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Written on Sunday afternoon, June 7, 2009, in Seattle, Washington

SIDEWALK ARTIFACTS - THE GAME

1. A small white plastic wheel - the size of a silver dollar.
2. A black plastic lens-cover for a camera - also silver dollar size.
3. A deflated orange balloon - the size of my thumb.
4. A flashlight bulb - filament still intact.
5. A white guitar pick.
6. A penny, a nickel, and a dime.
7, The backside half of a wristwatch case - silver.
8. A stretchy turquoise whatchamcallit for a girl’s pony tail.
9. An ivory button about the size of a dime.
10. A rounded, spotted stone that looks like a bird’s egg.

These items I took out of my jacket pocket and placed on my desk to think about while I wrote this. They were collected on this morning’s walk while playing The Sidewalk Artifacts Game. Three miles - one hour.

The Five Rules: The items picked up must . . .
1. Be somewhat durable - no flowers, leaves, pine cones, or anything organic such as peels, fruit, nuts, or seeds.
2. Not be ordinary trash - tinfoil, cigarette butts, beer cans, etc.
3. Be retrieved only from the actual sidewalk - nothing from the gutter, parking strips, flower beds, or street crossings.
4. Fit into the palm of my hand and into my pocket
5. Provoke the possibility of a story - their original purpose, how they came to be there, who they might have belonged to and what will become of them.

Asides: Noticing all the detritus that did not qualify except as trash, my conscience suggested that if I saw the stuff I should pick it up, in the spirit of all those volunteers who clean the shoulders along highways. So I found one of those clear plastic bags people use to pick up their dog’s shit.

How I longed for someone to ask me where my dog was. I would say I don’t have a dog, I have a snake. An anaconda. He hides in the bushes while he does his business. Where is he now? I don’t know. Somewhere close by. You can’t miss him. He’s rather large. And fast. He likes dogs.
But that opportunity didn’t arise.

What did come up, because I was studying the sidewalk so carefully, was the memory of being told when I was a child that if you step on a crack you would break your mother’s back. It doesn’t work. But I tried. On second thought, she did say I was a royal pain in the ass - maybe a minimal result from stepping on cracks, perhaps.

It’s so easy to get compulsive and try to adjust stride to step on every crack.
But you don’t want to be obsessive, so you try not to step on every crack.
But that’s really obsessive compulsive. You’re trapped. Whichever way you go, you’re a nut case. But you knew that to begin with, so why worry?
That leads to the problem of defining a crack - do the regular seams in the
sidewalk count or just the erratic cracks in concrete produced by stress and wear and tree roots? And if your mother is no longer alive does it make any difference anymore?

Sorry, I digress.

There were some things I found but did not collect.
One brown sandal - baby size - pre-walking - no wear on the sole.
A tiny pink purse with “Barbie” written on it.
A large gold hoop earring.
A lipstick - black case, bright red inside, well used.
A key with a tag that said “306” on it.
Three hair barrettes - all fake tortoise shell.

While there was story material in each one, these all seemed too personal to keep - one step away from someone who might come looking for them. I left them in an obvious place, safely away from being walked on. It’s like being the curator of a small part of the human museum.

Some observations.
1. Filtered cigarette butts, gum wrappers, plastic water bottle tops, and pull tabs from aluminum cans are evenly distributed. Like sterile seeds that will last forever but never grow.
2. People do collect their dog’s shit in the little bags - it’s the law. But they also often throw the bag into the bushes instead of taking it home - and, in time, wind and rain move the bags onto the sidewalk.
3. I wonder if nickels and dimes have so little value that people don’t bother to stoop and pick them up. I’ve never found a quarter or a half-dollar.
4. Small children tend to abandon socks on sidewalks.
5. Tennis balls and soccer balls are common, but, so far, no baseballs or pingpong balls. What I thought was a golf ball was a mushroom.

Surely, by now, you are wondering why I am tell you all this. Where is this going? What will I make of it? Is there going to be a slam-dunk ending? Some profound moralizing? Some deeper meaning?

No. It’s just that I was alone on my walk, and was thinking about writing something and this is what happened - what I noticed and brought home.
Over to you.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Wednesday, March 11, 2009

THE WAY OF NUDE FOOD

A man I know does not like any dressing on his salad. None.
Not blue cheese, ranch, Caesar or house whoopee-doo. None.
Not even oil-and-vinegar, lemon juice, or soy sauce. None.
Salad dressing, he asserts, masks, smothers, or kills the taste of everything else in the salad, especially anything with a fresh, delicate flavor.

It is not true that he does not like vegetables or salad per se. To the contrary.
His favorite salad includes little cherry tomatoes, avocados, baby romaine lettuce, purple and green cabbage, scallions, pine nuts, and some raisins, decorated with nasturtium blossoms.
Sometimes he throws in a few jelly beans just to surprise himself.
Why would you put any dressing on that?
He contends that if you like dressing, pour your favorite goo in a glass, add a shot of vodka and drink it.
But don’t ruin the salad.

The same is true for sauces on meat. It’s about the flavor of the meat, he says, not the ego of the cook. If you like exotic barbecue sauce, pour some in a glass, add vodka, and drink that. Otherwise, buy really good meat, he says. Cook it thoughtfully medium rare. Eat just that. Don’t ruin the meat.

The same for corn, peas, beans, cauliflower, and all the rest of the vegetables. Fresh, steamed, he says. With maybe a little butter at most. Salt sometimes. No pepper. It’s about the vegetables, not the spices, he says.

Let each thing you eat have its own say. That’s his food mantra.

This applies to bread. The bread should stand alone. Crusty sour dough.
As for whiskey – the best, straight up, water back. No cream, fruit, or umbrellas. And coffee – no flavorings. Freshly ground. Black. Hot.
And cake without icing, ice cream without chunks, and water from the tap.

His friends say he only eats nude food.
He says it’s the principle of Occam’s Razor applied to food.
The simplest resolution of an undertaking is the best.
But, unlike a lot of food fad bullies he doesn’t evangelize.
And if you invite him to dinner he won’t complain about the meal. He’ll clean his plate with appreciative grace. He says his personal preference for what he eats is just that – a personal preference, not a community crusade.

But I wonder if there isn’t more to this Way of Nude Food.
Watching his ongoing life I see something deeper at work.

He’s always dressed simply and plainly - in jeans, a T shirt, a fleece jacket, and plain brown leather go-anywhere slip-on shoes. Clean. Neat. Functional. And comfortable. Not a fashion statement.

He doesn’t have a cell phone – says he has enough trouble getting in touch with himself most of the time. No radio or TV – because he doesn’t like all the advertising for stuff he doesn’t need or want. He walks when he can, and drives used cars when he can’t – drives them until they die and he gets another one. He calls this practice, “thinning the herd.”

It’s not that he’s poor or into self-denial. He can afford to eat at fancy restaurants, and sometimes does – because, he says, he likes an evening of food theater. He sees menus as literature and entertainment, but not as reliable descriptions of what’s actually served. He likes surprises, and will sample anything once - because he says he is sometimes wrong about what’s good eating.

He’s not a social curmudgeon or recluse.
He spends his money on books, music, movies, and good causes, and goes to comedy clubs to keep his laughter muscles toned and active. Furthermore, he does have some nice dress-up clothes, which he wears on special occasions as costumes on the stage of the world.

He has nothing to sell you, no advice about how you should run your life.
He says he has enough trouble figuring out how to run his own.
He’s curious about what’s going on in the culture. I’ve seen him sample soy milk, green tea, fat-free anything, and energy drinks just to see what the fuss was about. And he has his own anomalies. His idea of a diet supplement is an occasional good cigar, a bar of dark chocolate, or gummi bears.

But it seems to me he has achieved a kind of balanced sanity.
But he’s neither a fool for fashion nor a cultural miscreant.
His Way of Nude Food is a sample of a Way of Life – his life – not mine or yours – which he calmly goes about without calling much attention to himself. Live and let live, he says, without disputing personal taste.

I admire him. Exemplars don’t always make a lot of noise about their Way.
I don’t agree with some of his ideas, but, then I don’t agree with some of my own ideas, either. It’s just that his Way makes such elegant obvious sense sometimes and mine so often seems ridiculous.

He might be surprised to know I watch him and learn from him.
He wouldn’t like it if I gave his name and address.
But he knows who he is.
And so do I.
And I thank him.

Does he really exist, you ask?
No, but I imagine that somewhere, someday, he might . . . .

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Friedhay, April 24, 2009 - Warm, breezy, cloudy.

The pause since the last journal posting reflects a week away in New Mexico. A 5-star feast - art and crafts galleries, museums, Pueblo Indian and Spanish culture, southwestern cuisine, tango dancing, and the inspiring scenery of the great open spaces of the Four Corners Region as spring throws out a thin carpet of bright green on the vast, rusty landscape.
Yet, for all the richness of the week’s experience, what remains vivid in my memory is an encounter with silence. . . .

AN EPIPHANY – for Angelina, with gratitude . . .

It’s Santa Fe on a fine April afternoon. Not so fine is that I’m stuck in heavy traffic backed up at a congested intersection on Cerrillos Road . . . the wail of an oncoming ambulance siren from somewhere behind the jam . . . horns honking . . . a diesel truck rumbling beside me, spewing black smoke . . . .
Well, @$%#*!! Not what I came to Santa Fe for. This I can do at home.
My mind is a king-sized crouton – stale, dry, and brittle.

Across the street I notice an informal parade of young people - boys and girls - maybe twenty five or thirty of them. Mostly teenagers of various ages, sizes, and shapes. Dressed in the standard street uniform of the Teenage Tribe – jeans and sneakers and T-shirts and baseball caps on backwards.
A couple of adults follow along behind, carrying soccer balls.

Something special about this group holds my attention. What? For one thing, they’re very animated – hands and arms in rapid motion. Their faces are quite expressive as well. And they’re paying unusually close attention to one another. They don’t seem to notice the traffic or the horns or the oncoming ambulance. And they don’t seem to be concerned about spectators like me. They’re laughing and smiling and having a much better time than I am.

As they move past me they also move past a sign marking the entrance to the campus of an educational institution. The sign says:
NEW MEXICO SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF.
The students walk through the gate into what must be both school and a home-away-from home for them. Oh . . .
Each time I’ve visited Santa Fe over the years I’ve passed NMSFD on my way in and out of town. I know it’s a famous residential school for the hearing impaired. But I’ve never seen anyone out and about on the grounds. I’ve wondered what the students are like. And here they are - in high good spirits returning from an afternoon excursion to play ball somewhere.

From all the way across the street I sensed their vivacious energy.
It’s contagious. My spirits lift. My traffic troubles seem inconsequential.

While I wait out the jam, I begin to wonder if and how well I might communicate without using my voice. Though I don’t know ASL - formal sign language - perhaps I could talk less and say more.

The next morning, I decide to keep my mouth shut . . . to try communicating with my companion just by mime for awhile. Soon we have a goodtime game going . . . we laugh . . . and realize that we’re paying attention to each other in a refreshing way - reading from each other’s faces and gestures what we often ignore or overlook.

In this foolish state, we waltz into Starbucks on Santa Fe’s historic Plaza, still communicating without words. Enter Goofy and his mate - flailing about with our hands and making elaborate facial expressions.

The barrista at the order counter points at me, then at the menu on the wall above her, raises her eyebrows. What do you want? She’s a Lovely Latina – long black hair, face too pretty to require any makeup, and charming smile.

Wonderful! I think. She’s a player! She’s in the game!
She must have picked up on my mime experiment as I approached.
So I wordlessly, flamboyantly, and clumsily mime my order:
Short latte . . . two shots . . . one medium black tea . . . to go.
(You’ll have to imagine my gyrations. Try it yourself.)

She smiles, nods, punches up my order on the computer and points at the total. I laugh. She laughs. I pay and move on toward the delivery station, pleased with our common cleverness. A new Starbuck’s special - coffee and tea with fun thrown in for flavor.

Looking back while waiting, I’m alarmed when I realize what I’ve done.
The barrista is attending to all her customers the same way she treated me.
She must be deaf for real. And I thought she was just fooling around.
Ohdeargod.
What must she think of my idiot act?
Maybe I should say something – at least apologize.

To make a long story short, Angelina is indeed deaf. And she’s been a Starbucks barrista for five years. She reads lips. And reads customers, too. The manager I spoke with said an apology wasn’t necessary - that nothing throws Angelina - not even the rudest or most confused or most peculiar customers – and there are always a few of each.

She has a lively sense of humor and, as I found out, suffers fools with grace. The manager added that her dignified courage inspires the rest of the staff – and often customers as well. And when customers do understand, they treat her with respect and admiration. The manager says that Starbucks has never regretted taking the chance on hiring her for such an intensive and responsible first-contact position with customers. In fact, Angelina is their ace barrista.

I watched her work the counter for awhile. So competent. So self-assured. She may not hear, but she has a certain kind of rare vision – the ability to see herself out in the world – up front – risking being fully engaged and included. There’s a noble kind of bravery in that.

She has something I often cannot quite muster – the tenacity to make my own handicaps work for me, not against me. There are many kinds of handicaps. Having a crouton for a mind sometimes . . . is mine.

Perhaps now you understand what I meant when I said that what remains vivid in my memory from that day in Santa Fe was silence. One woman’s attentive, vivacious, confident silence . . .

Thanks, Angelina.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Friedhay, April 10, 2009
Warmer, cloudy, windy, dusty

FIXIT

Everyday life has its everlasting irritations. Say “Amen.”
And those burrs under the saddle can spoil the whole ride. Say “Amen.”
Still people just put up with the nuisance – too busy to fixit once and for all.

For example. Here in the high desert country it’s dry. How dry is it? So dry that people don’t take baths – they sit in a 55 gallon drum of oily lube first thing in the morning to soften their skin so it doesn’t crack when they move.
That dry. So dry that when you spit it never hits the ground – it just dries up in the air and disappears. That dry. So dry that the mucus in your nose cakes up and every time you breath you whistle through your nose. That dry. And so dry that lips don’t work if they aren’t greased regularly.

This means that one of the items that goes in your pocket or purse every day is lip lube – Chapstick or Bert’s Bee’s Wax. If you want to be able to talk all day and not have your lips crack and bleed, then you keep the lube handy.

However. “Where the hell did my chapstick go?” is a common cry. Answer:
Well, you left it in your jeans when you put them in the wash and the goo is gone. Or you dropped it when you got out of the car. Or you left it in your other coat. Or it’s under the bed. Or one of the sneaky creeps you live with lost theirs and took yours. Or who-knows-where-else? Damnit!

The point is that once again you haven’t got one handy and your lips are turning to raisins and you’re irritable as a cat with scabies. And you’re going to spend a half an hour looking for a tube and be even more pissed off because you can’t find it and you wasted all that time looking, and you’re going to end up putting salad oil on your lips in desperation. Bloody hell!

This is the situation about three days out of five. So you buy another chapstick. Just one. Fully knowing what’s going to happen to it. “Why does this happen to me?” The answer is: Me. And the next question is “Why don’t I just fixit once and for all?” Why not? Bygod I will.

Here’s the plan:
I’m going to buy a whole case of lip goop at one of the big-box stores over in Grand Junction. A gross. Twelve dozen. 144 tubes. And I’m going to put one every known place – bathroom, bedside, car, coats, on my desk, in my overalls and bathrobe. Even give a dozen to my companion. “Here, stop stealing.” And put the rest in plain sight on the kitchen counter. I swear I will not lose the pleasure of another lovely day over a tube of lip lube. Fixit.

And while I’m at it I’m going to buy a case of those little packages of Kleenex – the ones that you never can find when you need them – and put them all over everywhere, too. I’m tired of living a tacky life irritated by the mis-management of lip goop and nose fodder.

Maybe get a case of sunglasses, reading glasses, pens, and pencils, too.

Fixit, Fulghum, bygod, stop bitching and just Fixit!

Stay tuned.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Thursday, April 9, 2009
Warmer, cloudy, windy – snow melted, first flowers up and out

APRIL SNAPSHOTS FROM THE LAND OF MOAB
(Note: Try reading the weird parts of the following out loud.)

“Izzat whut ewe broosh yur teat width?”

Owlish little woman – fluffy grey hair, tiny beak of a nose, black-rimmed glasses – giving the impression that any moment she may turn her head 180 degrees and look behind her for prey.

We’re waiting in the City Market checkout line. She’s pointing at the magnum-sized Crest toothpaste carton in my shopping cart. This latest version of Crest has everything in it – mouthwash, fluoride, chlorine, whitener, tartar fighter, WD-40, suntan lotion, a laxative, caffeine, bacteria combatant, glitter, a few unpronounceable additives, and a fresh-fruit minty flavor. American ingenuity in a tube. WHAMO in your mouth. Yes!

(Where is this woman from, I wonder, with an accent like that? Australia, probably? All those people talk funny. They say they speak “Strain.” Maybe I should reply by shifting into my own native tongue - West Texas slow-speak.)

“Well, naw . . . m’am. Ah’m gonna spred it . . . on mah toest fur brakefuss . . ‘n squirt a shot . . . n mah kawfeee . . .grate stuff – cures athleets fut, jock itch, n hemorrhoidal complaints . . . N eye yused it wonce . . . to calk duh bathtub. Wurked, too. Not shur eye’d wanta put it two much uv it own m’teat, tho – day say it’ll shrink yur teat.”

“Ware eye cum from, we broosh or teat width biking sota.”
“Rilly?”
“Riley. D same kine we yous ta bike bred.”
“Rat own! Eye yuse sand . . . organic sand . . . to clin mah teat. N din eye jus tayk ‘em owt n . . . run a war broosh over’em to git d grit n chunks off’em.”
“Riley?”
“Yep, Rilly, wanna see mah teat – eye’ll tayk’em owt n sho yew.”
“Well . . . . eye . . . . “

Suddenly the owly lady swiveled her head around 180 degrees to see if her husband was still there behind her. A lumpish sunburned Aussie hulk who looked like he was concentrating on passing gas as silently as possible.
“D’yu wanta see’s teat?”
He smiled. “No. Tho mebbe we shud git sum of that teat pase he yuses.”

The owl snapped her head around at me and peered over her glasses.
“Oar ewe pullin m’leg? Ewe r, rn’t ewe?”
“Yes, ma’m, eye am. It’s my job to be colorful for the tourists.”
“Ewe ‘merrycans r as nutbuggers az Strains.”

I laughed. She laughed. Her husband farted. And we laughed some more.
The cashier just rolled her eyes and bagged up groceries.
Life in the Moab mad house in spring.

Our town is full of foreigners these days. Italians, Germans, French, Japanese, Koreans, Australians – just to name the nationalities I’ve encountered in the last week. They’ve come to see the American West and experience the culture. We intrigue and amuse them. They intrigue and amuse us. That’s a good thing.

Odd to be on the other end of the traveler’s visit to the circus of the world.
What are they doing here? The same thing I was doing there. Looking around, seeing the sights, getting some relief from the same-old-same-old at home. We go to Yurp to see their Gothic cathedrals and they come here to see our red-rock temple arches in natural rock. We go there to see their sandy beaches. They come here to see ancient beaches petrified into sandstone. The response is the same: Awe and wonder.

We go to see the natives. They come to see the natives. And we’re all us.
And sometimes we delight in crossing the moat to mingle with the creatures in the zoo and find reason to laugh about something as mundane as toothpaste – as common as brushing our teeth or passing gas. Rat own!

English may be a foreign language. Laughter is not.
(In Strain: Angish my be a forn langish. Laffter izz’nt.)

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Sunday, April 5, 2009
Cold, clear, still - 19 degrees at dawn – a foot of new snow on the ground.

EMERGENCY MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

How do you think about what goes on in your mind?
My metaphor for mine is “The Committee” – a range of voices expressing a range of opinions – often as contradictory as consensual.
I’m not one person. I’m a group.

The intensity of the clamor is directly related to the matter at hand. The Security Council meets in special session. These, the most powerful members of The Committee, show up at short notice in an emergency.

And what was the crisis this time, you ask?
The Committee’s client, me, was standing staring out through the plate glass doors of my living room just at sunrise, watching the ongoing snowfall add to the accumulation of a foot of white overnight.

“How about running naked in the snow?”
The voice of the free-spirited eight-year-old boy – a permanent and vocal member of The Committee – the source of some fine-but-impractical ideas.
“Come on, let’s do it!”

Bingo! Flashing red lights, sirens, aaoooogha, aaooogha. Emergency alert.
The Security Council of Robert Fulghum’s brain is in immediate session.
The voices of sanity and safety are shouting all at once.
No, No, No!
The voice that defends loosey-goosey ideas will respond:

“It’s freeze-ass cold out there!”
So what, it’s easy to get warm inside again.
“What if he slips and falls down?”
So what? There’s a foot of soft snow to fall in.
“He’ll catch cold or pneumonia.”
No, that’s what his mother said, and she was a ding-dong and flat out wrong.
What will the neighbors think?
They’re all inside their houses too far away to see. They don’t care, anyhow.
Why would he want to do this in the first place?
It looks like harmless fun, and, besides, he’s never done it before.
“Has he lost his mind?
No. He’s had weirder ideas than this.
“Get real. The Security Council votes No.”

OK, Look, this is not winter snow. It’s spring snow. It’s April, not December. Wildflowers are pushing up under the snow. The yellow wands of willows and the greenings tips of the cottonwood are the waving banners of the oncoming parade of Life. And tomorrow the snow will melt down to bring the flowers and willows and cottonwoods up and out. And if he runs out naked into the snow his pulse will beat faster, his blood will flow, and he will laugh. He won’t be sorry if he does it, but he’ll be sorry if he doesn’t. He won’t be ashamed if he does – only ashamed if he doesn’t.

Meeting adjourned.

(Actually, the meeting of the Security Council only lasts a few moments – much less time than it takes to read this account. The decision is made just as quickly.)

“Come on, come on, COME ON!” cries the eight-year-old.
“Yes, I’m coming.”

So, then. If you had been passing close by, you would have seen the doors of my house suddenly flung open, seen a man throw off his old green bathrobe and plunge out with abandon into the fluffy white snow. Naked.

And you would have seen, right behind him, his beloved companion, fling off her dressing gown and join him. Naked.

And you would have heard them laughing, seen them throwing snow in all directions, and playing like they were very young at heart.
Which, for the time being, they were.

The grumpy members of the Security Council went away defeated.
Once more overruled by the forces of foolish joy.

______________________

I’m a story teller.
Sometimes, I admit, I make things up to embellish a story.
And sometimes I tell the unvarnished truth just as it happens.
As is the case now. Besides, I had a witness.
And the tracks were still out there in the snow this morning.
Evidence of spring – outside – and inside.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Cold, cloudy, windy – 29 degrees at dawn

TRUTH

There, on the curb, she stands. Behind her is the City Market parking lot. In front of her is the whizzing traffic of Moab’s Main Street. A lady of middle years, dressed in jeans, down jacket, hiking boots and wooly hat. On either side of her are four heavy bags of groceries. Behind her back her two lively teenage kids are playing juggle-catch with three apples. It’s cloudy and cold. The wind is blowing.

The lady is worried. With furrowed brow, shoulders hunched against the wind, she looks up and down and up and down the street. WORRIED.
About what?

I saw this lady while sitting in my barber’s chair, looking out the big window of his shop across the street. “What’s her story?” I wondered.

FICTION

She’s waiting for her husband to pick her up. While she shopped for groceries for their camping trip, he was just going to drive down to Arches Books for a New York Times and a cup of coffee. “Be right back,” he said.
That was half an hour ago. First she waited in front of City Market. Then she moved out to the curb beside the entrance to the parking lot.

High Anxiety grips her.
“Where is he? Ohmygod, where is he?”

She knew this would happen someday. He always had an eye for the waitresses when they eat out. Some awful day he would lose control and drive off with one of those waitresses and leave her stranded. Just this morning there was that cute young blonde at the waffle shop. She gave him extra bacon. He winked at her. She smiled. They’re probably all the way to Green River by now. Checking into the first motel they come to.

Or else he’s been hit by one of those big semi-trucks that roar through town.
He always takes chances crossing in the middle of the street. This time they got him. And he’s in the hospital emergency room right now. Unconscious. And nobody knows she’s standing out here in the cold on the curb.

Or maybe he’s clipped some old lady walking against a red light. He’s so absent minded – he never stays alert when he’s driving. And now he’s been arrested for reckless driving or hit-and-run. He’s in police custody. And the old lady is in the hospital emergency room. Unconscious. Crippled for life.
Does our insurance cover this?

Or maybe he’s run over somebody’s dog.
Or left his wallet somewhere. But he can’t remember where.
Or he’s run out of gas, like she always thinks he will.
Or maybe he’s had a heart attack or a stroke and ran the camper into a tree.

Car-jacking? Maybe some hippie terrorist bank-robber types commandeered him and the camper. And they are in Green River by now. Checking into the first motel they come to. And her husband has been left out in the boonies in a dry wash, all bound up with duct tape. And he will never be found. And nobody knows she’s still standing out here on the curb waiting.

“STOP THROWING THOSE APPLES!” she shouts at the kids behind her. “We’re in trouble, can’t you see. Your father’s never coming back.”

The children smile and keep juggling. “Here we go again,” they think.
“Mother, our poor dear mother. The QIT in emergency mode.”
They call her the QIT behind her back - the Queen of Imaginary Trouble.
Even she thinks it’s funny. Sometimes. Especially when they push her to see how far she can go in imagining how many bad things might happen.
Not much ever has, actually. But she thinks that’s because she’s always alert for oncoming catastrophe. And they think it’s because she’s a kook. A black-belt champion worry wart. And they love her anyway. She has, in fact, kept them out of trouble all their lives. Even worry warts can be useful.

Meanwhile.
Her husband has pulled up behind her in their camper, having snuck into the parking lot through the rear entrance. He knows what she’s probably thinking. This is not the first time. Or the last. And though he may have been a little late this time, he always tries to intervene before hysteria sets in. He, too, considers her a kook. But that’s part of why he loves her, too. She’s an interesting kook, with a great imagination. The plus side of which applies to their sex life, but that’s another story for another time.

So, having got out of his camper, he’s creeping up behind her.
He’s late because he had to find the town florist to buy a dozen red roses.
It’s the first day of April.
April Fool’s Day.
And he’s always been a fool for her.
________________________

As indicated, that part of the story is fiction.
But it could be the truth. For somebody, somewhere, sometime.
Worry warts are evenly distributed. As are fools for love.
You may know some of each.

And this is the romantic side of what can be imagined sitting in a barber’s chair, looking out the window at a lady standing on a curb with her groceries and kids on a cloudy, cold, windy day - the first day of April in Moab, Utah.
It’s a love story.

What really happened?
I don’t know.
She may still be standing there for all I know.
But you may imagine . . .

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Saturday, March 28, 2009
Still clear and cold – 26 degrees at dawn

VEGAS

What happened when you read that word? What came to mind?
The whole address, “Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A,” isn’t necessary to provoke most people’s minds. Whether you’ve been there or not you probably have an opinion about the town, ranging from thinking of it as a modern Sodom, a sink-hole of human depravity, or the ultimate pleasure playground of the modern world. Sin or satisfaction. (Or maybe both, if you find sin and satisfaction synonymous. Some people do.)

Vegas. The official motto of the tourist bureau is “What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.” Really? That’s certainly open to interpretation. It may simply be an honest acknowledgement that if you take your wallet there, most of its contents will not go home with you. Or it may mean that anything goes, go for it, and keep your mouth shut when you get home. The tourist bureau doesn’t elaborate. It’s up to you.

For me, the motto lacks complete veracity. What happens in Vegas does not stay there – it goes home with you in the form of memory. Why am I talking about Vegas and its motto? Having been there for two days this week, it remains in my mind. Not for the obvious reasons – the foobazz lights, the kickapoo shows, the whackadoodle shopping, the anthill energy of people madly gambling in the midst of an economic crisis, the unabashed flaunting of sensual sexuality, or the amazing display of world-wide humanity rambling about in one place. No. That’s not what I remember most.

(In passing, it occurs to me, that none of us is really an outsider to Vegas. If you think of what happens there is not connected to you, you’re avoiding your very nature. Vegas is not “them” – those evil casino operators who exist to suck money from your purse. And Vegas is not “them” – the millions of volunteers who submit to the suck. Them is us. For we are risk-takers at heart. Getting out of bed each day is chancy. Being alive is a gamble. And nothing better or worse can be said about us. Take a chance. Yes. Vegas is a mirror in which you can see something fundamental about being human.)

It’s not really Vegas that’s on my mind. But about something that happened there that I did not leave behind. The memory of a fine experience.

Fulghum was in Vegas to be the inspirational closing speaker at the annual convention of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The attendees were members of the boards of electric co-ops serving more than 40 million customers in largely rural areas of our country. Elected volunteers. Mature, experienced, respected members of their communities – mostly small towns. More than 900 electric cooperatives power Alaskan fishing villages, dairy farms in Vermont and the suburbs and exurbs in between. The trustees manage the distribution of power – hydro, coal, oil, gas, nuclear, wind, and solar.

Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration
in 1935 – 74 years ago - during the last great economic crisis. The idea was to begin a public-private partnership to bring safe, affordable and reliable electric power to vast parts of America, while maintaining a consumer-focused approach to business. And to create jobs. Power to the people. Simply said, it worked. Flying at night over the United States you can see the evidence in lights shining out of the most remote places.

What I remember was not exactly a Vegas showtime audience. Mostly farmers, ranchers, merchants, or fishermen. Sensibly dressed in clean versions of what they wear daily at home – jeans, boots, plaid shirts. Hard working, frugal, thoughtful, sober, conservative. Church-going community activists behind most of the good things that happen in their towns.

While I did see four of them playing the penny slot machines one night, I expect that most of them went home with the same money in their pockets they came with. They were amused and amazed by Vegas but not confused about what’s really valuable and what to do about it when they got home.
They’re willing risk takers in a high-stakes gamble on power for the future, not slot-machine goombahs.

Not hicks from the sticks, either, but well-informed citizens on the cutting edge of dealing with all facets of the world-wide energy crisis. For example, I talked with board member Howard Ramsey – trim, intelligent, retired small-town banker from Beaufort County, South Carolina who, in another time in his life, had been a Methodist minister and a university professor of theology. A thoughtful man of principle, well-informed in both energy technology and the social issues intertwined with environmental concerns. I was impressed with how much he knew and how much he cared. He was typical of those I met at the conference.

Why am I telling you this? Just in case you are not aware of those who manage the Rural Electric Coops. Good people doing good work – who willingly wrestle with the hard problems of our time. People in power, taking care of their corner of their world.

It’s the news that’s not on the front page of the paper or included in sound bites on CNN. It’s the news that’s not flashy or sinful or sensational. But it is part of the news from Las Vegas – where they went more out of curiosity than anything else. What they went to Vegas with, they went home with – competence and concern and commitment.

Competence in knowing that the vexing problems of our times can be addressed with intelligence, concern that the problems are real, and commitment to get the job done. Affordable electricity – somehow, someway. Their task is not glamorous, not visible, just essential.

When speakers are introduced, the master of ceremonies usually say something like, “We are honored to have Robert Fulghum as our guest.” And I said, “No, the honor is mine – to be in the company of the best of human enterprise – those who manage power well, in every sense of the word, without much reward except knowing a big job got done well.”

That’s part of the news from Vegas. In this case, what happened there did not stay there – it went back home and went back to work.
That’s the good news.
The reliable electricity that runs the computer on which you are reading this may well be brought to you by a Rural Electric Coop.
I thought you’d like to know.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written the week of March 15-21, 2009
Still clear, cold – 26 degrees at dawn

REPORT FROM PACK CREEK VALLEY

Imagine. Just-before-sunup silence. Deep silence. So silent you might hear the sound of a scorpion scuttling along the edge of the floor of the bedroom. That is, if you were awake. So silent you might hear the breathing of the chipmunks breathing in their nest up under the eaves of the house. If you were awake. So silent it’s hard to pass gas under the bed covers without being heard. If you were awake. The windows are open, but no sound can be heard from outside – not even a slight morning breeze. That silent. And in that lovely silence you are sound asleep. Very sound asleep. Imagine that.

In fact, I was deep in the last stages of a dream. A musical comedy, if you want to know. Lying still and content, and delighted by this last inner brain extravaganza of the night. Asleep, undisturbed by even the slightest sounds around me. Because it is so completely silent, silent, silent. Suddenly:

EEEEEYOWEEEEAAAGGGGHHH@$%&*+!!!!!!EEEEEYOWEEEEE!

In the Wild West it might be the sound that Custer’s men made when the Indians took their scalps. In the city this might be the sound of a street knifing in my front yard. But I am not in the city. And Indians no longer take scalps out here in my neck of the woods.

One thing is certain - I am for damned sure no longer asleep.
I cannot speak – only shout from somewhere inside my head:
Holy Mother of God!
What? What? What?

The uproar is coming from the sage brush outside about twenty feet away.

Be patient. I will tell you what made the sound, which, as you can see from my feeble efforts, cannot be reproduced on a computer. And, I am glad to say, a sound not made by a human being. I could not reproduce this sound even in person. And you would not want me to try. Just try to imagine:
EEEEEYOWEEEEAAAGGGGHHH@$%&*+!!!!!!EEEEEYOWEEEEE!

The backstory: For the last few of years there’s been an explosion of the bunny rabbit population in Pack Creek Valley. Take a short walk from my house and cotton tails run in all directions. As is nature’s clever way, there has been a compensating increase in raptors – eagles, owls, and hawks. Plus a similar rise in the numbers of coyotes and bobcats. Especially bobcats.

For city people I should explain that a bobcat is a feline predator about four times the size of the biggest pussycat in your neighborhood. Mottled like a leopard. And distinguished by a tail that seems to have been bobbed off short in some evolutionary twist. So, then, a bobcat is a very large pussycat that looks like a small leopard with its tail cut off.

Bobcats do not attack humans, unless, of course, you try to catch one of the charming little Bobcat kittens. There will be hell to pay from the mother Bobcat. Witness the account of the lady tourist while getting her arms and hands sewed up in the emergency room at the hospital in Moab:
“There was this cute little kitten on the trail and we didn’t see its mother anywhere and we thought we’d take it home when suddenly out of the bushes comes this huge saber-toothed leopard that tried to tear us apart. Sob.”

For the past week I have noticed a large, mature Bobcat hunting in the rocky sage-brush-and-pinon-pine landscape beyond my house. He’s very good at being stealthy and still, and then suddenly launching himself into the air like a broad jumper and landing on some unsuspecting rodent or bird. Since he’s usually some distance away I don’t hear anything. There’s just a little dust cloud rising from down in the sage brush.

Did you know that bunny rabbits can scream and squeal? Which they do when forty pounds of claws and fangs fall out of the sky on them at dawn.

EEEEEYOWEEEEAAAGGGGHHH@$%&*+!!!!!!EEEEEYOWEEEEE!

If you are in bed asleep in pre-dawn silence and this happens twenty feet away from your head, the sound will get your attention. When my heart stopped pounding, and my brain began to think rationally, and I could move from my paralyzed position, I went to the window. Just in time to see the bobcat walk away with a still-kicking and whimpering bloody bunny rabbit clamped by the head in its jaws.

