, everyone would cheer.’ She had lots of bad memories of the war. That’s probably why she was an atheist.”

“An atheist? My Godmother was an atheist? You chose an atheist to be my Godmother??” I was laughing so hard that I could hardly see the road.

“Well she was spiritual.”

“See, this is why I am the way I am! My Godmother was an atheist. My Mother taught me to cast astrology charts and read Tarot cards when I was a child, and now she has the nerve to play organ and piano for Sunday church services!”

“Well, she came to your christening.”

“And, where was that? Stonehenge?”

“Since your brother was christened at my church, your father insisted that you be christened at his.”

She of Zoar Methodist and he of Wesley AME. Tsk. Such rich African American history! And yet, still I’m half pagan baby …

“So how’d she like it.” I asked.

“Hmmm. Well, once I told her how church enlightened and inspired me. How it filled me with warmth and community. Later she came up to my desk and said, ‘Don’t show me light! I don’t want you to show me no light!’ And, she walked away.

“Geez.”

“Must have been the war. She was just such a terrific person.”

I have full faith and confidence that she was.

Thresholds

People are graduating all over.

Graduation. That rite of passage, that level-increase that indicates you have progressed, increased, learned, altered, improved, arrived. It’s that transitory warmth that lets you bask in the light of your accomplishments, or at least breathe a sigh of relief that something heavy has passed.

Yea! Lift a glass!

Now onto the next.

Commencement means something new has begun. Your journey has ended, only to dump you out on another road. All those beginnings and endings never really end; they just cycle around.

So you’re standing on a threshold, and what do you see? The bright sunshine of a new day? A long, dark, scary tunnel of the unknown? Maybe you’re too damned drunk to look yet, but the future is right now. Best be prying your eyes open to greet the dawn, girl. Might as well embrace her, because she’ll just keep rolling in day after day after day.

This brings to mind a young woman I met a few years ago. She had graduated from a very impressive university. She had travelled overseas to teach English to Chinese business folk. She had paddled down a big river to bring the Internet to native villages. She had worked for a prestigious arts organization. Lovely internships providing valuable life experience. And, she was looking for an entry-level job, a foot in the door for a good company where she could work and prosper and pay off her student loans.

She made me nauseous.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the value of corporations. Many are upstanding organizations that provide a good product. Scads of people have built careers, fell in love, married, raised families, and retired with a sense of accomplishment and a trunk filled with wonderful memories. What’s not to like?

But, rushing to the safe choice is not always the thing. I wonder if it is ever the thing. I am sure there are tens of thousands of responsible, fresh-faced graduates out there who have landed the corporate job, banked their graduation bucks, and now look forward to a decade of working in a cubicle, paying off student loans, and scraping to establish a nest egg for tomorrow. Hoping that nest egg can someday be combined with the one the cutie in Accounting is building – seed money for the Plan 529 that will send the next generation off to college.

So, in this graduation season, I just want to ask all you graduates for one favor. Not to mess with your karma … Okay, I’m messing with your karma. Find me, and sue me.

But, before you lock into that blue-dress-shirt-on-Tuesday job that you never heard of before, before you stuff your feet in three-inch heels and spruce up your cubicle with an African Violet, before you relegate that thing you love to do to weekends, and then to the basement, please pause. Please think. Please remember what you started off wanting to do. Please remember the dreams you had or discovered or considered. Please contemplate what made you spend those years pursuing that degree, and at least look around for a slice of your dream.

Exercise just a bit of patience while you do so. Tamp down the panic screaming for you to take any any any job. Look at door number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (I know time’s a-wasting, but at 22, is it really moving that fast?).

I don’t want you to crash in your parent’s basement. I don’t want you to miss an opportunity. I don’t want you to regret your choices, but I don’t want you to regret your choices. I want you to take just one extra moment to look for your true dream job. Who knows – you might find that door with the sun spilling over the threshold, and embark on that path that’s been calling you. And, wouldn’t that be worth the extra stretch?

