Author: Bob

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F.I.L.F

Prompt: The place where the wall meets the ceiling

For a long time now I’ve been in love with Tomorrow. Crazy in love. I mean, nothing is sexier than Tomorrow. Tomorrow is hot, a downright F.I.L.F. (Future I’d Like to… Feel-up). I’ve always longed to be in her (yeah, I went there) because she holds all the things that get me off: Hope, promise, potential — she’s my ideal everything. A funny thing has happened though as I’ve crept into middle age. It seems that Tomorrow has lost some of her luster. Instead of rock stardom, best-seller authorship, and total self-mastery, the future is starting to look a little more rough around the edges, full of shit like aging, decline, loss. But another funny thing, one that makes reflecting, speculating and reverberating all the more strange, is how falling out of love with Tomorrow has given rise to… er uh, made it incredibly hard to miss… I mean, stiffened my resolve to… Well, let me put it this way: I’m getting a crush on the Here and Now like I haven’t had since like, I sat next to Michelle Dewey in seventh grade homeroom. Shwing!

Anyhoo… It feels like this is how it’s meant to be, this transition of focus from the potential to the actual, although it can be all too easy to fall into the arms of that foul temptress, Yesterday. Maybe it’s because my particular past just isn’t all that exciting, but for whatever reason I am simply not much interested in reliving the good ol’ days. The ol’ days were “okay”, but today is where it’s “all good.”

Of course, this is all a cliché, this be-here-now-live-in-the-moment shtick. What is new, to me at least, is the realization that my love affair with Tomorrow was never really about the future at all, but rather it was about enjoying the feeling—the raw sensations in my body—as hope and wonder and anticipation flowed through me right then and there. It’s like when you tell your first lover that you’ll love her or him forever. It’s not really a promise about how you’ll feel in the future, or at least it’s foolish to look at it that way. It’s much more so an expression of how intense your feelings are in the present, so intense that you use the biggest metaphor you can think of: Fo’evah!

So I’m still down with hoping and dreaming and planning and reminiscing and lamenting and celebrating and enjoying all the sights, sounds and sensations that time traveling has to offer. But I’m enjoying these things all the more because I’m finally recognizing it all for what it all is: My present state of mind, the way I’m feeling right here, right now, in this body, under these stars in this desert sky.

It’s cold outside, the wind whipping the trees in the backyard around hard enough to break branches. Cup of coffee numero dos is buzzing me toward the jitters. A shower, maybe a few songs sung toward that place where the wall meets the ceiling, then dinner with wife and friends.

They say it might snow tomorrow, even in the lowlands.

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Wind blows, I write

Prompt: The wind

The winds are gusting upwards of 45 miles per hour outside. My back yard is full of fallen leaves, swirling around like mini-tornadoes. My back yard. One of the many big changes that blew in with 2011. Growing up we always rented, so I never had a backyard of my own. Many times this year I could be seen playing soccer or mowing or just wandering around, taking in the new scenery. New Mexico. Who woulda thunk it? It’s all good. That’s my theme song these days. Not that there isn’t much to be done. Not that the internal struggles that have characterized my first 40 years on earth have evaporated in the desert sun. No. I’m still me. It’s just that, well, … it’s all good.

I’m unemployed for the first time in a long while. We moved out here for my wife’s career, and while I’ve been hitting the pavement hard in search of honest work, even for half the pay I was getting at my last job, so far it’s no go. When people ask what I do I tell them I’m a childless househusband, and I suppose that’s true enough. I run the errands, do the chores, and hold down the fort in a hundred other ways. My wife brings home the bacon and I keep it sizzling. So far it’s working out just fine. Yet I’m wary of getting soft. I’m constantly trying to light a fire under my own backside, knowing too well that this may be the last time for a long while that I have this much time to devote to stoking this inner flame.

Yesterday I sang my throat raw, hitting notes I had hitherto sung only in fantasy. It was a bittersweet experience, as it occurred to me with the thud of a drop kick to the guts that I could have accomplished this vocal feat at any time over the past fifteen years, had I merely approached the situation with the appropriate level of belief in my own powers. Why did I wait until now? Why haven’t I set my mind to accomplishing the many other things that have been and are well within my reach? Laziness? Fear? If I knew precisely how to overcome my perennial obstacles, would I even act on this knowledge? I’m not sure.

2012 might look like the end of the world to some, but for me it feels like a beginning, a grand opening of heart and mind the likes of which I haven’t permitted myself since my early twenties.