It’s hard not to think, “Poor little bunny.”
Even harder to think, “Good job, bobcat!”

Silence again.

The Way of Nature has been observed. Life sacrificed for other life. The Way of the Bunny. The Way of the Bobcat. Moreover, a pack of coyotes will attack a mother bobcat, separate her from her kittens, and eat them. And coyote cubs are often lunch for raptors. So it goes.

Later, sitting out in the warmth of the rising sun, drinking my coffee, I cannot avoid thinking about violence in the world. Why is that the way it is? Why could it not be that Mother Nature had organized the food chain in such a way that bunny rabbits were born with a built-in disposition to grow up, then voluntarily lie down out in the open, peacefully expire at the sight of an oncoming bobcat, and be breakfast without complaint?

Why is terror and pain necessary?

Is living in fear and screaming at the moment of death the best arrangement?
For a bunny, I cannot say. But probably not.
For a bobcat, I cannot say. But maybe it makes the kill more exciting.
For me, definitely no.
Unless it involves scalping.

EEEEEYOWEEEEAAAGGGGHHH@$%&*+!!!!!!EEEEEYOWEEEEE!

(Now there you have a dead stop end to a morning meditation. The perfect non sequitur to make me shake my head in dismay at the direction my brain wanders off on its own sometimes. Time to get up and get on with the day. Run, bunny, run.)

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Saturday morning, March 14, 2009
Still clear, cold – 26 degrees at dawn

DANCE, FIRST MOVEMENT

So. Here I am - tucked away in the foothills of the La Sal Mountains, twenty miles from town, with no TV or radio or newspaper or even internet access. The phone is off, the fax is on the fritz. It’s so still and quiet I heard the wing thrusts of a flock of crows when they flew overhead as I walked down to my writing studio. I’m as far out of the mainstream of the Great Incoming Traffic as I can get. And it’s conveniently too cold or too muddy to hike.

I’m inside now where it’s warm and dry. Ready to write.
My project is a new novel, written while simultaneously working on a musical. The title has been announced, co-conspirators have been alerted and put to work, and my Czech publishers have signed on to publish at least the novel. First performances of parts of the musical are tentatively scheduled for next January. I’ve done my research over the last two years, brought all my resources, files, and ideas down here to Moab. Ready.

All I have to do now is write a novel and a musical. Piece of cake.

“I MUST BE OUT OF MY MIND! AAAAGGGGHHHH!”
That’s the only sentence I can think of.
For the last hour staring at blank paper.
“I MUST BE OUT OF MY MIND! AAAAGGGGHHHH!”

“Creative Panic” is what the writer, David Mamet, calls this stage.
He goes on to say, “I’m very well acquainted with Creative Panic; and over the years I have learned to deal with it as a writer, by using the Lawrence of Arabia approach: (speaking of warfare in the desert) ‘Yes, it hurts, but the trick is not minding that it hurts.”

Good advice. I wish it was easy to put into practice. I still mind the hurt.

So I’m sweating bullets, thinking of excuses, and even grateful for a day when the biggest problems I’ve got are a lack of toilet paper and a flat tire.
That’s probably why I took time to write about such mudane subjects yesterday in the first place. Avoidance. Now I’m considering maybe a trip into the City Market. Surely there’s something I need in town. Avoidance.

But it is essential to remember that it’s not required that I stumble down stairs that aren’t there. Walking down one stair at a time works best. Just write a first sentence. Then a first paragraph. Then the first three pages.
Then throw those away and start over. Prime the pump and proceed.

The brilliant first sentence is today’s goal.
My ideal is the opening line from “The Crackup” by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“Lola Shisbe had never wrecked a train in her life. But she was just sixteen, and you only had to take a look at her to know that her destructive period was going to begin any day now.”

He dared you not to want to read on.

So, then, how about this for a beginning?

“She never expected to meet her next dance partner in the frozen meat aisle of the City Market, but when she saw a man slowly dancing toward her while pushing a cart she felt the earth move.”

Aaaagggghhhh. Are you out of your mind?
You grimaced. I know you did.
Throw that one away. Bad. Awful.
But my juice is flowing.
And the Beast of Creative Panic seems to have left the room.

How about this?

“Two days ago, on his bathroom mirror she wrote with a piece of soap,
Whatever became of me?
Yesterday, underneath she added a new line:
What am I waiting for?
Last night she wrote:
If you love me still, will you love me moving?
And this morning:
Dance.”
Better? But not yet up to Fitzgerald’s standards?
Right. Try again.
Stay tuned.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Friday afternoon, March 13, 2009
clear, breezy, cold – 32 degrees in mid-afternoon

REPORT FROM MOAB

Morning. City Market. An old man in house-slipper is slowly pushing a grocery cart through the meat section – squeak . . . squeak . . . squeak. The cart has a squeaky wheel, or so I think. He notices that I notice. “It’s not the cart wheel,” he says to me, with a grin, “It’s my knees.”

* * *

My morning did not get off to the elegant start which I prefer.
Sunrise, fresh coffee, a little fire in the fireplace, silence, serenity.
That’s my plan.
But. Oh, no. Not to be.

(Now, at least once in your life you’ve probably been in the situation I’m about to describe, so I’m not being gross, just truthful. Facts are facts.)

Part of a fine morning is a good trip to the toilet. Not part of a fine morning is realizing too late that there is no toilet paper in the holder. Nor any in the place where backup is stashed in easy reach. And no Kleenex handy. And then I remember that I forgot to lay in a supply of both the last time I was in town at City Market. Damn!

And the closest solution is a roll of paper towels which should be but may not be under the kitchen sink. And it’s just too painfully embarrassing to call for help from anybody else in the house. They’d laugh. And it’s not funny.

So. What would you do?

I’ll spare you the rest of the details. Except to say a full grown man can waddle like a duck if he has to. And an early morning shower is refreshing.

A mildly humbling experience connecting one to a basic human situation.
The toilet paper experience should have been a warning. This was going to be one of those days where you get out of bed and stumble down stairs that are not supposed to be there. Trouble does not travel in singularities.

I’m schedule to be in town by 8:00 a.m. to get a safety inspection on my old Ford Subdivision so I can be street legal again. Rushing out at 7:30 for the 30 minute drive to town, there’s the next news: Flat tire – front left. First time ever in ten years with this vehicle. And of course the car is parked in some icy mud on a down-hill slope. While I’ve changed a few tires in my time, this promises to be a new adventure. Well, damn!

I don’t even know where the spare is. Or the jack. Or the jack handle. Men don’t like to consult manuals. Manuals are for sissies. What would my friends think? But I’m desperate. The manual is in a little zippered pack somewhere. Glove box? Yes! But the manual is so old the edges of the pages have melted together. Now I need a sharp knife. Back to the house. Slice the manual open. Cut my finger. Damn! Bandaid? No, duct tape. I’m a guy.

The jack handle, it turns out, is cleverly hidden somewhere under the front hood. And the jack and tire iron are concealed in a panel in the rear that won’t come off without using a tire iron, which, as I noted, is inside the panel. Screwdriver. Back to the house. But the panel still can’t be opened because it’s wedged in behind a full load of firewood that will have to be shifted first. Damn!

And the tire, believe it, is tucked up so far underneath the rear of the car that I can’t see it without getting down in the mud on my hands and knees. Who knew? Damn! And it is available only after it gets winched down on a cable that’s reached through a previously unnoticed hole in the bumper by using the jack handle, which is, as you will recall, someplace under the front hood.

So I went back in the house, changed into my overalls, had a straight shot of Wild Turkey, another cup of coffee, a bumper shot of Wild Turkey, and plunged back out into the cold to do battle with the goofy design of the mad Fiends of Ford who dreamed up this solution to changing a flat tire.

You knew the spare was going to be flat, didn’t you? It had been tucked up under the ass end of the Ford for ten years leaking air. And you knew the jack was going to sink just enough into the icy mud so I couldn’t raise the car high enough to get the flat tire off in the first place, right? And you knew I wasn’t going to get this far without flinging my useless cold-weather gloves off, which meant I was going to end up with a few bloody knuckles by now, right? And you knew that at least one of the lug nuts had been kicked off into the sage brush, though I won’t discover that until later. Right? Right.

So I’m pissed off, cursing the fiends of Ford, and kicking rocks. Bloody hell!
“Get a grip on, Fulghum.
“You are in front of your own house, where it’s warm inside, and there’s more coffee and Wild Turkey in there, and a nice companion who will laugh and pat you on the head and say, “Poor sweet baby.”

Besides, as the size of problems goes, it does put not having any toilet paper into perspective. I should have stayed in the john.

However, I’m just a little ways down the road from Seldom Seen Sleight, a veteran of many a war with recalcitrant vehicles. And the man has tools – a Quonset Hut full of tools. Nothing like a nearby guy friend with tools. Take a hike. Sure enough Sleight has jacks that will life a D-8 Cat off the ground. And. And. An air compressor. Yes! And advice on how not to kill myself by getting reckless with a jack on a downhill parked Ford Subdivision. “If the sumbitch falls on you, you’re a dead man,” is the summary of his advice.

Armed with Sleight’s advice, Sleight’s tools, one last cup of coffee, and one more bumper shot of Wild Turkey, I managed to get ‘er done. Like wining a cage fight with a sumo wrestler. And it took more time to find the one last lug nut than it took to get the car jacked up and the tire on.

So. The sumbitch is fixed! Sweating like a hot mule, covered with mud, bleeding from my knuckles, a little wired up from the coffee and buzzed up from the Turkey, I let out a scream of triumph, kicked the tire, and threw the tire iron up in the air. Way up in the air.
I still haven’t found it.
But I don’t care.
Next time I’m in the City Market I’ll get a new one.

Oh, and the squeaky noises you’d hear when I staggered around after spending so much time on the ground? My knees.

Written on Monday, March 2, 2009
Seattle, Washington

Postings here will get a little higglety-pigglety for a couple of weeks. I’m off on a slow blue-highways road trip to Moab, Utah. On the way a stop in Portland at Powell’s Books, a stop-and-look drive down the great Columbia River Gorge, across the wheat fields of eastern Oregon, into Boise, Idaho, across the Snake River plains into Utah to Salt Lake City with friends, and over Soldier Pass into southeastern Utah, across the Colorado River into Moab. I make the journey to a quiet place to think and write and get in touch with myself. The raw material for a new novel and a musical made of the same material has piled up ready to be sorted and laid out on paper. And spring is on the way as surely as I am. Meanwhile, these thoughts:

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

“I Robert Lee Fulghum, domiciled and residing in King County, Washington, being of lawful age and being of sound and disposing mind and memory, and not acting under duress or the undue influence of any person, do make, publish, and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament.”

So begins the legal document sitting before me on the table now as I write.
Five pages later it is signed and notarized and dated February 27, 2009.

Alongside it is an update of a letter to my personal representative, my oldest son, laying out the disposal of my personal property, my wishes regarding my funeral and the disposal of my remains after death.
In the same pile is a directive for health care to my physician in case I cannot make decisions on my own, and a conveyance of power of attorney for my financial affairs and literary estate.
One final document is a letter to my family and friends to be read at the party I’ve provided for when I die.
These instruments make current a process I’ve repeated every few years
for three decades. It gets easier to do each time.

My affairs with regard to my demise are once again in order.
It gives me peace of mind to get this done and sets an example to my children in the management of their affairs. I hope they follow suit.
All those affected have been consulted - they know my thinking and my wishes and my reasons. They’ve been in the loop for many years and have been part of the process. No surprises lie in wait for them. No fear.

Why have I done this and why do I tell you?
Three reasons.

First of all, I’m dying. And so are you. Life is a terminal condition.
Death is a reality not to be afraid of but to address openly and well. And though I am, according to a recent medical checkup, still in excellent heath, I am also 72 years old and it’s prudent to consider the realities of aging. I long ago accepted that the time will come when I will not be. That time is closer now. But I’m comfortable with that. In the front of the loose-leaf notebook of my most personal journal are these words:

Be not perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal. And in a little time you will be no one and nowhere. You have been there before. No problem. No doubt things are just as they should be.

I intend that my going shall be as graceful and as useful as possible.
My heirs should not be left with a mess or anguish or confusion.
So I keep my will and other legal instructions up to date. And speak freely and openly about death with those I love and care about. No fear.

(I’ll not elaborate further. If you want to know more about my attitude toward death and dying, consult my book, From Beginning To End - The Rituals of Our Lives, in the section entitled “Dead” - pp. 187-227. I’ve even provided examples of the necessary documents in the Reference section at the end of the book.)

To continue my reasons for regularly updating my will and testament:

During the many years I was a parish minister I had a first-hand acquaintance with how much trouble and sorrow came to bear when a deceased had avoided considering their death. We don’t like to talk about death or address it - it’s more taboo in our culture than almost anything.
And so seventy percent of Americans die intestate - without a will or any adequate instructions for their executors or next of kin. And in doing so, leave confusion and pain and frustration as major bequests to their families.
They leave a complex legal curse instead of a thoughtful loving blessing.

I rarely use the word “should” in talking to other people about their lives.
But I say with some passion - you should at least have a will. And if you get that far, the other useful documents are easier to complete.

My final reason: The process of considering one’s legacy is instructive.
Every time I’ve undertaken the task of reviewing and revising my will I’ve been glad. It’s made me reconsider the life I live, what’s really important, and what’s really not. And reminded me that the most valuable thing left behind to others is good memories.

It’s this existential experience that makes the effort worthwhile.
Thinking about what will happen after you die makes you think about what happens before you die. Thinking about dying well makes you concentrate more on living well. It’s why I visit my cemetery lot every once in awhile, just to keep perspective.

Every time I do this I manage to put down the trivial, call up some friends to spend an evening together - like tonight - at St. Cloud’s - where Tom Bennett and the Rolling Blackouts are playing stomping good roadhouse music, the laughter is loud, the dancing spontaneous, and for awhile everybody there forgets about death for an evening because joy always trumps the darkness.

Written on Friday, February 27, 2009
Seattle, Washington - clear, cold - residue of yesterday’s surprise snow still on the ground - but with crocuses rising through it in defiance.

TAKING VIENNA

“Fulghum, are you still dancing tango?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You must be pretty good by now.”
“No. But I still don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t take Vienna.”
“What?”

“If you say you are going to take Vienna, take Vienna.”
Napoleon said that. And he did it.
It’s usually my attitude about any new endeavor.
It means don’t announce intentions until you’ve done your homework, have a plan, a reality check, and your determination is engaged.
Then just, bygod, go do it.

Ah, yes, but then Napoleon also said he was going to take Russia.
He had a long ride home in the snow, and you know the rest of the story.

I said I was going to take tango.
Bought the shoes and the suits.
Took lessons. Went to dances.
Went to Buenos Aires to tango school.
Went to more dances. Took more lessons.

And passed through the stages of Tango Innocence into Tango Reality:
1. “How hard can this be?”
2. “This is really hard.”
3. “Maybe I’m not going to get good at this - not even adequate.”
4. “How can I get out of this - I’m a loser.”
5. “Used tango shoes for sale.”

As with many new enterprises, the problem is Them.
The curse of the ambitious novitiate.
They are watching. What will they think? What will they say?
They are in the way.

Nevertheless, I’m back out there dancing and taking lessons.
What happened?
Sitting in a dark corner alone during a tango dance, feeling humiliated after banging around on the floor during a dance, I tried to think of what I would say to me if I gave me some advice in my situation.

“Look, Fulghum, if you don’t dance well, people will stop watching you. They watch the really cool dancers, not the stumblebums.”

“You are not required to be good. Not yet.
Early high expectations too soon lead to early low accomplishment.”

“Get straight - it’s not a public performance. It’s a social dance.
It’s not a contest. It’s a social dance.”

“By and large, people who know what they are doing will be kind to people who don’t know what they are doing if they admit that and ask for help.”

“The truth about them is that they understand. Remember, Fulghum, everybody was a beginner once upon a time. Everybody has passed through the stage of despair in the face of apparent defeat.”

“Keep it simple. Just walk well, Fulghum. Listen to the music.
Enjoy being here with dancers.
It’s much better than being at home alone.”

“Look over there - at the two nice ladies who are not being asked to dance.
Introduce yourself. Tell them your story. Ask them to help you to dance better. They will. And they will be as grateful to you as you are to them.”

Say to a lady friend who is a fine dancer, “You are my witness. I want you to dance with me and notice what I can and cannot do. Feel free to laugh. But a year from now, when we dance, I want you to be able to say at the end of our first dance, My, my, you’ve come a long way!” And she will do that.
Right. Head up, Fulghum. Back straight, Fulghum. Courage! Onward!

So I’m out there again. Two nights this week.
I’m practicing at home with a life-size stuffed orangutan named Louise.
(She follows well and doesn’t complain.)
And I have a dance partner now - a real one - who dances better than I.

“Remember, Fulghum, Napoleon was not much of a dancer.
You already dance better than Napoleon.”

“Help me.” is not a sign of weakness, but a signpost on the way to Vienna.

And I shall take Vienna.
Slowly. But surely.
One dance at a time.

Written on Thursday, February 19, 2009
Seattle, Washington - clear, cold, with a vague promise of early spring

FIVE POST-VALENTINE’S-DAY REFLECTIONS
Some aspects of existence are best considered at a distance from the emotional zenith connected with them. I’m not sure what that sentence means, but it sounds intelligent, don’t you think. Maybe I should have simply said that it’s hard to talk sensibly about love on Valentine’s Day. So I’ve waited a week.

1. As unofficial inspector of the classroom windows of the elementary school across the street, I noted that recent skills acquired in cutting out snowflakes from paper were applied to making semi-lacy doilies on which red hearts were pasted. The hearts and doilies were symmetrical.

Clearly the students had been let in on the great secret that symmetrical heart shapes can be made by folding the paper in half first before cutting. Shazam!

How will they feel when they find out the truth that real hearts are not smoothly symmetrical? When they find out that real love is not symmetrical, either? Or real life. That cutting out something with lumpy, raggedy, unmatched sides is more realistic? Will they feel disappointed or relieved?

2. One afternoon during the week before Valentine’s Day I passed by the school during recess. Several little girls were skipping back and forth across the playground shrieking at full capacity. Shrieking is the special talent of little girls. Not yelling. Not shouting. Not Screaming. Shrieking.And it’s not so easy to skip and shriek at the same time. Try it.

Several little boys were standing watching the little girls. Nonplussed about what they were seeing. Uncertain how to respond. Though they don’t consciously recognize it, this behavior is an early stage of foreplay in the long run-up to BigTime love. It’s a mating dance the rookies do. Skipping, shrieking, staring. Someday, when the girls are grown up and shriek late at night while having a drink at a bar, the young men around them will finally know the code and not be confused about what’s going on or what they can do about it. Shrieking is nothing to be afraid of. Unless, of course, you think of some forms of love can be dangerous . . .

3. Love is explosive. That’s for sure. In addition to shrieking, it makes people laugh, sing, shout, yell, and scream. It’s been a long time since I screamed. Where could I safely try it out one more time? Could I safely skip and scream at the same time? Would it attract women? Would my neighbor call 911? I tried it in my basement. And then went outside and skipped around my house. Results: The screaming felt pretty good. I am no longer good at skipping.

3. On the Friday before Valentine’s Day a passerby would have seen a senior geezer plumped down in the front throne of the Nails Salon on Queen Anne Avenue. He was getting a pedicure. He was very happy. I know. He was me. Also present: three Vietnamese pedicuratricians, and five young women in for the works for Valentine’s Day - toes, nails and legs waxed.

Some men may think a nail salon is not a place for a guy to go. Wrong. Being in a room with eight lovely young women working on being beautiful is a very pleasant experience. You don’t even have to buy them drinks.
Less stress than going to yoga class or a gym. While getting my claws clipped and filed, and my feet rubbed, I also get to sit in an electric massage chair that works over my back. Meanwhile, all the sweet young things in the shop make a fuss over me. A nail salon is a great place for a guy to be.

As a general proposition I’ve been consciously trying to continue to do things for the first time. In small, unspectacular ways to keep my mind open and loose - as an exercise vitality. Take a little chance when I can. While watching the young ladies choose colors for their nails it occurred to me that I had never had my toenails painted. I wondered what it would feel like. So. .

Cute young thing in the chair next to mine pipes up when my polish goes on:
“Wow! Like, Wow! that’s a little kinky, don’t you think.”
“Yes. But I like kinky. I’m just not good at it.”
“Wow! Like, that’s a great shade of red. Is it to surprise someone you love?”
“Yes, me. I hardly remember what I did yesterday anymore, so tomorrow morning when I get out of bed to go to the bathroom, I’ll look down, see my red toenails and be really surprised. Wow! Like, Wow!”

So I went around all day with a foolish smile on my face and my socks on.
Sometimes I laughed when people asked me “What’s new?”
I didn’t say I just had my toenails painted red. I didn’t do it for them.
But for me.
And so it came to pass. On Valentine’s Day morning, when I got out of bed - Like Wow! And this morning, too.
As I write this, the polish is still on my toes. And I’m still smiling.
Sooner or later I’ll go back to the Nails Salon and have the polish removed.
It’s nice to have something to look forward to.
“Well, then, how about leg waxing?” you may ask.
No. I don’t think so.
That could lead to screaming.

4. Five blocks away from where I live is a classic two-story, shingled house. The dining room is in the front of the house on the street side. Reliably around six o’clock every evening an older gentleman can be seen carefully setting the table as if guests were expected for dinner: table cloth, silverware, glasses, flowers in a vase, wine in a bottle and a candlestick.

He lights the candles, and from the kitchen his white-haired wife brings plates of food. In a courtly manner he pulls back her chair to seat her before sitting down himself. They don’t say a blessing, but they do hold hands briefly just before eating. And while eating they talk and sometimes laugh.

I have been a guest at their table several times. But they don’t know that. Because I’m not in the dining room with them. I’m pausing across the street on my evening walk. Watching them in the warm yellow interior light of their house - through two windows - him in one, she in another - an animated painting by Edward Hopper. I can’t hear their conversation. Perhaps there is also music playing. The silent pantomime of their ongoing dinner ritual reminds me that love can be constant, can be content, can last.

Why would I think that? Last Friday, a week ago, the evening before Valentine’s Day, the man tied two red heart-shaped helium balloons on the back of her chair before she came to dinner. She came out of the kitchen as usual, carrying two plates, saw the balloons, stopped, smiled, and laughed. When they sat down to eat they held hands a little longer than usual.

Tonight, as I passed by around six, I saw them once again at dinner.
The two heart-shaped balloons are still tied to the back of her chair.

5. On the sidewalk in front of a bus stop this morning I saw this message written in blue chalk: “Anna Loves Bradley.” On my way back from my walk this evening I noticed that the message had been altered. “Bradley” had been crossed out. A new name added. Now the message reads: “Anna Loves Joshua.” Love is not always constant, content, or lasting. Everything that has forward motion and is alive is subject to hazard and consequences. I’m not quite sure what that sentence means, either, but it’s best to stay a little vague and foolish and loose when addressing the subject of love, don’t you think?

Seattle, Washington
Written Thursday, February 5, 2009
Conditions outside at 8:00 a.m. - clear, 32 degrees

CHECK ENGINE

My car has possibly been possessed by alien forces.
(You are nodding your head in agreement. Yours, too?)

My car is a ten-year-old Ford Subversion. A steroidal, scarred and dented, fuel-sucking, maroon hulk. Usually it lives in Utah, where, to be fair, it has clawed its way around off-road rather reliably without complaint. But now, having been driven 1,000 miles up here to the city of Seattle, it seems to have suffered what is, for a car, a slight nervous breakdown. Or else, as it is beginning to seem, it has possibly been possessed by alien forces.

For one thing, the little black key-ring thingy that’s supposed to unlock the car when you press a button only functions on one door on one side. Sometimes. If you bang the thingy with your hand, the car has a panic attack, horn honking, lights flashing. Which will stop only if you unlock the car and stick the key in the ignition. Which can be done easily - if you haven’t parked the car against a fence - the side where the only working door is located. The car always moves closer to the fence during the night.
You can imagine . . .

Why am I telling you this? Why should you care? Why should I?
Because these little disconnects affect the whole quality of a day, and they usually don’t come one at a time, but in batches. And they float around in my head looking for other particles of thought to merge with into meaning.

(Before you read further, keep in mind that I can change a tire, a battery, the oil, the sparkplugs, and pump gas. And that’s about it. I’m not a car guy. Also, the manual for the car is all stuck together from having been left out in the rain a long time ago, so it’s hard to use. And I don’t want to call the Car Guys on NPR because they’d die laughing. Especially when I try to explain about the “Check Engine” light.)

To continue.
The “Check Engine” light came on at the instrument panel. Yellow light. Yellow means caution. Warning. But what else? What is required of me?
Tearing up the owner’s manual I learned that the light could indicate a wide range of problems, but mostly it meant I should “visit my nearest Ford dealer.” I’m scam sensitive and this seemed suspiciously scammy to me. The “Check Engine” light may have been thrown in just to sell parts and unwarranted service for elderly cars. A “Check Engine” trip to the dealer could result in my coming home with a brand new Ford Subversion. No.

But, forget cynicism. What if the light meant something quite obvious and simple? Check. Engine. I opened the hood. Behold, the engine! It’s still there. Yes! Check. Slammed the hood down with satisfaction. Climbed into the driver’s seat. Turned the key in the ignition. Brooom, Brmmmmm. No warning light! No problem. Ha!

This has now gone on for a week. Same routine. Light goes on. Open hood. Say hello to engine. Slam hood. Light goes off. Fixed. What would you do?
If aliens are involved and they are doing useful things, then support the aliens, right? If it’s strange, but it works, stick with strange, right?

This line of thinking is connected to another condition. On my morning walks, I’ve been thinking about my recent experiences in Bali and how that applies to being in Seattle again. A vague sense of discontent remains as a kind of yellow warning light on the instrument panel of my life. I’m home but something’s not quite right. Vaguely alienated. Could be serious. Or something obvious and simple. What? “Check Engine.”

While passing a big yellow machine excavating a hole for new construction, I was stopped by a smell. A major nose hit. What? Fresh dirt. Earth. Staring at the dark brown loamy soil I realized what I missed from Bali. Earth. Every morning there I walked out of my house and touched nothing but dirt with my feet for awhile - the oozy mud on the paths through the rice fields - the crumbly alluvial soil on the banks of the rivers - the hard packed clay in the home compounds of artists. Dirt. Soil. Earth. The ground of being. It was a welcome pleasure to slip out of my sandals and go barefooted. To feel grounded. I had not been in touch with the Earth for a long time.

Now, here in Seattle I go whole days, even weeks, without touching the Earth. There is always something in between me and it - floors, sidewalks, pavement - something. I’m mostly inside something - house, car, stores, office. Even in my own yard there is no exposed earth - just grass, gravel, cement, wood - something. Maybe that’s the sources of alienation.

So, this morning I went out to touch the Earth.
And began by walking through my neighbor’s flower beds. Barefooted.
My neighbor was watching through his kitchen window, but he didn’t come out to inquire. He’s very tolerant of some of my non-standard behavior, but my explanations make him dizzy. I don’t know if he’s afraid that what I’m doing doesn’t make sense or afraid that it might.

Anyhow.
If he had come out, I would have said, “I know you won’t believe this, but my “Check Engine” light came on.” So he stayed inside, while I put my socks and shoes on, and went off whistling down the street. Happy because the “Check Engine” light had gone off in my mind.

Seattle, Washington
Written Sunday, January 25, 2009
Conditions outside - 32 degrees and mystical,
with light snow falling in the early evening darkness,
Conditions inside: Mozart’s piano sonatas on the stereo

ACT

From time to time I have what I think of as an encounter with my Guardian Angel. It’s like getting an annual performance review with an employer, or having a periodic physical exam. My Guardian Angel usually shows up on a quiet evening when I’ve been sitting by a fire reading a book. The next thing I know the book has been laid aside and I’m in a thinking trance, staring at the fire. Enter my Guardian Angel, stage left. He sighs, and begins:

GA: Ah, well, Mr. Fulghum. I must say it is no picnic being your Guardian Angel. You are very busy, busy, busy - always coming and going. Frankly I never know where you are half the time.
RF: I don’t know where I am half the time either.
GA: Ha! I’ve noticed - that’s true in more ways than one. Actually, that’s why I’ve come. We need to review your existential condition.
RF: Oh, no, not again.
GA: Just doing my job. Cooperate. You don’t want to get on my bad side.
RF: Yes, sir. Speak your mind.

GA: To begin with, I’ve taken note of your response to the current troubled state of human affairs, which is, and I quote, to “Just hunker down - hang on - wait and see.” Right?
RF: Well, yes, I have said and thought that. But . . .
GA: Wait. There’s more. You’ve also said, and I quote again, “Most of the major problems of the world are overwhelmingly huge, complex, and not my fault. I didn’t cause them and I can’t do anything about them.” Right?
RF: Well, yes. But . . .
GA: And you’ve stopped listening to the news, watching TV, or reading the daily papers. Am I right?
RF: Well, yes, but . . . You’re taking my behavior out of context. I’m not that pessimistic or cynical or unconcerned. It’s just that, well, for the moment I’m conflicted and confused - just like everybody else.
GA: Pathetic. I’m ashamed to be your Guardian Angel.
RF: That’s a little harsh coming from an Angel.
GA: Angels tell it like it is. You are college educated, well-traveled, mature, intelligent - and a privileged member of the human race with broad life experience. Now you’ve decided to be an inept moral coward for awhile.
RF: That’s mean.
GA: Angels tell it like it is. Look, Fulghum, while you are lying low, a hell of a lot of people are doing a hell of a lot to get the wheels of the human train back on the tracks headed in the right direction. But not you. Mr. Helpless, the Grand Lama of Stoic Passivity. You sit here tucked into your comfy hole with a bag over your head as if you know nothing about history or courage or altruism or imagination or compassion or intelligence! Are you brain dead? Have you gone deaf, blind, and stupid all at once?
RF: Now you’re insulting me.
GA: No, You are insulting You! You could do better.
RF: You don’t need to remind me.
GA: Yes I do. That’s why I’m here. Your position of “Just hunker down - hang on - wait and see.” is an attitude for wimps and sissies. It’s self-centered, conservative, and, frankly, a chicken-shit point of view. Pathetic!

RF: Suppose that’s true. So what am I supposed to do?
GA: I can’t believe that’s a serious question. You, Captain Kindergarten, of all people that I have to keep track of, should know.
RF: What? Wait. You’re not just my Guardian Angel?
GA: No. Remember, there aren’t many of us, and we’re really overwhelmed these days. The plan is that we will inspire people like you to do a lot of our work for us. Even amateur Guardian Angels can accomplish a lot. If we do our work well, you will want to be one of us. You can be a Guardian Angel. But why am I telling you this? We’ve been over this before, Fulghum.
RF: I forget sometimes.
GA: Well, it’s time to remember. When’s the last time you considered that sign on your office wall? The one that says, “There’s no limit to the amount of good a man can accomplish if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit?”
RF: I haven’t thought about it recently.
GA: Well think about it. Think hard and well. And think about all the other noble thoughts you’ve claimed allegiance to. Were you just blowing smoke?
RLF: No.
Have you ever regretted doing something useful, kind, or generous?
RF: No.
GA: Well, Fulghum it’s time to get busy. You know what you can do, right?
RF: Yes.
GA: Then do it. Get off your butt. The world doesn’t need passengers or observers now. Roll up your sleeves. Get behind the wagon. Lift and push. I’ll give you a one-word motto for the time being.
RF: What’s that?
GA: ACT!
RF: Right. I get it. Thanks for coming. Stay amused and amazed.
GA: I work with human beings, how can I not?

And with a wink, he was gone. And I got up and wrote this report and made plans for Monday. I don’t want him coming back in a bad mood. Guardian Angels can really trash your life if you don’t live up to their standards.

Seattle, Washington
Written Sunday/Monday, January 18/19, 2009
Conditions outside - winter, cold, still, and foggy
Inside it’s clear and the sun is shining.

PART ONE: PERSPECTIVE

Good news! In front of me on my desk as I write is the first printed copy of my novel, THIRD WISH, sent to me hot off the press from the publisher. Finally, it’s real - and all I hoped it would be. As soon as the rest of the first printing of 15,000 reaches Amazon, they will be on their way to those who ordered a first edition in advance of publication. Moreover, the electronic version is now available for download to Amazon’s Kindle Reader. Amazon’s publicity launch is underway and reader reviews of the novel have been posted.

How do I feel, after fifteen years of work on THIRD WISH? As I said above, despite the winter outside, inside it’s clear and the sun is shining.

What follows is a five-part flood of writing after a two-month layoff in Bali. First, there’s an excerpt from a letter to Eva Slamova, the editor-in-chief of Argo Publishing, in Prague, the Czech Republic.

“Dearest Eva, on the way to you is a first edition of THIRD WISH in English - the first copy I received. I cannot keep it. It belongs to you. Once upon what seems now like a long time ago you asked what new writing projects I had in mind. When I said, ‘A novel’ you didn’t express surprise or ask why. You only said you wanted to see the manuscript. I sent you two parts of a work in progress.

“I want to publish it,” you said. “What? First in Czech - even before it’s finished or published in English?” I asked. “"Yes, why not?” you replied. Because it seemed like such a risk, I agreed only if you accepted my contract offer: “Publish it well, and if it makes any money, send me some.”
That’s all the contract we ever had. You wrote that down, had it framed, and sent it to me. I have it before me as I write. It’s a constant reminder to me of what people of good faith can accomplish together out of mutual trust and respect. Not only in publishing, but in all the affairs of life.

Though I have some idea, only you know how much hard work you invested in editing that first rough manuscript and then having it translated into Czech. You polished rough raw material into a work of literary art. You kept the contract - published it well, made some money for Argo, and sent me some. Who dreamed that it would become a best seller in Czech? Maybe you, but least of all me.

I’ve just finished viewing the DVD you sent of the film that Argo made of my adventures in the Czech Republic. As is your style, and despite your importance to the success of my books, you don’t appear in the film speaking as my editor and publisher. Your face is only glimpsed on the edge of the background, laughing your lovely Eva laugh at a wild story I’m telling at a dinner. You managed to stay anonymous, as you intended, but not quite.

Few know that you produced my novel while you were undergoing treatment and surgery for breast cancer. Your stoic endurance of those hard years of your life inspired the character of Alice-Alice in part five of THIRD WISH. We’ve never spoken about that. I hope you noticed and that you understand it was my tribute to your noble character and your own important work as a playwright in Czech theater.

It borders on an invasion of your well-guarded privacy to say these things, but I want people to know the untold story. The long and winding tale of how THIRD WISH came to be is as much yours as mine.

In that same last part of the novel there is a photograph of a labyrinth you drew in the sand on a beach in Crete on behalf of the characters of Alice and Alex. Last fall, in a nostalgic mood, I returned to that beach. The waves of the sea have long ago washed away the labyrinth. But the waves of time will not wash away my appreciation, respect, and love for you as an editor, human being, and friend. We have been to the center of the labyrinth together, and returned safely, together.

