Author: Bob

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Unwinding

I do a very idiosyncratic meditation practice of sorts that has evolved over many years — a little song and dance I call “unwinding.” Basically, I just lie on the floor, on my back, and do nothing. I inhibit any and all voluntary movements as I wait for anything that feels involuntary, any movement that feels as if it’s happening of its own accord. For the first several minutes I may only get a few twitches, but eventually, if I tune in enough, a whole series of movements will begin to emerge, and I follow them wherever they go, as long as the sense that it’s all “just happening” is driving the action. After a while, I might be bouncing all over the room, or end up on top of the refrigerator (this has actually happened!).

The sense I get during these movement meditations is that I’m literally unwinding various patterns of tension and inhibition, like the way a twisted rubber band will follow its way back to its slack form in precisely the reverse pattern with which it became twisted. At the end of this unwinding I feel incredibly clear and free, and I’m often showered with insights for hours.

Of course, it’s not always a super-intense experience, as the whole thing is about dropping into what’s actually going on in my body, not about trying to make something cool happen (although admittedly I’ve fallen into that trap many times). For whatever reason, I only do this practice every once in awhile, when I feel particularly compelled, which is usually when I’m particularly wound up. (Inconveniently, this has tended to be at like, three in the morning.) It’s only recently that I’ve explored this on a regular basis. That’s because it’s only recently that I’ve had the time to regularly indulge in such extended periods of purposeless. In so many ways, this “no job” period has been far more glorious than I imagined it would be. I know it won’t, can’t, and probably shouldn’t last forever, but I definitely can see myself getting in the habit of taking these extended “me retreats” more often in the future, should I continue to be so fortunate.

On the surface it might seem a bit self-indulgent to spend so much time navel-gazing, so to speak, but in my experience the benefits of such sustained inner focus usually extend far beyond my little Bob-o-sphere. Disconnection from my deepest intentions leads to disconnected experiences, disconnected actions, disconnected habits, disconnected relationships. Any investment I make in reconnection leads to, well… reconnection. It’s as simple as that. In short, the quality of my experiences–i.e. of my life–has always depended, in large measure anyway, on the quality of attention I’m able to bring to any given situation. Taking the time to truly unwind (as opposed to getting pleasantly distracted from being wound up) has consistently led to increased clarity of attention, refinement of sensitivity, deepening of self-awareness and, ultimately, a greater capacity for open-hearted communion with my fellow humans.

Or I’m just being self-indulgent. Who the fuck knows…

Anyhoo, I’m not sure how I got on that tack when really I just wanted to drop by the ol’ blog to post my recent cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying”, which has until now been confined to Facebook and Twitter. “The Big O” was one of the first musical voices I heard growing up, as both my parents were huge fans. This song got lodged somewhere deep in my marrow before I knew a thing about heartbreak. When I recorded this the other day I wasn’t thinking about any of the numerous girls who crushed my corazon over the years, but rather of this town in which I’ve felt very much at home for eight years of my life, and to which I must now bid adieu. Sweet, sweet Carrboro, you will be missed…

Crying by Isaac Dust

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Don’t cry out loud

I’m surrounded by things in boxes. If it’s not in a box now, then it’ll be in a box soon, or else in a trash bag, or in the trunk of my car, or on the shelves of the PTA Thrift Store. Yesterday I went through a box which contained such things as my elementary school diploma, the hospital identification band placed on my wrist the day I was born, and a receipt for the first box of condoms I purchased as a teenager. There were love letters to and from my first girlfriend. A photo of me passed out in a hotel bed in Cancún. A seatback I stole for a souvenir that time I saw The Who in concert in 1989. Larry Bird’s autograph. Blue Baby–my first doll, stained with drool and urine and god knows what else. The Most Valuable Player Award for soccer that I won in 1981. Letters from Grandma.

Some things should stay in boxes, put away but within reach. Other things should never have been saved in the first place, or else should have been let go of a long, long time ago.

According to my diploma, handmade for me by R. Seidner, I graduated from “speech” on February 9, 1977. Up until then I refered to myself formally as “Wobewt” instead of Robert. But big boys mustn’t talk like a baby, so I did what I had to do. Furthermore, according to Mrs. McCann’s 1976 kindergarten progress report, “Bobby plays and works well with others, follows directions, observes rules, accepts suggestions readily, and participates willingly in art and music activities.”

Well done, Bobby. Well done.

Thirty-five years later and I’m still a good boy. So well behaved. Most of the time. At the very least I’m still participating willingly in art and music activities:

Don’t cry out loud
I didn’t want to cause an incident
I could’ve let it go in two minutes
I just needed time and privacy
With nobody staring down at me
I guess she couldn’t tell how much it meant
A tiny little thing I’d soon forget
But feelings never bend to blind logic
And you never know what words might stick

She said: “Don’t cry out loud.”

I’m thinking maybe I should probably go
If there’s nothing else I need to know
I’m thinking that we both could use some sleep
We can only take it in so deep
I’ll just step into the other room
Gather up my things and head out soon
I just need to let a few things go
Before I lock the door and hit the road

You said: “Don’t cry out loud.”

