Bountiful Gardens

Weekends make it hard to write. The thoughts still swirl around my head, but Sue's not working and we get caught up in weekend chores and events, and just reveling in the time we can spend together. She's my best friend, pure and simple, and I love that I can write those words. Just like I always sign my email to her or to Allison and Kathryn with the word, love, because for me, it's such a gift that I have people who I deeply love and can say that.

Maybe that's what's on my mind this weekend. Gifts, and things that we should be thankful for.

Tomatoes from our garden becoming pasta sauce. 

Kathryn and I were talking about food and cooking yesterday. I was making sauce from the tons of tomatoes our garden has been yielding this summer. Enough for big batches of sauce, while at the same time we can give some more away. Amazing what the earth will give you. But at the same time I thought what a privilege it is that we can talk about food in the way we do, what we like, how we like to cook it, and the intricacies of cooking and eating. Like Eskimos have all those names for snow, which I don't know if that's true or not, but it's like that. That is the privilege of a privileged society, and while I don't have any money, I do have that in my life. I have food and plenty of it; so much of it, in fact, that it is no longer simply sustenance, but it's some higher thing. I was telling Kathryn about a professor I had at Ohio University. The university, when I was there, had a program where the students could vote for their favorite professor, and that professor could teach a course in whatever they wanted. David Hostetler, who probably has no idea the impact he had on me or my growth, taught a course called, Art And Your Life. All it was about was making art everyday in your life. We studied motorcycle gas tanks and bread, and he said that in everything we do we should think about elevating it to art. Yes, if you think I'm crazy, you have David to thank for it. I mentioned how much I love grocery shopping, and that when I do, I consider every food item closely (another extraordinary privilege that we should all be aware of) to the point where I will pick up an onion, look at it, and think, this is going inside Sue or Kathryn, and does it measure up. Trust me, when you view ingredients in this way, you will look at them differently.

I wasn't around much when Kathryn and Allison were little. Their mother and I divorced when they were little, and I wasn't around to pass down things like the wisdom of David Hostetler to them. That happens to a lot of men in our society. Now, when I can sit with Kathryn and talk, talk about making everything in the world a work of art, or talk about our individual paths, comparing and contrasting them, she being gracious and listening to and taking in what I pass along as wisdom, is another great gift in my life. It's a second chance and while I don't have the memories of a traditional family life with them, I have this life with them now, and to me it is as bountiful as any garden.

Count your blessings if you're employed and stop your complaining

About four hours ago this status line appeared on my Facebook wall:

Wishes it was 5:00


This is from a person who is working. Working at a very good job, I might add.

Well, I'll trade places with you.

I don't mean to be mean. Just ironic.

I'm at least familiar with this person (because I do have "friends" on Facebook who I have no idea who they are), and I know this particular person didn't mean any harm. I also know that there are people working who are probably suffering, doing work that is so stressful that it might end of killing them--very literally. Actually, this particular person just may be a good example of that.

It's just that, sometimes it seems that we can only get perspective on things after we lose it. Like a job. We bitch and moan and complain about our jobs, our bosses, the loudmouth in the next cube who can't talk quietly on the phone. But you take all that away and you suddenly get a good idea of what you've lost.

Kids are like that. I used to wake up almost every day to a woman screaming at her kids. Get up. Pick this up. I'm not telling you again. That kind of stuff. This family was wealthy and frankly I couldn't figure out what the woman had to complain about; she had everything any human being could ever want. And there I was, lying in my bed, my kids living in the next town and I was seeing them maybe a day or two a week, if that much, and I thought to myself, you don't know how lucky you are. Yeah, kids can drive you crazy, but you know, maybe it's only when you don't have them in your life anymore, through divorce, like it was for me, or even you almost lose them through sickness, that you really get a good idea how much of a treasure they are.

So, tonight, if you got a job, get down on your knees and thank the good Lord. And if your kids are in the next room sleeping, go in and kiss them on the head. Like I've said before, the warmth that comes off a sleeping child's head could raise a dead man.

Something good and joyous happened this week

I got two pieces of good news in the past two days that just made my heart sing. They had nothing to do with "career" or employment or anything remotely resembling anything stable or legit and everything to do with living and loving life.

And that they both came from my two daughters, put me in heaven.

Yesterday I wrote my youngest a message on Facebook wondering if for some crazy reason she had Monday off. High school kids nowadays have so many days off, odds were in my favor that she might. And if she didn't, I wondered if maybe we couldn't do a snow dance to work up a snow day.

