NaBloPoMo 2013

I was there.

I saw what happened.

You might not believe it but that is probably because you don’t want to believe it. Our bodies aren’t supposed to look like that. We don’t bend like that, at least not those of us that are still living.

And the blood, oh my lord, the blood. There were so many puddles of it splattered around the room. I couldn’t decide what was worse the footprints that led away from that indescribable scene or the pool of red that had collected in that one place.

It was like a train wreck or a car accident. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. Couldn’t stop staring at those things that used to be people.

Couldn’t stop wondering what happened and how. Did it hurt? Did they cry out in pain and or shock? Were they aware of what was happening?

Somewhere someone was crying or maybe sobbing was more like it. I can’t tell you why I wasn’t or how I managed not to throw up. I guess that I was numb and or in shock. At least I hope that is why I felt so much and so little.

They say that when you reach this point it is time to get out. They say that when you feel nothing your best bet is to find someone to talk to but I don’t have that. Truth is neither do they.

That is because we gave away our right to make decisions like that. That is because when we signed up we said we would do whatever was asked of us until such time as we were discharged.

Discharged. Every time I hear that word I laugh. It is such a plain and sterile word that says absolutely nothing and everything.

It is the perfect word for how they view us. We aren’t people to them. We aren’t humans that have blood, sweat and tears. We are just mechanical creatures that offer a bit more than the science fiction robots that use artificial intelligence.

Trust me, I know things. I know tales that I’ll never tell and stories that I’ll never share.

I want to. I really do. If I could get them out I might be able to sleep again but I can’t quite bring myself to walk down those gray halls of memory. I can’t go there in darkness or daylight. It is too much.

Except when I sleep.

Sleep always takes me back to that place and I see the things that I can’t stand to see. I remember what I want to forget. I stand in the places that I never want to see again. And I scream.

Or at least that is what they tell me.

I scream in my sleep.

No one wants to be near me then because they say what comes out of me doesn’t sound quite right. That is their way of trying to make me feel better but I read between the lines.

No one really wants to be around me in general because I am not quite right. Oh I can fool you for a while. I can make you think I am just like everyone else but sooner or later you’ll begin to see or sense things aren’t quite what you thought.

The other docs gave me some pills to help me sleep and said that they wouldn’t let me dream. They don’t work. I still see them. I still hear them.

Alcohol doesn’t work either. Doesn’t matter how much I drink or what cuz there is never silence.

Sometimes I think about my last normal day and wonder if I can ever find a way to go back. I picture it in my mind. I see this enormous canyon stretching out in front of me.

There is no bridge or way to cross it. Too far to jump and impossible to fly to. But somehow I still see everything that happens over there. It is all sunshine and roses. People laughing, children playing- just happy times.

That might be the worst part of it for me. I can see it. I can hear it. I can remember it.

But I can’t get to it.

It all goes back to the beginning.

I was there.

I saw what happened.

Doctors and Desire

Someone might want to tell the doc that there are better choices in music than the country music station we are listening to in the waiting room.

It is not because I don’t like country but because guys like me shouldn’t be listening to He Stopped Loving Her Today. You don’t want us to get lost in thought about people we loved and what happened to them.

Don’t want us thinking about days when we were whole and lives that we can’t ever get back. Don’t want us thinking about wives that couldn’t deal with broken men and who found now guys who were whole.

Some of us are aware that the rosy painted picture we have in our minds isn’t real and that we had hard times back then too. Some of us know that life was rough and that our marriages weren’t great before we left but we don’t think like we used to and we certainly don’t feel like we once did so you don’t want to push us.

Don’t want to push us out of the comfort zones we have built. Don’t want us to leave the hidey holes inside our heads that we have built because we haven’t much in the way of coping skills but we have lots of anger.

And we have lots of skill at releasing that anger in the most violent and destructive manner you can imagine.

I am here today because I want to do something about this. I am here because I was serious when I told the doctor that I have desires that I fear to speak about out loud.

And I am not afraid of much of anything anymore.

Truth is that my fear isn’t what normal people think of when they hear the word. My fear is that if I let go and let rage take over I will like it.