Thus, when I send you this first copy of the final version of THIRD WISH, it’s because it belongs only to you. To say that I am grateful for your being part of my life is a profound understatement. You’re blushing as you read this - I know it. But the truth is the truth. Just be glad that I don’t tell all the truth I know. Who would believe it?”

PART TWO - A STORY

What follows is fiction, based on true events in the life of a real person, but written to take advantage of the objective distance writing in third person can offer. You may find it a bit weird - I do. But, then, life gets weird sometimes, doesn’t it? And that’s not always a bad thing.

Daniels Doggett was a writer. At least he made his living that way, though he was never sure if ‘writer’ was his identity or just an odd job in the factory of the world that paid his rent. Was he an Artist with a Flourishing Way of Life? Or just a guy who went to work every day assembling words for sale?
He was never sure.

From time to time Doggett would go off on travel adventures to get away from the relentless trivial traffic of ongoing daily life. The wild beast of busy-ness devoured the time required to think, reflect, and write. Arranging his affairs, leaving behind vague messages on answering machines, he more or less fled the comfort of home, friends, office, language, and culture. He thought of these adventures as positive exile.

This time he went to the Indonesian island of Bali for two months. To a village in the rice fields on the slopes of a semi-active volcano. Being in a world radically different from his own offered anonymity, provocation of all his sense and sensibilities, and freedom from newspapers, radio, television, the internet, and telephones. Here he would get down to serious writing.

But this time he wrote very little. One morning at dawn he had an epiphany. “Why do I think I must spend every day looking for something to write about? Why do I feel compelled to see the world as writing fodder? Why the arrogance to see every person and thing and event as a comment on my life? Why watch the world through the lens of an investigative travel reporter? Why always Why? What am I missing? Suppose I just approached Bali like listening to Mozart or dancing tango or wandering through an art museum?”
“Why not just be here?”
So he did that.
Put his pen and notebook away. Went out in Bali just to be there.

Quickly Doggett’s Cup of Bali filled to the brim. “Let it spill over,” he thought, and it did. When that happened, he had another epiphany. “Go home.” Leaving Bali he arrived unannounced in Seattle two weeks early. Zonked by jet lag, he laid low for a couple of days - sleeping by day and roaming around wide awake by night.

Have you ever wanted to disappear? Not run away or commit suicide - just not be for a few days? Doggett realized that the people he knew in Bali assumed he was in Seattle - he was no longer an expected feature of their daily lives. And. The people in Seattle thought he was still in Bali - he was not yet an expected feature in their ongoing lives.

“I’ve fallen into a crease in time,” he thought. “Nobody knows where I am and nobody is concerned about that. I don’t exist.” He remembered a course in theology in graduate school - the one about ontology - being and not being. “I’ve achieved non-being. Like winning the lottery where the reward is two free weeks of invisibility. My life has become science fiction.”

Doggett didn’t know how long he could stay in the crease. What if he met somebody he knew? “Tell them they’re hallucinating. Besides, most of them are home asleep in bed when I’m awake. What if the phone rings? Don’t answer it. Don’t call anybody or read papers or listen to the radio or check
e-mail or watch TV.”

No problem - he wouldn’t be doing these things if he wasn’t here, right?
The plan expanded. “Don’t go anywhere I usually go, eat at any restaurant where I’ve eaten before, or shop anywhere I usually shop. Treat Seattle like a foreign city and experience only the unknown parts of it.”

“This is crazy,” he thought. “But maybe not - take a chance - try it out.”
And he did exactly that.

For about ten days. It was a freaky, provocative unsettling, and often
exhilarating experience. Sometimes as lonely as being maybe dead. Sometimes as exciting as being in a second-rate spy movie, with the temptation to check out friends and family without being caught. And sometimes guilt-ridden with the thought that when his game was revealed people would think he had been duplicitous. But. Doggett had a reputation for weirdness, and this was not the weirdest thing he had ever done by far.

And so? What happened?

He spent time inside the departure lounge of himself.
“Just be,” he thought. “In Seattle as in Bali.”

He had an opportunity to process the Bali experience before he had to reply to the “So how was Bali?” question. And would, he discovered, have a great deal less to say than he might have otherwise.

He had a chance to enjoy being at home without diving into the homework that always piled up while he was away. Like being snowed in for a week.

He had a chance to consider something he had seen written on a restroom wall: “What if the question is not Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be? - but Why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?”

And he had a chance to ponder part of a poem written by Pablo Neruda:

“If we were not so single-minded
About keeping our lives moving
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence
Might interrupt this sadness
Of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with death.”

Then one day his closest friend called.
On impulse he answered the phone.
“Where are you?”
“I’m not sure, but I guess I’m here now.”
Non-being was over.

Doggett never wrote about his experiences in the crease of time.
When asked, “So how was Bali?” he would say, “Go and see for yourself.”
If you asked him, “So, what was it like not existing?” He would reply,
“Try it sometime and find out for yourself.”

Because he will not tell you much more than that, I thought I would.

PART THREE - ALLEY OOPS - A PERK OF NOTORIETY

And now for something completely different. A small encounter while out walking yesterday thinking about writing this journal.

Early morning, not long after daybreak.
I’m about twenty blocks from home in a residential neighborhood on the other side of Queen Anne Hill from where I live. Carrying a full load of coffee, I forgot to take a prophylactic pee before I left my house, and now the pressure is building. I will never make it home in time.

Optimistically I hustle down to a Porta-Potty in front of a construction site. Locked. A small park a block away looks promising, but it’s full of the morning dump-the-dog people. It’s socially acceptable for dogs to do their awkward business in public, but old guys whizzing behind a tree is not.

Now I’m getting desperate.
At the first alley I come to I urgently scope out some possibility - maybe between garbage cans - maybe behind an open garage door - maybe wedged in behind a telephone pole. No, no, and no. All too public.

Finally, further up the alley, it’s ohmygod time and I carefully squeeze into some blackberry bushes and empty my bladder up against a fence in a stream a small horse would be proud of. I laugh and sigh in relief.

“All better?” a sweet voice asks.

Stunned, I look up to the back of the house to which the fence belongs.
A young woman is sitting in a porch swing nursing her baby.
She giggles. “It’s alright,” she says. “I understand.”
“It’s like nursing,” she says, gesturing down at her exposed breast.
“It’s a very human thing to do.”
“Thanks,” I say, with a nervous laugh.
“Actually,” she says, I know who you are. You’re that kindergarten guy, right? I’ve read your book. But I won’t tell anybody that you peed on my fence. In an odd way, I’m honored.”

PART FOUR - A SHORT SPEECH

Most people know the story of my first child. I wrote about that in my book on rituals in the section called “Reunion.” Since I’m often asked about how the story played out, I thought I’d share the most recent chapter. This is what I said at a birthday party on Saturday evening, January 17, 2009.

I raise my glass to toast Lynn Edith Paulson on her 50th birthday.
Your day of birth, January 16, 1959, is an abstraction. The person you have become has no real memory of that day or of the tiny person you were then. That’s true for all of us.

The question that matters is: Do you feel like celebrating the person you are and the life you have now? Your answer is Yes!

I, on the other hand, do have a memory from 50 years ago. The day after you were born, January 17, 1959, was one of the worst days of my life. Your mother and I did not bring you home with us from the hospital. After seeing you briefly, we placed you in care of an adoption agency, knowing we might never ever see you again or even know what became of you.

You know how and why that happened and it need not be repeated here.
It’s enough to say that the memory of that event was so painful I could not talk about it or tell anyone about it for a long time.

But that was then. This is now.
And every time you and I say that to each other tears well in our eyes.

Now the astonishing unpredictable forces of fate have reunited us. Now you are here in my home, where you come and go with ease. Now you call me “Papa” and introduce me to others as your father. And I, always with a twinge of relieved joy, introduce you now by saying, “This is my daughter.” Therefore, from this day forward, January 17, 2009 will always be remembered as a day of joy.

I celebrate the person you have become.
I celebrate your presence in my life.
Sometimes things work out better than we dared ever hope.

I could go on. It’s my weakness to say too much.
But more words won’t do.
May I simply ask you to dance with me?

And if you had been there on that lovely night you would have heard a single fiddle play a fine waltz while a father and daughter danced . . . . .

PART FIVE - A BENEDICTION

About the time you read this an almost unimaginable change will have taken place in our country and our world. I would neither try to add to the flood of eloquence about this moment, nor ignore it. If I could have the last word at the end of the day of January 20, 2009, I would simply say:

May Yes, we can, become Yes, we did.
May God and we bless the United States of America.
May God and we bless this Earth and all who come after us.
Amen.

Ubud, Bali - December 18, 2008
Hot, steamy, sunny day after heavy downpour during the night.

THE RHINOSCEROS AND THE WATER BUFFALO

In my hand is an aluminum soft drink can. It once contained something labeled “LARUTAN PENYEGAR” - subtitled “Kaki Tiga” - flavor is “Rasa Melon.” Two factors drew my eye to the can: It was on the same shelf as the well-known energy drink Red Bull. And on the can was a picture of a large, two-horned rhinosceros with a smile on its face. There were six flavors.

“Aha,” I thought, this must be the original Balinese version of an energy drink.
Makes you feel as strong and contented as the rhino on the label.”
Yes!

So I bought a couple of cans - one melon and one orange flavored. Put them in the fridge alongside the bottle of Absolut vodka - and in the heat of late afternoon I had a frosty cold Rhino Juice cocktail. Mmmmm. Smooth, mellow - like drinking the essence of a honeydew melon. I drank the whole can, and would have gone for the second one. But, fortunately, I first asked Wayan, a member of the staff, who was passing by my porch:
“What’s this stuff?”
“Did you drink the whole can?”
“Yes.”
His eyes widenend in surprise. “Wow!” he said.
“Is there something I should know,” I asked.
“They say it is good for your health,” he said.
“In exactly what way?”
“Well,” he said, slightly embarassed, “It is good in times of constipation and also if you want, how shall I say, a sexual thing.”
“You mean . . .?”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at his lower body fore and aft, with appropriate motions down and up. “Usually half a can is enough.”

Imagine. A melon-flavored soft drink that will simultaneously serve a man’s most basic desires - a good dump and an erection.

“Do these things happen at the same time?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “But that is what I have heard. I would never drink it. Especially not a whole can at once. With vodka? Never.”
So I spent the rest of the afternoon in nervous anticipation.

All I shall tell you is that the stuff works. You can imagine.
And now I understand the smile on the face of the rhinosceros on the label.
He is deeply contented.

Two days ago I was high up on the slopes of one of the volcanos - where the famous terraced rice paddys of the Balinese step down the steep ground like carefully unfolded green ribbons. It’s both the time of planting and harvesting rice. The equatorial sun is fierce at this altitude and people and animals take a break from the hard work and the sharp sun in the middle of the day.

I came across a water buffalo up to his neck in a soupy mud hole in the shade of a tree. Every once in a while he sloshed back and forth to stir up the cold mud, and then settled back with a deep-throated “harumpff” closed his eyes and was very still.
The look on the face of the buffalo matched the look on the rhinosceros on the can of “Kaki Tiga” - contented.

It is also the look on the face of Boppa Lobbert this morning sitting in the shade writing these words to you - contented.
In the next few days dear friends arrive from Greece and France to spend the end-of-year holidays here with me.
The goal is to sit together some lovely evening in candle-lit silence - the pleased silence that is the privilege of those who admire, respect, and love one another - when just being together is sufficient - when nothing need be said. Contented.

In this holiday season I wish for you the same, for whatever reasons, in whatever way you may find it.
That feeling of well being. Contented. If only for a moment.

(My friends and I are, by the way, keeping gift-giving to a minimum - only something small that brings amusement.
I’m thinking of a can of rhino juice for each one of them.
Should I tell them first?
Or, as it should always be with gifts, shall I count on surprise?
Or at least a clue: Be mindful of your crotch. Stay near a toilet or a bed. Wait for it . . . .Happy New Year!)

And, if you got this far, and if what I’ve written made you smile, then you have my gift to you:
The laughter that comes from simple-minded foolish joy.
Merry Christmas!

Stay Awake. Stay amazed. Stay amused.

Boppa Lobbert

Thirsty, December 11, 2008
Ubud, Bali, where there is sunshine after a 3-day tropical downpour

Before sharing a new journal I’m pleased to note that Amazon has posted what they call their A+ page regarding my novel, Third Wish. It contains excerpts from critical reader reviews, as well as information from me and details on ordering. Their pre-publication price is very low. And from back channels I hear that the books will be shipped early from Asia - soon after Jan. 1 - which should mean the February consumer delivery date is realistic. rlf

ANXITEMENT

A certain man I know is a frequent traveler. Often away in another country emersed in another culture. He claims it is because he is innately curious and wants to be a citizen of the world. Friends suspect he is intrinsically restless and easily bored. Perhaps both are true? Yes.

When he is packing to leave, he consults a translation of an ancient Chinese text - from the Ping-Pong Dynasty - the sage words of Master Weh-Tu-Gao:
“The Nine-Fold Instructions for Wise Travelers” are these:

Go away.
Go slow.
Go loose.

Stay amazed.
Stay amused.
Stay alert.

Be calm.
Be care-full.
Be there.”

My friend’s basic travel rule is: Pack Light.
By this he does not refer to what is in his suitcase, but what is in his mind and heart.
He tries to leave behind the cares and concerns and things-to-do that clutter his life - to put them down until he returns.
One of the freedoms of going away is not being able to do anything about what you cannot do anything about if you are away.
“But what if we need to get in touch with you?” he is asked.
“That would be very difficult,” he replies. “I will be too busy being in touch with me.”
“But what if there is an emergency?” they ask.
“What is an emergency? Fire, death, accident? What could I do from where I am?” he asks.
“In a real emergency, call 911. Otherwise, things will take care of themselves one way or another.”

This man I know uses a word about the condition he is in when arriving to live for awhile in another country.
Anxitement.
This is a combination of anxiety and excitement.
He is appropriately anxious because all of the comforts of sensory familiarity are not present. Everything looks, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels different. His sense are provoked. His entire system is on urgent alert. Good. This is part of why he came - to be stimulated and revived. To get the juices moving again.
This is why he is excited.

A talisman for this new environment is toothpaste. It is the first thing he buys on arrival in a new country - to be reminded the first thing every morning that he is now Here, not Back There. To be more specific: He has left the taste of Crest behind. Now, for his new pasta gigi - which is called Daun Sirih and is further described (in Indonesian) Merawat Kesehatan Gusi dan Gigi. Family size - 150 g. What comes out of the big tube looks and tastes like green mint jelly. Since he likes green mint jelly very much, morning teeth brushing with this pasta gigi gets the day off to a fine start.

As for bathing, locally made Jasmine fragranced coconut oil soap instead of 4711 gives the morning shower and his skin a new smell.

Since things will be different, one might as well seek out the difference. Eating rice instead of bread. Tea instead of coffee. Mangos and coconut instead of apples and popcorn.

The sounds of frogs, rain, chickens, geckos, doves, and gamelon replace rock-and-roll and bluegrass and tango.

As to actual luggage, my friend travels with only a carry on bag, half full, with enough basic clothes for 5 days. He does not need to bring much stuff with him. He is only going further into the world. If he needs anything, they have stuff where he is going. He will fill up the rest of the bag with new things for returning - memory material. Travel light.

It makes him sad to see the long lines in the airport of people struggling to move bullet-proof vaults of their stuff - so large and heavy they cannot lift them - full of all “the stuff they need” - plus cell phones and computers and i-pods. They are not going anywhere. They are taking everything with them. This is not the way of the adenturing traveler. It is the way of the refugee.

This man I know does not use guide books except as snapshots before he travels.
When he arrives he asks everybody and anybody - What shall I do? Where shall I go?
They know. And they tell him. And he does that.

Some think this certain man that I know is strange.
Perhaps. But being a good stranger in a strange land makes him feel at home, sooner or later, in this world, and in his skin.

It is the product of anxitement, which smells and tastes like green mint jelly toothpaste.

Penestanan Kelod, Sayan, Ubud, Bali
Saturday morning, the 6th day of December 2008

FIELD NOTES FROM BALI

Walking out in the rice paddy fields in the hour of dawn - between first light and sunrise - when the air is calm and cool, the background music is doves calling, roosters shouting, and water burbling its way through the small ditches between flooded fields. Very shortly the background sound will change to the gargly burble of 4-stroke Honda engines powering the ubiquitous motor bikes that are the main transportation system of Bali. But for the time being, between 5 and 6 a.m., there is only a green tranquility to absorb like a tonic for the spirit.

The farmers are already at work mucking about in the muck. Both men and women.Their greeting in English is always friendly, but limited. “Hello. Where are you going?” Since I know this is a first gesture of a ritual of civility and not the beginning of a conversationt, I reply: “Here.” or “Everywhere.” or “Anywhere.” They will not really understand the content of my reply, only the tone of reciprocal civility. The next question is “Where you stay?” And, for the same reasons, I reply: “The House of the Rising Sun” or “Somewhere over the rainbow” or “At the cutting edge.” Satisfied, they move on to the next enquiry: “Where you from?” The reply to this question must be literal, for it reliably leads to delight - for them and me. “I am from America.” To this they extend a thumbs up, smiling response: “America! Obama! Yes!” And to confirm their enthusiasm and mine, I reply: “Obama! Yes!”

Thus ends the encounter. They go back to their work. I wander on down the path between fields. These are ordinary Balinese farmers - many illiterate - certainly not sophisticated in the ways of the world. But they know Obama. He is their man. He is the face of America. He once lived in Indonesia. He is somehow one of them. His skin is brown like theirs. Obama, yes! And I admit that as I walk away from these morning moments with men and women of Bali, tears always come to my eyes.

Bali is not paradise. There is no paradise. It is an island formed by volcanos - which are still active. The last destructive eruption was in 1963. The island lies over the conjunction of two plates - the Indo-Australian and the Sunda. The remnant of Krakatoa is not far away. Violence of great magnitude underlies civilization that itself has known violence - civil wars, slavery, occupations, and the invasion of 20th century tourism. The cities are congested with fume-spewing traffic. The streams and canals are clotted with plastic garbage. And the government of a largely Muslim Indonesia is repressive to the culture of Hindu Bali. Though not impoverished, the people are poor and economically dependent now on tourism - 70%. And the civilization is corrupted with television, cell phones, computers, and processed food. The Bali of the banana plant, coconut palm, bamboo forest, and rice plant retreats from the invsion of plastic and electronics.

Still, the villagers wear flowers in their hair, make offerings to the spirits of house and field, seek some kind of balanced harmony with the spirits of creation, preservation, and destruction in the rituals of their lives. And speak gently to strangers. “Hello. Where you go?”

Some lines written by Auden come to mind - from his poem “As I Walked Out One Evening.”

“O look, look in the mirror
O look in your distress
Life remains a blessing
although you cannot bless.

O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.”

Boppa Lobert -
("Boppa" is a term of respect for a senior citizen. “Lobert” is the best Balinese can do with Robert.
And Fulghum is beyond

From Penestan Kelud, Sayan, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Saturday, November 29, 2008
80 degrees, early morning rain, condition green

SCALE

For Thanksgiving I had ants. Tiny tiny tiny ants. About the size of this asterisk - * - and far too many to keep a close count.
That’s an ambiguous statement, I know. To be more specific, I don’t mean that my feast was invaded by unwanted unsects. No.
Nor do I mean that I ate ants as a main course. No. I mean I had ants for Thanksgiving in the sense that they were my invited guests.

For the first time in memory I was not only far from home on this American Holiday, but there was nothing around to remind me of the event. No Pilgrims, no Indians, no relatives, and no expatriates wanting to cobble together a nostalgic imitation of Thanksgiving. Just me.
And the tiny ants.

The ants had suddenly appeared earlier in the week when I accidentally left a teaspoon coated with a slight film of honey on the counter where I had made afternoon tea. By nightfall the spoon was coated with ants. By morning, the ants were gone. How did they know about the spoon? Where did the sweetness go? Did they eat it or carry it back to their nest?

I washed the spoon carefully with hot soapy water. Then I put a tiny speck of honey in the middle the spoon. An hour later the ants showed up. When the honey was all gone, they were also gone. This went on for three days. The same thing happened with a few grains of sugar. But they did not go for flakes of coffee candy. I began to enjoy their daily visits and discriminating taste.

So I decided to invite them for Thanksgiving dinner. On Thursday, on one small white plate I put crumbs of Ritz Crackers; On another there were dabs of honey, grains of sugar, a mashed peanut, and a third plate held tiny chunks of chocolate. I put this meal out at noon and by three o’clock the plates were all covered with * * * * * * * * * * and so on. In two hours they were gone again. Well, most of them. A few were running around madly checking the area for any signs of more bounty. One was circling the inside of a cup like a velodrome bicycle racer. In an act of mercy I emptied him out at the place where the last of his companions had disappeared. And he went away.

On reflection, they were fine guests. They came on time, ate with enthusiasm, and went away at a decent hour. They were quiet but lively. They cleaned up after themselves. There seemed to be only cooperation among them - no unpleasant fights or passive aggression.
While they ate, I ate. Mangos and papayas for me - with a little celebrational vodka martini. The ants did not drink at all, so the dinner was not spoiled by ants getting sick or throwing up. The ants were polite, and listened well to my monologue about the meaning of life and the scale on which that meaning may be found.

There’s the thought for the day. Scale. If one finds life itself companionable, then the smallest living creatures are sometimes enough company. One is never alone if size is not important. For that I’m thankful.

I’ve invited the ants back for Christmas dinner. They may not come. If they find out that I ingested some of them. I swear it was an accident. A few had somehow got themselves into the electric kettle overnight. And when I poured the hot water into the instant coffee I did not notice the corpses. And only after the first sip did I realize I had consumed several ants. Since they were boiled, I suppose I will not suffer any negative consequences. And, if I was a true mystic, I suppose I could say I have become One with the Ants.
But if they find out that I ate some of them - and I’m amazed at what they seem to know - it may cast a pall over the Christmas meal. Perhaps I should provide cake as a palliative gesture.

Seattle, Washington - written Wed., Nov. 12, the 317th day of 2008
Sunrise at 6:38 - sunset at 4:25 - less than ten hours of daylight
Gloomy, cold and stormy - but there’s a full moon somewhere up there.

SMALL SCALE CONSIDERATIONS

If you had been in a certain suburban neighborhood this morning, you would seen an adult male emerge swiftly from a small office building, hurdle a metal guard rail and land lightly on his feet in a parking lot, while punching the air with his fist, and hissing YES! YES! YES! He might have made even more of a spectacle of himself, but there was a fully-loaded school bus idling in the street right in front of him. Be cool.
(The man was me.)
And just what was going on with the man, you ask?
Been to the dentist. Got a free pass. No cavities. No repairs required. YES!
Blessed are the flossers for they shall have brief moments of great joy.
_______________________________

As I’m writing this, the radio has just announced the test of the Emergency Alert System. Followed by “eunghhhh. . . . ..eunghhhh . . . . eunghhh.”
(The sound that might be made by a constipated dragon.)
This sound gives me pause.
Under what circumstances would it apply to me?

I ran through a check-list of the possibilities - flood, famine, locusts, nuclear attack, fast-moving glaciers, a plague of toads, bloody rain, man-eating mad cows, an invasion of the Venezuelan army? The world supply of chocolate has dried up? A comet hit the earth? Rampant worm virus? What?

And then there’s the list of stuff the emergency alert system can’t warn of - local earthquakes, aliens from outer space, personal spontaneous combustion, or a sudden and complete reversal of the election results.

Check, check, check. Nothing. It’s comforting to know that the emergency alert system works. The constipated dragon is still on the job.

So it’s been a good day so far. No cavities. Nothing to be alert about.
Where was I?
____________________

Oh, yes. I was going to comment about what appears to be an existential distinction between vertical and horizontal graffiti. You’ve seen the rather bulbous tag art on walls and trains, inside tunnels, and even in places only a human fly could reach. Any flat surface is fair game. But have you ever seen it done? Or done it? Probably not. Me, neither. Mysterious.

But on my walk this afternoon I finally saw it being done. There were two men in hard hats, orange safety vests, carrying surveying gear and some kind of electronic equipment. At the end of a metal rod there was a spray can pointed downward. From time to time one of them pulled a trigger and wrote numbers on the street or painted an arrow or wrote a terse word I could not quite decipher. This is horizontal graffiti. Done during daylight, right out in the open. It seems to be all over the street in my neighborhood because there’s lots of construction going on.

This graffiti, of course, is serious business. The men are locating and marking water lines, electric conduit, high speed cable, sewer pipes, and whatever infrastructure that lies buried below the streets and sidewalks.

The juvenile delinquent still living in the back of my head began to wonder what would happen if he got a spray can and altered some of this stuff. It could cause a whole street to be dug up, don’t you think? Or . . . well the mind boggles with the possibilities.

So I asked the two men. “Does anybody ever mess around with what you’ve marked - like alter it or add to it?” Both men looked at me in surprise. Shook there heads. “Never.” “Not that I ever heard of.” “Some things are just too important to mess with - even whack-ado kids know that.”

Isn’t that amazing?
____________________

Here’s a public Service Announcement:
This would appear to be a sure cure for temporary relief from worry about the crises of the world: Go down to the nearest post office. Drive up to the curbside collection box. Holding a couple of letters and your wallet in your left hand. Drop the letters into the slot. And then your wallet.

To get the full effect of your act, it’s best to do this on a national holiday. At night. When the only people inside the nearest post office are armed security guards. Whatever else you were concerned about, this small act will take your mind off it for several hours, if not days.
I was a witness at the scene of this accident. The lady in the car in front of me was the dropper. She did not handle the situation gracefully. Not at all. In fact she got out of her car and started kicking the postal box while screaming at it. I won’t repeat her language, but it doesn’t really apply to an inert steel container incapable of sexual acts or whose mother was a female dog. And blaming the circumstance on George Bush’s management of the post office is not going to get her wallet back.
____________________

Early in the morning I’m off to Madison, Wisconsin, to participate in the re-dedication of a church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I will say to the congregation that neither the building nor the architect are really important, but only what their faith inspires them to do in the world.
That which is essential is invisible to the eye.
I suspect they know that.
But having a guy from out of town say it aloud might be useful.

Enough.

Seattle, Washington - written Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008
51 degrees, steady rain, wind from the south

Preview: This website has become a construction site. Before this time next week the content will have been reviewed, updated, and remodeled. If I’ll just get my work done, the tech wizards are standing by to turn raw material into recognizable images and information. It’s a hurry-up deal.
Why? On or by the 15th of November, Amazon will announce the availability of my novel, Third Wish, for download on their electronic reader, Kindle. And offer the printed version for pre-sale - for February delivery. Reader reviews, pictures, sound-bites, and music will also be posted. A week from now, between this site and theirs, you’ll have all the details.
But first, something much more important:

THE “C” WORD - a rant and a rave.

It’s not socially acceptable for an old geezer to walk up to a pretty young woman on a street corner and place his hands on her face. Especially if she and he are total strangers. This is over the line. The cops could be called. I know that. But I did that. And I want to tell you why. This is not an apology.

Scene: Thursday around noon. The day after the day after The Election. And like everybody else, I’m in a “Thank God it’s over” mood. And ready to get back to something resembling real life. If anybody uses the “C” word one more time I’m going to lose my composure and start shouting. Being in favor of change is like being in favor of oxygen and dirt and life. Duh. Put it down! Get real. Like fish in the sea, change is our element.

Scene continues: My dear friend Willy and I have had a workingman’s lunch at the Queen Anne Café - 1 corned beef sandwich and 1 pastrami sandwich, with extra pickles and fries. We did not have the lentil soup. The waitress said it looked like something she’d stepped in. And we trust her opinion.

Outside it’s raining buckets. The wind is blowing. It’s a nasty, gloomy day. But when Willy and I are together it’s always 70 degrees and sunshine. In great good humor we launch out into the weather on the way to Peet’s coffee a block away. So far so good.

Standing on the corner in the harsh weather is a young woman with a clipboard. “Oh, no,” I think. “Give me a break. Now what?” This corner always has people on it asking the passing stream of pedestrians to sign a petition or vote for somebody or something or enlist to protest something.
I’m thinking, “It’s over, it’s over - can’t this wait until maybe Monday?”

But, since I believe in free speech, and since I think it’s courageous of anybody to stand out there and reach out to people for any reason, and since I think that standing out there in this weather on this day puts one in the questionable intelligence category, and since I’m a sucker for sidewalk evangelists, I walk up to the clipboard carrier and ask, “So. What’s up?”

The face of a child looks up at me from under the hood of her sopping wet raincoat. Pretty. Soft. Sweet. Innocent.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” I ask.
A voice of mature commitment speaks back to me:
“We voted for change. Now we have to work for change to really happen.”
“Yes?”
“I’m with the ACLU - the American Civil Liberties Union - and we have a list of human rights that need to be addressed as soon as possible by the new administration. We’ve got a list to send to Washington. We need signatures and contributions.”
“And?”
It’s just not enough to vote for change. We have to make change.”

“How . . . old . . . are . . . you,” I ask, as I begin to loose my composure.
“I’m 19.”

I look into her eyes. I see hope. I see the future. I cannot speak.
All I can do is to reach up, take her face in my hands, and weep and think,
“Keep your eyes on the prize.”

It’s true what my generation says - the younger generation is going to hell. And when some of them get there, even hell may be . . . changed.
________________________________

I don’t know her name. But I know there are people connected to the ACLU
who read this column and who will know. Thursday, Nov. 6 - corner of Queen Anne and McGraw. She may remember. Touch her cheek for me.
Tell her that . . . Tell her . . . just tell her. . . “thanks.”

Seattle, Washington - the last Thursday in October, 2008
Foggy, 45 degrees, still, fall

A VOTE FOR OZZIE DAVIS
(with thanks to my mentor, Robert Kimball)

The setting:
The season is fall. The hour is seven a.m. First light of day. But thick fog will delay the appearance of the sun until mid-morning. The air is damp and chilly. The streets of the city are quilted with quiet. The dry fallen leaves are piled in crunchy heaps against sidewalk curbs.

The actor:
An older man stands on the sidewalk at an intersection. Before him are two metal bins. One is for mail. One is for trash. In each hand the man is holding an envelope. One contains a letter to God, written in the dark hours of the previous night.

The letter:
“Dear God. I write in despair and anguish. With tears in my eyes. The theme of our time is Change. But I’ve been around long enough to know nothing will really change. Evil still rules this world. Disease, war, greed, cruelty, suffering, hate, stupidity, racism, violence. . . . . Do I need to go on? You know. You’re all-powerful, all-creative. You made this mess. Why?
You could clean up your own mess. You could do better. Even I could do better. What a waste of what might have been so good, so fine, so beautiful. I believe in you. But I don’t trust you. I just wanted to make that clear.”

The reflection:
The man smiles as he considers his letter to God. “Stupid, absurd idea.” he says to himself. When he demanded of his mother to tell him why God seemed so mean, she would retreat behind the answer that “Someday you’ll understand.” And he’s still waiting. Or, it occurs to him, that maybe he does understand. And his mother did, too. What he knows now is all the truth about God and the world he’ll ever get. A great big everlasting WHY?

It surprised him that he wrote the letter. It just seemed to fall out of his mind.
One more sample of the wiggy weirdness that runs around loose in his head.
What the hell?
Action:
The man crumples the letter into a ball. Lets it go. Watches it fall into the trash bin. If there really is a God, then He doesn’t need mail to know where the man stands. And if not, well, the trash bin is where the thoughts belong.

The other envelope:
This one contains the man’s absentee ballot. He wrote his letter to God this morning at the same time he was working through his voting decisions for the election of 2008. Now he holds the stamped envelope over the open slot of the mail box. “Maybe this should go in the trash, too,” he thinks.
He shakes his head as if to clear it of the fog of cynicism.

The memory:
The man’s mind takes him back 43 years to a morning in March of 1965 in the town of Selma, Alabama. He has slept wrapped in an old army blanket on a cot in an unheated two-room shack. He sees the face of Ozzie Davis in the dawn light. A Negro man - with very black, very wrinkled skin. Mr. Davis says, “Here’s a cup of hot water. I don’t have anything else.”

The man was offered shelter by Ozzie Davis - to protect him from any overnight violence that might come from the police, soldiers, dogs, and the white madmen surrounding the neighborhood. The man has never slept in the house of a Black person before. He ever imagined that his safety would depend on the kindness of this stranger.
He is still scared. Ozzie Davis is scared, too.
But in parting, Mr. Davis hugged him and said,
“Someday, someday, this will all work out. We will overcome.”

The action:
The man lets go of the envelope. His vote is cast. For Barak Obama.
It’s also a vote on behalf of Ozzie Davis, who did not live to see Someday.
But he believed. He hoped. He did what he could do.
And Someday has come.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written October 23, 2008

SLOWLY, SLOWLY, SLOWLY

Tomorrow Fulghum hits the road again. This time making a long, slow drive across part of the American west in late October. From Moab to Seattle. If in a hurry, a bullet-shot interstate freeway ride takes 18 hours. ZOOOM . . . With another driver I’ve done it mad-dash non-stop in a single day.
Why? I can’t remember why. But never again.

Now, in a Why-Hurry? state of mind, I’ve been reviewing my route to touch places along the way that memory holds dear. Four days at least. If I had a magic wand I would be driving a small bus full of my dearest friends.

First stop is only 3 miles out of Moab, on the banks of the Colorado River where it cuts through a gap in the great walls of red sandstone at the end of the Moab Valley. Though usually fast-flowing and mud-colored from the burden of silt it moves toward the sea, this time of year the water is emerald green, curling back and forth around small sand islands and exposed rocks. The river sets my pace – it, too, is in no hurry now. It is good to consider the river and its ways. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Instead of the most direct route to Salt Lake, a detour west to Salina, Utah, is next. For the geological scenery of the San Rafael Swell along the way, to be sure. But more important to arrive in time for lunch at Mom’s Café – for chicken-fried steak and coconut-banana-meringue pie.

A night in Salt Lake City provokes thought. I like walking in the evening to the Tabernacle and Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Whatever one may think of the present day Mormons, the saga of their sacrificial trek west to build a city in the desert always leaves me awed by what human beings are capable of in the name of religious faith. I know well some of their descendants who live in Moab. Strong people. I always wonder if I believe in something strong enough to risk my life for it.

After Salt Lake my route crosses into Idaho, the Snake River plain, and off-road walks to view the ruts of the wagon roads left by the pioneers of the Oregon Trail. More evidence of strong people. My appreciation of those who walked all the way here from St. Louis is mixed with thoughts of the conflicts with the Native people who already lived in and loved this magnificent landscape. So much beauty – so much bitterness.

A night in Boise, rising early to detour to the little town of Weiser, Idaho, the home of one of the great fiddle music festivals in America. I attended a couple of times and wrote about those evenings playing music in the streets out under the stars. When I walk around town I always hear the music.

Nearby is a green oasis where I’ll take an afternoon nap on deep grass under a grove of cottonwoods in their fall finery. Farewell Bend State Park marks the place where wagon trains camped and rested before leaving the Snake River for the arduous climb through the next mountain ranges. If it were me, I think I would have stayed right there.