The reason was, on Sunday night, Sarah Lee Guthrie, granddaughter of Woody and youngest of Arlo, will be playing at Club Passim, and I thought it would be good for her to see Guthrie play. And it wasn't because she wanted to get out of school that Kathryn said she'd like to go. She's a smart, curious kid whose sole reason on earth seems to be to enjoy life. A night out in Cambridge, even with her old man, who I think she still gets quite a kick out of, was simply the better educational choice than high school...well, high school anything, really.

One of many pieces of guilt I constantly carry around with me for leaving the kids' mom the way I did was that it drove a huge wedge between me and my kids. Allison has said a few times now that one of the things that she missed about not having me around was how I always played music--all kinds of music from rock to show tunes to concert. Music is, I think, one of the most important gifts we have on the planet. We don't fully understand how it affects us. (I just heard the other day that some people see colors when they listen to music; how cool is that?) But kids need to be taught it. Otherwise, they're just subject to the whims and pressures of the culture, or what passes of culture. I hate that I wasn't more of an influence to them. And maybe that's why I'm so stoked about Kathryn wanting to see Guthrie. Maybe something of me really did rub off.

I never wanted my kids to grow up straight-laced. I didn't want them wild, either. I wanted them to grow up, experience life, make mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and keep growing and enjoying life. I wanted them to grow up, mature, and be able to stand up for themselves in this life. Make choices and responsible decisions like Kathryn did. I told them both, we all know where drinking and drugs will take us. Go out and make new mistakes. Probably not the most mature and maybe not the most responsible advice for a parent to give, but I think you, and they, got the point.

Then today I was IMing with Allison, who just arrived in Venice. She and some friends have a break from school in Granada and are just sort of bumming around northern Italy. I did something like that when I was about 17, just working for awhile and saving my money and then backpacking through Europe and part of Turkey for three months. And to this day I remember the freedom and the joy of learning and meeting new people and seeing and experiencing new sights. Life should always be that way. And I read Allison's messaging, saying she wants a life on the road (are you reading this Sue?) and me telling her I always did want to travel and she said I should and I said maybe I will. Both my kid tell me I should go back to photography.

My little girl has grown up into a traveler, something to my way of thinking couldn't be more noble. A traveler. Not a tourist, but a traveler, someone who loves the freedom of moving about on this earth and being a citizen of the earth, not some member of some arbitrary geopolitical nonsense.

I think on Monday I wrote on my Twitter status line that I wondered what the week would bring. This week had its moments. So you just ride it all out, and if you find yourself going through hell just keep moving and the devil might not even notice you're there (yes, that's a line from a country song.) And then when something good and joyful comes along, you just grab it and let it take you soaring in the clouds.

The mended vase

I think when people say that a broken heart or a broken family can be mended and healed, there should be a caveat added. It's as if you've been in a serious auto accident, and the doctors piece you together. Perhaps all the outward appearances are back in place--sort of. You'll again walk or run or even play the piano, but not like before.

It's much like piecing together a rare and beautiful vase. All the pieces may be glued back together again, and it retains its former shape. But there will be noticeable, ugly cracks. And although it may again hold water, it won't be as much as before and it will leak.

This is always driven home to me in the most unexpected times, although by now I should be used to it. I guess that just points to a blind spot I have, something that we all have. Blind spots are, as much as anything, there for protection. We just don't want to look there. The view hurts. But sometimes life just grabs us with both hands and twists our heads around and holds us there, forcing us to look with eyes wide open. It's for our own good, as much as anything.

My oldest daughter, Allison, just left to study in Spain for five months, and I'm so happy and excited for her. Travel, for me, is the ultimate experience and education. I was a bit younger than her when I hefted a backpack and started my wanderings. But it also means that the little bit of time that I ever saw her will be reduced to zero. Sure, there's email and Skype, but now there's 3,000 miles of ocean that is added to the gulf between us and, particularly with a the job loss, while there now is time to travel, there isn't money for a plane ticket to Spain.

She was 12 years old when I left her mother for another woman. As much as anything, it was imminently clear that Al didn't see it as me leaving her mother, as me leaving her. We were buddies, having music and camping and our own quirky personalities in common. A few months ago, when she told me she was going to Spain and start her wandering, she told me she remembered being on the beach as a family, and me always taking her hand in mine and saying, "C'mon, let's take a walk and see what's around that bend." We're both explorers, seekers (it's inked into my shoulder now), always wondering what's around that bend, and she got that from me.

And to this day, while she says she's over it and she's forgiven me, she still at times harbors anger towards me. Of course she does. I don't blame her. And I try as best as I can to let her vent that anger. After all, it's not just my duty, but my responsibility as a human being and my love for her that induces me to do it. In our society, we can't direct our anger at the source. People who deserved to be beaten with a two by four, myself included, are let off scott-free, while the injured party is left to suffer and keep it inside, where it just eats away at us. In lieu of the guilty party being punished, we've turned the healing process into redirecting the anger.