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Roadmap to nowhere

Another glorious spring day in Carrboro, North Carolina. A few hours ago I strolled these familiar streets as I have countless times over the past dozen or so years. A lot has changed. I seem to tire more quickly, to head home a little sooner, to withdraw into myself with less resistance. Most times I still pass by the Open Eye Café, but these days I rarely stay for more than a few minutes. In the year 2000, I was approaching 30 without a clue as to where I was heading, just a dull ache in my chest from the extraction that had recently taken place. She was gone, just as I had always suspected she would be, eventually. I was raw, alone, and craving connection. I would sit in the café for hours, waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Anything, really. In truth, I was hoping to be rescued by another she. Hoping to be salvaged, saved, shaken up. Woken up. I waited for a long time, but no one came. Nothing much happened. I read a few books. Wrote a few poems. Exchanged a few furtive glances with many a would-be savior. But I never initiated a single conversation with someone I didn’t already know. Never reached out or took a daring step on behalf of my deepest desires. I just waited.

On November 18, 2000, I sat in my familiar spot on the far end of the big, comfy, filthy sofa. This was my pathetic way of courting destiny. Someone, anyone, might sit down next to me. Right next to me–without a barrier between us. I wrote the following little poem, hoping someone might subconsciously pick up on my creative vibe:

Time folding back on itself like a roadmap to nowhere.
The colors in this room are soft, warm, lulling me into a dreamy haze.
I feel as if I might suddenly begin floating up from the sofa.
How wonderful to stretch out, spread-eagle against the ceiling,
feeling the gentle pull of weightlessness.
Outside it is dark and the cold is biting.
It numbs the bones.

Turns out that I did turn up on someone’s radar, and that someone was Robert, a.k.a. “The Colonel” — a mentally disabled man with tobacco juice always running down the corners of his mouth, who usually brought with him the faint smell of pee-pee and an inexhaustible drive to talk my fucking ears off for as long as it took to run me out of the place. I would sigh audibly whenever I saw him enter the tiny café, knowing that I would have to be going soon whether I was ready to or not. The Colonel did not respond to social cues, to firm redirection, or even to straight-up telling him “Dude, it was nice talking to you, but I really need to finish reading this chapter!”

One day I heard that The Colonel was hit by a car right outside the café while crossing the street. I was sorry to hear that he was badly injured, but also secretly relieved he wouldn’t be sitting next to me on the sofa anytime soon. That seat was reserved for the one. Months went by. Maybe even a year or more. Of course, a beautiful woman never did sit down beside me and say something like, “Hey, I’ve been secretly admiring you from the corner of the room, and was wondering if you’d like to go back to my apartment and make love for the rest of our lives.”

One day, out of the blue, The Colonel came gimping through the front door. He had always gimped, even before the accident. He picked up right where he left off as if nothing had happened. Despite how truly annoying the guy was, I grew fond of Robert. I came in to the café one day a couple of years later to put up a poster for my band’s next show. I was about to move out of state, so this was to be my last performance. The poster was a blurry, xeroxed image of me rocking out at a previous show. I showed it to Robert and he (very loudly) exclaimed, “This is you! You look like a nigger!” I wanted to run out the door I was so embarrassed, but no one seemed to register any offense or pay Robert one bit of mind. “That’s just Robert” they silently conveyed. “His brain is not like yours and mine.” Most people seemed to regard him as they would a squirrel, or a breeze blowing though the room. He was part of the natural order of things.

When I returned to Carrboro years later, in 2008, I was surprised to see that the café had changed locations. It was now a few doors down, in a much, much bigger space. It no longer had that cozy charm, but the place was still packed with people at all hours. As I looked around at the new surroundings I felt a tap at my shoulder. It was Robert. He looked exactly the same, asked me where I had been, and then he used his sleeve to wipe the tobacco juice that was dripping from the corner of his nearly toothless mouth. This was 2008 mind you. I have since been back to the café, including today, at least thirty times, and each time Robert has been there or else arrived there at some point shortly after me. I’m talking every single mother-fucking time. It’s uncanny. I just take it for granted now that he will be there. And he is. Every time.

So Robert is still there, and the same owners still run the place, but everything else, like the location, has that “familiar but different” feel. The café is still swarming with twenty and thirty-something scenesters exchanging furtive glances from behind their respective partitions. Ten years ago we would hide behind a beat-up copy of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or (in my case) Henry Miller’s The Rosy Crucifixion. Today people hide behind their MacBook laptops, or between a pair of headphones or earbuds, plugged in to something going on somewhere, but not here. Today I spent my twenty minutes or so hiding behind a copy of the Independent Weekly. A familiar fortress. Today, however, I’m 40 years old–a place I never, ever really thought I’d be. Today I glance at the cute girl in the corner and think, “I’m old enough to be her father!” I don’t enjoy thoughts like this. I hate that for the past year or so I see everything through the lens of aging. Hopefully, this will pass soon.

“Time folding back on itself like a roadmap to nowhere.” Those words came back to me today as I headed home, haunting me like the ghost of that thirty year old who waited all that time for someone to come along and live his life for him, that guy who skulked in the corner like a thirsty vampire without fangs, who sat in a cage he knew deep down was unlocked, dreaming of a freedom that required only that he wake the fuck up and get off his ass.

Forty years old. A banana with brown spots. A rose starting to wilt around the edges. A mere century ago, forty years was as long as one could expect to be breathing and prancing around on God’s green earth. Forty years was the end of the road, or close to it. As it stands, I’ve probably got another forty ahead me. The second half. Act two. I hear it goes by fast, so it’s best not to sleep-walk through too much of it. Robert from the café, that son of a gun, he told me the other day that he’s 72 years old. He bragged about his thick head of hair, hardly a gray strand to be found. When I first met him, over ten years ago mind you, he told me the same thing: that he was 72 years old. He also told me he’s a millionaire; that he owns his own airplane; that he was shot in the head in Vietnam; that he used to jam with Elvis Presley. Who knows what might be true. At the very least, he may have been shot in the head. Whatever the case may be, I’m sure as shit that The Colonel never waited for someone to come sit beside him, or for someone to take him to where he wanted to go.