The next great sight is from the heights above Pendleton, Oregon, at the end of the Blue Mountains. As far as you can see there are sweeping fields of wheat and alfalfa – with the Cascade Mountains in the far distance. Between Pendleton and the Columbia River Gorge there are farms selling mounds of pumpkins, apples, squash, and Indian corn - with an added attraction of a maze carved through the dry corn stalks in the nearby field.

Westward on down the north side of the Columbia – a two-lane blue highway high up on the first slope of the gorge – with views down the great river, trains running along the shore on both side of the river, and silver waterfalls on the south shore. There’s a replica of Stonehenge to visit along the way. A reminder of how old the urge is to celebrate the yearning for meaning, and to relate to the immutable mystery of existence.

This is a trip of wide open spaces, long views, trees with leaves of yellow and red and orange, small towns, friendly cafes, the dusty golden light of late afternoons, fiery sunsets, frosty nights, and waffle breakfasts with extra bacon on the side.

Hurry? To get to what that’s better?
Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written in the third week of October, 2008

THE MILL RE-OPENS

It’s four a.m. on a Sunday morning. Having come almost non-stop from Crete – via Athens, Atlanta, Denver, Grand Junction, and Moab – Fulghum has arrived in a time-and-distance-warped out-of-body state - ten time zones out of whack. The good side is that for a few days I’ll be up early enough to walk out in the quiet before dawn, see the morning stars, hear the early birds, and experience the sunrise.

Despite jet lag, I’m reasonably functional – but not coordinated. My body gets up but my brain sleeps in. When I woke up in my hotel room in Denver in the middle of the night I tried making a long-distance phone call using the television remote control. It worked, too. But just on my end – the person I was calling had nothing to say.

In July, when I was last here in Moab, I posted an essay on this website entitled: “The Closing of the Mill” – about how not only was the sawmill of my mind not in action cutting up literary lumber from logs, but there also seemed to be no logs floating out in the millpond of creative possibility. I seemed to have stopped writing. Moreover, I seemed to philosophically accept the possibility that maybe the mill was closed for good. “Well, I thought, every enterprise comes to an end. Mine not accepted. So it goes.”

To my surprise, here I am back in Moab and on the job again. It started at the end of my stay in Crete. The mill is up and running. And I brought back a pile of logs accumulated while traveling. Apparently, taking a break outside my country and my culture and my daily habits for a few weeks juiced the machinery. Not forcing the issue allowed the urge to write to revive on its own time.

Plus, being goosed by an audience of strangers in Denver was provocative. “Get back to work,” one lady admonished, shaking her finger at me in mock disapproval. “I miss you when you don’t write.” I miss me, too. Thanks to her for reminding me that correspondence is a responsibility, even when it sometimes seems like I’m only talking to me.
So, then, good morning to you and the lady in Denver. Onward!

HELLOS

Paradoxically, traveling involves waiting. Especially in airports. But waiting is not lost time – it’s an opportunity to watch people.

(When the airport security announcement asks that you report any persons behaving suspiciously, I laugh. Where to begin? There are hundreds.)

The rituals of parting and greeting on display at an airport are a buffet of human idiosyncrasy. I’m a fan of Hellos. And I often pause just as I walk out of the Passport and Customs hall at an international airport just to notice the Hello habits of my fellow human beings.

I was there when a grown man was staggered right back through the exit doors by a running, screaming, leaping teenage daughter – “DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!” she shouted just as she hit him, arms around his neck, legs locked around his waist. Now she was weeping. “Daddy, oh, Daddy. I love you Daddy.”

I had just passed the “Anything To Declare?” sign at customs, and I thought, “Yes, I declare I am jealous.” It’s been a long time since I got the loving airborne assault version of unconditional Hello from a child.

This was matched in Atlanta by a middle-aged, lumpy looking, bald-headed man and the woman waiting for him – middle-aged, lumpy looking, orange-haired. They reunited like two freight cars coupling – WHAM! – sucking face, hugging, rubbing, laughing, and kissing like they were drilling for oil.

It always moves me to see affectionate lusty love alive in middle-age. And to see two geeky people mated up is encouraging.

It’s funny to see the awkward Hello of two people who are unsure of the depth of their relationship. Both want to hug or think they should. But to be safe they first offer to shake hands. Usually they end up with an amateur one-armed wrestling hug, hands crumpled up between them. Men are especially prone to this awkward conflict between intimacy and formality.
It’s also laughable to see this confusion compounded with cultural habits of kissing cheeks. Americans want to be hip. Europeans don’t expect kisses from us. Is it one or two or three? So there’s this chicken pecking performance thrown into the semi-hug, half-handshake form of Hello between cultures.

It’s a little sad to see the empty Hello that goes with visiting relatives who didn’t really want to come and their family who really didn’t expect they would. These are part of the come-for-the-reunion experiences around Thanksgiving and Christmas. “Well, it’s been a long time!” is the ambiguous greeting. Accompanied by an air-hug – almost no actual contact. The Good Riddance Goodbye will come at the other end of the holiday.

This is matched, on the positive side, by the Family Group Grope, where a waiting family falls en masse on good old granny who they had given up for dead, and who, by god, rallied to come for one more Christmas. Granny cooks the best turkey, plays a mean game of poker, and tells dirty jokes to her grandchildren when her children are not around. Yea, Granny! HELLO!

One of the more complex Hellos is the L.A. homeboy approach. Once a prerogative of young blacks from the hood, it’s been co-opted by the young and street-hip whites and Hispanics. High five hand clasp, knuckle bump, down and dirty hand slap, even a hip bump or chest thrust is included. More than anything this elaborate set of gestures implies solidarity beyond just friendship. It’s a “brothers” thing. Now that I think of it, I don’t remember ever seeing a “sister” making the same Hello. There’s one I should look for.
What do the sisters do?

In international airport arrival gates I’ve seen Maoris rub noses, Japanese bow, and Italian men lightly pound each other on the chest and arms with their fists. And my all time favorite was a group of middle-eastern men shouting and jumping up and down and up and down together out of sheer exuberant reunion joy!

And there are the painful What-to-say? What-to do? timid Hellos of disillusioned but hopeful couples who have come together for one last try at reconciliation. They stand awkwardly and quickly walk away in silence without touching. One of them will be back on a plane in a very short time. The final Goodbye gesture is the one that says, “Don’t Bother To Write.”

Goodbyes are yet another topic – to be addressed at another time.

I’ll quit with this: There’s a form of Hello I’ve just started using - something original that mixes recognition of intimate friendship with a sense of mischief. I explained it to a friend and we gave it a try. Yes!

Here’s how it works:
(First you have to let your friend know the plan.)
Walk up to this person you know and like – move close enough so that you’re face-to-face inside personal space – within 18 inches. Stop. Stand still. Count silently to three. And bump knees. That’s all – no touching.
Just bump knees. Try it. If you don’t laugh, I’ll be surprised.
Laughter is always the best Hello.
And the next time you see me . . .

Kolymbari, Crete, Greece
Written Sunday/Monday, October 12/13, 2008
Conditions: heavy clouds, with a strong north wind blowing and high waves smashing over the stone breakwater of the port of Kolymbari .

NEWS FROM CRETE

Because my time in Crete is lamentably brief this October, I’ve not tended my garden or even bought potted flowering plants for the porches. This means, as well, that my annual war with the free-ranging katsikas – goats - will not be resumed. But they know I am here.

Yesterday the big black senior billygoat stood for a while on the hillside above my house considering me. The deep bong-bong-bong of his bell announced both his presence and his retreat. He paused and looked back just before he disappeared. While I cannot claim to read a goat’s mind, he seemed disappointed. And, in a way, so was I. Our past combats provided a measure of entertaining excitement to my existence.

I’m reminded of the Greek poet, Cavafy, who ended his poem, “Waiting For The Barbarians,” with these melancholy lines, lamenting the word that the enemy will not come after all: “And now, what’s going to happen without barbarians? They were. . . a kind of solution.”
______________________________

Without conscious intention I have ceased attending the services of the nearby monastery as a morning ritual. The attraction of touching base with an ancient liturgical tradition has faded. Perhaps it is the bells and the way they are rung at 5 a.m. Not a deep, sonorous call to meditative worship. No. It is more the frantic CLANG-CLANG-CLANGING! of a fire alarm. Followed by the panicked scream of the monastery’s tame peacocks. Surely the birds should be accustomed to this raucous awakening by now. I am not.

Not exactly a peaceful call to worship. As if there were some emergency requiring an urgent rush to the dark cave of the church. To do what? Is God in trouble or in a hurry? Have the Turks invaded again? What am I supposed to do? Abandon ship? Run for the hills? Take up arms? Practice for the Rapture? Throw myself into the sea? What?
In truth I find more darkness than light when I do attend the service. Old irritable monks in black mumbling an unintelligible Byzantine chant for the benefit of me and a few old droopy widow women. I feel like slowly limping away, more abused and confused than enthused.

I just do not wish to begin my day alarmed. I do not wish to be confronted with sorrow and death at such an early hour. Mournful despair is not exactly the required spice for the stew of my life. So I stay home now.

I put on a recording of the pipes and drums of the Black Watch accompanied by the band of the Queens Household Guards. And march into the day. Whump-whump-wump! Up! Onward! Excitement without emergency.
___________________________________

Here is a snapshot of breakfast laid out on my table yesterday morning. Fresh crusty bread still warm from the wood-fired oven of the baker in Kastelli. A jar of cold unpasteurized goats milk - the gift of a friend. A glass of fresh-squeezed Cretan orange juice. A slab of Irish butter. Thyme honey and quince marmalade. Hot Brazilian Santos coffee in a pot, and a small shot glass of tsikoudia – Cretan white lightning – to pound an exclamation mark onto the end of the feast so that one can rise up for the day and not remain inert in a satisfied stupor.
____________________________________

One piece of bad news. My laundryman, Manolis, in Tavronitis, has quit the business. Not retired. He is young. But he was not cut out to run a laundry.
I will miss his energetic good humor and good service. And what will he do now? He says, “Who knows? But, my God, not this.”

The good news is my new laundry in Tavronitis. Though it is half way to Chania – an inconvenient distance - its name pleases me. “THE HAPPY LAUNDRY!” And it is located right across the road from a bar called “THE FUNKY FISH.” How can I lose?
____________________________________

Another piece of good news. There is a community of tango dancers now in Chania, teachers who have established a mobile tango academy operating around and about in Crete. And an occasional milonga takes place. It’s not exactly Argentina, but it emphasizes the developing world culture.

There is also a Starbucks now in the old port of Chania.
Good news or bad?
Well. . .
____________________________________

During the first week of my sojourn in Crete the Orthodox Academy hosted an international conference of Astrophysicists on the theme of:
“Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies - Ariadne’s Thread in the Cosmic Labyrinth.”

Since most European scientific congresses are conducted in English, I attended some of the sessions. In layman’s terms they were speculating on the nature of galaxies at the edge of the known universe, with a somewhat literary frame of reference. My favorite lecture was entitled: “Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxies: Born To Be Wild.”

While I had hoped for slides of photographs of galactic whirling, the power- point presentations contained mostly complex analytical data of light, chemical spectra, and formulaic speculation. Way over my head. Sitting in a dark room with computers is not my idea of astronomy. And I am nervous and confused in the presence of mathematics.

I felt better about the astrophysicists when I went for a jet-lag-induced midnight walk along the shore and found several of the group drinking wine, laughing, talking, and leaning back on the rocks looking at the stars.

Later in the week, at a Cretan-themed dinner, the scientists gamely entered into the challenge of dancing Greek style – long lines of men and women holding hands and twining in and out to the music. The steps of the dance as mysterious to them as the light from the galaxies. Still, they danced.

The Thread of Ariadne is perhaps not an apt astrophysical metaphor. A labyrinth has one way in and one way out. A maze is more appropriate. On the way in and out there are many dead-ends, causing the adventurer to turn around and try another way. Whether into the cave of the mind or the cave of the universe, it is the same. This is the scientific method, is it not? This is the way of ongoing amazement.
_____________________________________________

My encounter with the astrophysicists parallels an evening conversation with friends, wherein we speculated on this question: Suppose that you could suddenly be transported one thousand years back into human history. You could not alter history, only share some knowledge and ability and experience that might be useful in that place and time? What do you know? What do you know how to do?

Rather than give you an account of our wildly free-wheeling discussion, I leave the issues to you. What would you say? It’s not as obvious or as easy to answer as you might first expect. “Let me explain to you about an I-Pod and a cell phone.” might get you burned as a witch.
______________________________________________

In my luggage packed for Seattle is a pillowcase. An emaxilarotheke –
(pronounced ee-maxsee-laro-theekee) in Greek. Though not an antique, this one is old-style, heavy white cotton, and hand-embroidered in complex scallop shapes on its border. It is something you might be pleased to find in a dowry trunk in the house of your ya-ya. (Greek grandmother.) In the small town of Kastelli in western Crete such things are still available. Often given to modern brides as a sentimental gesture.

This is the style of linen I prefer for my bed in Crete.
The particular pillowcase I am bringing with me has been washed in water from a mountain spring, using olive-oil soap made by hand in a nearby village. The pillowcase has been hung out to dry in the sun on a windy day when the air was slightly salty from the sea, and perfumed by the scent of wild thyme and jasmine. The pillowcase was left outside on the line over night in the light of the half-moon and bright stars, infused by the dew of dawn, and dried once more by the sun of early morning.

The pillowcase now contains memory, the essence of Crete, beauty, and pure nostalgia. Placed on my pillow thousands of miles from here on some gloomy, cold, wet night in Seattle I expect it to bring sweet dreams.

As market value goes, the pillowcase is essentially worthless.
But priceless now to me.
____________________________________

This long journal marks the end of another episode in Crete – over 26 years now I have been coming here. In three days I leave for the United States. I do not say “leave for home” because part of the notion of “home” for me is here. There is a reflection in my last book of essays, “What On Earth Have I Done?” that expresses the feelings I have when moving on from Crete. Since I cannot improve upon those thoughts, I repeat some of them here.

“Though I am still here as I write, I already miss Crete.
It’s a curious thing for a child of the Texas plains like me to become attached to the people and culture of a Greek island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. No rational explanation.

“But I suppose that in the midst of my own 21st-century life that often seems so temporary and shallow and confusing, I yearn for a connection to a deep-rooted place and deep-rooted people with ancient traditions that include unrelenting hospitality to strangers.

“How surprising that I would wander so far and wide to satisfy that need in Crete, or that I would recognize it when I found it. Lucky me.

“From my house I can see across the bay to a far hillside where the world’s oldest olive tree has been producing for more than 2,000 years. The villagers there have always taken care of it, with the same perseverance that they apply to taking care of themselves. They are a people who act with a generous care-full-ness that can encompass a foreigner like me. Whenever I visit their tree, I am given something to eat or drink, and some oil or soap to take away home. And always the blessing to “Go with God.”

“No apology for my sentimentality about this island or its people. Of course there are ugly places in Crete. And the supply of the wicked and foolish and pig-headed is as evenly distributed here as anywhere else.

“And I am not a native, but always one who comes and goes - forever an outsider - which means I can’t pretend to understand all that goes on day by day. But I know what I know.

“Still, after 26 years, “the soil of Crete is under my nails,” as they say. And I am old enough to know that in this life you see what you look for, and you get what you are open to receive. And you belong to those whose company you cherish, for they will cherish you.

In my own limited, awkward way, I can say and feel deep down,
“Eimai Kritikos – I am Cretan.”

Kolymbari, Crete, Greece
Written Winds Tea, October 8, 2008
Conditions: cool, windy, and clear at eventide
and a half moon in the sky – south over Africa.

CAT

Alone on my porch in the moonlight. A large black cat walks silently up the stairs, jumps lightly onto the balcony wall, sits down, and considers me. I consider it. But I neither move nor address this surprise visitor. Tolerance is the best I can offer a cat. It is free to come and free to go. It is just a cat to me.

It has never been my way to project anthropomorphic qualities onto cats. They are not small, four legged, furry semi-people with inscrutable expressions on their faces. I do not call them, pet them, feed them, talk to them or encourage them in any way. Usually they mind their business and I mind mine.

Some cats find my neutrality troubling. They will rub themselves against my legs and even jump up into my lap. When I do not respond, they abandon me. It is just as well. I am allergic to cat hair. When I sneeze, they flee as if assaulted. It is neither their fault nor mine. It is just the case.

But this large black cat does not stir from its place. It stares at me. I stare at it. When it blinks, I blink. Stare and blink. Perhaps it will wander off on its way. But no, the cat lies down - still staring. And blinking now in that special way of cats –a slow double squint - a wink with both eyes. What does this mean? If I do this to people they find it mildly alarming. If this cat was the size of a leopard its slow-motion squint/wink might be a sign that it is considering me for dinner. Unintimidated, I squint/wink back.

Time passes.

This is a living being, I think to myself. I am a living being. Squint/Wink.
It can hunt and take care of itself. It can see and smell things I cannot. It can go where I cannot. For those things it is worthy of my respect. It does not need me – or even seem to want anything from me. Squint/wink. Deep in its primitive wiring it must think I am edible, but, all things considered, not palatable. Squint/wink. What is it thinking? Why is it here? What does it expect of me? Squint/wink.

I have been alone most of the day and have not spoken a word to anyone. But my mind has been busy, churning thoughts and ideas like laundry in a washing machine. Without intention, I begin musing aloud to the cat:

“I have been reading a book entitled ‘Sex, Lies, and Handwriting.’ I bought it in desperation during a four-hour wait in the Athens airport. It promises ‘shocking revelations’ about my friends and me through unlocking the secrets of handwriting. What I have learned troubles me.”

Squint/wink.

“I have discovered similarities with the handwriting of serial killers, axe murderers, the Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper, two cannibals, and Adolph Hitler. Do you think I should be concerned? Do you think that by altering my handwriting I can avoid suspicion?”

Squint/wink.

“Would you be interested in some of the random facts lodged in my brain?
For example, Bloemfontein is the capital of the Orange Free State in South Africa. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. The Admiral Graf Spee was a German battleship scuttled off the coast of Montevideo. The term blue-stocking first referred to London literary friends of Benjamin Stillingfleet who always wore blue hose. Cochineal dye, a red used in women’s lipstick, comes from the blood of insects which infest prickly pear cactus. Women use approximately 5 feet of lipstick every year. Pohada is a Czech word referring to a contented state of mind. Jsem v phohada. I’m in pohada. This is my condition for the time being.”

Squint/wink. And yawn. (Is the cat bored?)

“Perhaps I should explain the state of the American economy, the policies of the Bush administration, and the way Americans go about electing a president? Or tell you how once, when I was eight, I dipped a cat’s tail in turpentine and set fire to it. I can still imitate the sound the cat made as it ran away. Perhaps it is that sinister tendency that lurks in my handwriting.”

Enough. The cat yawned again. Stood up. Stretched first its front legs, then its back legs. Jumped down off its perch, and walked away down the stairs as silently as it first came. I know the cat does not understand my words. Perhaps it sensed a shift in mood from the tone of my voice. The Czech word for this is litost – a state of confused despair.

On the edge of that swampy line of thinking, I yawned, stood up, stretched, and went to bed in a state of thambos – Greek for a confused state of mind sometimes best addressed with a good night’s sleep.

I have not seen the cat since.

Kolymbari, Crete, Greece
Written Sunday, October 5, 2008
Conditions: cool, blustery, mixed clouds and sun and rain -
whitecaps on the sea, with the wind out of the northeast.

ARRESTED – WITH POMEGRANATES

Whipping along on National Road #1 at racing speed, playing dodge-em with traffic, ignoring lane markings, and working one’s way up past any vehicle in front of you just for sport: This is standard Cretan driving practice. A Cretan man will get no respect from other drivers if he lollys along on the edge of the highway driving like a ya-ya (grandmother). And I, not wanting to be considered anything less than a Cretan man worthy of respect, am playing the game in my black rental Toyota shaped like a speeding bullet. Varooom!

Suddenly. Out of the bushes alongside the road steps a man uniformed in silver helmet, tight black leather jacket, high black boots, masked behind sunglasses and armed with a pistol. He gestures: PULL OVER AND STOP. Motorcycle policeman. Uh-oh.

“Greekity-Greekity-Greek.” he says.
“Parakalo, signomi,” I say, “Thin milao Hellenica.” (Please forgive me, I do not speak Greek.)
“No problem. I speak the English. You have been arrested for speeding.”
“Oh.”
“Your papers please.”
He takes my passport, my driver’s license, and my car rental papers.
“Wait with my colleague,” he says. Another man in black carrying a gun steps out of the bushes and frowns at me. The policeman with my papers straddles his motorcycle, cranks its mighty engine, and roars away in the direction of Kastelli – where there is a police station and a court and a judge.

For thirty minutes I sit and wait. And think.
The Greek police are notoriously harsh. They will find out about me and everything I have ever done that is wicked. He is going to bring the paddy wagon. I will be pulled from my car, handcuffed, beaten carefully so as not to draw blood. Then I will be carted away and thrown into solitary confinement. By night I will be deported to Iran where I will be held hostage as a terrorist working for the CIA. I will be tortured. I will confess everything. Finally I will be cut up into small parts and thrown out into the desert, where buzzards will pick my bones clean and beetles will consume my bones. Captain Kindergarten will never be heard from again.

One is inclined to be somewhat paranoid when detained by the police, no matter for what, no matter where. Busted. They have you in their power.

I wait. And wait. And wait some more.

Slowly my thoughts return to normal.
Why was I in such a hurry? I am in Crete, for god’s sake. There is nowhere I must be and nothing I must do. It is a beautiful day in early October. The sea is out there – the olive trees are over there – the sky is blue – the air is warm – and in the yard of that nearby house there is a tree hanging heavy with ripe pomegranates – the first true sign of fall. The pomegranates are not just red – but a combination of egg-yolk yellow, sunrise orange, cyclamen pink, sunset magenta, and geranium scarlet. I would not have noticed the beauty of the pomegranates if I had not been arrested and forced to sit still by the side of the highway. I imagine the carmine red of their juice. Grenadine syrup. The color of my fresh blood. This will be my last lovely memory before my miserable life comes to an end in Iran.

Suddenly my reverie is shattered by the rumbling presence of the motorcycle pulling up beside my car. It is my main man in black. He is smiling.
“Here are your papers, sir. You are free to go. I warn you: Stop driving like a Cretan, or else . . .”

Or else? What? Or else they will catch me again and send me to Iran?
No. Or else I will miss what cannot be seen by a man in a hurry? Yes.

“Epharisto poli – para poli,” I say. (Thank you – very much.)
How can I explain that it is not for being let off with a warning that I am thanking the policeman. No. It is for stopping me. For making me sit still. For giving me the pomegranates.

Turning off the main road, I took the long, slow way through the narrow back roads of deep Crete. Through the farms and villages. Noticing the pomegranates all the way home.

Seattle, Washington - where it’s cool and cloudy and fall
Written September 19, 2008

NEWS:
“What on Earth Have I Done?” - my most recent collection of essays and stories - has just been published in paperback by St. Martin’s Press and should be available soon from most bookstores and Amazon.

My novel - “Third Wish” - is now in production in English, and will be available in February as a two-volume set, exclusively from Amazon, part of the contractual package that includes availability before Christmas by electronic download for their Kindle™ device.

On Sunday I leave for a series of speaking engagements (not public) on the east coast, winding up in Atlanta for the 25th anniversary celebration of Tree Climbers International. Then to Crete, back to Moab, and finally returning to Seattle in early November.

There are two public appearances coming up - one near Denver at the Mile Hi church in Lakewood, Colorado, on Friday, Oct. 17. And the other in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, Nov. 14 - details and tickets. available from the First Unitarian Church of Madison.

Travel always fuels my journal and story writing, but getting things up on the website is a little higgledy-piggledy because I don’t travel with a laptop. Nevertheless, new material will get posted here from time to time over the next 8 weeks, so check in.

POSTCARDS FROM THE ROAD - in September

TULALIP INDIAN RESERVATION - northwest Washington State. Here’s a view of the tribe’s gambling casino and hotel-and-spa. A multi-million dollar Las Vegas level operation. Just out of the picture is a humongus shopping mall with outlet shops of famous name brands. It all belongs to a native-American community that was at the bottom of the cultural and economic heap in this neighborhood only a few years ago. Now the tail wags the dog. Big money, honey. The annual fund-raising banquet of the United Way of Snohomish County was hosted this year by the Tulalips - a bit of a twist on the Thanksgiving meal of American history.

As part of the perks of my being asked to be the guest speaker at this occasion, I was invited to spend the night in the hotel. And was given a tour of the high-roller suites. If you lose enough money at the gambling tables, you get the use of the accommodations. Here’s a picture of one luxury accommodation that included a full bar, a pool table, sexy brown robes, a bathroom you could hose down a pickup truck in, and a TV screen big enough for a drive-in movie. And great authentic Salish Indian art.

The chairman of the tribal council was a large, handsome, easy-going former fisherman who spoke eloquently at the breakfast about his tribe’s traditional values of generously sharing assets with one another and the community. He said “We have always believed in the United Way - that there is no way on for the world unless we are united.”

AMISH PRAYER FLAGS

This is a photograph taken the next day - where I had taken the day off to drive out into the rolling farmland near Fort Wayne, a town in northeast Indiana. This is Amish country - a landscape dominated by the white houses and barns of a people who live simply, without electricity or gasoline. Since they don’t use automatic washers and dryers, their laundry is strung up in the sun to dry. Long lines of white sheets, many shades of blue clothes - all blowing in the morning breeze reminding me of Tibetan prayer flags - flying in the wind as a sign of mutual respect for their version of the focused religious life.

The Amish go about in horse-drawn buggies. I followed along behind several, admiring the well-kept vehicles, the fine horses, and the simple dress of the drivers. One buggy was driven by a young woman, with three little black-bonneted girls hanging over the back, giggling and smiling at me.
And one buggy was whipping along, the horse trotting at traveling speed, and the young man driving leaning back in his seat without a care in the world. Or so I thought. Until he took out his cell phone.

No, I don’t have any answers to the questions I - or you - might have.

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

Weather scrambled flights from Fort Wayne through Chicago and back to Seattle. So an extra night in a hotel in Indiana and an extra day playing roulette with the airlines, standing in lines at ticket counters, and running through an airport to make a flight, only to sit in the plane on the ground while lightning shut down O’Hare.

These interruptions of a smooth way home are tests of one’s inner guru. I admire the priestly calm of the airline employees who must deal with tired, frustrated, and irritated passengers who act as if the agent behind the counter was personally in charge of weather and planes.

I try to help in a small way by employing my secret weapon: a red rubber nose. When I wear it an amused bubble of calm seems to form around me. People loosen up and talk to me. The nose does wonders for the morale of ticket agents, and makes a humane connection between me and flight attendants. The airlines ought to pass out red rubber noses on chaos flights instead of salted nuts.

And I arrive home feeling amused instead of abused.

No, I haven’t yet had the courage to wear it through TSA security.
But I’ve thought about it.

The nose is the first thing I pack when I travel.
In fact, I am wearing it now as I write to you.
You see? It made you smile.

Seattle, Washington - where it’s cool and cloudy
Written the second week of September, 2008

SORTING SNAPSHOTS

This week a friend complained of the onerous task of going through all the pictures he had taken over the summer. He felt a need to find the good shots and put them in order. A task he was dreading. There were thousands of photographs. Thousands. From his cell-phone camera and digital camera and video camera. Thousands. And, meanwhile, he’s still taking more pictures.
He’s retired. Now he’s making a new career of self-frustration.

His relentless image-accumulation costs him plenty wampum, depresses him, and makes him feel guilty over not finishing the task he set for himself. “These pictures are a pain in the butt,” he says, “but someday I’ll be glad and my grandchildren will thank me.” Well, I hope so, but I don’t think so.

He’s an old friend. So I nod and mutter “I understand” as if I did, or as if I had a life crisis of a similar severity. In truth it’s hard for me to empathize. Being a mechanical misfit when it comes to cameras and cell phones and even toasters, I solve his problem by not having it in the first place.

But I do take pictures. Consciously collect memories in mental images somewhere in the raw meat between my ears. There are moments I want stored in the museum of my mind where I can find them when I want to remember who I am and why I go on with my life. While I don’t invite friends over for a power point slide show of what I did this summer, from time to time I try to describe an image as a way of asking, “Did anything like this happen to you? And the likely answer is that you could match me picture for picture. No machinery required - except imagination.

GREEN SUMMER SURPRISE: Here’s a picture of an old man with a slight grin on his face, raised eyebrows, and a twinkle in his eyes. He’s standing in the middle of the community garden I walk through most mornings. We talked in April, when the cold wet spring had delayed his planting tomatoes. Now a cool, damp summer has faded into fall and his plants hang heavy with a fine crop of bright green tomatoes that will not ripen this year.
“Too bad. Guess these are compost,” I say.”
“Oh, no. Fried green tomatoes with parmesan cheese,” he says. “And green tomato salsa, pickled green tomatoes, and even green tomato guacamole.” He finished his inventive list with this: “And you can make green tomato juice in the blender, strain it, pour it over some ice in a glass and add a couple of shots of vodka. I call it the Green Summer Surprise.”
I think that’s why he’s grinning in the picture. He’s already a couple of shots into his tomato juice. I thought the fruit-jar in his hand was just Koolaid.

SLAM DUNK GOOD DEED: This photograph is of a young woman as she turned up my driveway and saw me. She has tears in her eyes. But she’s smiling. Earlier in the day I found her wallet in the street. Her driver’s license gave a nearby address, but when I knocked on the door I got no answer. So I left a note saying, “Call this number and I will make you very happy.”

While she was in a mad panic searching the streets of Queen Anne hill I was sitting on my porch drinking coffee and savoring the thought that in a short while I would make somebody’s day. It’s not often that I am so confident that what I do will have that effect. Slam dunk.

Turns out she was chasing after her child who had gone off riding without his bike helmet. And this was not the first time she had lost her wallet. Her husband reminded her of that. So she’s feeling stupid and mad and anxious.
The photograph was taken in that delicious moment when her anguish drained away and was replaced by relieved gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said. “Believe me,” I said, “The pleasure was mine.”

FREE: This picture is in vivid color. The back-story is that people in my neighborhood seem to have forgone the hassle of garage sales. When cleaning out garages or basements or attics, or when they have something they want to get rid of that’s too big to move, they put it out on the curb in front of their house, marked with a sign: “Free” - and somebody comes along and takes it. One man’s trash is still another man’s treasure.

In front of one house was a beat up old couch - the color of green tomatoes, actually. Also a floor lamp with a pink shade. And several boxes of used clothes. And the sign -“FREE!”

When I came back by an hour later the whole pile had been plundered by two little girls - seven or eight years old. Used clothes were scattered around, and the girls were sitting up on the couch like two babes on a yacht. One was wearing a woman’s black and white polka dot dress and the pink lampshade for a hat. Another had on an old yellow bathrobe and gold high heels. She was holding the battered remains of an umbrella over her head - the fabric was gaily floral. They were singing, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and paid no attention whatever to me as I walked by across the street.

Somehow the sign that said, “FREE” applied. They were. I was tempted to join them - rummage through the boxes of clothes and find a costume and sit there on the couch as uninhibited as they. I know the song, too.

SINGING: This next picture is a little hard to puzzle out because it was taken in the dark of a movie theater. On the screen is the film version of the stage musical, “Mama Mia.” Starring Meryl Streep. With the lively music of ABBA. This is the new sing-along version of the movie. The man in the photograph is singing along. He came to do that. This is the seventh time he has seen the movie.It meets his criteria for a good film - singing, dancing, laughing, and the implication of romantic sex off screen - with a happy ending. No explosions or guns or violence or gross nudity or cruelty. Why pay good money to see what’s in the news every day? His friends think he’s becoming a silly old fool. He doesn’t care.

The man is me. Singing along. Taking a reliable antidote for my own cynicism, sadness, and confusion. For a couple of hours I am “Taking a Chance” on a “Dancing Queen.” I know how the movie ends. Happy. That’s another reason I’m present. There has to be a happy ending somewhere, even if it’s only in the movies.

REAL LIFE: This photograph is of the face of an old and dear friend - the only one who would go to “Mama Mia” and sing along with me. The expression on her face is solemn - barely containing the memory of pain she’s just shared with me.

It’s a story of eight months of promise and one day of tragedy. She was going to be a grandmother last December. Her only daughter’s first baby was due any time. But it was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck and foot. It strangled itself. Perfect little girl, otherwise.
I’m stunned into tearful silence.
My friend has just described how the family dealt with the death - held the baby, named it, and cremated it. My friend is strong. And so is her daughter, who is pregnant again. The look on my friend’s face expresses deep sorrow wrapped in high hope. She will read what I’ve written here. I want her to know I have her photograph. I’m inspired when I look at it.

And then - got up from where we were having a glass of wine, and went into the theater to enter the world of imagination - to sing along and laugh. Here’s a picture of my friend watching Merl Streep paint her daughter’s toenails, holding her close in her lap. My friend is smiling.

TONIGHT: Here’s another picture taken in the dark - earlier tonight. It is the same man - me - sitting out in the cool night of early September, watching a half moon go down in the western sky. If the man looks a little stupefied, it’s because he is recovering from having eaten a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a chocolate malt.

Dietary supplements are all the rage these days. Once a week I put a little additive in my tank. Who is to say it is not good for me? Makes me happy, contented, and at peace with the world. Doesn’t come in a pill or a powder. A small happy ending to a day.

As curator of the museum of my mind, I keep these images - the light and the dark - the heavy and the evanescent - the sad and the joyful - and trust you know why because you do the same.

Enough for now. This is hit-the-road-day for me. I’m headed off to the airport to catch a plane to Phoenix to make a speech. And then in and out for awhile for other speaking engagements. The website postings will be erratic. But I’ll be back - to show you pictures from my trips.

Seattle, Washington
Written in the last week of August, 2008.

NEWS

1. NOVEL - An agreement has been reached with Amazon to make my novel, Third Wish, available via their Kindle electronic download program in time for the holidays. Amazon should be posting the details in September on their website, where information about Kindle is available now. The print edition of Third Wish is in production and will be available in February through Amazon. Onward!

2. BACK TO SCHOOL - On September 3 I have the honor of addressing the assembled student body of the John Hay Elementary School - across the street from my house. I’ve often written about the school and what I learn as its neighbor. And many fine memories of my childhood are associated with Back to School, so I’m as wired up for this privileged encounter as I was long ago. What shall I wear? What version of a lunch bucket shall I get? What food to bring? And, of course, I will need new school supplies as soon as possible. Don’t need a ruler, though. I still have mine from elementary school. But it’s an old ruler. Time for a new one. But I can hear the voice of my mother, “When they change the length of inches you can have a new ruler.” An inch still an inch. My ruler still works.

3. FAMILY DEVELOPMENTS - Youngest grandson’s voice cracked and changed in one week this summer. He’s almost 13, starting 7th grade, and taller than his mother. Suddenly he’s very talky - taking pleasure in using and hearing his new voice. Other signs of oncoming teen-hood: Two showers a day, hair gel, I-pod, and being as concerned in deciding what to wear back to school next week as is his grandfather.