Okay. Time to bask again: Congratulations on your most recent success!

The Age of O/Let the Sunshine

Okay, O.
I get practicality.
I get compromise.
I get priorities, and planning, and baby-steps.
I even get “the lesser of two evils”.
I don’t particularly like any of these for one reason or another, or at one time or the other, but I get them.

What I don’t get is this rumored desire to hold back the torture photos (story here). The Pentagon was going to release them. Everyone was on board. Get it all out in the open. Begin the healing. Then the commanders warned that such material might incite retribution, and now you and yours are flying the banner of “National Security” of all things, as if that dog of a song hadn’t stunk up the charts when the last Administration sang it off-key. What are you doing? More importantly, what are you thinking?

You say dark forces will see the photos of our soldiers behaving badly, inhumanly, in direct contradiction of all the national values we profess to hold dear. Yes. You say that terrorists will be inflamed by our brutal treatment of their brothers-in-arms and seek to retaliate. Maybe. You say the safety of our servicemen and women around the globe will be compromised by the release of such blatant evidence of our misguided attempts to protect ourselves. Really?

I say you have stepped off the path, and are tumbling head-first into the briar patch.

Do you really think that those who are willing to blow themselves to oblivion in pursuit of their agenda are sitting on any fence making up their minds about these United States of America? Do you think that the previously released material, the unrelenting chest-thumping, the condescending speeches, and shocking arrogance of the past Administration has gone unnoticed? Do you truly think that this evidence will be the stuff that finally and thoroughly unhinges our enemies, drawing them to every overseas base and every American shore with rabid intent?

But perhaps it is not the wrath of our enemies you fear, but the wrath of our friends. Perhaps you believe that the former Coalition-of-the-Willing would be disabused of the notion of our moral superiority were these photos to hit the street. I must ask: Just what crazy horror shows are captured in these photos? Because, the world - friend and foe – have never been as blind to our sins as we have been. But, even we see that the light of our beacon has dimmed, and we have sworn our commitment to the restoration of our reputation.

So, I ask again: What are you doing? You must know that reputations are never, ever built in the dark. Trust is not nourished on secrets. Hiding our sins will not hold back the storm. Doing so will only strip away the one key ingredient needed to heal a reputation: the truth.

President Obama, we need to raise the shades, open the windows, and let in the sunshine. We need to stand up and admit our sins. We need to apologize and make amends. No one respects the man who locks the truth in a drawer, hoping that the folder will be lost or forgotten. If we want to regain global respect, to de-fang the black of heart, and to block similar crimes in the future, we need to say, “Yes. See right here? Yes, we did it. This is where, who, how, and why. And, this is how we are going to make sure it never happens again.”

That is how we will begin to regain the respect of friend and foe. That is how we will begin to regain our self-respect.

Let the sunshine in.

My Mother’s Garden

Random bits of my Mother's Garden

My Mother’s garden has always been wild and unpredictable. Being a Sagittarian with a significant Virgo influence, she is constantly stretched between twin goddess-muses: Free-wheeling Abandon and Obligatory Order. And, the balance of power changes without notice. Except in her gardens. And in her children.

In my Mother’s garden, things go in, are given fertilizer, sun and water, and are left to take root. There is no plan. There is no grand design. Nature will out, and it does.

And, the same conditions apply for her children. Oh, once there were plans and visions of who we would become. My Mother dreamt of upright individuals embracing success, God, and functional families.







We were provided food, clothing, the best education, and music lessons (piano, cello, violin, and guitar). We read shelves and shelves of books. We lived in a safe place near woods and fields and streams.







We always had a bike and a sled and a closet full of board games. We went to church and sang on the choir. We drove to Canada, Florida and cross-country to California. We flew to Jamaica, and also through the skies of New England in a Piper Cub. We were well cared for, and then we were reluctantly let go to bloom.