It’s time for me to move on, again. I may never again set foot in that café, may never see Robert gimping toward me with tobacco-stained fingers outstretched to grab my hand with a firm shake. Soon he’ll be just another ghost floating around whenever I dream of this perfect little town, of my breezy strolls on these perfect spring days. He’s sure to be there, every time. There on that filthy sofa in that cozy little café, in the smaller place before the move. He’ll be there next to that perfect thirty year old. That perfectly ripe banana. That rose in full bloom. Two men, side by side, and not a gray hair between them. One, not a thought in his head, just a bullet and a wad of chew. The other, his hands not on the wheel but instead, half-knowingly, around his own neck, keeping his voice down, as ever.

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And the winner is…

nmsu3

The City of the Crosses, a.k.a. Las Cruces, New Mexico! That’s right, my wife has officially accepted a tenure-track faculty position at New Mexico State University! At long last I can realize my dream of being a childless house-husband! Hallelujah, I knew this day would come!

I can’t even begin to express how excited we both are to be moving into this next phase of our lives. It’s been a tense week of negotiations and hashing out pros and cons, as my wife was also offered a job in beautiful Oregon. Of course, Las Cruces is pretty friggin’ gorgeous too, as you can see in the photos below, and NMSU’s job offer just didn’t have any cons. They’ll even let me take two courses per semester, for free, for life. Warm weather year round? Um.. yeah, I’ll take that.

Honestly, I can hardly wrap my head around the situation. I’ve been stuck in a holding pattern for the last two and a half years, hanging on and hoping my wife would be able to finish up her Ph.D. and then land a job in this tough economy. I’m really proud of everything she’s accomplished. She’s worked incredibly hard, nonstop, for the past seven and a half years, and the pressure to land a job this year has been pretty intense. We had just sat down not two weeks ago and had a big talk about how it looked like nothing was going to come through this year. I was dreading the thought of treading water for another year and we both agreed that I needed to move forward, quit my lame temp job, and do something big and bold, regardless of whether or not she could score a position at the eleventh hour. The next day she was offered the job at NMSU! When the folks in Portland found out about it, they made a counter offer a few days later. The days since then have been a wild roller coaster ride, and we’re finally able to catch our breath and enjoy the moment. We’re going to Las Cruces baby!

[Show as slideshow]
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Esperando el milagro: Belly of the beast

It’s been two weeks since my last communiqué. I’m in a much better spot now, literally (we’re finally in our new room) and emotionally. But it hasn’t been easy, and I’ve come close to melting down on more than one occasion. Over the years I’ve discovered that my sense of self is mostly a matter of smoke and mirrors, an illusion generated and held together by a customary pattern of daily routines and filtered perceptions. Being me is a bit like being a tornado or a whirlpool, in that the pattern can’t be disrupted too much without flirting with total disintegration. As soon as the wind stops twisting or the water stops whirling, there’s nothing left but wind and water, and after a month of being unable to establish any semblance of a daily routine, I often feel more like a loose collection of elements than a stable person.

I had every expectation that these first few weeks in Mexico would nudge me out of my comfort zone, but I underestimated the power of language and culture. You don’t know what keeps you together until you fall apart. Molly has been out doing research interviews most days, leaving me to fend for myself for long stretches. However difficult, for the most part I can deal with the language barrier, the oppressive heat, not being able to eat what I want, being stared and pointed at—the whole enchilada—, but only when I can secure a little privacy, a place to which I can retreat and lick my wounds. A few nights ago, before we moved into the new room, I felt so powerless and out-of-sorts that I pretended to be sick so that I could lie in bed all day and withdraw into my carapace. When people passed through periodically to use the bathroom, I’d just close my eyes and pretend to be sleeping. There I was, a grown man, playing a kind of reverse peek-a-boo in order to make everyone disappear.

My last morning in the old room, I pulled a suitcase away from the wall and discovered a tarantula damn near the size of my hand. In the room. Where we had been sleeping. Of course I freaked out and killed it, nearly destroying a broom in the process. It was an encore performance that everyone seemed to enjoy thoroughly. Even I was all smiles, tickled by the thought that I would likely never set foot in that room again. As much as I had been looking forward to getting out of that bug trap, I’m sure our hosts were looking forward to getting back into it. Although they never complained (as far as I knew), I’m sure the five of them couldn’t have been too comfortable crammed together in the kids’ room. Some perspective: This house is much better than the rotten-wood shack they were living in before Jesús scored a job in the U.S. a few years back. He risked life and limb to sneak into South Carolina, where he found work as a fry cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. He used his KFC bounty for the construction of the house as it stands today. So, despite the tarantulas and the mouse shit in the sink, and the unrelenting, oppressive heat and humidity, it could be worse. We have electricity and running water (most days, anyway)—luxuries not afforded to everyone in the pueblo.

The new room is huge, about as big as their entire house. It’s actually fairly comfortable (aside from the heat and humidity) now that we have doors and a functioning bathroom. There is still some work that needs to be done, but as it stands it’s a major upgrade from the tarantula nest. Of course, the place is all theirs once we return to the U.S. In essence, in paying for construction of the room, we doubled the size of their home, and each appliance or piece of furniture we buy increases their stock in the long run. We were fortunate to find a little dorm-size fridge in a nearby town the other day. Today, supposedly, it’s to be delivered. I can hardly wait. Having a fridge will be almost as big a step toward sanity as having our own room, because it will enable us to start keeping our own stash of food. I wish I could’ve convinced Molly to let me carry it home on the bus. How the delivery guy is going to find our house – there are no addresses or street names in this pueblo – I have no idea. No importa!