And there is no telling what will happen then.

Editor’s Note: This is part of a work of fiction I am writing.

Almost 11 AM means it is afternoon in my other home. I am on deadline for work but need to grab five minutes to clear my head because the write words aren’t flowing from my fingers and I hate what I see on the screen.

Don Henley is singing about The Boys of Summer and I have my usual reaction of feeling like I was stabbed in the gut, that song just touches something inside.

Staring at the photo above I think about a conversation I had with a guy back in Texas about how we missed the beach. Haven’t been down to the water since I got back but I think this weekend or maybe sometime this week I’ll head down to Santa Monica. Got to sit on the sand and listen to the surf, always helps to center me.

Writing For People

Keep seeing more clips, tweets and comments from people asking me to like, share and follow them. I rarely do as they ask, got no time to speak of and unless you really capture my attention I am not going to sign up for another newsletter.

Part of me feels like a hypocrite because I am running on that hamster wheel with so many others. Running along, shouting, screaming, laughing and begging you to show your love for me by signing up for my stuff.

Follow me. Love Me. Read Me.

Add to my numbers. Help me get noticed. Be the magic one I have been searching for who offers me a book deal or some magic opportunity that so many bloggers dream about.

And in the midst of reading it all I ask myself if I am writing for people because sometimes I read your stuff and roll my eyes because you are producing crap.

You are entitled to produce it but the problem isn’t with your output but that I am reading it. I am more upset with myself than I am with you because I am not obligated to spend my time reading your stuff and thus I point, click and surf my way elsewhere.

Tunnel Of Love

Time is almost up and the real beckons again. I move from Don Henley to Springsteen. Think about the Boss and debate between rolling with Happy and settle for Tunnel of Love.

Both songs make me do a happy dance but Tunnel of Love is the one that is most appropriate for the moment. Hard to believe it is a quarter century since this album came out. Hard to believe that Young Jack Steiner  used to listen to this and pretend he understood it because the current version of me is certain I get it now.

Part of me cringes about how obnoxious that sounds and part of me isn’t surprised because that young guy was most certainly a kid and now it is safe to say people call me a man.

My old man and I had another discussion about inconsequential things and he rolled his eyes at me and asked me why I would respond as I did to something.

And as I looked in the steely blue eyes I remembered how I used to hate being called to question by him and recognized that I still don’t particularly like it. Made me snort out loud and he asked me what was funny.

“Well dad, once upon a time I hated being questioned by you about why I did things but now it is different.”

His eyes narrowed and he growled something at me that I didn’t quite catch.

“I probably listen more to you now than I did then because I don’t have anything t0 prove anymore. You do your things your way and I do mine. Nothing wrong with that.”

Somehow his eyes narrow some more so I glare back at him, moment passes and he laughs.

“Better go work on that rookie.”

I laugh too and then head out. Deadlines call and I have to answer.

Write for people and not for numbers.

Got about an hour before I head out to play ball but time to write is hard to come by so I am here…now.

Listening to Bob Seger sing about The Fire Inside and being Like a Rock and I am fighting the urge to grab a beer and sit outside in the twilight. Fighting the urge to grab some Scotch and sit outside in the gloaming thinking about my grandfathers and how very strange life has become.

They’d get it, they’d understand.

500 Push Ups

Was going to write about something different. Was going to write about 500 push ups and or not worrying about what you can’t control.

Still might write some fiction tonight about what it is like to be crazy and madly in love as an older fellow. Might write about what happens when you find the person who makes your heart pound like no other and what you are willing to do. Might write about how when you are young it never occurs to you that moms and dads are just boys and girls who are still thinking, feeling and loving creatures.

But that might have to wait. If you are among the lucky you can see inside my heart and head and you know what lies beneath the surface.

And yet maybe you forget or wonder if I really know all the things I say I do and I say to you–don’t question what is obvious.

Superman and Kryptonite

In between it all I am sitting here thinking about how in spite of the aches and pains, the clothes that don’t fit right any more I still have more moments where I feel like superman than not.