Then again, I always say shit like that.

Seems the wind had died down a bit. Better grab a rake and get to work.

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Défilé du Père Noel

I’m a lousy tourist. Chicago last weekend and now Montreal. Not a single photo taken. How will anyone, including my future self, know for sure that I have really been where I say I’ve been? If a tree falls in the woods and an image of the fallen tree is not captured on an iPhone and then posted on Facebook, does it make a sound? God only knows.

It’s strange to hear French being spoken everywhere in a city that’s only a few hours drive from where I grew up. I’ve always thought of Canada as an icy appendage of the U.S., but at least here in Montreal I’m feeling like I just fell off the turnip truck. At the hotel and at all the local businesses I’ve checked out so far, the employees switch effortlessly between French and English, even going back and forth when socializing with each other. The barista at the hotel café — a scruffy type who didn’t strike me as particularly well educated — was able to speak fluently in French to the customer ahead of me in line, then switch to perfect English with me, and then later chat in Spanish to another group of people. Here I am struggling and straining to make a bit of sense in Spanish and this kid is pulling off trilinguality like it ain’t no thing.

My wife is here for the annual American Anthropological Association conference and I’m just along for the ride. Last night we ran into several of her former classmates from graduate school, folks I haven’t hung out with in years. Most of them have multiple children now and are getting their careers underway at various universities. Aside from my new beard (in fact, my first beard, at the age of 40!) and the fact that I now live in New Mexico, I feel like relatively little has changed in my own life. I’ve been in a holding pattern for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to take a step forward.

Tomorrow we roll on to East Burke, Vermont to visit my in-laws, then to Troy, New York for Thanksgiving with my family. Nephews will be bigger and able to do amazing new things. Parents and siblings will be a bit older and perhaps a little less able to do the same old things. I’ll be there with my new beard in all its brown, red and gray glory.

Time keeps doing its thing. Always forward. Always onward. Always grayward. There’s a big Santa parade (Défilé du Père Noel) happening right now on Rue Sainte Catherine. Children squeal in French — which is somehow much more adorable than English squealing — as they race ahead of their parents to take their posts along the sidewalk. Something is looming just down the pike. Maybe it’s a giant snowman, or even Santa himself. Whatever it is it will be amazing. Then it will be a memory. Then it will be forgotten, unless of course someone thinks to snap a picture and put it on the mantle or on Facebook or wherever it is memories will be kept in the future.

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All good

Up until now I’ve been feeling a little uncomfortable with how… comfortable I have been feeling these days. Crazy, I know. As is the case with most issues in my life, acceptance seems to be the key. And so I’m finally accepting the difficult truth that life is pretty damn good right now. (I can feel the sympathy radiating from every direction.) It’s good not to be saddled with a full-time job, for however long it might last. At first it was weird, but now it’s just plain sweet. I hate being in harness and, for now, I’m not in harness. Hence, the goodness.

One of things I’m particularly enjoying about having my new found freedom is that I get to play a lot. Aside from my usual antics with the guitar, I’ve rediscovered the sublime joy of playing outside. I’ve never had my own back yard, until now, and so the eight-year-old in me just had to turn it into my own private fun-zone. I bought a 4×6 soccer goal at Target, and ordered the lawn game Ladderball. Next on the list is a ping-pong table (although that will require a playmate). I’ll be 41 in less than two weeks, and I get to spend time, every day, playing in my back yard. And I feel great. It’s funny how little I’ve changed in the last thirty years. I can still spend hours making up games to keep myself amused and engaged in the absence of a companion. “Right vs. Left” is one of my all-time favorites. Yesterday, my left foot was finally able to defeat my right foot in a soccer shooting contest. It was a big moment for ol’ lefty, especially considering all he’s been through with the recent knee injury and surgery. The left hand, however, has been getting consistently drubbed in Ladderball by the right hand. I guess that’s why they call it the “dominant” hand. In any event, I’ve rediscovered that sweet spot where getting lost in my imagination meets being completely present in my body. And it’s all good.

I’m also getting in pretty good shape. Who woulda thought that playing soccer in the yard would be better for my health and fitness than sitting at a desk entering accounting invoices. The More You Know!