Food and shelter: the foundation upon which stable selves rest. Piece by piece, things are starting to come together, although the new room hasn’t afforded me as much privacy as I had hoped for. Privacy just doesn’t seem to be highly valued here. For now, there is only a thin curtain covering the doorway between our room and the main house. Juana has a disturbing tendency to stand right behind the curtain to keep tabs on Molly and me as we go about our daily business. When I pay her notice she giggles and runs off as if she was a child caught peeping. The actual children come in and out of our room about a hundred times a day. In addition to the doorway connecting us to the house, we have two actual doors—one on the front side and one on the back side of the room, both of which are kept open during the day to promote air circulation. Even the neighborhood kids often wander in uninvited, or else they come right up to the large window by our bed and stare in at us as if we were an attraction at a zoo or museum. Yesterday, Molly and I took a bus to the city to get some more money. We locked the two doors to the outside, as we always do when we leave the house. When we returned, the whole family was in our room painting the walls. They assumed we would be pleasantly surprised and, of course, we acted accordingly. My internal reaction, however, was: “What the fuck! Why are they in our goddamn room?!”

It’s clear that Molly is getting increasingly disgusted with my complaints, as I’m getting more and more frustrated by her unwillingness to exercise even a modicum of assertiveness in relation to our hosts. This is certainly not going to be an extended honeymoon. When the lights go out, the conditions are hardly ripe for reconciliation and reconnection, as we find ourselves squished together on a tiny bed with springs poking us, mosquitoes biting us, the warm air baking us, and the thin curtain exposing us. During the day I’m doing my best to stay out of her way and to be as self-sufficient as possible, but the results have been disappointing to us both. We’ve spent a mere two nights in the new room though, and with the fridge on its way there’s every reason to remain hopeful. We’re going to make it through this.

Don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t been all doom and gloom. In fact, I’ve spent most of my waking hours contentedly playing with the kids, especially the two boys. Molly and I have assigned Brady Bunch names to each member of the family, so that we can speak freely about them in English without perking their ears. The boys are Peter and Bobby. Their sister is Marsha, and their parents are, of course, Mike and Carol. Peter is 14, although he’s small and wiry enough to pass for 11. Bobby is 9, and both he and his brother have terrific senses of humor and they never tire of playing soccer in front of the house. I introduced them to the Hacky Sack and to the various ways my friends and I used to kick the thing around in the hallway of our high school. The boys and I can easily spend half the day playing soccer outside, then half the evening playing Hacky Sack in the house. The language of play and laughter is universal, and in that sense the lines of communication have been wide open. Marsha rarely plays with us, as she is usually helping her mother with chores. She is a very sweet, shy, 12 year old girl, and like her brothers she is always in good humor. I am a constant source of amusement for the three of them. Whenever I make a funny voice or show them some stupid trick I learned in kindergarten, they squeal with laughter and implore me to do it again and again. I must seem like a big, goofy, white-faced clown, like Ronald McDonald, sent here from America to make everyone fat with joy and goodwill. Not everyone is overjoyed, though. One of the neighborhood girls, an adorable little toddler, bursts into tears every time she lays eyes on me (much to everyone else’s amusement). She’s probably never seen a person with my features, so I may as well be a monster or circus freak.

It’s a strange sensation, I must admit, to stand out from the crowd, always feeling people’s eyes upon me. Back home I was more or less invisible—a kinda short, kinda average-looking white guy. Throw in the fact that I’ve always been an introvert, and I’ve effectively escaped notice my entire life. When I walk through the streets of the pueblo, however, all the heads turn my way. “What is he doing here?” is what I imagine most folks are thinking. I just keep smiling and saying “Buenos dias!” to everyone with whom I make eye contact. The adults seem wary, but most of the kids accept me immediately. Kids have appreciated me my whole life, probably because I’m playful and silly by nature. The kids here have already made a deep impression on me. They don’t seem troubled in the least by the limitations of life on the pueblo. Unlike children growing up in the U.S. these days, they roam the neighborhood and town streets without the overshadowing of hovering parents. Although their future prospects are undoubtedly limited by the harsh realities of poverty, they seem far more joyful and satisfied with what they have compared to their spoiled American counterparts.

*

The ceiling in the new room is made of two big sheets of corrugated metal held up in the center by a huge concrete beam. Lying on my back, I imagine a giant spine and rib cage, making the room the belly of a mammoth beast. I will stew here in this creature’s guts for hours and days if need be, however long it takes for the refrigerator delivery man to find “the house across from the little green store, down the dirt road about a mile from town.”

*

A moment ago a little developmentally-disabled boy called “Pollo” (which means “chicken” and is pronounced “Po-yo”) strolled into my room, smiled from ear to ear, and enthusiastically told me something that to my ears sounded like a seal barking. Pollo does this several times a day, and each time I respond with my biggest smile and an animated flurry of English that makes him laugh and bounce up and down gleefully. Then I spin him around, walk him out the door and say “Hasta luego, amigo!” Pollo is the only person around here I understand completely, and he may be the only one who truly understands me. And so I always pick him to be on my team when we play soccer with the boys. Yesterday I passed the ball to him when he was wide open and in position to easily score the game-winning goal. But instead of tapping the ball into the unguarded goal, he became so excited that he picked up the ball with his hands, started screaming “Goal!”, and jumped up and down like a jackhammer. Then he took off running toward his house—ball in hand—to proudly tell his Mom about his big moment! Peter, Bobby and I collapsed to the ground in tears we were laughing so hard. When Pollo returned, we patted him on the back and congratulated him as if he had just won the World Cup Final for Mexico.