When I was 21, I worked for a nursery, and decided to take our garden in hand. I brought home bulbs by the bagful, shrubs and perennials by the trunkful, and balled trees tied to the roof of my car. I dug walkways and carved out flower beds. I thought I brought colors that coordinated. I thought I brought species that grew to the proper size. But, my efforts only made my Mother’s garden a more substantial riot. The trees towered over the roof, the flowerbeds were a psychedelic tapestry, and the bulbs naturalized simply because that is what they do.

And, my Mother was pleased, because by day the riot energized the viewer; and by night the colors faded to a murmur, leaving the white dogwood and the white tulips to glow in the moonlight like the gardens in the best fairy tales. And, that is the way her children grow. We have not followed a plan or design; we grow out of our borders; and we clash much, much more than we harmonize.



But, my Mother knows that in the odd moment, when the full moon shines and the spring breezes blow, we glow with the inner light of who we were always meant to be.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Rescinding an Invitation to Hatred

Today I read a brief account of how authorities in the Czech Republic are kicking David Duke out of their country. You know – that hateful little former KKK leader who keeps running for political office, and was actually elected once by crazy people in Louisiana. Seems he was invited by neo-Nazis to hawk his new books. Seems he was suspected of running around telling the converted that the Holocaust never happened. Seems he thought Prague had speech protections like those enforced by the American South of the 1950s.

It doesn’t.

Actually, the Czech Republic is still smarting from the atrocities of World War II. They are so sensitive to this issue that they nurture an active dislike for people who deny the holocaust (against all evidence to the contrary) and “promote the suppression of human rights.” And, this dislike for people who claim that the wholesale slaughter never occurred manifests in an actual law against such denial. A law that they actually enforce.

They arrest you, and then they kick you out. Or jail you for three years. I guess three years of David Duke was not at all appealing, because they gave him until midnight to leave. I’d imagine he is high-tailing it back to the good ol’ USA right now, where we tolerate his views, because our laws protect nearly everything that spills out of the mouths of the crazy, the cruel and the hateful.

Good for us.

Don’t get me wrong. I am completely committed to our First Amendment, and quite partial to its protection of free speech. Say what you want. Say what you want to my face and I will respond in kind. Unless you really piss me off, and then I will either scream or ignore you, depending on how much you annoy me. That’s our mutually enjoyed right, right? To speak and not to speak. Yea!

But, I have to respect a country that remembers the extermination of their Jewish and Romany populations with horror, and will not tolerate anyone who seeks to bury the evidence of evil through denial, or who who sign on as producer for Holocaust, Part II.

Good for them.

Reality Bites

Is Reality TV Hell on Earth, or is it just Purgatory?

How else to explain why every lost, forsaken, misbehaving, and desperate celebrity (and I use the word celebrity in its most sweeping form) seeking to crawl back from the Ninth Circle sends their agent, publicist, lawyer, campaign manager or brother-in-law to get them a spot on the first available reality show?

And, we gleefully watch the eager hopefuls compete in the most entertaining and potentially degrading manner. We very rarely care about these celebrity attempts at revival, and forget about them when the season is over. There is a noticeable measure of cruelty in this voyeurism, and we are all - spectator and contestant alike - diminished. But they keep coming and hoping we will watch.

As if it will be redemptive. As if it is the first step back to the privileged life. As if it will salvage a reputation sullied by scandal - or worse - boredom. As if reality TV will cause John and Brenda on Oak Hill Circle to say, "Look at that former-rock-star-turned-soft-porn-queen bungee jump for sushi! She's got spunk! I don't care what OK! Magazine says about her! Let's buy her conveniently release retrospective CD, and watch next week!"

I guess now the producers are hoping John and Brenda will watch Rod Blagojevich competing for charity (sans kickbacks?) in Costa Rica on "I'm A Celebrity .... Get Me Out of Here!", and say, "Look at that former-and-soon-to-be-up-the-river-Governor Blagojevich racing toucans for charity! He's got cajones! I don't care what the courts say! Let's send money for his defense fund and watch next week!"

That is if the courts approve his trip to Costa Rica.

Hypocritical Oath

There is no one more dangerous than the disillusioned.