I’ve also been reading and playing music and getting plenty of sleep and not shaving and goofing around in countless other ways. And I’m done with the guilt. Done with not enjoying this situation to the full. Of course I’ve been “productive” in some ways too, as I also do just about all the housework and run all the errands and make it so my wife can focus 100% on her new job. It’s a win – win. And I have studied for and taken the GRE, applied to graduate school, searched for jobs almost daily and sent out about fifteen applications, and chipped away at several long-term creative projects. I’m getting shit done, and I’m NEVER bored. Not for one second. I don’t know that I’ve ever been bored when my time is my own. At school and on the job, yes, of course — but never when my mind and body are free to expand and express.

This is the life I have been given to live, and although I’ve done nothing to deserve it, I may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

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Selective memories: Being Bob (02-28-2004)

[Lexington, Kentucky] New age music obnoxiously seeps into my brain like lead into blood. The synthesized bird chirps and the fog of cigarette smoke settle over me with all the subtlety of a wet sneeze. The morning has been weighed, measured, and found wanting. Staring at a fat beam of sunshine illuminating a blizzard of dust particles, it occurs to me that this is what I’ve been breathing in all along. A moment later, the clumsy stomp of a passerby sends a wave of vibration rolling across the floorboards, up through the couch and into my asshole. Perhaps these are things that should not be noticed, or at least not written down.

Nothing. Strike one hundred seventy five thousand. Okay, one more pitch — this time I’ll tear the leather off the ball:

Who cares if it’s the tundra or the temple floor? Either way, it’s a place to fall to pieces. Who cares if it’s memory or pure invention? Either way, it’s a candy-coated rat turd.

[Later] I’m sitting on a tree stump at the park. Kids are playing, running around like dogs off the leash. Their parents are walking around the perimeter, getting their laps in and trying not to look embarrassed when their dogs stop to take a dump or sniff a passerby’s crotch. A guy, maybe fifty-five or sixty, has quickened his pace to a jog, moving with all the grace of a coat rack tumbling down a flight of stairs. It’s painful to watch him. It’s like he’s been dipped in cement and is seconds away from becoming a living statue. Another guy is showing off his pet iguana, although it could be an armadillo or an alligator for all I can tell. What ever it is, the guy is clearly loving the attention he’s getting.

It’s Saturday, and I’m in a funk. The sun is nice though, and I like the way that little boy told his Dad about how he never dreamed he would see an iguana in person. So it’s an iguana.

Walking toward the park I thought about all the times I used to stroll up and down Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, and before that, Haight Street in San Francisco. Does it really matter where I am?

Changing pens from black to blue, I take a moment to catch my breath. A crowd has gathered around the iguana now, and his master has launched into an undoubtedly well-rehearsed lecture. Sitting slumped on a stump, my ass starts to ache and I sink a little deeper into my funk. I don’t know what would have to happen right now for me to feel happy or alive, I know only that I’m powerless to make it happen. There are no zen fireworks as a reward for this realization, however, so I can only assume I’ve missed the mark again.

Strike one hundred seventy five thousand and one. Trying not to try. Struggling to let go. Being Bob over and over again. A broken record of a bad song. Time to pull the pl…

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On the run

Gonna pack up all my things
I’m on the run again come the morning
Gonna cover up my tracks
I’m never looking back come the morning.

Why do I run?
Why do I run?
Why do I run when I’ve only just begun?

The sharpest knife can’t cut you out
In the dead of night your eyes still haunt me
Like a photograph through broken glass
You’re under my bed
Behind the mask.

So why try
when I know
I’ll never get it right?
Why did I go?
I’ve only just begun.

It was never if
but when
I’d come crawling back again one summer morning
Guess I’m never gonna learn
to let that fire burn through the morning.

Why do I run?
Why do I run?
Why do I run when I’ve only just begun?

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Digging…

It’s Friday morning and I’m doing my thing. This. The dust has settled now from the shakeup of my relocation, and here I am, feeling a bit lost, wondering if this whole narrative I’ve created about my life, this so-called journey of self-discovery, has been nothing more than a fantasy, a game I invented to give a sense of meaning and drama to the particular sequence of choices and random events that have delivered me — more or less in one piece — to this fine Friday morning. The internal knot I’m picking at right now has a dimly foreboding feel to it, like stifled waves of nausea. Deeper still there’s a sense that I’m missing something very, very important, something that is being communicated to me by everyone and everything all the time, yet somehow remains elusive for being so glaringly obvious. If I would just turn the dial a hair to the right or a smidge to the left, I would be tuned in clear as a bell, but I seem to have forgotten the basic things, like what a dial is what a bell sounds like.