It’s touching to see the neighborhood children go out of their way to include Pollo in all their activities, despite how truly annoying he can be. He may be different, but he belongs. As for me, I’m not sure where I belong. I just keep staring at the ceiling wondering when I’m going to feel like myself again, wondering when that fucking refrigerator is going to get here, and wondering how to say “swallowed up” in Spanish.

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Living questions

[Reverb 11 prompt for February]: One month into 2011, what question(s) are you living? Are there any prompts/questions that arose during #reverb10 that are still resonating in your life? Are you living new questions?

I participated whole-heartedly in Reverb 10, inspired in good measure by the sense of community. I also had time to spare in December, and if not for the holiday fever that swept through my office and the big chunks of downtime it afforded me, I likely would have limited most prompt responses to 140 characters or less. My creative output has fallen off a cliff so far in 2011, but I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it right now.

One of my themes for Reverb 10 was this perpetual struggle to manage multiple intentions given immovable time constraints. I talked about the seventeen things I’m forever juggling and the frustration of having to allow fourteen of them to hit the floor at any given time. While my schedule has been more or less the same for the past two years, my level of creative inspiration has been highly variable. When I’m inspired and on fire about life, I bring high-quality attention to everything I do, and so I take full advantage of whatever free time comes my way. But when I’m feeling tapped out, my attention is scattered, my focus fuzzy, and I can’t manage much more than mindless chores or grunt work.

To some extent, I’ve gotten better at accepting this ebb and flow, and I try to take advantage of the times when my inner flame is dim by narrowing my limited focus to projects that don’t require much inspiration. For instance, I have this box of seventy-two song idea tapes that has to be digitized, and I’ve made more progress in the past three weeks than I did in the previous three years. I’ve also been exercising regularly and keeping up with my Spanish self-study course. But still, I just don’t feel right when I go too long without dipping into the creative stream. I’ve recorded only one song so far in 2011, and published a mere five blog posts. In truth, this is about par for the course, but coming on the heels of December it feels like a big let-down.

Expectations can be a killer. Aside from the soul-sapping inherent in spending eight hours a day attending to mind-numbing administrative tasks, I had the wind sucked from my sails last week when my wife found out that series of hiring freezes at state universities had all but ended her bid to land a job this year. The main reason I’ve been treading water at this office gig for so long is that I’ve been waiting for my wife’s professional situation to play out. All these years of living in separate locations, of me putting my future career plans on hold, of us feeling perpetually unsettled–all this tension promised to be released this month after a couple of super-encouraging job interviews (at one university my wife was tipped off by multiple sources that she was far and away the preferred candidate). When my wife called me at work at an unusual hour last week, I was certain it was good news about this position. In the two seconds that elapsed between the ring of the phone and my wife’s first words, I imagined myself quitting my job, doing my happy dance up and down the hallway, giving my landlord notice we were moving, visiting the campus, finding our dream house, standing once again before the Pacific Ocean. But the tone of my wife’s “Hi” erased all that in a heartbeat. Although there is still a slim chance things will work out, the news of the hiring freeze left me feeling defeated and discouraged. I’ve used several metaphors to describe how I’ve been feeling: Like a marathon runner who thought the finish line was right around the corner, only to suddenly realize there’s actually ten more miles to go; like a prisoner who’s been unexpectedly denied parole; like a person stranded on an island whose heart lifts at the sight of a passing ship, then sinks when he realizes he has not been seen.

Such is life, I know. It’s always been a series of ups, downs and in-betweens, and it always will be. I’m sure it’ll all be okay in the end, although I’m not so sure I know what that really means.

And so my flame has been flickering, and it’s all I can do lately to keep it shielded from the wind and rain. Today, though, the sun is shining and the birds and squirrels seem to think it’s a fine, fine day. Setting aside the expectations and the regrets, I can’t help but think they’re right.

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Breakthrough (Take two)

I tried a little something different with this tune, i.e. laying down some bass, electric guitar and drum tracks first, then doing the acoustic guitar and vocals live over those pre-existing tracks. The synching of the video and audio is slightly off, but what can you do…

I actually recorded a version of this song a few years ago. As I blogged at the time, I had just flown to New Jersey from Mexico to have knee surgery, and I didn’t have access to a guitar. So I wrote and recorded this tune using a keyboard and the GarageBand software on my laptop. This is one of those tunes that just came to me fully formed from out of the blue. I took the photo above moments after that first recording, holding my crutches out in front of me like the prison bars they had become. Having been through four knee injuries and three surgeries, I’m hoping those fuckers don’t come out of the closet again any time soon. Anyway, as with all my creative projects, this song continues to morph as the years unfold. Perhaps next time I’ll just whistle over a beat box…

Breakthrough
I woke to the birds and the best of intentions.
I tried every way I knew to express them.
I get on the train and it’s taking me somewhere
Away from myself…
Away from this cell.

But I can’t get away from you.
I lock all the doors but you still break through.

Where did the time go? How did I get home?
When did I get old? Show me the slideshow.
Somebody told me: “It’s all as it should be.”
So I’ll keep on hiding, just so you can find me.

But I can’t get away from you.
I lock every door but you still break through.

Here’s the “album version” (i.e. mixed and trimmed), with an intro from the ghost of Alan Watts:

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Esperando el milagro: New tables

Something terrible has happened. Everything’s hazy and confused, and I feel as if I’ve gotten lost in a daydream and can’t find the portal home. I’m having trouble remembering things, important things, like my name, how I got here, and how to turn thoughts into speech. I don’t even know where “here” is, although it’s clear enough I’m in some sort of prison or detention facility. I can’t say precisely how long I’ve been lost, only that while the fog of terror and confusion has yet to fully lift, I seem to be coming to my senses a bit, at least enough to get a tenuous grasp on my situation.