Yes, we all break rules. Every day we cross some line, ignore some agreement, flaunt our freedom at the expense of something. But, we each have made a decision to do so, and probably decided to do so long ago, and probably announced it with pride, because those rules were not important to us.

But some things are different. Each of us has a list of truths and rules that we hold in our heads and close to our hearts, and those life-laws are sacrosanct. They spring from the place where our version of humanity rests. They are the lines that must not be crossed. They are the acts that send Mama Bear into a tizzy. They are the encroachments that launch revolutions. They are the trespasses that make us cry then shout then march then revolt. Because those are the acts that revolt us.

Mark Danner has “leaked” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report detailing the participation of medical personnel in the torture of CIA detainees. Good for him. Good for truth. And, too bad for the people crying because the report was leaked against Red Cross policy. See: Rules Needing Breaking. Too bad for the doctors who claimed to be doctors and used their talents to measure misery. Too bad for the doctors who convinced themselves that helping monsters to extract confessions under duress served mankind.

God must have become rather sick of our antics, subterfuge, and secret brutalities, so she created the internet. Good for her.

Maybe these “health professionals" can use it to brush up on morals.

Freakin’ Friday

So my parents.

My parents adopted this kitten named Friday, but my Mother quickly renamed her PITA. I love cats; I love Friday too. But she is the most aggressive cat I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of cats. Sure, she’ll cozy up to you when she is tired and wants to be stroked to sleep. But then she always wakes up, rested and predatory.

Friday stalks people. She must be placed in the basement when company calls, or she will harass them with her sharp little talons. Yes, I know cats don’t have talons, but that seems so much more accurate than the more domesticated-sounding ‘claws.’ Claws sounds like you won’t spend the next week dabbing Neosporin® on your legs. No, really. Cue: hawkscream.wav.

Yeah, Friday.

So I’m doing god-knows-what online the other night, and my mother IMs me:

Did I tell you about the feathers in the bathtub?

I think, “Friday,” but I am practicing not interrupting: No.

Friday is not allowed in my parents’ room at night. Something about not wanting to be murdered in their sleep. So, each night she has the house to herself, and one never knows what one will find in the morning. This particular morning, my Mother rises to go to the bathroom, and finds feathers in the bathtub.

“Friday, where’s the bird?” she yells.

Friday doesn’t answer. Who’d make her?

At this point, I’m wondering how a bird got into the locked house, but I know the standard answer will apply: “Who knows?” As in: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio … (My, but I seem to be on a Hamlet jag this week.)

My mother looks everywhere, following the trail of feathers. Then, she spies the little bird corpse lying neatly on the hall chest with the rest of Friday’s toys.

Mom, are you telling me that Friday brought a bird in the house, chased it around, killed it, tired of it, and then put it away with the rest of her toys?

No.

???

Your father found the poor little thing. He thinks it tacky when her toys are left to lie around.

???

So, he put her toy away.

Pieces of Man

Peeps just love to spout all intellectual about the state of man. How do they (sigh – OK Shakespeare’s Hamlet, damnit) put it?

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

And, Rosencrantz responds, “My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.”

Yeah, man.

What is man? Or, more to the point, what is the highest expression of man? What do we most admire? What do we most readily emulate? What is the virtue of man?

Is it his heart? His capacity for love, compassion, empathy?
Is it his creativity? Music, letters, art, innovation?
Is it vision? Science, art, mathematics, philosophy?
Is it intellect? Logic, judgment, something as uncommon as sense?
Or, character, humor, nurturing, community organization, pride, sanity, salesmanship?

What single characteristic best defines man? What is preeminent? How do we choose? Must we choose? How do you pick the favorite child without looking like an idiot or a lunatic? How do you say that the artist is more important than the scientist? That the thinker is more vital than the chef? That the mother is greater than the philosopher? The lawyer more eminent than the salesman?