4. MORE FAMILY DEVELOPMENTS - Youngest grand-daughter, 11, sister of the young man just mentioned, has been visited by the breast fairy over the summer. Time for a training bra, navel jewelry, and kitten heels. Wooha! She is my fashion adviser. Says I need a “hoody” and “bags” and “flips” for my back to school day. (A sweatshirt with a hood and cargo shorts with 10 pockets and flip-flop.) Why not? Imagine our shopping experience . . .

5. SPEAKING OF IMAGINATION - Imagine that you miss getting good mail so much that, on a whim, you signed up for your own private box at a nearby mail-handling store. Imagine that you decided to send yourself mail from time to time as you traveled around. Interesting stuff. Funny cards. Invitations. Ransom Notes. Letters of commendation. Imagine that you can enjoy doing this because your mind is so scattered that in a few days you will forget what you sent. Imagine that when you do remember that you have real mail and go to your box you are truly surprised. Wow! Look at all these envelopes and packages! And since you sent the stuff, you know it will all be good news. At least somebody loves you and thinks about you. Even if it’s only you. There’s no shame in this. It’s not a site to receive pornography or espionage or an illicit lover’s perfumed letters. You may wish it was, but No. Just a wiggy way to amuse yourself. So far so good.

Imagine this is your secret. Nobody but you knows about the box or the box number. And then. You go to your box, not expecting anything because you think you’ve got everything you sent you, but then, you’re not sure because you can’t remember. So you check. And the box is full of mail for you - letters, post cards, little packages. Imagine your surprise. Not a single piece of this mail looks familiar. Unless you’ve really lost your mind and started disguising your own handwriting, or unknowingly been traveling out of town overnight, you did not send you this mail.

Imagine the daze you walk away in. Somebody knows your secret. How?
Who? And why have they chosen this way of entertaining you? You could handle hate mail or dirty mail - especially if you knew the who and why.
But clever, anonymous, playful mail that makes you laugh and smile. Imagine what you would do next.

Would you play detective and try to discover your patron? Would you demand of the store that they explain the leak in your secret pipeline?
Would you take a wild guess and start flinging foolish mail at several suspects as a way of saying “Gotcha!”

Walking home from my mailbox with all these thoughts jumbling around in my head - with a second batch of great mail from my benefactor - I said outloud to myself, “Fulghum - do nothing. Be pleased. Enjoy.” Good advice.

But I did decide to do something. To tell this story on my website. As a way of saying to my kind and clever benefactor - I’m grateful for the foolish joy.

Seattle, Washington
Written in mid-August 2008

AUGUST

Intensive tango is over for me for the summer. A strong festival and two performance evenings of Tango Cabaret have zipped by. As I write I gaze across the room and smile at my dancing partner.

Louise: Orange-red hair, pink dress, gold shoes, scarlet lipstick. With an enigmatic, enchanting Mona Lisa smile on her expressive face.

Louise, I regret to say, is in fact a full-size lady orangutan. A stuffed animal. We danced together at the cabaret. She follows well. I could have easily made some very flashy moves with Louise. Swung her around my neck, thrown her up in the air or slid her between my legs. Like the professional dancers from Argentina did in the cabaret show.

In my role as master of ceremonies, I did say to the audience, after some spectacular dancing by the Argentinians, that the Surgeon General of Argentina asked me to warn that tango dancing could be dangerous to your health. You should not try some of the flashier moves made by the professionals unless an aid car and a medic were standing by.

Or, of course, unless your partner is a stuffed orangutan. (Louise is smiling.)

Less than three weeks before September. This part of August always has touches of nostalgia and tension in it. Already there are memories of the summer of 2008 in the scrapbook of my mind. Already the far off Olympics are underway. Already the days are noticeably shorter. Already the fiercest heat of summer is past. Already the list of things I was going to accomplish this summer has been revised by reality.

Why is it I think the three months of summer are going to be longer than any other three months of the year? And I will be more efficient and energetic?

I did actually manage to triage and reorganize my basement - because it was the only cool place in the house during a mini-heat wave. And moving the boxes of stuff as far as the garage is, despite the opinion of others, progress.
Next summer I will clean out the garage. These things take time.

Already the incoming mail and calls and e-mails aimed at me in my office are about September and the fall. People are back from vacation, getting geared up for an energetic plunge into busyness. Immediate reply required.

No. Not me. Not quite yet. There are still the late summer farmer’s markets to attend - sweet corn and tomatoes and late peaches and melons and wild salmon are in season. County fairs and music concerts at the zoo. A parade or two. The lake is finally warm enough to swim in. And the evenings soft enough to sit outside in lantern light and talk with old friends visiting from out of town. There’s no reason to run for the work train of the world just yet.

Though I slop along looking back over my shoulders at oncoming September, the sanest voice in my head reminds me: there are still days to go. September will come, no matter what. And running to meet it is not quite as fine a plan as strolling in its inevitable direction. One is always free to choose one’s attitude and one’s pace and one’s focus.

The last summer full moon rises up on the 16th.
I have reserved seat tickets for the performance.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah

Written in early July, 2008

Just a note to tell you that the production process for the English language version of my novel, Third Wish, is in high gear. The actual publication date is not yet firm, but as soon as I know, I will publish the details here. Meanwhile:

THE CLOSING OF THE MILL

This is an invisible slide show.
A mental power-point presentation.
Imagine.

1. On your screen is a photograph of an active sawmill in south central Oregon near the whimsically named little town of Drain. A blue-highway, blue-collar crossroads in the valley of the Uumpqua River where it winds through the Coast Range before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at Reedsport. This is the setting for Ken Kesey’s fine novel, Sometime A Great Notion. The photograph was taken 30 years ago.

As you can see, the mill yard is full of machinery – D-8 Cat tractors, logging trucks, log loaders, and the randomly parked collection of pickup trucks belonging to the workers. Across the way, logs are being rolled from trucks into the mill pond. Men with spiked boots and long poles are moving the logs toward the chain-way that pulls the logs up into the mill, where they are debarked and shoved forward into giant gang-saws. Somewhere inside the mill, finished boards are stacked, then lifted up by fork lift and hauled out to the huge drying yard that extends far out of this picture.

The smoke you see is steam from the boiler that drives the machinery. If you could smell the scene, your nose would tell you the wood is fir. The great mounds of chips and sawdust in the foreground are used to fire the mill’s boilers.

2. Here’s a second slide – taken ten years later. The mill is active, but not today. All is still. No workers in sight. I don’t know why. Holiday? Strike? Shortage of logs, perhaps? The pond is only half full. The stacks of drying lumber seem fewer in number.

3. Here’s a third slide. A sign says: “Mill Closed – No Trespassing”. The mill is not only closed, but seemingly abandoned. No stacks of lumber. No sign of life. The glass windows in the mill office are broken. Only rust and weeds are at work. And there are no logs in the pond. The nearby woods are clear-cut of trees. The mill’s days are over.

4. A last slide. The sawmill has been torn down, the machinery scrapped, the land bulldozed flat and seeded with green grass. Wild flowers bloom, and ducks inhabit the now-quiet pond.

These pictures are not a nostalgic documentary of the coming and going of the timber industry. Not an environmental impact statement, either. Nor an elegy for the human depredation of the earth.

What I’ve written is an elaborate metaphor. About writing. Mine. Only time will tell how accurate the analogy may be.

For as long as I can remember stories have been dumped into the millpond of my mind in endless supply. The idea-logs have been hauled up into my sawmill, cut into word-boards and assembled into structures to be used by others. It seemed out of the question that I could not go on forever. I could not not write. Writer’s block had never been an issue. To the contrary, I assumed I had a permanent case of logorrhea – an inability not to babble on.

This June, at the end of my 70th year I realized, I was no longer writing.
The mill seemed to be shut down – at least temporarily – as it has before from time to time. As the days and weeks have passed on by, I notice that the urge to produce words had stopped. The mill seems to have closed.

When I checked the mill pond. There were no logs floating in it.

Instead, the desire to make art again came as a flood. On the spur of the moment I came down here to southeastern Utah to my studio to do nothing but paint.

Come. I’ll show you. Follow me down the hallway stairs.

On the entrance wall you see that I’ve written Green! Green! Green!
Further on you see that three work tables are covered with scraps of the color green – cuttings from magazines, sample cards from paint stores, and paper smeared with the greens I’ve mixed up for a palette.

In the next room you will see nine canvasses of three sizes – the dominant color on each is green. I don’t know why. I don’t care why. I’ve never painted much green before. My green period seems to have come. The content of each painting is still in progress. As is the wordless conversation between me and the paint and the canvas.

This making of visual art is a private affair for me. Not for a show or for sale. For sanity and pleasure and a special kind of joy not unlike what a kindergartner feels when recklessly splashing color around on an easel. Remember?

The only thinking I’ve done is about some words pinned to one of my easels.

“The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.
The grass is greener where it is watered.
When crossing over fences, carry water.
Or stay where you are and tend the grass there.”

So there you have a round about answer to the questions from readers of this website: Where’s Fulghum? What’s he doing? Where’s the writing?

He’s into green - watering his grass.
The sawmill may be closed.
Meanwhile, he’s very happy.

Seattle, Washington
Written in June, 2008

COUPLE QUANDRY

Do you do this: Stare in awe and wonder at a couple walking by - a couple of unlikely mis-matched ill-builts - and think, “What on Earth do they see in each other?” Yes? Me, too. Nonstop. We examine the passing exhibition of the human species as if we were the judges in an ongoing State Fair livestock competition. Couples, especially. “Ohmygod, look at them!”

Many’s the time in the days when I was a parish minister when an appointment was made to discuss wedding plans and I would look up in astonishment at the couple when they came into my office and think, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

I had the same experience with the appearance of my teenagers’ first steady boyfriend or girlfriend. “What the hell . . . ?”

Fat with thin. Ugly with gorgeous. Old with young. Weird with straight.
Smart with stupid. Zebras with orangutans, a moose with a Jersey cow, a giraffe with a warthog. And on and on and on. You know. In fact, you may even be part of such a couple. (Though you’re probably the last to know it.)
It’s a mystery - the Couple Quandary.
Not only does love seem blind, but also deaf and dumb and stupid and twisted, and hopelessly hopeful as well. At least from the outside.

This profoundly original insight is a prelude to telling you of today’s sighting: A couple walked toward me on Queen Anne Avenue. About the same age - mid-thirties, maybe. Holding hands. Laughing. One was at least six feet six inches tall, athletically healthy, short black hair, well dressed, and well-proportioned. The other was five feet tall at most, likewise in great physical shape, tanned, very fit, and quite handsomely dressed.

They seemed blissfully delighted to be in each other’s company, and walked at that casual pace people use to wander about in art galleries. No rush. No cell phones or I-Pods or dog or baby stroller. A couple. Together.

(You know I’m shamelessly leading you on. But wait for it . . . )
The big one - was a woman - very feminine - quite pretty.
The little one - was a man - very masculine - quite handsome.

My mind went wild.
What was he to her? Her lunch? Her jockey? Her substitute for a pet?
What was she to him? His bodyguard? His trained huntress? The other half of his circus act?
And, well, I admit it - I wondered what went on between them in bed. Who did what to whom and how? How could I not wonder that? Wouldn’t you?

So I turned around and stalked them - followed at a distance for awhile.

At times he let go of her hand and placed his arm around her shapely butt.
(It was as high as he could easily reach.) And she rested her hand on his shoulder or on the back of his muscular neck. And then they went back to holding hands. Always in touch. And the touching was always tender.

They window shopped.
They stopped to look at the flowers in front of the Metropolitan Market.
He picked orange roses. She picked some blue flowers I don’t know the name of. They had the clerk wrap the flowers together.
“Is this a gift,” the clerk asked. “No, just for us,” she said.
The man paid, but they took turns carrying the flowers as they wandered on down the avenue.

We - they, with me still tagging along - went into Café Ladro for coffee. They both ordered an iced latte - single shot - to go. She paid this time, while he held the flowers. They sat down in the chairs outside to drink their coffee and watch the world go by. Still holding hands. And I, sitting three chairs over, finally noticed the wedding rings on their fingers.
Really? Really.

I couldn’t hear what they said, but they laughed a lot. And once she picked up both their hands and kissed them both lightly in a wordless blessing.

I left.
I was afraid I would say something to them.
Something stupid.

Like I had been following them. Like asking them for their story - the rest of it. Like asking them how they saw each other beyond the cultural categories of Big Woman / Small Man. Like some sage comment on the mysterious nature of love. Like telling them the story they made for you and for me - the one I was going to write when I got home.

But, no.
Sometimes - not nearly often enough - but sometimes, I am wise enough to mind my own business. And sometimes I am also wise enough not to explain the obvious to those who read my journals. Like you don’t know the point of my telling you all this? I trust you can take it from here . . .

Seattle, Washington
Written June 1, 2008

ACCOUNTING

“What did you learn in school today?”
A question we ask children. Why are we surprised at the stock answer?
“Nothing.” or “I dunno.”

If we understand the interchange as a mere formality between adults and kids - like “Hey, how are you?” “OK.” - then the mission is accomplished - we’ve noticed each other. But if you really want information on what the kid learned in school, then you need to first understand that the kid’s suspicions are immediately aroused by what seems like an oncoming investigation: “Uh-Oh.”

Better you should be more specific and empathetic. For example: “When I was in fourth grade I learned about Chicago. I will never forget Chicago, even though I’ve never been. Do they still teach Chicago?” It’s an opening for a conversation. Little kids recognize that and will talk to you. Maybe not about Chicago, but about something. And isn’t it the conversation that you wanted in the first place, not an accounting of educational increase?

Somewhere along the way we quit asking “What did you learn in school today?” Never have I, as an adult, asked or been asked that - by a kid or another adult. But I was asked yesterday by a boy at a funeral. He was on the sidelines reading a book. The last Harry Potter one. I am also a reader, so I asked him about his book - one I had not read - and we talked.

As the conversation was winding down, he asked me, “Do you still learn stuff?” “Yes.” But he didn’t get to ask “Like what?” because some other people came over and interrupted our conversation.

I thought about his question all afternoon. And again this morning. Suppose I had to write a report. “What I Learned This Week - by Bobby Fulghum.”
Not all of it is consequential - as is often the case in education. Never the less, here is a partial list - things I learned, that you might want to know:

1. If you read in bed at night, and if you like noting important passages with a permanent yellow marker pen, and if you fall asleep with both the book and the marker still open, when you wake up in the morning in the dark and bumble down to the bathroom, you will see in the mirror that your skin has developed yellow blotches and you will think, for a moment, that you have a tropical disease. You will be wider awake than you want to be.

2. Permanent yellow marker cannot be removed from sheets and pillow cases. Not even with Goo Gone or its companion product, Goof Off.

3. Factoid: Hit at three miles an hour by the bumper of a car backing up, a large plastic recycle bin will travel thirty feet across a street. When it hits the curb, it will stop. And fall over. And spill its contents across the sidewalk. If this happens at the edge of a primary school playground where children are present, they will be massively entertained. You will not be. And you cannot say aloud what you are thinking because children are present.

4. If you have large scarlet-red oriental poppies blooming in your yard, and you want to cut some and bring them inside, even though you know they will not last the day, if you immediately burn the end of the cut stem with a candle flame before putting them into warm water in a vase, they will last a week. And if you let the petals fall and leave them where they are, the petals will last another three days in a beautiful scarlet-red ring around the vase.

5. If you have a birthday coming, but you don’t want to celebrate yourself, but what you would like is to be with a group of friends who are far away, you can send two of them a fish - a huge copper river Alaska King Salmon - by air express, knowing full well they will have to invite the rest of your friends to eat the thing. And they will all have a grand time and think well of you. And you don’t even have to be there to have them sing the song at you. This technique is called “Giving Away Your Birthday.”

6. If you have an older neighbor - one you see every day - and she dies and you go to the memorial service, you will learn amazing things about that neighbor that, had you known, you would have made a point of sitting down with her and getting her to tell you all about. And you would have had something really fascinating to answer if anybody asked you, “What did you learn today?”

7. Asking is usually a good thing.

Seattle, Washington
Written in late May, 2008

FOLK LIFE

On re-reading what I’ve been writing in this journal for the past few weeks, I recognize a trend. Fulghum has been going around in the world lately like Good Old Charley Brown in Peanuts - who lived out his existence between eternal Hope and inevitable Disappointment.

Sometimes I feel like a living, breathing cartoon figure - naïve, optimistic, and grateful for any sign of the Good, however small - despite knowing that the World will always break your heart if you let it.

That’s why I buy but do not read The New York Times daily. Usually I let the papers pile up and take a look all at once on Saturday. That way I get the reasons for despair over with all at once. Seldom is the good news in the paper - that must be read from the daily evidence closer by.

Example. For the past 37 years Seattle has celebrated Memorial Day weekend with the FolkLife Festival. At Seattle Center, which is a ten-block downhill walk from my house. In my neighborhood.

When I was a child Memorial Day meant a trip to the cemetery to remember and honor the dead. Now I avoid cemeteries. I know that folks die. And I remember. But I believe that I honor the dead best by getting involved with as much life as I can on this weekend.

Besides thousands and thousands of attendees, there were 7,000 performers over the four days of FolkLife this year. Musicians, jugglers, artisans, dancers, singers, poets - professionals as well as amateurs - young as well as old - and from just about any ethnic and cultural you can imagine. And while I did attend performances and exhibitions, the best part was sitting in one place and watching the crowd. Folks. Of every kind. Some you can imagine. Some you can’t. You have to be there.

For one thing, a great many of those passing by were carrying instrument cases, obviously containing guitars or fiddles or horns, but less obviously shaped to carry more exotic instruments. If I saw most of these people on the street I would never think “a musician” - but I saw them here and my impression was dramatically improved. Especially when I know that most are not professionals. Most just play for companionship and joy.

For another thing, the festival encourages busking - unscheduled offerings by anyone who wants to stake out a small space for awhile and perform. Many are young, not yet proficient, and a little fearful of what they’re doing. I try to stop and watch and listen - and make a donation - to as many as I can. Some come back year after year, having improved their acts and expertise. Their courage, their ambition, and their earnest dedication to their craft impress and inspire me.

My favorite busker this year was a very young woman - maybe 12. Long blond hair in a pony-tail. An unspectacular costume - black pants and beige sweater. She unfolded a small silver performance pad, placed a huge pink ball in the middle, and dropped a hula hoop over that. Then she took a fiddle out of its case, and tuned it.

And then - quicker than I can describe - she somehow was balanced atop the ball - rolling it forward and back - while keeping the hula hoop going - moving it up and down her body - while playing a lively tune on her fiddle and singing. Amazing!

None of her individual skills were extra-ordinary, but she had taken the things she could do and put them all together, and then had the courage to perform her act it in public. She did it very well.

The little girl came to mind later when I went to a workshop for people who wanted to learn palmas - the hand-clapping technique used in Flamenco music. Knowing I will never look like a Spanish gypsy or manage the guitar technique or the passionate dancing, I was excited that I might at least learn the secrets of Flamenco clapping. I can clap. I got rhythm.

So. Armed only with enthusiasm, I stepped into the trap of “How hard can this be?” and joined the group, sitting on the front row. Maybe fifty people, including a policeman. The only person who might be a gypsy was the teacher, Anna Montes.

There are two basic Flamenco claps - with both palms open, and with four fingers of one hand slapping the other. So far, so good.
Then comes clapping in threes, twos, and finally, in twelve beats. OK.
The beat of the foot was added next. And then counter-clapping on the off-beat in half measures and non-beats. Maybe.

Then doing all this in two groups without counting aloud. With the foot on the 3, the 6, and the 10. Then faster. And adding an Ole! or two now and then. Keeping the back straight - the body posed and dignified. Oh, sure.

All too soon Senor Fuljumero was flopping around barking like a seal begging for fish. Terribly enthusiastic, but way off beat. And not doing the foot and the hands at the same time. (Counter rhythms seem to be my specialty.)

Shouting Whooo-ha! instead of Ole! did not add to my image.

It was a relief to have the teacher explain as class ended that clapping is not done by the audience, but only by the performers. What a relief! But it is useful to know, as she pointed out, that the support of an informed audience is important to the dancers and musicians.

Still, like a performing seal, I was just happy to be there. If not fed with a fish, then at least nourished in spirit. Just there. In the afternoon sun with a truly random collection of other human beings in a random mood.
Clapping! Laughing! Folk! Life!

The little girl came to mind. Maybe I could do this if I worked on it. It could be my act. Imagine. Bob the Busker. Next year at the festival. Next to the little girl on the ball. What does he do? He . . . he claps. Quite well, actually. It’s a trained seal imitation. He’s not bad - if you think applause is a talent.

Well . . . it is.

Seattle, Washington
Written in late May, 2008

QUESTION

“Why me?”

A question asked when life goes suddenly, seriously wrong. You’re diagnosed with cancer, you get fired, your spouse sues for divorce, a child drowns, your house catches fire, your troubled teenager runs away, your health insurance is canceled, or your life savings are lost in a bad investment. And so forth and so on and so forth and so on and . . . so.
Sometimes it’s not just one but several of these soul-blows at once.

“Why me?”

In the years when I was an active parish minister my counsel was often sought in these situations. “Why me? - I don’t deserve this!” people asked.
An ancient demand for clarity and justice. The Book of Job in the Bible is built around the same anguished cry. The underlying enigmatic question is “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Hard to answer. Maybe it’s the wrong question to begin with.
It helps to know you are not really the special target of the forces of evil.
But not much.

Thick books have been written addressing the conundrum. Friends, family, psychiatrists, priests, social workers, and bartenders do what they can. We shake our fists at the gods and the fates and Lady Luck without results.

Most often, however, the question arises out of far less dramatic circumstances. A month of just one damned thing after another - the accumulation of the everlasting paper cuts of daily life, when things break or go wrong or turn sour and we say we just can’t win for losing. The scrambled egg of existence lurches out of the frying pan onto the floor.
Depressing. Disheartening. Frustrating. Irritating. Maddening.

“Why me?”

On the other hand.

There are those weeks, when the sun shines, an unexpected kindness comes our way, something truly amusing happens and we laugh ourselves silly, we get enough sleep, have sweet dreams, an old friend takes us away for an evening of music, a neighbor leaves a thank-you bottle of champagne in the fridge, a child gives you an unexpected hug, the wisteria suddenly blooms, you find a forgotten photograph of a lovely place and time you will never forget, and, and, and . . .

The world is “Yes” instead of “No.”
It’s not your birthday, but it feels like it - a rebirth of joy on a small scale.

There are those times, when for the very same uncontrollable reasons that the world seems to turn against us and every little thing goes wrong, that the world turns for us - and everything goes well for a spell. We’re ahead - on the plus side - a winner in the lottery of life.
And for a time it’s good to be so alive.

Happens.
When good things happen to good people.
And the question then might be, “Well, why not me?”

Odd that it’s actually more awkward to talk about ups than downs.
Nobody ever called me in the middle of the night to say they were happy.

But I just had one of those weeks.
I just wanted to tell somebody.
Why not you?

Seattle, Washington
Written in mid-May, 2008

COULD BE

This is a secondary story. By that I mean it was told to me by a dear friend. But it contains a kind of elegant veracity that lodged so deeply in my mind that it feels like the memory of a personal experience. I can imagine it happening to me. I wish it had happened to me. And so, I tell it to you in first person as an exercise in creative non-fiction.

There is in Seattle a repository of the city’s past called the Museum of History and Industry. Seattle’s attic. A small institution, located out of the mainstream of traffic, un-flamboyant in its public presence, and more often visited by school children on field trips than tourists on vacation. It is also a standard stop on nursing home van tours. Or, as in my case, a surprise
re-discovery while out wandering around exploring the outer edges of Seattle on a spring afternoon.

A senior’s outing was underway as I arrived. Accompanied by attendants, the elderly and disabled - some in their wheelchairs - some using walkers or canes - were moving slowly up the entrance ramp ahead of me. One of their group, a skinny, spry old man still independently mobile, walked well ahead of his peers and into the museum with focused purpose.

Inside the museum, I carefully worked my way through the excursioneers and on up the stairs into a second floor gallery. One wall was covered with a photo-mural: The Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle in 1908. Brick buildings, street cars, horse-drawn vehicles, early automobiles, and pedestrians in the attire of the time. Because of the enlargement process, the soft-edged grey-and-black-and- white image seemed more dream-like than photographic - the faded essence of a moment in time long past.

The only other person in the room was that old man I had seen going into the museum ahead of his group. He was standing close to the photo-mural, closely examining one corner of it. Sensing my presence, he turned to me, and motioned for me to join him.

“Come look,” he said.

“My mother and father lived in Pioneer Square when I was born. Next Sunday I will be one hundred years old. I was there in 1908. Look here. See the man and the woman pushing the little boy in the carriage?”

I looked. The couple were indeed there. Holding hands. Pushing a pram. And there was a baby in the carriage. A boy? Well . . . hard to tell.

“My father dressed just like that young man. I’ve seen other pictures. And my mother dressed just like that young woman. Seen the pictures. That baby there is me. Right there. One hundred years ago. What do you think?”

“Could be,” I said.

The old man bent over, and, eyes inches away, he stared hard at the image.
Standing back, he looked at the baby again, and turned to me.

“Could be - is good enough,” he said.

And smiling, he walked spryly away, back down the stairs to join his group.

“Happy birthday,” I thought. “May the possibilities be with you always.”

And then I, too, walked spryly away, down the stairs, and on out into the warm spring sunlight of a late afternoon in May 2008, repeating the mantra for the day:

“Could be - is good enough.”

May the possibilities be with me.
Always.

Seattle, Washington
Written in the first week of May, 2008

(Fiction – This is a continuation of story—see April 03 journal entry and May 05 entry.

THE END OF WAITING
On his bathroom mirror he wrote with a piece of soap,
“Whatever became of me?”
Underneath he added a new line:
“What am I waiting for?”

*
On this Sunday morning, just after sunrise, once again he ritually set the kitchen table for breakfast - as carefully as an acolyte might prepare a church altar for a communion service.

On a pale blue tablecloth, he set out two of everything: square blue-and-white Chinese plates; orange-and-blue Japanese cereal bowls; blue Mexican glasses; antique silver spoons, and small white porcelain cups for espresso.

And flowers. There were always fresh flowers. From a friendly neighbor’s yard he had cut two tall purple irises, which he placed in a vase in front of one plate at the table - not as decoration, but as a kind of offering.

The menu did not vary: Fresh squeezed orange juice, croissants, butter, and lavender honey. Blueberries. Sugar and cream.

When he had finished setting the table, he stepped back, considered his work, pushed the play button on the stereo and sat down. The background music was always Mozart - the Clarinet Concerto in A.

For almost three years now he had laid out this Sunday breakfast for two. As lovely as he could make it. As he thought She would like it.
However. Only one person would be there.

He would be alone. There was no She.

His housekeeper, who always put away the unused table setting on Mondays, was the only other person who knew about the Sunday communion. She never asked about it, assuming the second place was set for his absent wife, She-Who-Went-Away.

The housekeeper thought his ritual was a sign of relentless sadness - a gesture of grief. She remembered the first year. He had left the back porch light on every night and placed a note on the table just inside the door:

“Welcome Home.”

For an entire year he did that. The housekeeper would turn off the light when she came each morning, set the note aside, and begin her day’s work in tears - especially on Mondays after the Sunday breakfast. She never spoke of this. She thought she knew and understood.

The housekeeper was right about the missing person the first year.
After that, someone else was on his mind.

While he did have a deep and sorrowful nostalgia for the love that had withered and died, She-Who-Went-Away had been on the verge of departing for years. It had taken twenty years for their companionship to wither and dry up. A ripe plum had become a stale prune.

He was not surprised that she finally left, only surprised that it took her so long. For the last ten years her hand had always been on the door knob. She exited his life like someone dying after a long terminal illness. By the time it happened, he was used to it. Nothing remained but a shadow.

Nobody’s fault, no obvious reasons - except that the ties that bind somehow fell away. Love is born, lives, and dies. That happens. It grieved him. But, if truth be told, he had to admit that she simply got to the exit before he did.

He found it easier to sorrow over her absence than her presence.
On the wall of her empty room he had written:

That was then – this is now.
That was that – this is this.
This is it – this will do.
And that is that.

Technically, they remained married - but only for legal and financial convenience - and would probably remain so until one or the other found another love. He expected that would happen for her soon. He sensed that a final settlement was not far away. He felt hopeful when he heard that she had a new companion.

And he was also expecting that might happen for him.
Thus the empty place at his Sunday breakfast table was for someone else - The One, who, despite his yearning, had not yet appeared.

Setting a place for her at his Sunday morning table was not unlike the act of lighting a votive candle in the private chapel of the church of his life.

His faith could be superb self-deception. He considered that. But he had come to rely on the power of his imagination, which arises in part from what it refuses to foresee. He imagined she would come. He waited.

Waiting contradicted his experience and personal style. Most of the finest things in his life had come to him because he had not only imagined them possible, but he had pursued them with all his heart and mind and resources.

He had always been willing to risk an improbable life and take the consequences. Luck and fortune and surprise seemed to pass through most people undetected, like neutrinos, but he sensed their presence, and reached out for them. Luck and fortune and surprise favor the alert, the open-eyed, and the prepared.

Some things cannot be found unless looked for. He always said that if you wanted to catch a train, one must first go to the station. If he wanted to win the lottery, he must first buy a ticket.

“Then, why,” he asked himself, “have I waited so long?”

However.
And it was this “however” – this “on the other hand” – this dark balance weight to his optimism - that had kept him waiting.
True, he yearned for love.
However. There was the other truth:
Most of what he believed about true love had proved to be crap.
There - that was the contradictory answer to his question.

It wasn’t love he wanted but something like love - something parallel to it - the same shape and form, but harmless in the end. He wanted everything love had to offer except being stretched out on the torture rack at the end.

It wasn’t Love or The One he wanted, but all the feelings that went with the journey of seeking and finding and exhausting that enterprise. The pulsing flow of blood that went with that emotion as it ran its course. The intensity it brought to life - joy, excitement, fear, pain, ecstasy, mystery.

But he did not want the responsibility for the inevitable consequences - not for himself - or for the other person involved. One morning he found himself thinking he wanted to experience love as theater. As a play with actors and actresses and scenery.

That thought was what brought him through the door of Waiting. A door that had not been locked - just closed. For no specific reason he could think of, the time had come.
The end of waiting.
This Sunday breakfast would be the last solitary communion.
“Enough,” he said to himself, “Time to get back out into the flow of the world.”

No more waiting.
He ate his breakfast, and cleared all of the dishes away. When the housekeeper arrived on Monday she would find the table empty.

The next day, the first Monday in April, fired by his idea, he would go out into the world to seek his fortune. He was going to hire an actress. Someone like that woman he had met in Santa Fe and then again yesterday. After that he was going to enroll in dancing class again - to refresh his ability to tango.

But first, he would invite the forces of magic and wishes and spells. Just to set his mind in the direction of surprise. On the now empty dining room table, he laid out his supplies. And put tango music on the player.

Seattle, Washington
Written in the first week of May, 2008

Note: This story picks up where the April 03, 2008 journal entry left off. (Click here to link to the story and read it.) This is fiction. Another part of a small, new, novel-in-process.

SPELLS

About the man who returned the serape to its rightful owner:
He did own the antique shop - among other enterprises.
But Marisol Machado was right - she might not see him again.
She was focused on Fate. And he was relying on magic.

He did not believe in magic.
Not in the sense that he believed in the grocery store and that if he wanted milk he could go to the store and get milk.
But he did believe in retroactive magic.
In the sense that when he reviewed his life he could truly say there were events that only magic could explain.

He did not believe in wishes.
Not in the sense that he believed in coincidence as a rational explanation for surprising outcomes of desire.
But he did believe in retroactive wishes.
In the sense that, when he looked back, there were times when his wishes had come true.

He did not believe in spells.
Not in the sense that deliberately stacking the odds in his favor over another person often produced the desired results.
But he was beginning to believe in retroactive spells.
In the sense, that when he looked back, there were times when some small or peculiar conscious action seem to have directly affected success.

He had noticed that there seemed to be some truth in what was called the Second Law of Magic:
That which once directly affected someone or something continues to have an affect at a distance. This may not always be controlled, but often encouraged.

The consideration of casting spells seemed ludicrous to his rational mind. But he knew that his rational mind could be pleasantly distracted by the pursuit of some irrational enterprise.

And just now he badly needed to over-ride his intellectual obsession with a vexing conundrum: The tension between thinking of two distinct people: “She Who Went Away” and “She Who Is On The Way.”

And that is how he came to consult several books about casting spells - ranging from the ancient practices of the occult to the contemporary poetic manipulation of physical metaphors. Why not? It would occupy his mind and give him something interesting to do while the pool of his confusion settled and cleared.

He made a list of the components and ingredients he would need for constructing and casting spells:

A packet of needles of various sizes for various uses.

The heads of dandelions after they had seeded into puffy globes of white.

Several lengths of colored yarn - scarlet, sky blue, and black.

A small magnet.

Three wishbones - from free-range chickens.

Several kinds of special salt - from the sea, from deep in the earth, from far
away - in several colors - white, black, and saffron.

Thorns removed from a rose in bloom and still on the rose bush.

Five small spider webs.

Honey still in the comb - from summer flowers.

Smudges - small bundles of dried sweet grass and sage.

Sand - collected from ant hills, brought up from out of the earth.

Five small candles - one each black, white, red, blue, and yellow.

Several squares of small, handmade paper - ivory colored.

3 small bottle of ink - black, scarlet, and invisible.

5 small stones from a place where the tide meets the shore.

Some ashes from a fire made from dried weeds.

Incense - not sticks, but in bulk form - dragon’s blood, frankincense, pinyon

3 small bottles of water - from rain, snow, and morning dew

Several small plain muslin bags

Several lengths of colored ribbons - black, white, scarlet, and blue

Strands of hair from those one wishes to affect.

For some time he had been collecting these materials to use in casting spells.
Not that he intended to cast spells. Collecting was an amusing distraction.
But then, again, what harm if he did cast a few spells? What harm, indeed?

Some items proved easier to acquire than others. For example,“She Who Went Away” had left behind a hairbrush laced with strands of her long black hair still in it. And he had a hairbrush with strands of his own hair. But what about a strand of the hair of “She Who Is On The Way?” By virtue of the unknown being unobtainable, he had no way to get one.

He would have to rely on Magic and Wishes and Spells.

And so, one spring Sunday afternoon he allowed his temptation to flourish.

He was tired of waiting.

Seattle, Washington
Written Wednesday, April 30, 2008

SPITTING WITH BREAKFAST

Setting: A neighborhood café on a Sunday morning around ten o’clock.
Outside: Spring rain and wind and cold.
Inside: Bedlam - too many customers, too few waiters, and only one cook.
Players: A family of four. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Mother and Father: Urban, middle-thirties, jeans-and-T-shirts-and-fleece.
Dog: Big brown Lab tied up outside, barking, barking, barking.

They are here because the father has decided to treat the family to a Sunday breakfast out. But nobody seems happy about it. The mother stares out the window. The father is absent-mindedly cleaning out his wallet. The daughter is grooming her hair. The little boy is wiggling, wiggling, wiggling.