And Allison, like so many other people I've talked to whose parents divorced, is adamantly driven to make a family work and, if it's in her future, a marriage work. Because the truth of the matter is this: In a divorce, the only ones who make out are the lawyers, and the ones who take the brunt are the kids.

A day doesn't go by that I don't think of what I've done to my children. Unhappy in a marriage, and afterwards I learned, depressed, I met a woman in community theater, of all places, who I thought loved me and wanted to be with me. At least that's what she said in person and in single-spaced 12-page letters and God knows how many emails and phone calls. And after almost a year of a lot of soul-searching, I left my family, knowing I was tearing apart my life and those around me but stupidly thinking I could rebuild a better one for me and my kids.

Well, if someone told me this story today I'd knowingly nod my head, realizing full well what was coming. As soon as I left my family, the passion was over--for her. Yes, there are women in this world who are simply home wreckers. Who thrive on the chase and when they get what they want have no compunction about just shucking things and moving on with their lives. Needless to say, I've never felt so stupid and duped and angry and miserable in my entire life.

Me: You said you loved me.
Her: Well, I meant it when I said it.

Good God. In my defense, and I know it's thin, I honestly thought I was doing right. I remember from my days as a Catholic that the Church teaches that you can break the Commandments if you truly believe deep in your heart that you are doing right. Baxter, intellectual Catholic that he is, has even told me the name for that position, though I can't remember it now.

And so, when I sit in Logan across from daughter, who's laughing and so excited to be embarking on a new phase in her life, I'm so sad because due to my undoing and stupidity, I never got to see how she grew into this wonderful human being. As the kids' mother tells me, though, I should look at things on the continuum. Things are better today than they were even a year ago. Things get better. You can't put things back together the way they were, but you can make something different.

And every day is new, something I've learned. I have Sue, who truly does love me for who I am, who didn't selfishly and irresponsibly try me on like a coat in Filene's Basement, look in the mirror, and shuck me on the floor. She does want to make a life with me, a life of traveling and sometimes just sitting together on a summer's evening on the front porch, both of us lost in our own thoughts but still connected by a touch on the hand, or a simple smile, a beautiful smile. She says she loves me today and will mean it tomorrow. Both kids like her, and see that I'm happy, and I somehow suspect that there is a rueful acceptance of that. They wish the the hurt and fractures weren't there, but they can see some good came out of it all. And maybe that the vase is mended.

My Old Friend the Blues

It's funny how my brain works. For almost my entire life, I viewed myself as a writer, hands downs. And I still do. Writing's still at the base, the very bottom block that if it were kicked out I'd topple.

But music is more and more becoming a dominate force, and now I have playlists in my brain that seem to accurately reflect how I'm feeling. That's where the lyrics and vids on this blog come from. They're a really accurate barometer for how I'm doing (if anyone really cares.)

So,it was no surprise that halfway through my sleep and when I woke this morning I had Steve Earle singing My Old Friend the Blues in my head. A conversation with the ex can do that. The sudden reminder that I felt like this a lot of the time, and while it's gone away it's still pretty familiar.

And I gotta throw in here, my ex isn't a bad person. She isn't. We're just really different. Opposites attract, most definitely. But there has to be some sort of commonality to keep you together, and it was just years and years of tugging against each other. It can wear on you. Wear on you to the point that today I have a headache grinding away the back of my head and my shoulders hurt like they always used to.

I think we were just too young to get married. I think most people are, to tell the truth.

But now we have separate lives and our lives are so different. Just different values and goals and dreams. And, just like in the marriage, she wants me to live her life, live by her rules, do things her way (at least that's my perception) and that's where the grind comes from.

It's hard to change. It's hard to accept change, even for someone like me who most people will say have changed the most, though I'd say I'm just me, this is the me that's always been there, lying under the surface, just sort of sleeping.



Anyway, Sue and I just look at each other and say we're going to keep our eye on the life we want, live it the way we want, knowing that it's not bad, it's good, good for everyone in the long run, and we don't hurt anyone.

Just when every ray of hope was gone
I should have known that you would come along
I can't believe I ever doubted you
My old friend the blues

Another lonely night, a nameless town
If sleep don't take me first, you'll come around
'Cause I know I can always count on you
My old friend the blues

Lovers leave and friends will let you down
But you're the only sure thing that I've found
No matter what I do I'll never lose
My old friend the blues

Just let me hide my weary heart in you
My old friend the blues