Perhaps it is my environment, that egalitarian American perspective. But, I judge all these attributes, or vocations, or paths – whatever you wish to call them – so very important, in concert. None of us is homogeneous. We are all pieces of the dream, a brew swirling with all our particles, potentials and possibilities, congealing into who we are as individuals, what we care about, what is important. And, as goes the individual, goes the planet (yeah, we’re an egotistical species, no doubt).

So, when someone elevates one slice of the human soul as all ga-ga, I have to wonder why, and I have to complain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on with your intellectual self. Or your funky artistic self. Or your religious dogma self. Or your skeptical scientific self. Shake hands with your hillbilly self, or your snobby micro-brewery self. Or your literary contentious self. Or your disease ridden self married to your spousal political, emerging musically therapeutic self.

Separate yourself. Hone yourself into a brilliant diamondm sharp with that one great thing. Distinguish Yourself. Embrace your chosen bit, that lonely manifestation of man you champion, if you will. But when you finally realize that you are missing a piece – or a whole cardboard puzzle box o’ bits – of yourself …

Well, then.

One's Good Name

One of the things I find fascinating about the human mind is its ability to respond to thoughts, issues and circumstances with such immediacy. By “immediacy” I mean what is going on in our heads right now. Sure, we can train ourselves - or be trained - to respond in a certain manner, according to pre-conceived and cemented notions. We are the Kings and Queens of Because-We- Have-Always-Done-it-that-Way. But, we are also infinitely capable of changing our minds, perceptions, and attitudes about any random thought that skitters across our minds. And, we do it just because we feel the vibe. We switch tracks with abandon and enthusiasm, with a sense of entitlement, and without warning.

And, as our minds go, so do our mores. To be sure, there are always legions of manner mavens, style sisters, political pundits, and intellectual icons willing to trot out in defense of the kingdom against all pretenders. We have an abundance of societal defenders, both earnest and passionate, acolytes who sing our praises and sweep away our garbage. Yet, we rise only to slip down. Time and again, we reach what we think is a pinnacle on the way to another pinnacle, only to realize too late, that what we call progress is only progression.

We start something new – continental foothold, nation, neighborhood, family. We have a vision, and we claw and cajole to realize the next logical bright new thing. We feel it when it is working, when the government begins to gel, when the crops take root, when our loved ones grow smarter, when we have change in our pockets, when life just feels so damned right. We want to leverage that feeling into the bigger and better: bigger schools, better libraries, bigger cars, greener lawn, and sports teams capable of championships. Scholarships progress to legacy slots at the Ivies. The swim club becomes the country club, and the ocean is no longer so far away.

And, we have been working on being right, of being just and true, morally solid, crystal clear about what is needed, what we should do, how we should behave. There is nothing better than a nice road map, eh? But, now we have started using MapQuest, and the directions are not so clear. See, the construction marches on like everything else, and those familiar roads have changed. Then, around some strange bend we find we're going wrong. Well, we find it when we are ready to admit that we are lost.

One day, we realize we have strayed from the blue and red snakes on our road map. What was right is now left. What was up comes crashing down. That beautiful field next door now contains five new houses, because someone needs a bigger place to hold all their accomplishments. What is good is what protects all the crap we have bought since – well, yesterday.

And, look: Now there are all these other people coming up who have their own dreams, desires and sense of being. They are not impressed by our history, our experience, or our beliefs. We appear jaded and tired. Color us cynical, greedy and obtuse. Why would they follow our map? We’ve been driving around in circles, looking for the entrance ramp. Or was it the exit?

We have lost the ability to present ourselves in simple terms, without qualifiers and apologies. Our bravado no longer serves us, and we grasp at promises for a better day in the hope that they will lead us back to where we diverged. Even when we know we are lost, and it's all our fault.

What we have lost is our good name in the eyes of everyone, ourselves included. We have frittered away. We have wasted. We have taken for granted. Under the weight of all that indifferent, misdirected ambition we know the only way to re-discover it is to retrace our path: down the superhighway, onto the surface streets, back through the neighborhoods, and into that small parking space in front of Mama’s house. Maybe the kin and family heirlooms will remind us who we are.