Here’s what I’m most sure about: 1) I’m in prison. 2) I’ve sustained some kind of head injury, which has affected my memory and ability to speak.

The rest is groundless conjecture, but it’s the best I can do. I think I’m in Mexico or somewhere in Latin America, based on the appearance and language preference of the prison guard. I assume he’s a prison guard anyway, though he’s unarmed and dresses in street clothes. When he first came with the food tray, I frantically tried to communicate with him, an experience that left me terror-stricken when I realized I couldn’t utter a sound. Not Spanish, not English, not even a peep. Permanent brain damage? A lobotomy? These are the things that ran through my mind. Through panicky gesticulations I tried to get across that I needed something to write with. El Diablo, as I like to call him, just stared at me blankly and headed back down the hall. I grabbed the spork from the food tray and began feverishly scratching notes onto the wall. I thought of the movie Memento—where the main character writes everything down, even gets tattoos, to make up for his memory disorder—and with this in mind I carved the outline of my known universe into the brittle, cement block wall.

Just as the panic started to ease to a tolerable level, the most terrifying thought flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning: My wife! Where is my wife! El Diablo must’ve heard the thunder crack, or else the scratching and scraping on the wall, as he suddenly appeared again outside the cell. I’m sure I looked like a madman standing there by the wall with the spork in my hand and a look of sheer horror etched into my face. For whatever reason though, he didn’t seem to be concerned. I even think he may have cracked a smile for a nanosecond or two. Then he spoke to me, for the first time (that I can remember). “Neuva mesas.” That was it. He motioned for the food tray, upon which I dropped the spork. I pushed it back under the bars with my foot, and stood there frozen as he bent to pick it up and then shuffled back down the hallway.

He returned again a few minutes later with a roll of toilet paper and a pen. These he pushed through the bars to me, at eye level, apparently unconcerned that I might snatch the pen from him and drive it into his neck, another lightning strike that flashed through my mind. In fact, his eyes seemed to soften a bit, as if he were taking pity on me, throwing me a bone as it were. For all I know, this man may have beaten me to within an inch of my life not too long ago, although his knuckles weren’t swollen, nor were his shoes caked with chunks of my scalp.

As I stared deadpan at the wall, a strange thought occurred to me. I was actually disappointed that I wouldn’t be completely covering every square inch of the cell with spork etchings. Thought it would make a great movie scene: the camera panning across the walls, then the floor, then the ceiling, until at last fixing its gaze on the dramatic, shocking, mind-bending final words. If only all this was a movie, then it would be just a matter of time before the credits would start to roll, the lights would come on, and I could head for the exit sign.

As it stands, if there is a you reading these words, then you will have found them on paper meant for wiping ass, under a prison bed in a town somewhere just south of nowhere. I need to believe that you exist, or at least will exist at some point. It’s more than just holding fast to hope of rescue. I also don’t want to accept that I might be talking to myself, because talking to oneself is a telltale sign of insanity. And just between you and me, I am very afraid that maybe I’m going insane, that maybe that’s where I am.

Yet, things seem to be getting clearer, and so I can write all this down today, which I would guess is approximately five or six days since I started to come-to. My day-to-day memory has returned, although I still can remember nothing of the surrounding events leading up to my incarceration. And I still cannot utter so much as a peep. Soon after grabbing hold of the pen and toilet paper I frantically wrote down everything, explaining about the busted brain, the not knowing what I did to get here, the existence of and concern about my wife, etc. I also wrote a letter to my wife and one to the as yet anonymous speaker of English I hope will soon be my savior.

El Diablo accepted the bundle and walked it down the long hallway to my left and out of view. I’m still waiting for a response. Like an automaton, he pushes the food tray through and retrieves it a while later. When I “ask” him about the letter situation, by miming and nodding expectedly, he just flashes me his patented blank stare, or else returns in a few minutes with more toilet paper. That’s why I call him El Diablo.

Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe he isn’t a bad sort. Maybe he isn’t the one who’s responsible for this giant scab on the back of my head, or the numerous scabs and bruises adorning the rest of my body. He did provide me with writing supplies, after all, and not once have I found a gob of spit floating in my gruel. But he is my jailer nonetheless, and just as I need an imaginary reader, I also need someone upon whom to vent my frustration. I need something to be against in order to feel here at all.

My best guess is that neuva means “new” and mesas means “tables,” but I’m not holding my breath waiting for new furniture to arrive.

Sometimes it’s best not to guess. Sometimes we just have to leave a problem blank and move on to the next one.

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HTG 3.0

In November of 2007 I completely revamped this website, launching what I then called HTG 2.0. At that point I had been goofing around online for a couple of years, in fits and spurts, without any focus or clue as to what the hell I was doing. The revamp was just the little project I needed to keep occupied while I was laid up recovering from knee surgery. What a glorious mess I constructed! It contained about a dozen different tabs across the top, each page branching out into several other sub-pages, each with its own customized side bar full of widgets. Everything you see on the site now existed then in some form, in addition to everything that exists now on my other website, plus a bunch of other random pages. And all for my own amusement! Judging from the frequency of comments, hardly anyone paid me the slightest bit of attention. (Apparently, one can check “stats” to find out about such things, but I haven’t yet been curious enough to look into that.) I’ll tell you what though–even though I was talking to myself, I was pretty excited about HTG 2.0 because, as I said at the time, “All this is really just a way to light a fire under my ass.” And it worked. For a while anyway. My blogging output has tended to wax and wane in the last few years, depending on the demands of my job. I participated in Reverb 10 last month as a way to light that fire again, and in these first two weeks of twenty-eleven I’ve spent what free time I could steal tweaking both my websites in preparation for the next great period of prodigious creative output. And…. GO! And it starts….. NOW!

