Faultlines and Bloodlines

Some days I am certain I sense my mother's essence, shrouded in the tiny steam cloud dancing above a bowl of miso soup.

Or isn't that the offbeat rhythm of her shuffling house shoes I hear echoed in the strokes of my bamboo tea whisk?

All of the ardent efforts of my generation's attempt to be spiritual not religious can not erase the image of a group of altar guild ladies silently arranging calla lilies and irises, privilege pausing to bow down in awe at the beauty and power of nature -- too transient for them to ever tame and emboss but within their capacity to appreciate yet never fully comprehend.

At every turn there is a new book or other product preaching about the futility of material things and selling a plan that will ensure that you will live in the Now not the past. The past is too brilliant of a dancer to fall for such bunk. Bloodlines of the past hold up a mirror that dares me to look at my own future or at least come to terms with those who have already lived it. Reconcile or forever be locked in this dance.

Silences, especially at night, lead me to ponder the fault lines under my bed. A cracked windshield, spider web smile lines that can overnight become ravines. Silence was the beacon call to sleep when my mother read at my bedside, those commas and dashes that gave her the chance to let her eye glance from the page to my bed to see if I was truly, finally asleep. Even now, hours before I need to rest my head for the night, I can hear the silence and wonder if the next sound will be the page turning or the book closing and the light turned off for the night.

Experiment

That Agnes liked to play around in the lab and wore rather short skirts, but no one can deny the depth of her research and her meticulous notes taken down in long hand.

Some Notch Along the Curled Road

Which remnants of the journey
do we choose to revere and which
will we try to push aside with the
hope that they will decay and dissolve?
Despite our best efforts, the ugliness
of expired passion will never disappear.
It will return, perhaps in the guise of the drunk relative
always arriving early and being told to leave the party.
At best they are recycled, warped
and distorted and carried forward for
our next dash on the treadmill of dysfunction.
Looking into the next pair of eyes,
the broken windshield of regretful journeys
reveals the road ahead that we could drive blindly.
We can do our level best to strangle
this latest epiphany until the next oncoming collision.
Mired and wired by cold realizations
and blanketed regrets, what we've escaped always
welcomes us back to its musty, familiar den.
Many new routes are awaiting that will collect this debris,
deny its provenance, embrace it
and then resent it. Each can ignite new passions
and obscure loss. But the tug is always there of
the hope of your father standing at the edge of
the garage door, a baseball mitt in hand
and a never realized dream he dares you to catch

(Words - Junk Thief 2010; Images - Gregg Biggs May 1977)

Festival of Light

Besides being the name of a supposedly "lost" (or unreleased) Beatles song, I love the simple idea of the Festival of Light that I learned about from Susan at Artspark Theatre who learned about it from Totalfeckingeejit) the People's Lost Republic of EEjit. It's a great idea to herald the New Year and remember those lost but still with us. Since I learned about it just in the nick of time to do it, I didn't get the chance to tag others, but I think it wouldn't hurt to still do it.

Some Things Manage to Return

Much to my surprise, over the weekend I heard from the creators of the literary blog Wood Coin who were making contact with authors who had appeared in the literary magazine of the 1970s to 1980s, CENTER. It was especially surprising to hear from or about something where I was published three and a half decades ago when I was a teen. The piece was, if memory serves me well, called "A Spin Around Town" and was the first piece of fiction I had published and for which I received payment. Ten dollars, again if memory serves me well.

CENTER was published by Carol Berge, whom I think I heard speak on campus and gave great praise to me at the time as a "promising, emerging voice from the prairie." Adding to the headiness of being published was hearing complimentary letters unexpected places that included Lucerne and Tierra de Fuego. I was said to learn that Carol died in 2006 but pleased to find the above linked site to her life and work.

When I spoke over the phone to Rich Bachelor while in Portland last fall, he mentioned that his blogging was preceded by publishing 'zenes -- real words on real paper. Sometimes I regret the passage of such publications and literary magazines and mix tapes. And then I will think that I will abandon the blogging and return to real writing again. In the meantime, I'll check out more of Wood Coin and try to track down that first published piece that I know is somewhere in my troves of ancient script.

Once I Was

One of the oddities of being the family guardian of photos and other memorabilia is that I keep coming across little surprises from the past. Fortunately most of them are pleasant. Tonight while going through some old cards and letters, I saw something slip out that I thought was a random scrap that should be tossed. Only after picking it up to realize that it was a piece of paper in plastic did I realize that these barely two inches of paper slipped across my arm more than half a century ago.

Twelve Years Before I Knew It

Today while breaking for lunch, I stepped into Lucca at 22nd and Valencia, wondering why I go there a few times a year and not weekly. It recalls the types of places in the Mid-Atlantic that make me miss that part of the country so much. The Italian boys in white aprons certainly add to the appeal and are another key part of what I miss about the East. It helped that it was such a crisp and bright fall early afternoon bordering on perfection. I felt a weird wisp of nostalgia, but as I walked by the first place I lived in when I moved here, I suddenly realized today is my 12th anniversary of living in San Francisco.

Retracing the familiar sidewalks of the past dozen years, I thought of the many betrayals, regrets, mutually unreturned phone calls, emails I regret having sent, emotions still lingered but never expressed, passions never explored and other discomforts that linger so many years later.

Returning home and putting away the various jars and cheeses wrapped in butcher paper I was reminded how some of the things that I long for and feel that I am denied may be just down the street.

Closing Chapter

Today I made what is most likely a final visit to the house my grandfather built 50 years ago on a street he named in my honor and that later served as my parents' home for nearly 30 years. The happy memories far outnumber the sad ones that filled the place from around 2001 to 2006 as both of my parents, and the property, faded. I am risking jinxing the final signing by the new owners, a wonderful young couple, by mentioning it.

This final image that I snapped as I walked away is of my favorite feature which so evokes the spirit of my grandfather and his vision. It brought me happiness looking at it upon arriving there from my earliest memories. It is a fitting vision for farewell and a hope that the next 50 years will bring as much joy.

Dark Spot - The Trilogy of Ds

An asteroid swung by today but didn't stop. Doubt, dread and death -- the constant and certain trilogy -- swing through in orbit, usually so distant but so often distracting my focus. Even when the view is perfectly clear, I manage to miss it by trying to see what is behind it.

A friend, not that close and across the bay, died earlier this month, the news not arriving until yesterday, grinding in the reality of the relative distance. He was one of the first people I met when I moved here. The intent to get to know him better was always there but clearly not the will, always stymied midway between here and wherever he is now.

Lately I've been sweeping out remnants of people long departed from my household. They're so long removed that the ghosts put up no fight to leave, yet I manage to waste too much time wrestling with them in a battle they have no interest in winning but still manage to pin me to the floor.

There is always a dark spot, a straying asteroid to leave a threat or a temporary blemish that will fade and leave the slightest scar, visible only in the most intense light under the gaze of a judgmental star. It seems only my own gaze passes such judgment these days, using eyeglasses that are not even mine.

Now they say the asteroid that hit Siberia a century ago wasn't nearly as large as they once believed, but it proves that even the smallest object can cause great damage. Today's dark spots, large and small, are already spinning away. So why do I dread even the smallest pebble in the darkness, knowing its capacity to pierce and destroy? Having wrestled ghosts and swept them away lately, I can, amazingly, see the horizon that I longed for before they even arrived. None of those brilliant hues have faded, and they feels closer, no pebbles in view for the moment.