It seems the fog of amnesia has settled over me, again. Yes, I’ve been over this ground before, I’m certain of it. Whatever is being communicated to me is something I already… fucking… know. Been here, done this. And yet…

Until the age of 30, the rules of the game were simple: every thought, emotion and action of any significance was wrapped up in the grand project of finding “the one” who would love me the way I needed to be loved. With each “failed” relationship, I understood a little more about the folly of such a project. At 40, I can note — with more than a little gratitude — how each morning I emerge from sleep to the joyful discovery that I am not alone. In fact, I wake up each day to the knowledge, rather unsettling at times, that I presently have everything the 30-year-old me ever truly wanted, and everything that any human being could reasonably hope for. And yet…

Am I spoiled rotten? Have I gotten too soft? Perhaps my edges were forged by the years of burning angst and the constant hammering of struggle and failure. It’s as if I don’t know how to be… comfortable.

Maybe I’ll invent a new game, create a new project and lose myself again in the drama of it all. Maybe I’ll stop all this navel-gazing and focus my creative energies on those less fortunate, those who would consider it a luxury to wrestle with my itty-bitty demons. Trouble is, I’ve been there too. I’ve been the martyr and the saint. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve been over every inch of this territory, wherever the hell I am. It’s just that my tracks have been covered up, and I can’t remember for the life of me what it was I discovered here that seemed so earth-shattering at the time.

Whatever it was though, it was somewhere deep down.

Better start digging.

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Change

A life filled with days of constant struggle, desperately trying to catch a creative wave and ride it home. I haven’t made it yet, but then again, I haven’t drowned yet either…

Change by Isaac Dust

Change
Another tap has been kegged
The question is begged
Wherever you go
they all want to know
A battle of steel
A final appeal
But is it a crime
to step out of time?

Maybe I’ll crack,
but the wind’s at my back
Some things don’t change
when everything changes

Another sun’s on the rise
in the back of my mind
Above I’m awake
but below I am sleeping
I wake up undressed
Guess I’m under arrest
But is it a crime
to take what is mine?

Maybe I’ll crack,
but the wind’s at my back
Some things don’t change
when everything changes
Don’t ever change…

Have you ever been dreaming
you were singing a song
and you wake up to find
you can still hum along?
The words quickly fade
but the melody lingers forever
Yeah, forever

Maybe I’ll crack,
but the wind’s at my back

[Put your hand upon my heart
Do you feel anything?
I don’t feel anything at all…]

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Gold watches

Brian Hall @ The Music House, circa 2001
“They gave my father a gold watch, to tell him how much time he had left…”

I’ve always loved that line from Brian Hall‘s It must be cold outside. You’ve heard of Brian Hall right? No? Well that’s a damned shame! Imagine if Bob Dylan was never discovered by the mainstream and he was just some ordinary guy living in a small southern town somewhere, giving away his recordings to friends. Well that’s Brian Hall. Amazing songwriter. Amazing guy. Check out my fan page and prepare to be blown away.

I often wonder what Brian is up to these days. I hear he’s got a day job of some sort, and it’s been a long while since I’ve heard a new recording, and much longer still since I’ve had the great privilege to see him perform. I’m impressed with how productive the guy has been over the years though, keeping the creative juices flowing despite the grind of daily life. Myself, I’m struggling at the moment to keep the mojo flowing. I’m more or less settled in now after the big move to New Mexico, but most of my time is spent doing fruitless job searches, studying algebra in preparation for the GRE, and doing one chore or another. While I still have plenty of time to write and delve into music, I’m just not making it happen. My inner flame is dim and flickering, but I’ve been in this place many, many times, and I know what to do.

In that spirit, I finished setting up my new studio today and played through It must be cold outside as a sound check. I’ll share it below, but first, here’s a little gem about the song from Brian’s website:

I’m surprised I didn’t write this song earlier. Bruce Springsteen is really a neat and captivating story song writer and I was thinking of him a bit as I wrote this. I remember really looking at the sky and skyline of Altavista my last day at Klopman Mills. My mother and father worked at Klopman before me. I was crossing the bridge going home. It was almost a violet morning sky just minutes after 7 am. The most vivid colors coming with the Lane Company in the foreground, where my grandfather had put in around 45 years. It was a heavy and moving experience but I wanted it to be. I wanted to get all I could out of it because the reason I was leaving the factory was for music, my favorite thing then and my favorite thing now. This song happened very quickly and I took out a few detailed lines that meant a lot to me but I felt the song flowed better without them. I almost called this song Nightshift.

It must be cold outside by Isaac Dust