The girl is in the 9-10 range, already pubescent, with mind focused on dangly earrings, lipstick, kitten heels, personal cell phone, perfume and a bra. She doesn’t have all of these things yet, but that’s where her mind is.

The little boy is in the 4-5 range, already in an energy-explosive state, like a bomb that’s primed, fused, and ready to blow. He should be taken to an open field and allowed to run in circles and scream. But he’s here. Wiggling. He should have been tied outside with the dog. Which is where his mind is.

Finally, the food arrives. The family eats in concentrated sullen silence.
The girl tidily finishes her eggs, and then starts being a Mommy, harassing the little boy to stop making a snowman out of his pancakes and bacon.

The little boy makes a face, sticks out his tongue, and spits on his sister.
She screams. As only pubescent sisters can at such moments.

Uncomfortable silence in the café. Everybody’s looking.

The father makes one of the cardinal parent mistakes: Making a threat you will not likely follow up on. “Stop it or I’ll kill you,” is an extreme example. But this father growls, “No spitting! If you do that again I’ll jerk you up and take you home and put you in your room!”
The girl sits smugly, knowing there will be a follow up move by somebody.
The mother looks out the window again, avoiding what’s coming.
The father - in an “I mean it” position - glares at the little boy.
The little boy grins.
His father has just handed him a golden ticket out of here. Spit. Go home.

He spits on his sister again. On cue, she screams again.

Now all eyes in the café are on the drama.

The father goes red in the face, and starts to get up.
The mother reaches out, catches his wrist, says, “John, John - look at me.”
He looks at her.
The mother makes a brilliant move.
The mother purses her lips and spits at him - a gesture without moisture.
And laughs.

John laughs and sits down.
The little boy hangs his head and giggles.
The sister does the complaint-whine, “Daddeeee . . .”
The father purses his lips in the spitting position aimed at the daughter.
And she laughs.
Bomb disarmed.
Time to go.
They leave. Laughing.
The knowing kind of laughter - when silliness is wisdom in disguise.

Alone at my table, I catch the eye of the mother at a family breakfast sitting across from me. She smiles. Laughs.
I return the laugh.
Her family knows why, and laughs.

Afterward, walking home in the rain, I realized a great opportunity was lost.

We should have given the spitters a standing ovation as they left.
Pancakes and bacon and spitting and laughter.
Great breakfast combo!

Seattle, Washington
Written Sunday, April 27, 2008

Christos Ahnesti! If you were a Greek Orthodox Christian, you would reply:
Alithos Ahnesti!! An exchange of greetings on Easter Sunday - Pascha - which this is, due to ecclesiastical calendar complexities.

For the first time in fifteen years I have not been in Crete for Easter. Having described the experience in detail on this website and in my recent book of essays, “What On Earth Have I Done,” I’ll not indulge in nostalgia here. Still, because close friends are staying in my house in Crete, talking with them this morning puts me in a Cretan state of mind.

And I am feeling vaguely holy on this Sunday morning. For a weird reason.
The Dalai Lama was in Seattle recently. A local company did all the staging for the events. They know what they are doing, since they handle the big Microsoft events, The Rolling Stones, and the like. Last night I was at a party where I met the man who was in charge of the Dalai Lama’s chair.

The same one had to be used and moved from event to event. He was surprised to learn that he could not just grab the chair and carry it out to the next venue. Many people wanted to come to touch it or put their hats or coats or scarves on it. The chair was considered holy. So I touched the hands of the man who was in charge of the chair in which the Dalai Lama sat.

Did this add anything to my life? Who can say? But just in case . . . .

But I digress. I am also in the last stages of the technical tinkering on the English version of the manuscript of my novel, “Third Wish,” and today’s work was on the section set in Crete. The good news, by the way, continues. The novel may be available in print as early as September. The illustrations, music, cover design, and text are very close to being ready for the printer. More details in a few weeks - as the project unfolds.

Meanwhile, since Crete is where my heart and mind are today, I will share with you a new taste of Easter in Crete from the novel. While this is from a work of fiction, it contains substantial experiential truth. The two main characters involved are Alexandros Xenopouloudakis - called Alex - an older Greek man - and Max-Pol Millay, a young American physician.

RODOPOS

Alex has a genius for making friends who, in turn, want to introduce him to their friends. His personality is an oasis of enthusiasm in the middle of the desert of daily dullness.

On one of his snooping, wandering walks through the back streets of Hania, he stopped into the smallest and oldest church of the city to admire its icons. He sought out the parish priest to get some explanations of the paintings. And met Father John, who, coincidentally, was a Welsh Greek who had studied at Cambridge.

“Cambridge! Well, then.” (Alex was himself a student there long ago.)

A five-minute visit became a two-hour lunch. Father John brought along to the meal his closest colleague, Father Anthony, who is the parish priest in the village of Rodopos, and one thing led to another. It is the story of Alex’s life - it could be chiseled on his tombstone:

“For him, one thing always led to another.”

And now Alex and Max-Pol and their friend, Kostas, are all invited to attend Sunday service in the village church, and to get a tour of the Rodopos peninsula. Afterward, there will be lunch with Father Anthony and his family, joined by Father John and his family and any other family that happens by. Invitations to such impromptu feasts are typical of the seasonal run-up to Easter in Crete.

The Rodopos peninsula is one of the two long horns jutting north into the Aegean Sea from Crete’s western end. Twenty kilometers long, with peaks up to eight hundred meters high, it is not an incidental piece of topography. It forms one side of the Bay of Kissamos, and is so commanding in height it almost cuts off the far west from the rest of Crete.

Once, millions of years ago, it was a separate island in its own right. There are rocks and fossils here not found on the lowlands on either side. Its high places are frequently above the cloud and fog banks that form down closer to the sea, giving the Rodopos highlands an aura of mystery.

On the other hand, olive groves, orchards, and vegetable farms fill the peninsula’s lower valleys all the way up to the centrally situated village. As the land rises beyond the village, the vineyards take over in the rocky, less arable soil of the shallow gorges.

Farther on, the peninsula is so high and barren and rocky that its thin pasturage is given over entirely to sheep and goats. Herds of the long-haired traditional breeds roam the treeless landscape. Snow is not unknown here in winter. And wild orchids bloom in the areas around its springs in summer. Altogether a startling, enchanting landscape.

The village of Rodopos is the focus of life for about a thousand people who still carry on a more or less traditional way of life. It seems like a long way from anywhere, and in its churchyard is a surprising reference to the length of Rodopos’s place in history.

Here stands a round marble monument that looks like nothing so much as the stump of a weathered gray telephone pole. It bears a faded Latin inscription. A modern marble tablet explains that this memorial marks the completion of a road built in the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan between this village and the temple of Diktyna - goddess of nets - at the far end of the peninsula. 112 A.D. The road was paid for from donations to the temple. The same roadway is still in use.

When asked about the marker, the villagers reply offhandedly, “Oh, that.” The church gardener usually hangs his coat and hat on this, one of the smallest of Trajan’s many columns, while he works.

In modern history, Rodopos is famous for its heavy red wine, its wildflower honey, its part in the resistance to the German occupation, and for the several members of one of its families active in Cretan politics. A bronze bust of the patriarch, Polychronis Polychronitis, looks sternly across the village square opposite the kafenion - as craggy in his face as the hillsides around him. All of the life that survives and thrives here is fiercely resilient. It must be.

Alex is excited to be here. In the spirit of his cheese experience of yesterday, he points around him and shouts, “Now this, this is Crete!”

*

The church service is in progress when the visitors arrive. Not until they find their standing places and begin to look around do they notice that three of the five men leading the liturgical chanting of the service are in army uniform. Not just army. The elite of the army. Greek Special Forces from the paratroops battalion stationed at Maleme.

The young men obviously know the service. They sing with passionate authority. With the addition of the deeper voices of two older men and the mellow baritone of the priest, the service is surprisingly beautiful - not what you’d expect in a remote village church. St. John Chrysostom would be pleased to know his liturgy survives in such a place and is well served and well sung after more than sixteen hundred years.

The church itself is plain - a working church for a living community, not a tourist attraction. In contrast with the high elegance of the service, there is a comfortable informality in the usual coming and going of the villagers during the ceremony. It is not required that one stay all the way through - only that one should pay one’s respects for some time during the service.

After receiving the blessed bread from the hands of its priest, Father Anthony, the small congregation greets visitors warmly, as if they were an early-arriving contingent of the Diaspora come home for Easter. Afterward, the men of the village move more or less en masse to the kafenion across the street for tsikoudia and coffee and talk. The women return home to prepare lunch.

Max-Pol wants to know about the participation of the soldiers.

They speak English and are surprised that he asks. All three are twenty, and have had two years at technical universities. Yes, they are Special Forces paratroopers - commando trained - the first to go if there is war with the Turks. But they are citizen-soldiers, with an emphasis on the citizen. Every Greek man must serve two years. Service is a responsibility and an obligation of citizenship, rarely a profession.

These young men are from east Crete. They’ve grown up assisting in the service in their village churches, and they like being off-base and back in a village like home. So - they volunteer. Their commanding officer is also a singer and feels the same way about his roots. He would have come along with them today except his wife is expecting a baby this weekend. Mixing church and state and armed forces and family - it is and always has been the Cretan way. About such things they have no doubts whatsoever. To keep these traditions they will sacrifice their lives - or take yours.

*

Since lunch would not be served until two o’clock, excursions were organized. Kostas and the soldiers went off in a pickup truck out to the far end of the peninsula to see where the Germans had built emplacements for their coastal artillery during the war.

The two priests and four of their children went to pick wildflowers in the hills above the village. The women were glad to have the kitchen to themselves.

Alex wanted to wander around the village and look at donkeys and donkey saddles. He has a fondness for donkeys, having tended and worked them when he was a child. The personalities of donkeys appeal to him. They are the most bloody-minded of creatures. It has been a long time since a donkey was seen in the streets of Hania. And while some are still in active use here in Rodopos, their days are as numbered as those of the older generation of villagers who keep them.

Max-Pol went along with Alex.

“Well, then,” began Alex. “The donkey - the gaidaros, or gaidoura, if female - is called the Cretan Volkswagen. It will carry almost anything almost anywhere - twice its own weight is common. It is very tough, very easy to keep, usually gentle, and lives a long time. And look, here is the very creature.”

Tied to a tree on the far side of a ditch, a small, slatternly lady donkey solemnly ate grass, paying no attention to her audience. Alex continued, “Donkeys don’t ‘do’ anything to entertain you and they do not demand attention or affection. They are a beast of burden. They are a live-and-let-live animal. You don’t bother them - they don’t bother you. They work very hard with very little complaint for a very long time. An admirable creature.”

Alex and Max-Pol crossed the ditch, inspected the unpretentious gray-brown animal, stroked its back, and petted its head. The donkey ignored them.
Alex observed, “Odd that such a small member of the horse family should have such a large head in proportion to the rest of its body. You wouldn’t call them handsome, nor is their singing beautiful.” Unfazed by insult and uninterested in company, the donkey went on single-mindedly eating grass. Live and let live.

Getting no response from the donkey, Alex and Max-Pol ambled along on a dirt track, out toward the edge of Rodopos where the vineyards began. As one more sure sign of spring, the vines had been trimmed and the trimmings stacked for burning.

Sheep were near the vineyards, browsing on the lush flowery undergrowth around the trunks of the vines. The soft tones of the bells around their necks punctuated the silent feeding of the sheep. Bong, bung, bingle bingle, bang, bong-bong, bunk, bunk. The bells were a collective musical instrument, and some shepherds still bought them in tuned sets for the pleasure of the distant harmony.

The two men sat down on a stone wall.
Looking, breathing, listening - consuming the ageless tranquility of the scene before them.

The Cretans say that when Jesus does come back - he will come first to Crete - to such a place as this in spring.

Seattle, Washington
Written Sunday, April 19, 2008

Where have I been? Whatever became of me? You may wonder. So do I. Funny how time slips away. A week of nonstop adventure in Utah with senior son, his wife, and their two children, left little time for writing or reflection. And then closing down my house and studio there, traveling to Seattle via Grand Junction, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, only to arrive in the noise and traffic of the city and stand dismayed before a desk piled high with mundane busyness demanding my immediate attention - well, it’s daunting and disheartening and depressing. Instant stress. Avoidance and denial kick in. Can’t just turn around and go back to the mountains. Can’t deal with the pile. So I went for a walk . . .

DIRT

As background to this essay you should be told now that I have been perusing a new book - “PERFUMES” - written by two experts on the subject of smell, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. Early in the book I found this statement: “What scent drives men wild? After years of intensive research, we know the definitive answer. It is bacon.”

Hold that thought as I wander on.

Six blocks from my house is a sanctuary - a sacred place - an open air temple maintained by a religious community - the Brothers and Sisters of the Holy Earth. That’s how I think about it and them.

More literally it is called a P-Patch. An isolated piece of city property in the middle of a block, surrounded on three sides by wild blackberry bushes, unkempt woods, and on the fourth side by fences marking the back yards of several houses. The P-Patch is hidden. I found it last year only by wandering down a path leading away from a dead-end street.

The property is marked off into garden plots. Raised beds outlined by wooden frames and filled with rich dark soil, with pathways between the plots allowing access. For a small annual fee, people from the neighborhood raise flowers and vegetables and fruit trees in these plots - for their own use, but also to provide for local Food Banks serving the needs of the poor.

Though most of the P-Patchers have day jobs and professions and careers, they are farmers at heart who find great satisfaction in tilling and planting and growing on a small scale. They are old and young, male and female, in many shapes and sizes. Some are apartment dwellers without land, some have yards not designed for agriculture, some are friends who like sharing a project, some have families who do not share their farming tendencies, and some are just plain lonely and want the companionship of their tribe - the Green Thumbs People of this world who are not happy without a direct relationship with a patch of earth in which to grow things.

Alas, I am not one of these. Or I should say that I do not have a plot in the P-Patch and am not around often enough to tend one. Someday. It’s high on my life list to stay in one place through all the seasons to tend my own plot. Someday.

But for now I visit the P-Patch when I need to calm down and re-center myself in a sane environment. And to serve as a friendly witness to the enterprise of others. Visitors are welcome. They like and want Witnesses. Most of the tillers of the soil are what they call “P-Patch Proud” - and are pleased to brag a little about the quality of their produce. There’s just no way to avoid an unspoken air of good-humored competition over techniques and personal secrets and tricks of the farming trade.

The flowering fruit trees are in full bloom, and the hive of bees at the end of the P-Patch is already humming with activity. But it’s still early in the spring for planting most things. And this spring has been late and wet this year. Snow is predicted for the weekend. Because Queen Anne Hill is the highest ground in the city a frost is still a possibility. And having your garden fail because you were too eager makes you a P-Patch Fool.

So what is to be seen now is soil that has been prepared - cleaned of last year’s debris, mulched in with compost and fertilizer, raked and ready. Stakes and poles are in place for climbing beans and flowers and tomatoes and berries. The first week in May is usually the beginning of planting time.

Only one old man was at work when I was there on Friday.
“Can’t wait,” he explained. “Been cooped up all winter in the house.”
He knows he’s early - pushing his luck - but he’s been to the nurseries and has his plants and seedlings all ready to go in his closed-in back porch.
“Them onion people started it,” he says - “Already got their sets in. But I’m not an onion man. I’m a tomato man. And only an idiot would plant tomatoes now. But I’m ready. Smell this.” He scoops up a handful of dark brown dirt and holds it under my nose.”

I smell.

The authors of the book, “PERFUMES” acknowledged that the smell of bacon drove men wild, but nowhere did they indicate the smell was available in a perfume bottle. Perhaps it goes rancid in a short time. But I agree and would follow a woman around if she smelled like bacon. The same for fresh-ground coffee.

Another scent missing from the book is the smell of planting soil in April. A woman who smelled like fecund earth would drive me wild. If Tango music was tangible - if you could run your fingers through the opening notes of “The New World Symphony” - or smell Frost’s poem about going down to clear the spring - or put naïve optimism in a bottle - or, well never mind flashy literary acrobatics - you know, if you are fortunate, the smell of unseeded soil in spring. Dirt - electric with possibility and promise.

I ran my hands through the dirt until I had it well-established under my fingernails. Then I asked the man if I could take some of it home with me. He gave me a quart-sized zip-lock bag of it, and as I write it is in a bowl on my desk in a place of honor. And the dirt is still under my nails.

This feel and smell of dirt in spring is an antidote to the frantic madness that takes over my life sometimes. I smell it. I touch it. I might even eat some of it - so that something elemental circulates through me and I am restored.

When I die I wish that my body and bones be composted - mixed in with dirt, and something planted in it that would grow and flourish and bloom.

If I only could, I would send you some of this sweet soil of late April as a simple gift, with the message: “Run your fingers through this. Smell it. Close your eyes. Be calm. Be hopeful.”

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Friday, April 4, 2008

WAKE UP CALL

A couple of restless nights.
Awakened twice by my cell phone’s ring tone playing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”
I don’t have a cell phone.
But I got up to answer it.
Only once.
The second time I thought, “Let it ring. I’m not here.”

There are formal terms used by sleep researchers for this phenomenon.
I don’t know any of them, but I can tell you what’s going on with me.
Did you ever see a dog chasing its tail around in a circle and yapping?
That’s what I think my brain is doing when it makes up ring tones.
Just restless. Nothing important to do – nothing better to do.
Ring, ring, ring.

Or maybe it’s a sign of mild anxiety.
My grandson, age 12, and granddaughter, age 10, are coming for a week.
They’re both smarter than I am.
Faster than I am.
And a whole lot harder to fool than they used to be.
They’re at that age where no matter what you tell them – no matter how amazing – the first thing they say in response is, “I know.”
And they usually do.
I would throw that old backyard taunt at them, “Yeah, well prove it.”
But they probably can.

They’re big on dinosaurs. Junior paleontologists. Seriously informed.
I’ve been madly reading up on dinosaurs, thinking all the while that there’s nothing I’m reading they don’t already know. And I can’t even pronounce most of the terms and names well enough to make conversation.
But I bet they can.
So I’m anxious.
But not as much as I was.

On my way to town this morning I heard an interview on NPR with a medical scientist who said, “You have more bacteria cells in and on your body than you have human cells in and on your body.”

WOAH! I pulled off the road to think about this astonishing news.

That’s when I remembered seeing a book in the local bookstore full of pictures taken via super-power microscopes of the creatures that live on the creatures that live on our faces and noses and in our gut. The ones, that if they were dinosaur size and coming down the road would cause mass panic.
You’ve seen these pictures. They often appear in National Enquirer and other reputable scientific journals.

So I went to the store and bought the book.
And reproduced some of the photographs on my color copier.
So that when grandfather gives his “remember you’re in the Wild West” lecture on being careful around the ranch – “Watch out for spiders and scorpions and snakes – and especially things like . . . The Spiny-backed Boogersaurus, the Triple-clawed Cell Sucker, the Blue Widow Hairopterous . . . the Slimytoed Earwax Eater” . . . there might be a little more interest in the information I possess.
“Really?”
“Yes, I have photographs.”

Dream on, grandpa.
They’ll probably say, “I know.”
And they probably will.

That’s why I’m losing sleep.
Maybe the late night call was for me.
Ring, ring, ring.
“Yes?” –
“Wake up, dummy, you’re going to feel stupid for a week.”

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written in the first week of April, 2008

APRIL

The month of new beginnings. April equals Spring. (Though after my excursion last year into the southern hemisphere, I am reminded that April equals Fall in Argentina. But I am here and not there.)

Despite the headline of this website, most of the postings have been journal items and essays. April seems a good time to revive the other promised category - New Stories. Because I’m absorbed in the final detailed review of the manuscript of my big novel, Third Wish, before it is published in English – Yes, it’s happening– and because I’m also assembling a new novel based on my tango dancing adventures, my mind is cultivating the fields of fiction.

So. I will tell you a story.

__________________________________

MERRY APRIL CHRISTMAS

Marisol Machado had never been alone on Christmas Eve. She had never been without the promise of presents, the feast with family, a party with friends, or a tree to decorate. But now, at eight o’clock in the evening on the 24th of December she stood alone by the front window of The Southwest Sinderella, a fashionable boutique on a narrow side street in Santa Fe. Outside, the snow floated lightly down. Inside, the store was silent after she had turned off the tiresome holiday music.

Marisol Machado was a long way from home – Spain – and a long way from the man she had followed to Buenos Aires – Hector, the flamenco guitarist. Fleeing failed and foolish love, she had traveled to New Mexico for the winter, for the time being on the way to whatever Fate had in mind, for she had taken her hands off the steering wheel of her life and placed herself squarely in the hands of fortune. Not forever, just for the winter.
She had been drawn to the flamboyant clothes in The Southwest Sinderella. A shop featuring one-of-a-kind originals influenced by the traditions of Colonial Spanish, Navajo Indian, American Cowboy, and nomadic folk art. Outfits combining fringed silk shawls, leather vests with silver conchos, pleated velvet skirts, linen blouses with colorful needlework, and belts inset with blue-green turquoise stones. High-heeled snakeskin western boots in reds and pinks and greens completed the ensemble. The essence of Santa Fe Style.

Though Marisol was a temporary visitor without a work permit, she had so often visited the store and tried on so many outfits with such pleasure that she was offered part-time holiday employment. With payment in cash - off the books, of course. Her lively, affable personal style, Latin good looks, and fluency in English, Spanish, and French might be an asset to the shop. And so it proved to be. Moreover, she was also willing to work late in the evening and close the store. Even on Christmas Eve.

Through the shop window she saw a man walking down the opposite side of the street. Black overcoat, black beret, and a crimson red scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up over his chin against the cold. “European,” she thought. Santa Fe was a magnet for European tourists. They came from all over the continent for a taste of the Wild West - cowboys and Indians, the art scene, and the cuisine.
“Spanish?”she wondered, as she watched the man. Spaniards felt an ancestral affinity for this part of the New World which had been settled by their people before the United States existed.

The man paused and considered the silver jewelry and Indian pottery displayed in the windows of shops already closed. As he turned to move on, he glanced across the street, noticed her, and pressed his hands together and then apart, asking if her shop was open. Marisol smiled, nodded yes, and with both of her hands she beckoned him to come.
He came.

"I’m surprised you’re open,” he said.
“Not Spanish, she thought – American.”
"It’s my job to stay late – there are always last minute shoppers.”
He glanced around the shop and smiled. “Beautiful.”
"Everything in the store is unique,” she said.
He turned his gaze at her and smiled again. “Yes.”
"Please take off your coat and take your time. Would you like a cup of hot spiced cider? There’s plenty still in the urn.”
"Thank you. Please.”

“A gentleman,” she thought.
By the time she had filled his cup he was already carefully examining the clothes. He took pleasure in touching the fine fabrics, spreading out the pleated skirts to reveal the hidden designs, running his fingers across the silk shawls, and examining the beads and turquoise with the eye of an appraiser who well knew the difference between what was authentic and what was imitation.

Marisol handed him the cup of cider. “These clothes are designed for women. Are you looking for something for a special woman?”
"No, but I have been to parties in Santa Fe where certain men would wear any outfit in the store with delight.”
“Gay,” she thought.
"But not for me. Is there nothing at all for a man?”
“Not gay,” she thought.
"There is perhaps. In the back room. No woman has ever tried it on, but I think that the right man might well wear it for the right occasion.”
"May I see it?”
"Of course. Just a moment.”

"This,” she said, holding the garment up for him to consider, was once what the Mexicans call a serape and what is called a poncho in Argentina, where men still wear them with pride in the countryside or at polo games or horse shows. This one began as a man’s serape, but the designer has split it all the way down the front to make it more of a coat or cloak, and, as you can see, the designer has added feminine touches that might make it too decorative for a man’s taste.”

The garment was a single piece of woven cloth, once with a hole in the center to allow it to be worn over the head, but now opened for easier access. Wide enough to cover the shoulders and the arms to the elbows, and long enough to reach below the knees in front and behind. Once striped in bright yellows and reds and greens, now softened with use and faded like the last colors of a desert sunset.
The designer had added silver conchos with strings of bright ribbons hanging from the centers. The ribbons had amber beads tied at their ends. The head opening had been reinforced with yellow leather. In the center of the back was a colorful piece of antique embroidered tapestry from which hung a black silk tassel.
He took it from her, examined it closely, and said:
"Exquisite. A cloak to wear in a fairy tale.”

Marisol explained: “It has not sold, I think, because it is too long for a women, too strong perhaps. And, well, far too expensive. The serape is quite old – hand woven – an antique of museum quality. And the beads and silver, likewise.”

"Magnificent,” he said. “May I try it on?”
"Of course. You will be the first, actually.”

He stood before a three-sided mirror. Marisol noticed that he was only admiring the coat - not admiring himself in it. “No sale,” she thought. He removed the coat, folded it over his arm, and asked, “I’ll sit down and finish my cider? I trust I’ll not be keeping you. Will you join me?”
And invitation, not a question.
"Yes. I’m alone and the store must remain open late.”

He chose a chair. She sat down on a bench opposite him.
"Are you from Argentina?” he asked.
"No. I was there for some months on an . . . how shall I say . . . an adventure. Traveling, as I am here. But I’m a native of Spain, where I grew up, and where I must soon return.”
Before she could ask, “And you?” he took the initiative.
"Take me to Spain, where I have never been. Tell me about Christmas there – memories from any time in your life – anything and everything.”
Two hours later, urged along by his adept questioning, she had unwrapped all her Christmas memories – sometimes laughing – sometimes wiping away a tear – and sometimes surprising herself by the details she remembered. She gave him what he asked – anything and everything. Christmas in Spain. But he gave her no opportunity to inquire of him.

Just as he was about to insist on sharing his Christmas memories, he glanced at his watch, rose, and said “Thank you for your gifts. I must go.”
Holding out the cloak of many colors, he said, “I’ll take this with me.”
"Shall I wrap it as a present – for someone special?”
"No. Actually it’s for me. I often buy beautiful things just to enjoy their presence in my life for awhile. And also because I like having them available to give away when an unexpected special occasion arises.”
He looked away into the shop, as if wanting to preserve the memory of the colors and textiles and trimmings. His demeanor did not invite further inquiry. And she, Marisol Machado, was brought up as a proper Spanish Catholic woman who did not question men who did not invite questioning.

However. If he had said something like “I’m alone for the evening. If you are also alone, may I be bold enough to ask you to join me for a drink or dinner?” she would have closed the store and gone with him. Under the circumstances, an invitation provided by Fate would have been acceptable.
But he did not ask.
He paid, put on his coat, and accepted the serape in its plain bag.
"Thank you,” he said, as he opened the door to leave.
"Gracias, senor, Feliz Navidad.”
He closed the door and was gone.

Standing alone once more in the shop window, Marisol watched as he walked away down the street in the still-falling snow.
He stopped, turned around, and walked back toward the shop.
She opened the door. “Did you forget something?”
"Yes,” he said, and dropping his bag, he gracefully embraced her in his arms and held her close for what she would remember as an infinite moment. Cautiously, gently she hugged him in return.
Releasing her, he stepped back, smiled, held up his hand as if making the sign of a blessing, and said, “Merry Christmas.” And picking up the bag with the beautiful treasure folded inside, he turned and was gone again.

Marisol Machado stood in the open door, barely restraining herself from running after him. If he had so much as glanced back she would have run out into the snow to him. But he did not. And the pace of his walk as he turned the corner told him he would not return. Now. Or tomorrow. Or . . . ever.

Fate had brought her a present after all. An unimaginable memory.
Marisol Machado closed the door, locked it, and turned out the lights.
Later, on her way to midnight Mass, she was humming carols.
“Feliz Navidad,” she thought, as she crossed herself before kneeling in the church. Her mind was not on the holy baby Jesus, but on the man who had come to her at The Santa Fe Sinderella. She did not believe in angels, even if they existed. She did believe in Fate, though its shape was vague.
She knew it could not be summoned. Could not be compelled. Could not be predicted or explained. Only acknowledged and accepted. Fate may be cruel or kind, but it never plays jokes.
“So be it,” she said to herself as she kneeled in her pew to pray.

SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER, Marisol Machado was back in the United States. After returning to Spain and her family, she had found work as a journalist writing a regular column on international travel for a famous Spanish magazine.
Today, in the first week of April, she was in Portland, Oregon. After spending the morning in its Japanese garden to see the iris in bloom, she had explored its famous bookstores and coffee houses in the afternoon. For the last two hours she had sat contentedly outside in the April sun drinking tea, reviewing her notes and considering the passing parade of Portland natives.

Her waitress came to her table holding a package wrapped in bright red paper and tied with dark green ribbon.
"A man asked me to give this to you.”
"Which man? Why?”
"I don’t know. I didn’t really pay that close attention, but, anyway, he’s gone now. He handed me twenty dollars, asked me to deliver this, and walked away up the street.” She stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I don’t see him.”
"Are you sure that’s all you know?”
"Well, I might have seen him before sometime. Maybe in that antique shop across the street – the one with the “Closed” sign hanging in the door. He may be the guy who owns it. I’ll ask around if you want me to.”
"No, thank you . . . thank you . . . don’t.”

Marisol Machado untied the green ribbon, carefully pulled the sticky tape away from the red paper, and opened the package. “Oh, no!” she said aloud. But, yes. Inside was the coat of many colors from Southwest Sinderella in Santa Fe. And an envelope. Heart pounding, she pulled out the card and read the message written in elegant calligraphy:

“If I am ever asked to tell someone about the best Christmas Eve of my life, I will tell them about Santa Fe and you and this cloak. Remember that I explained that I would enjoy its presence in my life, and then give it to someone special someday on a special occasion. This day in April is that day and you are that person. The work of fate then, and the work of fate now. No more. No less. It is best that you do not know my story, but it is enough for you to know that you saved my life. Merry April Christmas.”

Marisol Machado stood up, took off her jacket, and draped the cloak around her shoulders. And sat down again. “Fate,” she thought. “Fate.”

And then what happened? You may well ask.
Answer: You may imagine. It is your right and privilege.
Always remembering, of course, that Fate, however fine, is unreasonable, and does not respond well to demands. But for those who trust Fate from time to time, magical moments may occur – let that be sufficient.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Several days in late March 2008

KINDLING FOR THE FIRE

Spring is slowly working its way up to 7,000 feet where I live. There’s still snow in the mountains above me. Lower down, between here and town, the first wildflowers are rising to the seduction of clear days and warm sun. My house is in between. Not much sign of fresh green around yet, though the earth has dried out beyond the muddy stage. When I look around me I imagine the new life that is moving just inches below the dirt about to explode. Any day now, KAFOOOM!

Finally freed of the clutches of shingles, my own energy is renewed and I am out soaking up the sun and cleaning up the winter clutter downed by wind and snow. Mostly dead branches of pinon pines and junipers. I collect this dry wood, break it into short lengths, and stack it on the west porch. At sundown I light a small fire of this kindling. And sit in a rocking chair enjoying the snap and crackle and smell of the privilege that is mine.

I say privilege because in most parts of this civilized world it is unlawful to collect and chop wood or build a fire out of doors. In Seattle I would be visited by the fire department and police, and fined for any outdoor burning. Even using the indoor fireplace in my Seattle house is limited to days when there is no wind or it is raining.

Here in the great open spaces of the west, wood cannot be gathered on public land without a restrictive permit. And no fires are allowed in National Parks or many public camping areas. If you have a fire in a designated space, you must bring your own wood.

Of course there are good and obvious reasons for these regulations. A huge percentage of the human race still depends on fire for heat and cooking. And in most of those areas, the land has been stripped to the bone. Dried animal dung is the only renewable resource. I actually built a campfire out of cow chips to see what it was like. Depressing experience. What a stench! It took two washings to get the smell out of my clothes. Maybe I should have used drier cow patties.

So I stick to collecting small kindling, building small fires, and sitting quietly with my mouth turned off and my imagination turned on. There is such a deeply pleasurable experience in having a bright fire to sit by out under the stars. Something ancient is stirred by staring into the flames – no doubt left over from the thousands of years when fire represented security and survival. I never go to bed after watching the last coals die without feeling calmed and contented.

I apply the notion of collecting kindling for fires in another sense. One that I use to begin my day and provoke my thinking and writing. These are phrases, words, notions, sentences, and thoughts of others gleaned from books I read.

(Several years ago I published a book, WORDS I WISH I WROTE, that consisted almost entirely of this material. The guiding principle was, “I wish I had said that, because I cannot express it any better.")

Though I try to be original in my writing, I know all too well that there is really nothing new to say. You renew existing truth as it passes through you for the first time and is recycled in your way of expression out of your specific experience. A creative writer’s real task is to mask and disguise plagiarism well, and rephrase everlasting wisdom in the currency of the language and metaphors of one’s own time. One is always building with used bricks.

Though my stringing together of words into sentences may be common craftsmanship, some of the beads on the string represent profoundly powerful ideas. That may be said with confidence because the ideas are not mine, but those that have been found in older, deeper quarries than mine. If all I do is choose and polish and pass this lasting richness on to those who read my writing, well enough. Gold doesn’t rust.

For example, here’s a page of recently acquired kindling for my fire – what I’ve collected over the last month and re-read this morning. (I should note that, since these are out of my private, personal journal, and because they have been modified somewhat by me for my use, there’s no attribution.)
_________________

If nothing’s chasing you, don’t run.

Don’t cut anything you can untie.

You can exhaust yourself, but not the world.

Each one was the one and only. And if that riddle baffles you, then you don’t know much about love.

Before getting into bed, as if she was snuffing out a candle, she blew out that day’s tiny flame.

If you have an imagination that wanders far and wide, you can live far and wide.

If you know there is a door in the room of your life, you must open it and go through. Otherwise you will only be forever arranging and rearranging the furniture in the room in which you live.”

Joy is a fruit Americans eat green.

If you wish to be an artist you must learn to look at the world five times.
First to focus on the world immediately before you.
Then to focus on the world nearby.
Then to lift your eyes and focus on the distant horizon.
Then to look up and see the sky.
Finally, to close your eyes and see what you can only imagine.

tatemae (ta-the-mah-eh) Japanese – the reality that everyone professes to be true, even though they may not privately believe it.
hone (hon-neh) – the reality you hold inwardly true, even though you would never admit it publicly.

I should be content to look at the sea or a mountain or a river for what it is and not as a comment on my life.

The world is forever out of control.
The world sucks.
So? Embrace the suck and go on.

Advice from a man about swimming the English Channel:
“Start on dry land. Finish on dry land.”

He was never on time. He was never in time. But his timing was exquisite.

He founded a society so exclusive that he himself did not qualify for
membership.

The Labyrinth of the World.
The Sanctuary of the Heart.

Very short love story: She wanted a dog. He did not. And then one day she came home with two puppies. What? You can have a pet, too, she said. The next night he came home with a boa constrictor.

If you can’t be with the ones you love, love the ones you’re with.
If you can’t love the life you have, love the life you invent.
If you can’t have the life you want, want the life you can imagine.
If you can’t live the Way you please, please live well the Way you can.

The life you plan can get in the way of the life that’s waiting for you.

Sometimes I feel like I’m driving lost in the dark, but I can turn on my headlights, and though I can only see a little further down the road, I often get all the way home that way.