Still just know that I can find a way to turn back the years and play/act like a teen because force of will will make it so.

Yet my inner peace isn’t quite what I want because my own old man is battling again. That guy I call dad has kidneys that aren’t doing what they should and it is hard to see.

Hard to see because even though we all reach a place where our fathers become human there is forever that piece inside that thinks they can do anything and yet I see age taking chunks from mine.

He doesn’t complain about it. Most of the time he just goes about his business and I wonder how I can ever voice a single word of dissent about anything because he is hard.

He doesn’t bitch. He doesn’t moan.

He just goes on.

And yet I know that there is this thing called time that is working against him. I know that his health isn’t what it could be and I can point to a million things he has done that have set this in motion.

I Would Fight It

I would fight it. I would do battle. Wade out into the midst of the mine field, take the bullet, do whatever it took to help but I can’t do more than I have done.

Can’t do more than watch and hope that things go better than I fear. Can’t do more than watch and hope that this hitch in my heart is tied into other things, that it is just transition but…

A thousand years ago I sat with my grandfather and listened as he told me he knew the days were getting shorter and the long night was coming. Listened as he told me he would fight to keep going until he couldn’t fight any more and that would be that.

It was very matter of fact and maybe when you are over ninety it is easier.

I remember listening to my other grandfather talk about my grandmother and how he told me that she had a great ass at 91. He laughed when she made a face at him, but they had 76 years of marriage.

And when she died I saw him suffer in ways only someone who has been in love for 85 years can suffer. They met at 11.

I would have fought for all of them too.

Out On The Court

Out on the court tonight I will be fierce and unforgiving. I will play until my body aches and tomorrow will require ibuprofen but it is the only way I know.

I’ll do it because I can’t fight the things I want to and all I can do is try to enjoy the moments and live as best I can and because maybe if I push myself hard enough I’ll find a way to be around long enough to meet my great-great grandchildren.

And later in the quiet I’ll think about the nights where I smoked a cigar, drank some Scotch and talked about women.

Great googly moogly is the least colorful set of words that come from my lips and it happens only because there is a beautiful little boy in the car with me.

Little man isn’t quite so little any more but sometimes I forget because the boy who is almost 13 was 13 months yesterday. I am trying to reconcile the passage of time in a way that makes sense to me and having trouble doing so.

Blame it upon whatever makes sense to you because that is what I do. I could say it is tied into having been gone for almost a year but that is not entirely true nor does it provide a proper segue for what I want to share now.

He Channeled My Voice

Sometimes I shake my head because the words coming from my mouth are an exact copy of what my own father would say but that is not why I am shaking it now.

Now it is because the boy in the back seat is telling me about how he channeled me. He is not using those exact words but he is saying that he got irritated at school and he realized that what he said sounded exactly like me.

I shouldn’t be surprised because he is mine. You might not see it in his face but his hands, feet and build at me and apparently so are a bunch of his mannerisms.

I listen to his tale and silently pray that I have done a proper job because if he is going to imitate me let it be my best traits and not the bad. Let him pick up on the good and ignore the bad because I don’t want the sins of the father visited upon the son.

Jesus Hates Tim Tebow & 17 Other Reasons Why Your Blog is a Failure

I used those words a while back as the headline for a different post that is just as relevant now as it was then. I shouldn’t be surprised because it is proof that all this crap is cyclical and that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Probably not worth crying about but sometimes I just can’t ignore it and so I put it out there so that it doesn’t lie inside and fester. I suppose it is tied into some of what is contained in Are You Guilty of Bad Blogging?

I don’t know a writer who is worth a damn that doesn’t ask the hard questions of themselves and wonders if maybe they are churning out junk.

It is part of the package. Writers are filled with rage, insecurity and fear. Writers are filled with hope, dreams and confidence that somehow they will construct the right words in the write way and that when they do they’ll be found and elevated, taken to the karmic destiny writers dream of.

Words Left Unwritten

I am not officially doing the whole Nanowrimo thing this year but not because I fear it. This time it is because I am supporting too many blogs and need to reel things in a bit.