*eep*

Okay, so the changes to the sites are modest, but I did manage to break ground on my “writing project in gestation.” The working title is Esperando el milagro, so whenever you see those words in the post title, you’ll know it’s about to get weird. It’s going to be what it’s going to be, but I don’t intend to write a book in the traditional sense. Henry Miller taught me most of what I know about writing, mostly because he happens to be one of the few authors I’ve read extensively. I like the way his style is described on his Wikipedia page: “a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.” That sounds pretty close to what I’m envisioning for my project, except I don’t like the term “fictional,” because it carries with it connotations like “not true,” “not real,” and “didn’t actually happen.” As far as I’m concerned, what happens in the imagination can be just as important as (and often far more interesting than) what “actually” happens in terms of observable behavior. Who wants to watch surveillance videos or read courtroom transcriptions? Real life has both an inside and an outside, and the dividing line is not as clear as one might think.

Whatever the project turns out to be, like my music it’s not likely to ever leave this blog, but that doesn’t make it any less than what it could be. I’m reminded of a blog post by Patrick Rhone that I read just before Reverb 10 kicked off. In fact, it was R10 founder Gwen Bell who linked to it on her twitter feed. Here’s what Patrick has to say to us bloggers:

You are writers.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the title “blogger”. I think this term cuts wrong in several directions.

First, I think it reduces the respect and credibility of those who write and publish online. Especially those who perform this craft well and are deserving of the same recognition and respect society has long bestowed upon writers in other mediums. In fact, take any of your best journalists, authors, etc. and I could show you an equal number of “bloggers” that write just as well if not better.

Secondly, I think it helps to absolve many of becoming better at a craft that they choose to participate in by giving it a label that divorces it from the very thing it is. Writing, editing, publishing – These things that have been happening for thousands of years. The methods and medium may be different but the craft is exactly the same. It does not need a new noun. The fact that technology has progressed to the point where we can do it ourselves does not make the means of the labor different. What technology has done is allow anyone who wishes to write and publish the ability to do so no matter if they have the talent to write or not.

As with any art, part is talent but I would argue that an even larger part is also learning how to write. Once learned, practice (lots and lots of it) is what will help you eventually find, what we writers like to call, your “voice”. That little something in your writing that is uniquely you. Once you find that (and only when you find it), you will be able to cast off any other term that the collective may chose to bestow upon you. You are a writer.

That’s the spirit! At least that’s the spirit I’m taking with me into the next phase of my creative life. HTG 3.0 baby! It’s no longer about becoming this, that, or the other thing–a writer, a musician, a creative person. Duh, I’ve been doings these things all along!

This is it.

*eep*

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Esperando el milagro: No importa

[A writing project in gestation…]

My name is Hal, but there’s a lot more to the story. There’s always more to the story. My mother was in labor for a long time before setting me loose upon the world. She was so relieved that I finally came out, she yelled “Hallelujah!” at the top of her lungs. My parents were all set to name me Robert, after the late Robert Kennedy, whom they greatly admired. But my Dad thought it would be funny to tell everyone my name was “Hal, short for Hallelujah” and somehow that’s what ended up on my birth certificate. I guess the joke wore thin after a while, because I grew up as Bobby. At the age of twelve I shortened it to Bob, and it’s only today, at the age of 36, that I’m trying Hal on for size. Something in the scroll—a surprising little synchronicity that I’ll delve into once I finish the transcription—has inspired me to make the change. I’m hoping that by the end of these nine months I’ll have the guts to go all the way, to become who I’ve always been. Hallelujah!

Keep in mind that as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m still Bob. Like every guy on every radio commercial. Like the guy on TV with the perma-smile who just had his maleness enhanced. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of many Bobs I truly admire. Dylan? Marley? I hear DeNiro’s friends call him Bob, but on the big screen he sticks with Robert. Here in the pueblo they call me “Bob Esponja,” in reference to the Sponge Bob cartoon, which mesmerizes kids here just like it does back home. My wife had visited the pueblo a few times prior to this extended period of fieldwork, so everyone knew my name long before my arrival. Had she told them my name was Hal, perhaps my nickname would be Jalapeño by now. As it stands, Hal’s public debut will have to wait for the next fresh start, the next incarnation. There’s always next time.

If all this seems a little willy-nilly, you have to understand I’m not sitting in a coffee shop in Cancún, sipping a latte and tapping this shit out on my laptop over free wi-fi. Whatever I write is scratched out feverishly while I have a moment of privacy, because there’s no telling when I might enjoy another one. Opportunities to then transcribe stuff onto my wife’s computer are few and far between, as she is muy ocupada (very busy) with her research. Access to the internet is anything but easy. The memory stick must be brought to town, to the one home/business (usually closed) with a dial-up connection, or to a town much further away. Given these hurdles, it’s hard to see the wisdom in documenting this adventure via a blog. I could keep this all to myself I suppose, locked away in my private journal. But talking to myself doesn’t inspire me to dig deep or to take risks. Journaling for me is like masturbation. The scripts are safe and familiar, but there’s no real contact, nothing really at stake. There’s also no romance, no passion, no communion, for nothing is truly given or received. I want to write as if my words might actually touch someone emotionally, as if someone might actually hear my voice in their head or see me in their mind’s eye. I want at least the possibility of human connection, so that I’ll be sure to give my best, to attend with the utmost care. I am like the protagonist in the scroll story (as you will soon see, I swear!) in that I need to imagine a dear reader in order to carry on. He needed one to stay sane. I need one, you, to get the creative current flowing, to complete the circuit as it were.