_________________

Enough. That’s this month’s kindling for the fire.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Good Friday morning, March 21, the 81st day of 2008
The birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685)

KIVA

If you are familiar with the Pueblo Indian culture of the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau in the American southwest, you will recognize the word: kiva. Perhaps you have visited the great ruins at Chaco Canyon or Mesa Verde or Hovenweep, where kivas have a place of paramount importance in the architecture. If you have been a back-country hiker in this region you may have seen or actually been in one of the many kivas left behind by the Anasazi – the ancient ones – when they abandoned their almost inaccessible stone villages more than nine hundred years ago.

Or, you may have been fortunate enough to attend the seasonal celebrations of the contemporary Pueblo villages in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico where kivas are still very much in active use. Seeing dancers representing buffalo and deer emerge out of the earth to the pulsing of drums on a cold snowy winter day is a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

Simply said, a kiva is a unique sacred space. Usually circular, walled and floored in native sandstone, and built underground with a roof of logs, wattle, clay and stone. The inner walls were plastered over and sometimes decorated. Most have a deep altar-like niche in one side, and all have a sipapu – a hole in the floor that is said to be the passageway between the lower and upper worlds.

Ranging from the size of a small bedroom to a chamber eighty feet across, the single space is usually eight to fifteen feet from floor to ceiling. The only opening is a square hole in the center, with access by way of a single ladder. The Great Kivas at Chaco Canyon and Aztec could hold several hundred people. The smallest in high cliff alcoves accommodated only a few. As far as is known, the use of kivas was exclusive to men.

Thick books have been written by white men speculating about the purpose of kivas. The original creators of these structures left no records. Modern Pueblo Indians do not welcome inquiries or allow visits from non-Indians. It is sufficient to say that kivas were and remain the center of ritual activities – religious and cultural. The power of their place in the lives of Indians of the southwest is unambiguous.

You may be somewhat surprised, therefore, to know that I have a kiva.

It is attached to my writing/painting studio here in the mountains south of Moab, set deep in the ground, and accessible by a hidden subterranean tunnel instead of a ladder. A small round kiva, twelve feet across and nine feet high – built according to tradition – log roof, plastered walls, with a stone bench topped with wooden slab seats around the wall, a niche in the east side, a sipapu in the floor, and a square hole in the roof open to the sky.

Why? When it was being constructed one of the workers, Will Chavez, who was himself a member of the Jimenez Indian tribe of New Mexico, not only had the same question, but he was personally offended by what he saw as a White Man’s Wannabe-An-Indian attitude.

I will tell you what I told him. I do not want to play Indian in any way. I simply wanted a small, private, sacred space to use as a personal chapel. A kiva seemed to be the most appropriate design for the purpose. A gesture of respect, to be sure, toward the traditions of his past. But built to serve the personal spiritual needs of a modern man who badly needs to sit in a special place from time to time and be quiet and still – well away from the cacaphonic noise and mad traffic of his usual daily life.

Will Chavez could accept and understand that. Once, after the kiva was completed, I found him sitting alone in it. He took my hand, and without any elaboration, he said he had, in his Way, added his blessing to the kiva.

Most mornings I begin my day by going into the kiva, where I first sweep it clean of what blows in through the sky hole or is left behind by visiting birds and rodents. I light a small oil lamp and a stick of incense, and place them in the wall niche. I strike a small bronze bell. And sit down. Hoping only that a few minutes in that sacred space will help preserve a sacred space in me – a wordless mindset that will carry me sanely through another day. It’s a stopping by a well to drink a cup of peace of mind. And to address a yearning within me for inner grace. That’s all. Nothing more.

Locals who know about my kiva help preserve the myth that I get naked in there, paint my body blue, do animistic dances, ingest mind-altering mushrooms, and make ritual sacrifices of live rabbits. I have encouraged this myth. A reputation for eccentricity helps preserve the solitude I seek.

I do not consume the bleeding hearts of bunnies, but only seek the quiet heart of a man who tries to keep in touch with himself in a sacred place.

This is not easy to accomplish when I am elsewhere. The noisy busyness of the world is an unyielding distraction. Sometimes in Seattle or in Crete I withdraw into the quietest room of my house, turn out the lights and close the shades, put a black sleep mask over my eyes, and adjust a pair of Bose sound-deadening devices over my ears. Alas, all too often, the retreat into inner space only results in sleep. A nap is not a bad thing, but, still not quite what I seek in my kiva.

On my travels I used to seek out cathedrals and mosques and temples, but the invasion of the chattering masses of guides and tourists carrying cameras and cell phones did not bring peace of mind – only homicidal urges – a desire to cleanse the holy places with assaultive screaming rages at the insensitive heathens. OUT! OUT! OUT! To avoid arrest, I avoid these religious compounds now. I say that a place of worship should not be a public museum except at very limited hours of the day.

Actually, I’ve found that great cemeteries at dawn are the only places where some sacredness of space is still available when traveling the world. How strange. The dead are better company than the living. And I am reminded that, in time, I will find, underground, ultimate peace of mind in the smallest sacred kiva space of all.

Meanwhile, when I sit in my kiva I try very hard to burn the image of the experience into the center of my mind, so that when I am far away and overwhelmed by the wonky world, I can close my eyes and sit in the kiva in my minds eye of imagination, take a deep breath, and be in that sacred space between the world above and the world below – between now and forever.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Tuesday morning, March 18, the 78th day of 2008
Spring weather: wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail, and sun – in 24 hours.

MENOPAUSE

“Maybe I’m going through menopause.”

A meant-to-be-light-hearted reply to those who ask how I’m faring with the course of my case of shingles. It is the case that surface manifestations have ceased – no more rashes and raw sores. The scabbed skin has sloughed off. Mild vitamin E cream has replaced cortisone ointment. And ibuprofen works now when only codeine would address the pain in the beginning. Even the spider bites, which may or may not have triggered the shingles, have stopped itching. Undeniably recovery is well along.

So, why the menopause comment? Ignorance and superficial information, I suppose. Several women gave me a harsh look and sharply pointed out to me that I will be over the shingles in a month, not years.

What I should say is that I have the smallest understanding of what women mean when they speak of hot flashes. For the past week every night has been passed with three hours of sleep, interrupted by an inner alarm - waking up feeling weird. Then WHAM! Overheated, sweating, and gripped by a bizarre desire to throw off covers, tear off my clothes and run out into the cold air.

But that passes. Wide awake, chilled and wrapped in bathrobe and blankets, I sit in the dark on the living room couch wondering What the hell is going on? After a week of this, I know the drill: Wait. Drink a cup of chamomile tea. Let my brain do whatever weird gymnastics is chooses. And try not to fall asleep crouched up on the couch – just get back to bed – because it’s going to happen a couple of more times before dawn. And then I’m going to have a weird day – be drowsy, irritable, and with either no appetite or ready to eat hourly. I can’t imagine putting up with this for years and years. Menopause was a bad analogy. Already I’m over that stage of shingles.

Several times I’ve run across references in nature magazines about insects that lay their eggs in the head or abdomen of other insects. The eggs hatch, eat up their host from the inside, and burst forth from the corpse. Maybe this is what’s has happened to me. I am a victim of an alien species that has laid eggs in my brain, which are now hatching and eating their way out. That’s what it feels like during the second wake-up fire drill around four a.m.

But all this will pass. I know this. And while waiting, the challenge is to practice what I often preach about any bad situation having opportunities.
My body is at war with a virus. My body will win. Meanwhile, my brain seems OK and available. So, for example, as long as I am overheated in the middle of the night, I might as well go ahead outside and see what’s happening with the sky. I’m rarely regularly up every two hours in the middle of the night. Distract the mind.

This week the new quarter moon and Mars were on display side by side, along with millions of stars. Actually, that’s not quite true. Neil Tyson, the astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, says we can actually only see between five and six thousand stars on a clear dark night with an unaided eye. And, unless you are standing on a flat desert on a moonless night, the number of stars you can see is limited by your horizon – hills and mountains, in my case. So I didn’t actually see millions of stars. But I saw enough. At nine, p.m., midnight and three a.m. and five a.m. Five nights in a row. Each time, of course, the sky was different, reflecting the variable motions of the earth and the universe. And me.

Another coping mechanism was to turn on satellite radio while I am up. Thanks to Sirius and the World Radio Network, I listened to Radio Netherlands, Radio Prague, Radio Romania, Radio Australia, Rise and Shine Radio Africa, and Radio Ireland. The programs were mostly cultural – not the usual bad news and body count from regular radio. Nice to be reminded that some good things are happening somewhere.

As long as I was up and awake I could use the free brain time to think about things I’ve never deliberately thought about. For example, I tried to consider every bed I’ve ever slept in during my life. Looney? Not really. Imagining the beds led to sidetracks down other lanes of memory. Another night I tried remembering great meals – and the same thing happened. Instead of going back to bed in dread, I went feeling good about my life and looking forward to the next awakening in a couple of hours.

So, the simpler answer to the How are you? question is: still feeling weird and tired, but certainly better. This is the first time I’ve written in days.
A friend suggested that maybe I have Dutch Elm disease or Chestnut blight. Dead wood at the top of my tree. Perhaps I should consult an arborist.

I started thinking about what I actually knew about menopause. And that led to buying a book about the female brain when I was in town on Wednesday.
A good read during the midnight wake-ups. Major update on hormones and chemistry and therapies. Turns out my knowledge was way out of date and a better understanding of what women endure was way overdue.

It’s hard to explain to people that one residual result of having shingles is that I know a lot more about menopause. But that’s true.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written in the second week of February, 2008

Despite a near-record winter snowfall, and despite the deep cold that has accompanied it, and despite that it’s still early February and winter is not yet finished with us – when I walk across nearby fields and along the frozen creek I see the signs of spring. Ambitious buds on the willows and oaks. The pale yellow of new growth on the cottonwoods.

And the old apricot tree planted back in homestead days is even further along – the slightest tinge of green leaves showing at the edge of the swollen maroon buds. It’s a chancy thing, but the tree has been around for a hundred years or more, and it must know what it’s doing. The confidence of that elderly tree throwing forth new life so early provokes the urges of inevitable spring in Fulghum. WATCH OUT! HERE IT COMES AGAIN! I shouted to the world around…

I pray the juice shall rise again in me.
May I, too, bud, and bloom, and bear fruit once more.
Amen.

___________________________________________

TRUE LOVE

That’s the title of a book I produced in 1997. Not my choice of title. I wanted to call it “LOVE’S A BITCH AND IT HAS PUPPIES” – but my editor had the last word. Besides, her title more accurately reflected the book’s content - a collection of stories other people told me about love in their lives, with some added commentary on my part.

Many contributions came in the mail – but most were passed on to me in person in response to my sitting around bars and taverns and coffee shops with a sign that said, “Tell Me A Great Love Story And I’ll Make You Famous.” When people learned that all the royalties from the book would go to Habitat For Humanity, the love stories poured out. It was one of the best publishing experiences I’ve ever had.

The book, TRUE LOVE, is out of print in hardback now – though I’m told that copies are still available from the usual on-line sources. But the idea of true love lives on. The true stories are the best ones.

Walking through the aisles of my local supermarket yesterday, I noticed we are already in that season where the juggernaut of commercial love runs over us. Valentine’s Day! Red and pink and white! Chocolate and roses! And just because you think it’s all bogus, you’re not out of the woods. What about the believers – those you love who expect hearty action? There’s not much to say except WATCH OUT! HERE IT COMES AGAIN!

Inspired to read TRUE LOVE for the first time in ten years, I was pleased to find something I liked well enough to reprint here – a line of thinking at an oblique angle to the main stream of Valentine’s Day.
(The essay has been updated and revised.)

_________________________

PERSPECTIVE

Love can be connected to an object.
That’s why we have drawers and boxes and trunks stashed with keepsakes whose meanings are known only to us. And sometimes love lies casually about us - right out in the open - imbedded in the most common things.

In a drawer in the kitchen of my house here in Utah is a set of tableware meant for daily use. Stainless steel knives and forks and spoons with teak handles. Danish. Dansk design. I’ve been using these implements since August of 1958 – almost fifty years.

These utensils were among the first items my first wife and I listed on our wedding present registry. We received the whole set. Within a few years several pieces went missing because my children employed them for excavations in the back yard when they were small. Some of the wooden handles acquired teeth marks, left by Findley, the beagle – a dog who could not be cured of chewing household furnishings. (He was finally exiled to live with a lady who would put up with him. She chewed tobacco.)

When I left the house of the first marriage, one of the few things I wanted was that set of tableware. It connected me to daily life with my children. Since then, as I have moved from house to house through the years, the knives and forks and spoons have moved along with me.

When my oldest son said he wanted to have them someday, I took advantage of the services of a company that specialized in supplying missing pieces of out-of-date tableware, and not only re-stocked the set, but bought all the specialty pieces like serving spoons, steak knives, and carving forks. Now I have the works - plus a few extras - in case another digging child or chewing dog shows up sometime, somewhere for somebody, long after I’m gone.

When I’ve oiled the wooden handles from time to time, I’m reminded that I admire these knives and forks and spoons. Useful, lasting, and, after fifty years, still elegant to look at and pleasing to hold. This cannot be said of many things in my keeping. Not even of me.

Holding a scratched and tooth-marked spoon while eating my Cheerios this morning, I reflected on its connection with love. I once loved the woman who helped me select it so long ago. I still love the mother she became to my children. I loved the many houses it has been in. I even loved the dog that loved chewing the spoon.

I love the memories of the many mornings spent using the spoon in all the seasons and moods of my daily life. I love thinking about the many people who have used the same spoon on so many fine occasions. I love the son who loves the spoon. And I love his son and daughter who will sit with me and use the spoon to eat their Cheerios with it this April when they come for a visit. (One spoon? Yes, for a ritual first bite and an explanation of the Power of the Spoon.)

If only the spoon could talk, it would tell them lovely stories. I hope my grandchildren will connect abiding memories with the spoon in time. Perhaps stories out of their lives will be added to mine and their father’s.

I hope they will come to understand that the spoon and its companion pieces are talismans of family love relationships. I hope they will understand what’s invested and embedded in this tableware – these furnishings of ordinary days – and their part in how that comes about over time. “Remember when . . .”

This sentimental attachment to knives and forks and spoons is one of the dimensions of true love. It’s not something I can rush out and buy for Valentine’s Day. It’s enough that I noticed it once again this morning, in the curved simplicity of an old spoon sitting in an empty bowl after breakfast.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Begun Saturday afternoon, February 2, 2008
All night, all day snowfall – light, fluffy, dry snow that kicks up like dust as you walk in it. The breeze-blown drifts quickly refill the tracks of all creatures – birds, coyotes, bunnies, and me - as we move on cross country in the white silence. Behind me, all trace of my passing is erased.

LIFE LIST - Part One

This essay was provoked by three events.

1. Last night I drove in to town to see a film – “The Bucket List.”
The pleasure lay in watching Jack Nickolson and Morgan Freeman act and interact. The premise of the film is an old question: What to do with your life if you are told you have a limited time to live. In other words, if you know you are going to kick the bucket, what? Laughs and tears as expected. And unexpected deep thought as I drove home slowly in the snowstorm.

2. I spent the rest of the evening rummaging through notebooks and files looking for several bucket lists of my own. Ones I had kept several times in my life. Found them. Considered them. And went to bed to sleep on what my bucket list might be now. Time to update the list.

3. This morning I went down to my painting studio to clean up and put away work in progress that had stalled, with the thought of starting something new. I stopped to read a sign I had posted on my wall several years ago:

“NOTICE FROM THE MANAGEMENT: You have more tools and supplies and materials for the road ahead than you have road ahead.”

Underneath that sign I had added this thought a couple of years later:
“CODICIL: You have more unfinished projects for the road ahead than you have road ahead. Finish something.”

Today I posted this addendum:
RED ALERT! – And you have more plans and ideas and inspirations and thoughts for the road ahead than you have road ahead. Get on with it!

After a long, long walk up the valley in the snow, I began this essay.

It’s not that I’ve recently received a medical death sentence.
But for years I’ve gone my way believing that life is a near-death experience. No fear. Just the fact. And sometimes I’m able to shape my thinking with that in mind. Now, in my 71st year, the thought crops up on my active screen more frequently. That’s why, for example, I went to Argentina for three months last year to learn tango. And why, while I was there, I went around Cape Horn by ship. These were items on what I’ve always entitled my LIFE LISTS.

(Not the same as New Year’s Resolutions. I gave up that self-flagellation exercise years ago. Better to make a list at the end of a year of all the good things I actually accomplished, and then back- date the list as if it was what I resolved to achieve in the first place. Nice feeling. Self-delusional, perhaps, but part of living a flourishing life is choosing your illusions well, yes?)

It doesn’t seem useful to share my Life Lists in full.
This essay is not about the specifics of Fulghum’s old lists.
Furthermore, many of the particulars written years ago are embarrassingly personal, foolish, naïve, selfish, or just plain dumb. As in “I can’t believe I ever wanted to do that or thought that was important or worthy.”

It is gratifying to notice how many items have a check mark beside them as having been accomplished. Or else carried out far enough to be satisfied that the goal was not worth achieving, even though the journey toward it was rewarding enough in itself.

Some entries have a line through them because I now accept that I do not have the mental or physical ability to retain them as active ambitions. For example, despite all the efforts and methods I’ve employed, being fully fluent in another language is not going to happen. And I no longer have the stamina or upper body strength to perform on a flying trapeze.

Limitations mean aspirations must be adjusted. Learning Greek gave way to learning the language of music. Tap dancing gave way to tango. The flying trapeze gave way to slack-rope walking. Realistic adjustment is not failure.

A few entries have a parenthesis around them.
These fall into special categories of things I might have done and could have done but which have shifted into the pleasure of seeing someone else accomplish the same goal with my encouragement. Learning to weld and work metal is an example. That’s still on my “possibles” list but no longer a priority. However. Encouraging that interest in my second son and watching him achieve skillful proficiency is a secondary accomplishment. I’m proud of him – that he does well what I do not.

Other changes I notice upon scrutinizing my Life Lists:
Things I wanted to have are checked off or eliminated. No additions. No desire for more possessions.

Well, I do admit to moments of possession lust. Recently walking through an Apple store full of technological pornography I was tempted. “I’ll take an Ipod and a Leopard system and the new laptop and an Iphone.” No. No.

The have list is replaced by a growing list of things I want to give away. Good stuff. Nice things. Having them has been a pleasure. I know who I would want to have them when I’m dead. Why not now? I will still have them – in the sense that I know where they are. But I will also the pleasure of knowing someone I care about is pleased by having them.

Example. A beautiful bass fiddle has been standing in my house for some time. Lovely to look at, touch, and plunk at. But I know now I will never play it with any competence. I do know who will. And they shall have it now. A very fine set of the best Japanese wood chisels is on its way by UPS to Seattle for the same reason. I’ll not bore you with the rest of my list of things to pass on before I do. It’s the principle that’s important, not the specific items.

(An aside: “You can’t have everything,” someone said. “Where would you put it?” And I say that if you did have everything, it would have to stay right where it is. You couldn’t use it all or even visit it all. And then there are the details of insurance, taxes, and maintenance. Other people are already taking care of those things now. You do have everything. It’s in the care of other people. No problem. Enjoy!)

One item on my Life List is ongoing, though I accept that it may never be finished. “Listen to every piece of music Mozart ever wrote.” In live performance, if possible. Overly ambitious? Sure. Ludwig Von Kochel catalogued 626 complete compositions. But again and again I’ve been sidetracked - become enchanted by one piece, listened to it many times, and then sought recordings of that piece made by several artists to hear their interpretations. Now I’m hopelessly lost in the maze of Mozart. It’s some small compensation that I’ve heard his music performed many more times than he ever did.

The project stays on the list, with no end in sight.
A friend noted that I am not a trained professional musician and will never understand or appreciate what Mozart accomplished. So? There are still rewards for being a teachable, enthusiastic amateur. And I am one.

My revised Life List no longer includes sightseeing – places I want to go and look at, photograph, and move on. Done that – lucky in being able to travel far and wide. But never as satisfying or meaningful as I had hoped.

Now I want to think far and wide, learn wide and deep, and be deep and content. (More on what that entails later.)

Perhaps it’s useful to pass along some recent thoughts about travel.
I’ve recognized that my travel motivation comes from being restless and bored with where I am and what I’m doing. Need a break or a change.
And I’ve slowly learned that that condition and those needs can be addressed without going far, or being gone long, or spending much money.

Here’s my program - in two parts:

I thought maybe I’d go to Bali. Never been there.
First, a visit to a travel bookstore, got guidebooks, maps, a history, and
literary accounts of life in Bali. Also bought a couple of huge coffee-table books of photographs of Bali. A video and a music CD. Talked to some people who’d been there recently. Checked the web. And checked the fares.
Bali Time for a couple of weeks for Fulghum.

My mantra on these occasions is this thought: “The beckoning counts and not the clicking latch behind you.” Freya Stark said that. I concur.

If you asked me if I’ve ever been to Bali, I would say, “Yes, but only in my imagination. I had a wonderful time.” Two weeks on the couch every evening with my mind somewhere else resolved the bored-and-restless syndrome. I even dreamed Bali. And I didn’t come home disappointed or disillusioned by enduring the tourist madhouse that Bali has become. I was already home. Rested. Unstressed. And several thousand dollars ahead.

In that spirit I’ve also traveled to Tibet, Mongolia, and the west coast of Norway. Next is a journey to China on the Silk Road. I won’t be gone long.

The second part of my new travel program is more local.
Never have I visited my own city, Seattle, in the same spirit and style in which I visit a foreign city. Local boredom comes from traveling in local ruts. There are many parts of Seattle I’ve never seen – and many lovely things I’ve missed on the grounds that I’ll get around to them someday.

Here’s the plan: equip myself just as I would for going abroad. Take a taxi to a nice boutique hotel downtown. Walk or use only public transportation. Eat only at restaurants I’ve never visited. Go to music venues I never attend but intend to. Talk to strangers. The natives will speak my language. Ask directions even if I think I know the way. Get lost. And found. Packing for the trip will be a cinch. No airport stress, lost luggage, or money exchange confusion. And if it proves to be a bad call, as some vacations are, I’ll just catch the bus that stops at my corner and be home again. No problem.

You get the idea. Treat home as a foreign city.
This is now on my Bygod I’m going to do it list.
I promise a full report.

My new Life List has different priorities from the ones of the past.
Categories include:
Things I want to learn.
Anonymous kindnesses I want to perform.
Things I want to smell, hear, or touch.

And this one:

“To visit and spend time with people I care deeply about – especially those who live some distance away. This year.”
I made a list of those people who, if word came that they had died, I would consider the news an emergency, drop everything, catch the next plane, and show up at their funeral to say fine things.
They, however, would not be there.
On the other hand, knowing that they are alive and well and happy, I don’t go to see them. And I never get around to saying to them what I would say over their grave.
How stupid is this?

This reminds me of another list I once made - of the people I could call in a crisis and just say “I need help, please come. Now.” Knowing that they would instantly be on their way. I wept when I finished the list. And then I had the bright idea of calling them all in the middle of the night, saying I couldn’t explain but they had to come immediately, and when they arrived I would have a grand party with a Dixieland band - a celebration of them - of what they are and what they mean to me. I would give them the gift of meeting and knowing each other.

I once went to some length to put my two closest friends together for a walk on a beach one glorious afternoon. And have always been glad I did it. They had never met, but they fell into intense, affable conversation like old friends. I lagged behind out of earshot – just watching - and being very, very happy.

So I told one of these friends about my new plan. The midnight crisis call. He understood. But said I shouldn’t do it. He’s never been able to put words together to explain why not. Just No. He may be right in his judgment.

But it occurs to me as I write this now that I could at least combine my inclinations. Describe the plan to my best friends - tell them why I would have invited them – tell them who else would have come. And then - go see them, one by one. Maybe give them parts of the speech I would give at their funeral. And - great idea - give them some of the small things I would want them to have – not when I’m dead – but now – when I’m alive.
Crazy? Maybe.
Maybe not.

(Since most of them read what I write and post on this website, they may already be a little nervous about what’s headed their way. That’s OK.)

Pause.

This essay began last Saturday.
The weather has cleared, the mountains are out, and the landscape is one big white snow sculpture. And sitting inside to ramble on about a Life List of what I plan to do contradicts the spirit of Do It Now. I’m going outside to walk up the valley in a magnificent day that will not come back to me. The listing about life intentions must give way to the life lived. I can always make lists.

But, first, one of those special friends is coming up the path to the studio.
I asked her to come.
I have some things to give her.

(To be continued. . . .)

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Written Friday morning, January 25, 2008
Six a.m. Fresh snow overnight. In the bright light of the late-setting moon, three coyotes walked confidently across the path between my house and my studio. Bad news for bunny-rabbits. I felt like shouting, “Run, rabbits, run! But, who am I to get in the way of a coyote’s breakfast?
It’s hard to take sides in the Way of the Wild.
____________________________________________________

SUPER STUPOR SOUP

Now it’s three days and two snow storms later. This journal item has not moved on out the door, despite being reconsidered and revised twice. Can’t trash it. Can’t start over. There’s something in it that seems worth passing on, even though the thread that ties the essay together does wind around in eccentric directions on the way to the bow tie at the end.

Stupor seems to be a common condition. When a flight is delayed at an airport, travelers sit with eyes glazed, staring into emptiness. Condition: Stupor. People in cars stacked up by an accident ahead of them, or trapped in a long line at a border crossing, or sitting in a government office with a take-a-number that’s way high, or stuck in a doctor’s waiting room, or on “hold” on a phone. Condition: Stupor. The forward momentum of life is temporarily blocked. Wait. And wait.

Sometimes stupor is self-inflicted. Do you ever hit an invisible wall? Suddenly, when life is moving along in a normal, reasonable way, you go dead in the water – out of gas – no Go. Stuck in a self-imposed waiting room. With no obvious reason. You’re not sick, not in trouble, and not without things to do or time to do them in. But somewhere deep in your mind - where you are not in charge - your main-frame system has shut down. Your forward motion is blocked. Why? Don’t know. But here’s the wall again. And about all you can do is to endure it and wait. Condition: Stupor.

The word “again” is important. You’ve hit the wall before. And you remember that the wall came down and active life resumed. With no obvious reason for that, either. Just a short-term power outage somewhere in your system. It’s usually a matter of killing time until the juice flows again.

Actually, there’s an opportunity here.
My own response to the wall experience is to have a good time with my conscious self while the irrational self works out its temporary glitch. Since nothing useful is going to get done for awhile, anyhow, I might as well entertain myself with a foolish distraction instead of just going grumpy.

For several years I’ve kept a special stash of joke books around for these occasions. Since I’m one of those who can never remember jokes, I can read the same books over and over – and still laugh. Books of cartoons accomplish the same thing. Read, laugh, wait. And then, when the green light from my more purposeful self goes on, I forge ahead - in good humor.

Recently I’ve been collecting books of practical jokes for Stupor-time use.
This is a problematical category. Practical jokes are usually not practical.
And often not jokes, either, especially if you are the victim on the receiving end. The practitioners are thought of as twisted eccentrics or juvenile delinquents. But if you have an active imagination, reading practical joke books can take your mind off your stupor and into another realm.

(Hang on – we’re getting closer to where this is going.)

So. I hit the wall a few days ago. Sat down to wait. And picked up a book of practical jokes to read while lolling about in Stuporville.

Many of the pranks seemed stupid or cruel or overly-complicated, but one intrigued me. It had possibilities. “Could be done,” I thought.

The instructions were simple: Get some chicken-soup bouillon cubes. Remove the shower head in the bathroom. Place the chicken-soup cubes inside the shower head. Replace the head. Whoever takes the next bath will shower in chicken soup. Funny.

Does it work? What are the negative aspects? Will it damage skin, irritate eyes? How long will it take for the cube to disperse? Don’t know. Time for research. Followed the instructions. Stood in my clothes outside the range of the spray. Turned on the hot water full blast. Yes! Wozah! Chicken-soup shot out of the shower head! Funny. Who could I try this on?

And then . . . .

The soup clogged up the holes in the shower head. An inner gasket gave way under pressure. And chicken soup spewed out the sides of the shower head in all directions, drenching me and the bathroom.

Research conclusions:
1. Having your clothes, body, and bathroom smell like chicken soup for a few days is not too bad. It creates a comforting ambiance.
2. Chicken soup is an effective deodorant. You will smell good enough to eat, but people can’t imagine why.
3. Putting chicken soup bullion cubes in the shower head is a sure-fire antidote for Condition Stupor.

Worked for me.

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Where it’s very cold and still in deep winter, with snow on the ground and a full moon in the clear night sky, celebrated by the cries of coyotes.
Written January 22, 2008

A MESSAGE FOR A WOMAN NAMED ANN

Here’s a scene from the theater of daily life.
The curtain opens on an airport lounge where travelers are waiting for their flights. In this instance it’s the Salt Lake City terminal, the E concourse, where commuter planes shuttle passengers to small cities in the American west - Grand Junction, Casper, Billings, and Boise. Chairs are arranged in double rows, back to back. Outside, snow is falling.

Two young men are sitting immediately behind me – very close, but in another space because, as I indicated, we are sitting back to back.
A cell phone rings.
“What?” one of the young men answers in a sharp-edged agitated voice.
While I cannot hear the exact words, I can hear the tone of the voice of the woman caller, equally agitated, unloading her feelings.
“Just….put….it….down, Ann,” says the young man.
She retorts with what sounds like carrots being run across a grater.
“It’s…history…Ann…and…I…don’t….care,” he replies, voice rising.
Now she’s sobbing.
“Go to hell,” he shouts, and slaps the cell phone shut.
“Goddamn her,” says the young man to his friend, “She never gives up.”
“Why don’t you just tell her you’re sorry?” asks the friend.
“She wouldn’t believe me – she’d just rub it in – I’m such an idiot.”

For reasons I cannot explain, I feel very involved in what’s going on.
“Excuse me,” I say, turning around in my seat to face the two young men. “Forgive me for sticking my nose in your business, but I couldn’t help overhearing your phone call and your conversation. It made me so sad.”

The first young man is red-faced. Embarrassed. And too angry to speak.
His friend says, “Maybe you should talk to me, not him.”
And what followed is one of the more unusual conversations I’ve ever had.

“Well,” say I, “I don’t need to know the details, but…well… I wonder - is his offense a forgivable one?”
“Oh sure.”
“And do the two people involved care about each other?”
“No doubt about it. They love each other.”
“And do they get cross-wise with each other like this often?”
“Oh, yeah, big time.”
“And what usually happens?”
“Well, she thinks he’s a son-of-a-bitch because he never apologizes and he thinks he’s a chicken-shit if he does, so they just bury it until next time.”
“But does he think he was wrong for whatever offense it was he committed.”
“Probably. He is an idiot sometimes. But. He’s a good guy. He’s my best friend. She’s great, too. I was the best man at their wedding. And I hate – just hate - what he and Ann do to each other. It hurts me to see them do it. They’re both so wrong.”
Big tears well in the friends eyes.

(Keep in mind that the friend and I are talking only to each other without looking at the other fellow – as if he wasn’t even there.)

“Look,” I say, “I’m an old guy. I’ve been around. I know some things. And I said that what I heard made me sad because I’ve been right where he was too many times in my life. And where she is, too. And also where you are. I bet you never said to him what you just said to me.”

He’s choked up. He can’t talk. Just nods his head – No.

“I wouldn’t give either one of you any advice. I’m much too much a foolishly flawed man myself. But I will tell you that of all the regrets and sorrows I have in my life, the most painful ones are from the times when I was too proud or stupid to apologize when I knew I was wrong. When I thought strength was in building clever defenses around untenable positions. And added to the wrong the unwillingness to extend to the other person the possibility that they had the grace to forgive me. You know, I missed a lot of chances to feel better about myself and about other people.”

Now I’m choked up and can’t go on.

In that silence I look away and I’m aware that other people close by around us have overheard this exchange and have become engaged themselves.
We look at each other. Nobody moves – nobody speaks.
All deep in our own thoughts and memories and regrets.
Tight lips and tears all around.

Finally, I look at the young man at the center of this very human scene.
He’s limp, head down, hands over his face.

“FLIGHT 3464 NOW BOARDING FOR CASPER”

The two young men stand, and walk away, one friend’s arm around the other’s shoulder. Both dressed and equipped as with-it members of their generation: t-shirt, cargo vest, cargo pants, summit pack, and laptops.
And also carrying the heavy, invisible baggage of all-too-human frailties.

I caught up with the friend just before he passed through the gate.
“Here’s my card. My website address is on the back. Give it to Ann.”

What’s the rest of the story? I wish I knew. The curtain closes there.
But if I had a cell phone and the number, bygod I would have called Ann.
Perhaps she will read this journal. Perhaps she will know what to do.
For all I know about my own failings and those of others, I remain hopeful
about what’s possible between people.

And, besides, the story is not really about the two young men and Ann, is it?
But about me. And, probably, about you as well.
Whatever you do, remain hopeful.
Take a chance.
Act on that hope.

Sunday morning, January 13, 2008
Seattle, Washington, where it’s dark and cold at 7:00 a.m.

SNOWFLAKES

Snowflakes are stuck to the classroom windows of the nearby elementary school. Not the tiny flakes that fall from the sky, but the chunky flakes cut from white paper by children wielding blunt-nosed scissors. Remember? The winter curriculum: the snow unit.

The flakes in the ground-floor windows are clearly the work of novitiates. First flakes. Many random holes cut in folded paper and unfolded. Surprise! An 8 x 10 inch rectangle resembling a whimsically designed cheese grater.

The children don’t care. Their task has nothing to do with snow, but with the simple pleasure of folding paper and cutting it up as you please, just to see what happens when you unfold it. Paper whacking with scissors. Cool. The children know it’s not a snowflake. They’ve been out in the snow. But. If the teacher says it’s a snowflake, it’s a snowflake. Teachers have some weird ideas. And keeping the teacher happy leads to more paper whacking.

Teachers say that every snowflake is different from every other snowflake. No two alike. Really? Yes. And what this teacher has pasted to the classroom windows recognizes that fantastic fact. I honor her for displaying all the holey chunks in the spirit of celebrating individuality. No two alike. Several lacy doilies, an IBM computer punch card or two, a couple of butterflies, a Lone-Ranger mask, a six-eyed Balinese god, a template design for a Navajo rug, one minimalist flake with only one big hole, and even one roundish flake, though it looks mostly like a Halloween pumpkin face.

Never mind. This is boot camp training for the next unit: Valentine’s Day - red paper and hearts - and PASTE! Remember the taste of paste? And how to cut out a heart. (And love - even the teacher can’t explain that.)

If you look at the windows of the classroom of the fourth grade one floor above, you will see far more sophisticated snowflakes - delicately complex - five pointed, filigreed, the product of more scientific information and improved manual dexterity. Progress. And still, no two alike, no more than the children who made them.