Besides there are a million tales at WLU that need to be expanded upon. Somewhere in the ether is someone who experienced more than a single moment of joy celebrating a few birthdays this year.

Somewhere out there she knows precisely what I am talking about and understands that I am not kidding when I say I know things. She knows how the brush of a hand against a hip or knees touching under a table can make a heart pound and understands a story of two souls.

Only In LA

Back in the parking lot the boy wants to know who the idiot on the cellphone is and why he is pacing around the parking lot. I don’t mention that I recognize him because I don’t know his name.

I just know he is a character actor who plays wing nuts, lunatics and the slightly unhinged. That might not be completely accurate but I am irritated with him and the drivers who can’t park straight. Between them it is becoming a nightmare to park here and I haven’t any patience.

If you ask me why I don’t it is because I miss 1724 and I am irritated about having to do what has to be done. But part of me is cool with it all because this is just a moment in time and I know that life is made up of these moments.

And it is why I don’t share all of my thoughts because this boy and I are sharing a moment now and I don’t want him to get distracted because dad says the guy out there is acting like “a fucking asshole.”

But in the silence I wonder if that is what my son said at school and if he knows that he wasn’t just channeling me but three other generations of men in the family.

Life is something else sometimes.

I am the most patient impatient man you have ever met, at least for some things and some people. If you are singing our song and I can hear it than you can rest assured I will move heaven and earth to get to you, even if I have to do it more than once.

In a world filled with contradictions all I ask is that you give me your hand and trust me to wander through the dark because even though I am bruised and battered by the things I can’t see and nicked, scraped by those I can I will return.

I always do.

Halloween Has Come And Gone

This time last week I was in the home stretch of a 21 hour car ride that took me through four states and back to where I once belonged and knew how everything would work.

By the time I hit nineteen hours I was a bit crazed and tired of driving. My 13 year-old car is reliable but not built to make a 44 year-old body feel  good.

I made a point to keep a hard ball on the center console so that periodically I could place it behind my back and roll against it, but it only did so much. Could have grabbed a more than 50 winks in Phoenix and spent the night so that I would be fresh for the ride home on Sunday but I couldn’t stomach the idea of not hugging my kids for another day so I pressed on.

Drove and thought about Halloween and how much fun it would be to walk with them through the neighborhood. Pushed on knowing that it would leave me exhausted and cranky. Pushed on knowing that on Wednesday I’d go play ball with some guys who think that defense means you hammer the back and arms of anyone holding the ball.

It Might Have Been Worth Getting Arrested tells some of the story of how I responded but it doesn’t do enough to acknowledge that I knew I would be short tempered.

This is part of what happens When The Rhythm of Life Is Disturbed.

But I made it back in time and we had a great night and now I am seated at my desk staring at a pile of empty wrappers.

Four Soccer Games Later

It was a four soccer game Saturday today. Some of you might wonder how I could give up that much time on a Saturday and I can understand why you would.

But when you see the glow in the eyes of my children and watch the joy radiate from them you can understand better how it is that I can stand upon the sidelines.

Or more accurately you can see me pace on the sidelines, yelling out encouragement to the kids.

Loved being there, I missed it and yet more than one person told me that I kept talking about Texas like it was amazing. But that is because it was, so many good things happened there and now I think part of why I feel discombobulated is because it turned life upside down in many ways.

That is not always a bad thing.

Transitions and Interruptions

Overall the transition has been good but there have been some definite rough spots and I am doing my best to work through them. Love being around the kids like this but the interruptions in my writing and work are challenging.

Kind of funny because we have been through this before but since I have been gone for a while I have to learn again how to manage it and I will.

Sitting here I can’t help but stare at the pile of empty wrappers (the parent tax is stiff) and think more about what is best for these rug rats of mine.

There is no immediate need to make decisions but when I look at what it costs to live back home I have to think about whether I shouldn’t push harder to take them back to the other home.

In the interim I have to stop eating this blasted candy because if I haven’t overdosed upon it I am about two candy bars and a Tootsie roll away.