Hopefully the meaning of all this will become clearer, to you and me, as things unfold and I get more accustomed to life here in the pueblo. As I mentioned, for the time being I have very little privacy, as the room we expected to move into upon our arrival is not yet fully constructed (despite prior assurances to the contrary). Until the doors and windows are put in, we will continue to stay in the main part of the house with our host family. The room we’re in now is not quite like the honeymoon suite in Key West we stayed in a few months ago. Think back to the public restroom at the last campsite you visited. The one made entirely of untreated cement. Walls crumbling. Floor always dirty. And the bugs… And the unrelenting humidity… This is, for now, home.

This morning has brought only minor nuisances so far. I was dive-bombed by a flying cockroach while sitting on the toilet, but he met his fate on the bottom of my flip-flop, so all is well, for now. Yesterday was rough, though. I woke to news that one of the family dogs was dead. I understood only “perro” (dog) and “muerte” (dead). Later, Molly translated: One of the neighbors, an older woman who apparently is not fond of dogs, allegedly fed several of the local mutts some poison-laced table scraps. In one sense, it seems to me it was a mercy killing, as the dogs here are mangy, underfed if not starving, and they prowl the streets looking like dog-zombies. On the other hand, I find the matter-of-factness of it all to be a little unsettling. In the States, cruelty to animals—a la Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring—is criminal conduct met with public outrage, but here in the pueblo a mass execution of dogs by a neighbor is “No importa” (no big deal).

Later on, after lunch, we all noticed a creature of unknown stripe scampering atop the wall. Straining to follow the ensuing conversation, I heard the word. It needed no translation. La rata. Molly and I, of course, were the only ones concerned. So it is with many things. Take the bathroom, for instance. There’s no mirror (I haven’t figured out how to shave yet). The floor is always a lake of mud. Bugs crawl and swoop at you constantly. Your towel never gets dry. You never get dry. At home, my bedtime routine is a chance to unwind, to be lulled into a nice pre-slumberous daze. Here, I get ramped up into a state of hyper-vigilance, like I’m getting ready for battle. Last night I laid awake for hours, waiting for la rata to come, waiting for the snoring to subside, waiting for the dogs (the ones still living) to stop howling. Waiting for my skin to thicken.

But I’m already adapting. Take nothing for granted mi amigo, and rely not on what you know. Habits must be deconstructed and formed anew. I’ve learned: Don’t look at the walls. If you do, you’ll see the lizards, the cockroaches, perhaps even la rata. So forget about reading or writing once the sun goes down. The price of turning the light bulb on—the attraction and/or revelation of several species—is too much to pay. Also, you’ll be well served by falling asleep as quickly as possible, as your hearing can be a liability as well. Last night, I heard too much. We were not alone in our dark, dank, windowless room. Before turning in for the night I pulled the bed frame about six inches from the wall, to provide a little buffer zone between human and non-human life forms. Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, I covered myself completely with the sheet so my face was the only thing exposed and vulnerable to attack. Just as I was about to fall asleep—you guessed it—something set up camp on my face. It turned out to be a praying mantis (mantis religioso). If it was praying to be frantically pummeled with a flip-flop, then it received a prompt answer from above. The whole family—all five of them piled onto two pushed-together beds in the next room—thought it hilarious I was so rattled by such a thing. Cockroaches, rats, lizards, scorpions—to them they’re all no importa. And here I am finding it almost unbearable that a thin curtain is all that separates me from the humans in the next room.

Juana, the mother of the family we’re staying with, has been ill. The bathroom is attached to the room Molly and I are staying in, so everyone must pass through in order to use it. This, in and of itself, has its obvious disadvantages. A few minutes ago Juana passed through to vomit in the toilet. Again. Yet, Juana continues to prepare the food for everyone. No importa! Last night they served us tamales that I had to choke down. The meat was gamey and every bite was full of tiny bones. I silently wondered if it was la rata, chopped up and fried, fur and all. I politely declined seconds and went to bed hungry.

Then there’s the water. Everybody knows you can’t drink the water in Mexico. This is trickier than it sounds. Rinse your toothbrush off in the sink just once, for old time’s sake, and you could pay a steep price. You have to rinse everything with bottled water, so your mouth never quite feels clean and your toothbrush never gets rinsed well. Yes, old habits can be hard to break. For instance, you can’t put any paper in the toilet, or else you’ll clog the works. So, everything goes in the trash basket next to the john, no matter how nasty. I find myself washing my hands constantly, although I keep thinking to myself, “If this water is poisonous, won’t it get in through my pores, or though my eyes or mouth when I shower?” In Mexico City, I heard someone refer to the toxic agent as “the amoeba.” Now, I imagine it everywhere, clinging to every glass, swimming on every surface.

Yep, I’m adapting every day, and my priorities are shifting. At this point—just a couple of weeks into the adventure—the main thing is to live. As in survive. As in not die. Privacy, writing, playing my guitar, mind-blowing personal transformation—for now, these things are no importa, gravy to be enjoyed later on, once we move into the new room. Yes, once we get into that room, things will start cookin’. Until then, there are bugs and old habits to kill, a language to learn, skin to thicken. And don’t worry, I won’t forget about the toilet paper. If there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s to never forget about the toilet paper.