Cutting out a snowflake is not easy. When I got home I got out some paper and some super-duper sharpy-pointy scissors and whacked out a few snowflakes. Just to see if I could still do it. I can. Though my first three attempts were not much better than those of the school kids across the street. But one was so fine - so very fine - that I stuck it on my office window. And as long as I was caught up in the pleasure of paper whacking, I went on to make chains of paper dolls, linked at hands and feet. They, too, are stuck up on the window, dancing.

When I finally understood the complexity of snowflakes - read how they were formed and saw the photographs of flakes under a microscope - I tried catching one on black paper. Each one melted before I could see the pattern.
The essence of evanescence. Grasp it and you destroy it. Hard to share.

This encounter with snowflakes is a metaphor. My experience of reality, no matter how strong, is a still a matter of using the cookie cutter of my imagination to make patterns in the fabric of the world, and stick a small sample of it to the windows of my mind as a symbol of something I cannot hold onto. A matter of trying to fill that gap between what I’ve done and what I can express with words.

Like the astonishing dream I had last night - a box office hit - in color - a musical comedy so exciting I woke up wanting to give my brain a standing ovation. In minutes the vivid experience had faded. A snowflake I cannot show you, but only cut out an awkward symbol for it with language, knowing you, too, make snowflakes.

What I’ve written here is a summary answer to the question, So how was Argentina and tango? A beloved friend who pays attention to my journaling suggested I should write a Coda to the Tango Adventures of Senor don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha. A Coda being a passage at the end of a composition that brings it to a formal conclusion.

After reading through all I posted on this website in the last three months, and trying to remember - the answer to the question: Argentina and tango? is
A snowflake experience.
Unique. Beautiful. Evanescent.
Melted into memory.

Buenos Aires, Friday morning, January 4, 2008

LAST TANGO IN ARGENTINA

Perspective:
En route to an internet more amenable to writing ("Air conditioned, Comfortable, Tranquil")
I was carrying two one-peso coins loosely in my hand to buy a copy of the Buenos Aires Herald. An elderly woman, focused on counting the coins in her palm, stepped out of a ¨Maxikiosco” into my path. In making the sudden tango-esque moves of avoidance I dropped my two pesos. Collecting my coins I stood up to find the old lady, smiling broadly, and holding out her hand: “Muchas gracias, senor!” She thought I had retrieved coins she had dropped. Well. So. I placed the two pesos in her hand¨: ¨Den nada, Senora.” Even if we both spoke the same language, it would have been ungraceful of me to argue that the coins were mine. It would have debased the gift of her thanks.
I walked on down the sidewalk toward the newsstand.

“SENOR! SENOR!” The old lady hobbled up behind me. Now what? She fired machine gun bursts of Spanish. “Pardon, no hablo mucho Espanol, Senora,” I replied. She lifted her eyebrows. Well, then. She took my hand. And placed two pesos in my palm, and wrapped my fingers around the coins. Then she showed me her own coins. Apparently she knew exactly what she had when we collided, and knew she had not dropped anything. These coins must be mine. And I had given them to her. She could have kept them. But, no, here she was.
With her own sense of what was graceful.
She smiled, kissed me on my cheek, as is the Argentine custom, and hobbled away.

The newspaper seller, from whom I have often bought the Herald, and who overheard the conversation, smiled, and handed me my paper.
And refused to take my two pesos.
“De nada, senor.”

It’s nothing, they say.

And it’s so much.

______________________________

When I came through Argentine customs at the beginning of October, I was asked my reason for being in the country. The question provoked the memory of a similar conversation I read in one of Ray Bradbury’s books - about when he entered Ireland. (This is from memory - don’t remember the title of the book or the exact quotation, but it’s close enough.)

“What is the reason for your being in Ireland?¨
“Reason has nothing to do with it.”
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right country. Being unreasonable is the Irish specialty.¨
“Then I will simply study the Irish.”
“Good luck - even God has gone blind doing that.”

Substitute “Argentina” for “Ireland” and the same conversation would apply.

As you pass through the customs area, the obvious exit to choose is marked “NOTHING TO DECLARE” - and it was an appropriate choice because I had nothing I wanted to delcare at the time - not on entering. But after three months living in a country, one should have something to say. Time to declare.

Any experienced traveler knows that packed in the luggage of your mind before leaving are the illusions, fantasies, and daydreams wrought by the imagination of what exists where you are going. This is the sweet taste of anticipation. An experienced traveler also knows that reality is not marked on this map of expectancy. The map and the territory will not be the same. Maps are clean and abstract - with no rain, or crime, or irritations. On the other hand, maps contain no pleasant surprises or small details that make the experience memorable.

The two peso encounter with the little old lady and the news vendor is an example.
Guidebooks are only maps. If a traveler follows the guidebooks and goes to tourist sites to film proof of their having been there, it would be cheaper and cleaner to buy an expensive coffee table picture book of a place and stay home.
Every time I sit drinking coffee in the Plaza Serrano an open top bus has driven slowly around the plaza. The bus is marked with incredible irony: “The Best of Adventure Travel” The passengers garbed in cargo vests and cargo pants, adding film to their cargo minds will never get their two pesos worth.

So, you ask, what about Buenos Aires and tango?
It’s a good day to walk around and think about that.
After an unexpected heat wave with temperatures at 40c - around 100 degrees - with humidity almost the same - and no wind to clear the weight of the smoggyfuggymug, a major thunderstorm fell upon the city, sluicing the streets and air clean and this day is clear, cool, with a breeze off the river. The spirits of the people seem lifted from crabby irritation to civility once more. The traffic of the streets and sidewalks is diminished. Seats may be found on the usually jammed subway and busses. The pace of life is slowed during the day. And the action picks up in the cooler night, with bars and restaurants moving their business onto the sidewalks and remaining open and full far into the morning. Getting out and about is a pleasure again. And Senor Fuljumero is out¨"surprise shopping.” And surprises abound. Two pesos on the way - what next on the way back?

Senor Fuljumero is also in that bittersweet stage of leavetaking. Books and CD’s and Cuban cigars and clothes are passed on to friends as gifts and “loans.” This is the time of telling the velvet-draped untruths of goodbye. “See you soon.” “I’ll be back.” “We’ll keep in touch.” “If you’re ever in Seattle. . .” All the while knowing the odds are against these things coming to pass.

Tango as a metaphor applies here. One goes to the milonga - the dance - expecting a brief encounter with strangers. At most in one evening I may dance with 5 different partners, briefly chat, take pleasure in the challenge of making each tanda successful, but knowing that the reward of the evening is having danced well. It is spoken of in terms of giving and receiving gifts: “He gave me a great tango.” is the ultimate compliment and sign of a successful milonga. The meta-tango of living three months in the fabled city of Buenos Aires is having danced well with the people you’ve met under every circumstance. To pay attention. To be there.
To accept the surprise of two pesos as enough to sanctify a day.

My favorite restaurant is not far from my apartment. Il Due Ladroni - The Two Thieves. Italian. And while the food is excellent, there are many fine Italian restaurants in BsAs. It’s not about the food.
I attend this small temple of hospitality to be in the company of Francesco, the chef/owner, who has the personality of Roberto Benini - energetic, warm, enthusiastic, generous - and always the food is delivered with laughter and good will. His one-man food circus is balanced by the intelligent, calm, and warm civility of his partner, Phillip. Never do I leave without feeling happily alive and well. (In Palermo - 1950 Fitz Roy)

I’ve often attended the Bar Avila. For the exceptional live flamenco show, to be sure. But most of all to see the cook fling himself out of the kitchen to dance. A little man with a large soul.

There’s the taxi driver who picked me up on Christmas day. When I asked him why he was working, he said he was escaping from his wife’s family. He would rather ride around with strangers in his cab. When we arrived at my destination, I handed him a 100 peso note - which taxi drivers hate because they try not to carry much change. He frowned. His expression changed when I managed to fumble around in my grab bag of Spanish and explain that I understood about the family thing - that I had not bought any Christmas presents - that if he and I lived next door we would be in a bar somewhere having a drink and laughing. ¨Feliz Navidad,” I said. This is a present from one man to another. Have two drinks - one for you and one for me. And since I just happened to be carrying two Cuban cigars, I gave him one. He leapt from the cab, raced around to open the door for me, threw his arms around my neck, stepped back, with tears in his eyes he shook his head unable to speak. It was the same for me. We shook hands and parted. We will remember. He, no longer a taxi driver. Me, no longer a gringo tourist. Two men. Wrapped in the confusion of Christmas Day. Both of us on the receiving end of the small coins of surprise. The inexhaustible presents of one day in the life.

This is the meta-tango. The brief dance of give and take that we may do.
These moments are not in the guidebooks or on the maps or in the museums.

To spend three months in a foreign city learning a dance may seem, on the face of it, a frivolous enterprise. Self-indulgent play. But there is more to it than that. The adventure was meant to be a gift to myself in honor of my 70th birthday. Affirmative exile to keep the fires burning in my belly - the ones that are stoked by being provoked and stretched and disturbed by a new environment that requires a high alert of all my senses. A plunge into a culture not my own. To go consciously naive about what I would find and experience. To go to the well of tango armed mostly with the tools of enthusiasm and an open mind. The fear of the unknown matched by the excitement of the possible.

Moreover:
To dig into South American literature - especially Borges, Neruda, and Gabriel Marquez. Check.
To see polo first hand - and see the legendary centaur, Adolfo Cambiaso, play. Check.
To write in my head, on paper with pen - not on a computer. Check.
To eat mucho meat. Check.
To experience the city of Bs.As. largely on foot - no car. Check.
To expand tango knowledge from just dancing to music and lyrics and singers and history. Check.
These things I came to do. And I did them. Check.

The Unexpected:
Circus - to learn the basics of slack-rope walking.
Billiards - to watch enough billiards - not pool - to want to know more - to take lessons in Seattle.
Flamenco - to experience not just a show but the working world of that culture in BsAs
Inter-net cafe - never having used one, I had not idea of the youthful sub-culture - the music, the slang, the hair and clothing styles. (As I am writing, two serious 8 year old girls are working at the next computer - not playing games, but writing something to someone.)
Ship trips - to the Delta country of the Rio de la Plata and around Cape Horn.
Experimenting with being “blind and deaf” - by sitting on a bench in plazas with my eyes closed or with Bose sound-deadening earphones on - as a way of learning what my senses miss when all of them are functioning at once.
And playing with the alternate personality of Senor don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha
a harmless experiment with inner theater.

As an, inspired by Borges, I reduced Buenos Aires to an area of Palermo 5 blocks square and set out to know as much about that world as possible. To see it day and night, house by house, store by store, cafe by cafe. Though I will write about this later at length, I found a universe at my doorstep.

Then there are all the new friends and acquaintances. I expected them. I remember thinking about them as my incoming flight moved into the landing pattern and I could see the length and breadth of Buenos Aires.“I wonder who you are and where you are?” I knew they were there, but not who they would be. Not their names and faces. One of my first impressions of the city made me wonder about meeting new people at all. BsAs has a paranoid obsession with security - bars and locks and walls and shutters and fences and barbed wire and police. Everyone seemed to exist in self-constructed prisons. The most guard dogs per person in any city in the world, so they claim. All in response to a crime wave of the early 2000’s. But the people themselves proved warm, friendly, kind, hospitable and personally generous to a fault. Even the muggers who took my wallet were polite. Many people I met had someone they wanted me to meet and I got passed on from social group to social group and person to person. And this all outside the world of tango and flamenco. I have five pages of names and addresses and numbers.

These thoughts come to mind as I write now from memory, not notes. More will come in time when I can sort through all the notebooks and keepsakes in a quiet place a long way from Buenos Aires, when I can get some perspective on these three months. A book is coming. Or maybe two.

A leave-taking task was a visit yesterday to Dra.Hebe Gil. The professor of occult sciences, with 37 diplomas on her wall. Having visited her for a tarot reading early in my stay, I returned, at her request, to see what the cards might tell me on my way out. My assistant, Maria Jose Grattaola, went along as translator. In sum, the new year looks good. The things I most fear will not prove harmful. The writing will go well, with unexpected new publishing contracts. And a new love is waiting. Now I am not by nature susceptible to the occult arts. I went to see Senora Gil with an eye to developing a character in a novel, out of curiosity, and to please Maria Jose, who thinks about these things in a different way than I do. (She gets a free reading for herself - in Spanish - out of the arrangement.) Still and all, a competent fortune teller infuses your mind, especially if the news is promising. Who knows? I turn homeward in high good spirits.

So the one-man caravan prepares to leave - loads up on himself as horse and saddle.
Bringing what? Some competence in the fundamentals of tango, with an enlarged and intensified version of illusions and fantasies. A pair of well-worn tango shoes (one red, one black). A new dark blue, pin-striped double-breasted tanguero suit made to measure. A head full of stories. A heart full of people. A profound satisfaction on the grilled meat front. Fewer pounds on the body, with legs stronger from dancing and walking. The prophecies of the fortune teller in my favor. Hundreds of fragments of brain film of small precious moments, and the juke-box of my mind filled with tango music. The accumulated oddities collected by a beachcomber of language. A gaucho poncho, and the memory of a martini chilled by 10,000 year old glacial ice.

These things I bring with me. And not a single regret.

And, in this very moment, the giggles of two 8 year olds beside me, massively entertained by who knows what kind of computer mischief. They have infected the solemn lot of the rest of us keyboard, and there are laughs and giggles and smiles all around. Why? I do not need to know. (If I could manage it, I would include this close-by laughter as a gift to you. Two pesos worth. Imagine. Now they are yours.)

Salud!

Senor don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha
aka Robert Fulghum

4:00 a.m., Jueves 20 de Diciembre del 2007
50 degrees latitude, in the Pacific Ocean off the south coast of Chile
dark, windy, rolling sea

TANGO AT SEA

First, a public-private greeting to a reader of this website: Dr. Robert Kimball, in Alameda, California - theologian, philosopher, poet, teacher, mentor, and friend of almost 50 years. And a Martini Master. Yesterday afternoon the Captain of the Norwegian Nightmare eased the ship up-fjord to the foot of the Amalia Glacier - the tongue of a massive ice sheet flowing down in several lobes from somewhere lost to sight due to the low-hanging wooly clouds in the fjord. Nevertheless, we could see the great fissured wall of blue and white ice, and watch the small orange boat from the ship retrieve a great chunk of it from the sea. Later in the evening the bar served “Amalia Martinis” - blue-stained Bombay Sapphire Gin shaken with chips of 15,000 year old ice and poured into a proper glass. No olives or onions or twists. Just gin mixed with a historical perspective. I ordered two, Kimball, one for me and one for you - in memory of the grand winter day we spent blizzard-bound at the bar at the airport in Yakima, Washington. Just you and I, a capable bartender, and several glasses of historical perspective. We figured out some important things at the time. But I forget now what they were. Nevermind. Salud!

Second, a public-private greeting to another reader of this website: Masako Hayashi, in Strasbourg, France. More than a greeting - a resounding shout-out for her major piano concert in the big auditorium of the new Cite de la Musique et la Danse - performing the heavy German Romantic stuff - Schoenberg, Wagner - Nuit Et Transformation - trio and singer. Rave reviews.
(Onboard ship we had the Norwegian Dreamband playing themes from Glenn Miller, followed by country line dancing.)

Third, despite knowing I am bound back for Buenos Aires where it is 94 degrees and not very Christmas-like, the combination of Alpine fjords, wintry weather, snow, glaciers, evergreen trees, and even the syrupy seasonal music filtering through the ship have affected my mood over the last three days. Watching a German ship headed south for the Antarctic with crates of fir trees lashed on its afterdeck pushed me over the edge into a quiet Christmas state of being.

And the mood of the Norwegian Nightmare seems to be likewise mellowed. An anti-protest took the steam out of the protest movement. The Ship offered to do everybody’s laundry at a minimal cost, which was already covered by $150 rebate - so free clean laundry. And the Captain’s daily announcements seemed sadder and sadder. I thought he was going to cry, actually. So peace reigns - if not on earth, at least at sea - and good will seems to be carrying the day. May be only a projection of my own hopes, since it is four in the morning and I am as far as I can tell the only passenger up and around. The heavy roll of the ship suggests Dramamine and anxiety may be responsible for the calm and quiet.
Word from the crew is that the Norwegian Nightmare will be retired from service after this season and turned into a floating casino somewhere in Asia. Or will be sold to the North Korean Navy for missile target practice. Or will be sunk and used as a breakwater for some south sea island port. Or maybe . . .

But I was going to write about tango at sea.
The protocols of salon tango apply to situations outside a milonga. Here at sea, for example.
One may essentially sail alone - stay as anonymous and disconnected from other passengers as you wish. If you want to break solitude, a milonga move works nicely. If you wish to dance at a milonga ashore, you must signal that desire. Dress nicely, wear your tango shoes, and throw the cabecear across the dance floor with grace. This is the look of invitation - eye contact, slight smile, raised eyebrows, a slight tilt of the head - very subtle if done well - but very clear to those who are alert and want to dance.

And here at sea? Look. There’s a man standing aft on deck 7 - the promenade deck that runs completely around the ship and is used by early morning walkers and joggers and strollers and stumblers. Consider the man. Black shoes - nicely polished. Grey twill wool trousers - nicely creased. Red Patagonia wind parka - black beret - white hair and beard - and smoking a pipe. You’ve seen him several mornings before, at the rail looking out to sea. This morning he is standing inboard from the rail, watching people as they loop the ship. This morning he very clearly and deliberately notices you, smiles, raises his eyebrows, nods.
It is me. You have been invited to dance.

Some of those who accepted the invitation:

The tall guy strolling along in a T-shirt while everybody else was wrapped up in winter clothes against the cold. He’s from the Minnesota prairie. This is summer weather to him. If he was home he would be mowing grass tomorrow. And no, he wouldn’t travel on south to the Antarctic to see more ice and snow. Four months of that a year in Minnesota is enough. And he can’t stand Garrison Keillor or Prairie Home Companion. It’s all “hooey.”

The Israeli lady who does four turns around the ship, wearing a leopard skin fur coat, red high heels, and a white baseball cap with “ISRAEL” spelled out in rhinestones. She’s a Rabbi’s wife.
From Brooklyn originally. The Rabbi doesn’t come out on deck. He’s been puking seasick the whole trip - even when the ship was docked.

The lovey-dovey older couple who always hold hands. Not old love, but new love. They just met last week for the first time and are talking non-stop about what happens next.

The old German lady I’ve seen doing country western line dancing late at night, taking a morning dip in the pool in the worst weather, and marching around the promenade deck every morning. She’s always dressed in black with something red on her head - scarf, hat, bathing cap. Recently widowed and alone, but she’s having a wonderful time. She was tired of Helmut and her whole family - and tired of everybody saying, “You’re not really going to do THAT are you grandma - or WEAR THAT are you grandma!” To hell with them. She’s cruisin’.

The swarthy Indian dealer in gold from Mumbai who lives in Dubai and has always wanted to see a glacier. Wrapped like a UPS parcel in layers of scarves tacked together with duct tape, he has marched by me on deck scowling every day, but not yesterday. He saw the glacier. And stopped to dance.

Sometimes I am asked to dance first. It’s usually the pipe that provides the opening. “My Dad used to smoke a pipe.” “I really like the smell of a pipe.” or “I brought my pipe but forgot my tobacco.” The pipe smoker’s tango.

In about three minutes - the same length as one tango - the fragile, perishable intimacy of a brief encounter is possible - a life story quickly unfolded - a story never told to friends or family - but your version of who you are, or, perhaps who you would like to be for the length of one dance. One opens one’s heart and life, knowing you will never see that person again. Tango.

In my early morning rambles I dance more with members of the crew than with passengers.
The breakfast cooks are eager to be recognized as fellow human beings and not just background employees. One, a Jamaican with long, slender fingers, was idly shuffling a deck of cards with the most elegant style I’ve ever seen.
“Where and how did you learn to do that?”
“In prison - it’s a long story.”
“Tell me. How long were you in prison?”
“I don’t tell nobody that.”
“Teach me how to shuffle cards the way you do.”
He smiled. “That would take 21 months and 6 days.”

Part of this tango adventure of mine is reading South American literature. This is from Extraordinary Tales by Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinean man of letters:

“As you are not unaware, I am much traveled. This fact allows me to corroborate the assertion that a voyage is always more or less illusory, that there is nothing new under the sun, that everything is one and the same, etc., etc. but also, paradoxically enough, to assert that there is no foundation for despairing of finding surprises and something new; in truth, the world is inexhaustible.”

Yes.

The pale light of morning appears now. Waffle time. And some clever dodging of getting hooked into doing the Prostate Tango with the same grumpy old men who have been there every morning focusing on their genitals. If they push me one more time to join them I’ll tell them I’m gay and have some genital stories of my own. Tempting.

Enough.
Fuljumero

Monday, December 17, from off Cape Horn, where it’s foggy and cold at dawn

Despite wanting to exit offstage and remain out of sight and mind for a couple of weeks on the deep blue sea, the ship I’m on is temptingly fully wired to connect anything to anywhere anytime. And the Internet cafe is also connected to the bar. How can I pass up the opportunity to file something from a bar on a ship in the ocean at the bottom of South America?

Backstory.
Senor Fuljumero left Buenos Aires a week ago in sheepish shame, having disgraced himself at a party. Thirty guests in a lovely home. Massive mounds of meat. Ample supply of wine and beer. And, to please the visiting American author, tango entertainment - a singer and two dancers. Space was cleared, the singer performed, then the dancers, who were young and talented. They danced nuevo tango - a flashy electronic form fashionable among the young and hip. So far, so good.

And then. The hostess explained that the American guest was a student of tango and would he please now honor the occasion and demonstrate his skills by dancing with the young lady tanguerista. Applause. Applause. Right.

Senor Fuljumero was, in fact, tangoed up a bit - wearing his dark grey pin-striped double breasted tango suit, with black turtle neck shirt. Looking good. Wrong shoes, but then tango is not about the shoes - it’s about attitude. There seemed to be an expression of steely confidence on Senor Fuljumero’s face as he rose and walked to meet his partner. (Know the resigned look one might have before a firing squad? That look.)
Still, he smiled. She smiled. He spoke: “Pardon, pero no hablo mucho Espanol. Desculpeme, soy tango principiante. Yo tengo un banana.” (Excuse me, but I don’t speak much Spanish. Forgive me, I am a beginner at tango. I am a banana.) (A banana is slang for someone who looks like they know what they are doing but in fact are a geek.) That’s what he wanted to say. And he did say all that, except he should have said “ Soy un banana” instead of what he actually said.
“I have a banana” is slang for having an erection.
Well, you can imagine.
The guests laughed and applauded. The banana tango! Yes! Geezer and chica! Yes! Go get ‘em grandpa - ARRIBA! The young woman flung herself around in wild abandon as the techno tango beat throbbed on. Senor Fuljumero, ditto. With a slam-dunk finish! Chica perched on knee. After which the young woman fled to the protection of her partner and Senor Banana fled home to pack for next day’s embarkation.

Ordinarily I would not choose to cruise. But the only ship trip around the Horn that fit my available time slot was the Norwegian Dream. Not the usual casino hotel that fell over into the sea, but an older, ship-shaped craft. 1700 passengers. And it’s Norwegian, right - and those Norwegians know about boats, right? Wrong. Registered in the Bahamas, owned by a corporation based in Miami, which is owned by a Hedge Fund based in the data sphere. Most of the crew is from the Philippines. Most of the officers are from anywhere but Norway. Though there is one token Norwegian on the officer’s list. And the passengers seem to be mostly senior coupon clippers from so many countries that all announcements are given in English, Spanish, German, French, and Gibberish. But what the hell, it was a cheap ticket; the boat’s going where I want to go, and I don’t have to play bingo if I don’t want to. Eat, sleep, read, write. No problem.

We sailed at dusk - and arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay the next morning - with a day ashore, which is good - Montevideo was on my list. Sailed again in the late afternoon outward bound for the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands, and Cape Horn. Clear day, calm sea, green light for full speed of 17 knots. Dead ahead in the middle of the narrow channel through the muddy estuary of the River Plate is a large barge being towed by a tug. The barge is fully loaded with cargo containers stacked 6 high, topped off with open trailers of new automobiles.

And we hit that sucker dead center at full speed - rode right up on its stern, throwing cargo containers and new cars up into the air and into the sea like chips from a giant axe chop. How? you ask. Nobody knows. The Norwegian Cruise Lines don’t want to talk about it. But there’s no doubt about what happened, thanks to the Geriatric Gadget Brigade. These old guys, with their multi-pocketed vests and cargo pants are prepped: cameras, VCR’s, hand-held GPS’s, binoculars, laptops and cell phones. At their stations forward, they were in position to record and describe the accident in detail and send the data around the world in minutes. And shared the same around the ship in an hour. Bingo!

Captain Nenad Mogic - (Real name - I swear - Croatian) - came on to say we had “touched a barge” - at about the same time as the barge floated by dripping containers and cars, and about the same time that images of what really happened were circulating the ship. The captain made the mistake of trying to cover up and minimize a serious accident by saying we would soon be under way again. Right. The Geriatric Gadget Brigade was on his ass in no time. E-mails and pictures went out to the corporate office in Miami at lightning speed.

For twenty-four hours the ship lay at anchor in the middle of the now blocked and littered channel, while all the dominoes than can fall in all directions as a result of a collision did fall.
Coast guard, navy, corporate offices, insurance companies, harbor pilots - the works - a total screw-up. Finally, the ship returned to Montevideo. Freed from sea, the passengers assembled at the bow of the ship, now shark-like in profile with a huge chuck torn out of the bow, the skin of the ship clawed to the water line, with unknown damage internally. “Touched a barge” became a standing joke. And the captain disappeared under cover of darkness.

Two more days in Montevideo while all the authorities did their authority dance and a shipyard crew welded a couple of huge steel bandages onto the prow and repainted the scabs and scars. Supervised from shore by the Geriatric Gadget Brigade.

Try again. The new master of the ship, whose name I first thought was AAAAgghh Haagabaggevik when introduced over the ship’s PA, is, now that I see it in print, Captain Aage Hoddevik. A real NORWEGIAN! A large Viking-esque mountain of a man, he speaks in slow and amiably morose tones, as though giving a eulogy at a funeral for a beloved pet. In olden times he would have been the guy the Vikings left to watch the boats on the beach because he was inept at raping and pillaging and burning. He makes solemn-but-meaningless announcements, concluding with a poem or a bit of wisdom for the day. Sample: “Yesterday is history; tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift - that’s why we call it the present.” Or, and this one caused a moment of silence across the ship, “Life is endless chaotic struggle. Have a nice day. Struggle on.” This on a cold, rainy, windy morning.

So the Norwegian Nightmare continues. One afternoon the electrical system failed completely, shutting down everything aboard - the bingo game, the casino games, the Internet - lights, air conditioning - everything. Total silence. Quite a lovely few moments I thought - maybe like being becalmed at sea in the old days. But some passengers panicked and appeared on deck in life jackets. Squaring away the gambling casino must have been interesting.

Then there was the news of revised scheduling - forgoing some ports - maybe the Horn. E-mails to the corporate offices fixed that. The Captain stuck to bemoaning how many people had died going around the Horn - in the olden days, of course. Have a nice day! He actually said that.

There was a night of heavy seas and winds and ship-shuddering, with vomit bags distributed. And a round of diarrhea for some. And when the corporate news came of $150 immediate credit for each passenger and a 50%, some headed for the bar and others headed for the barricades, while others remained headed in the bathrooms.

But the masses have been aroused from their stupor. Four ladies from the lower decks have organized a protest, claiming to represent 800 disaffected passengers. One lady is trying to rally around what she perceives as mistreatment of the lowest paid workers on the ship. If “Free the Phillipinas” signs appear by morning I will not be surprised. And there’s still five days to go. I’m hopeful. I’ve always wanted to be in on a mutiny at sea.

Who says Cruise life is always dull?
There’s a tango dimension to all this, but it’s not yet clear in my mind. Next time.

Meanwhile, the Straits of Magellan open up - with great sweeping curtains of fog and rain being pulled across a landscape of snow-capped mountains, green forests, and blue-white glaciers.
Penguins, seals, whales, albatross. Cold and edgy even now in summer. Hard to imagine being here in a sailing ship long ago, tacking back and forth in uncharted waters with endless choices possible - with the current and wind pushing you relentlessly back west to east. And suddenly it’s night - and you sail on into darkness - disaster always close at hand.

Me, I’m two decks and a door away from a waffle and bacon and orange juice and coffee.
The ship sails on.
Cool today, Chile tomorrow. Shipboard humor.

Fuljumero

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday December 8, 2007

Hola! Desculpe me, por favor - please excuse me. A week has passed by since last I wrote - not without events worth writing about - to the contrary - too much. But with hard-partying friends in town, daily dancing lessons, and mid-night milongas it has been hard to focus. Even more so since the remodelers in the apartment next to mine are using chisels to strip plaster off one-brick-at-a-time from the adjoining wall. Chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk-CRASH! For five days. Creative thinking is derailed by thoughts of homicide.

What to tell you?

About the evening at the Armenian Cultural Center enduring the Armenian Food Torture Ritual, which includes shish kabobs on swords big enough to duel with?

About the end-of-evening finale at the Bar Avila where I go to watch the cook fling himself out of the kitchen to dance flamenco with dangerous passion?

About teaching a tall Dutch banana the basic tango steps - while trying to keep a straight face as he lurks around the room like a friendly cat burglar? Applause, applause.

About the encounter at the 36 Baillares dance and billiards hall with a very tall and handsome young woman who identifies herself as Maori from New Zealand (mother is half) but who is a tango teacher in Bath, England, and here in BsAs to improve her Spanish and tango technique. Would you believe we spent most of the time talking about the location and style of the ritual tattoo she must have if she commits to Maori culture?

About dancing Tango Nuevo with Shanina whose passion is the sport of fencing with foil?

About the tall blond Danish couple just arrived from Copenhagen to enhance their skills at both dancing and managing a milonga? Danes and tango is a stretch. But there it is.

About my very elegant friend Becky - born in Morocco, lived in France and now Argentina. Speaks 4 languages fluently, has a brother who paints in the style of Francis Bacon and almost as well, and who has a twin sister who lives a block a way, with whom she does not speak?

About lunch at the Jockey Club with Julian, the intellectual helicopter pilot?

Shall I tell you about these people and adventures?
Mostly you would think I am making it up. So I won’t.
But I’m not.
In time this overflowing of experience will work its way into the new novel. Meanwhile, you must imagine.

Besides, it’s hard to sit in the chaos of this Internet cafe, while outside it is summer. The Jacaranda trees are just finishing their blooming work. The schools have closed for the summer, and children abound. The air from the River Plate is blowing inland, bringing the perfumes of Paraguay and Brazil. And the Argentine season of Asado is upon us: getting together as often as possible with as many friends as you can collect and cooking and eating as much char-broiled meat as you can. With red wine to begin and duce leche hellado- ice cream - to finish.

Somewhere in the coming days Christmas will pass by with little stress. The New Year will also lightly appear and pass on through. Cristina will be President. Meanwhile, all is calm, all is bright - asado tonight.

And tomorrow Senor Fuljumero takes ship for the deep blue sea - around Cape Horn, back through the Beagle Channel, through the Straights of Magellan, the fjords of western Chile, to finish in Valparaiso. The route of Darwin. Two weeks - back by Christmas. And, lest I falter in my ultimate Argentine quest, there’s a tango teacher onboard the ship.

And so. That’s it for a while. Feliz Navidad!

Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Thursday afternoon - November 29, 2007
The ongoing adventures of Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha

Preface: Don Roberto is oiled. Fair Warning. Not drunk or bombed, just lubricated. The only way I can tolerate the techno-rap music in this cyber cafe is to get a little juiced on the way. So. I stopped by my favorite watering hole on the way - on what is labeled The Plazoleta Julio Cortazar by the municipality, but which is called the Plaza Serrano by the locals, for a “jeen-tonic” or two - with Bombay Sapphire gin, which is called ¨mombai-jeen” or “jeen-azul” - blue gin - by the porteneros - and now I can handle the internet scene, even though the lady close by in the booth next to me is screaming into her cell phone and slamming her gold lame gym bag into me from time to time. I don’t care, thanks to jeen-azul. Here’s a journal essay:

A SHAGGY DOG STORY

A night ago, when evening finally brought relief to a hot and muggy day, I was out walking in my village. I say that because Buenos Aires is not really a big city but more an endless series of small villages. And I say “my” because I feel at home here in the Barrio Palermo. Two blocks from my house there is a commotion. A small crowd gathered on curbside, machine-gun Spanish ricocheting off the walls of the houses. As I draw closer, I see a grandmotherly type alternately soothing an animal on the sidewalk and throwing verbal stones at three small boys standing by, heads held low, sobbing. As I come closer I see what was once a large, black, shaggy, grey-muzzled dog at the center of attention. Inert, whimpering.
What has happened? Was the dog run over by a passing bus? Is the dog expiring? And why are there people standing around shouting at the children and pitying the downed dog? As I draw closer to the uproar, I realize I am not going to need Spanish to comprehend the situation. It is universal. Consider.
The dog looks more like a small, silver-striped zebra. Those standing around are mothers, fathers, neighbors, and passers-by. The dog has been duct-taped by the three little boys to the extent that UPS would accept it for international shipment.
This would also explain those standing by with scissors, clippers, and various bottles of liquids to separate the dog from the tape. Just how do you de-duct a dog? And it is a big dog. Docile now, but who knows how it will respond to rescue? You can’t just rip the tape off a dog and expect docile appreciation. A neighborhood 911. And everyone seems to have a theory. This would also explain the young woman who ran by me up the street - clearly on the way to the veterinarian’s office a few blocks further on - seeking professional help before the amateurs set to work. Whatever happens, the dog is not going to look - or feel - quite the same again.
The little boys have done their work well. They must have started with the tail, which now resembles an aluminum baseball bat, so heavy with tape the dog cannot even wag it. And then the legs, taped together. And then the body stripes. And then - thank god someone caught them before they made a mummy out of the poor creature. A couple of more wraps and the dog would have died of asphyxiation.
I notice the glances. Your son would do something like this.” “My little boy was led astray by your little boy.”
You know. If you’ve raised little boys or ever been a little boy, you know.
And I am meditationaly mute. I remember a little boy who once stuck a cat’s tail in kerosene and set fire to it. And the same little boy, with help from co-conspirators, once crucified a lizard on a cross in the style of the Inquisition.
And there was hell to pay. Then, for me. And now, for these little boys, who, quite rightly respond to demands of “PORQUE? PORQUE??” With snorts of ¨No se, no se.” They don’t know why. Little boys just do what little boys are too inclined to do. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And the dog was quite willing.
Some day this will be funny. “Remember the time Pablo and Jose and Humberto duct-taped the dog? Ha-ha.”
But it is also not funny. Not now, certainly. Maybe not even someday.
What is this evil - this mindless cruelty - that lurks in the hearts of little boys and, in time, men?
Is this the same seed that grows toxic fruit in the form of torture by grown men in every time in every land?
If, as some insist, Man is made in God’s image, what does this say about our image of God?
Surely a tendency to indulge in the suffering of other creatures could have been left out of the mix?
I write this on a day when, thirty years later, the newspapers report that those involved in Operation Condor among the dictatorships of South America are finally under house arrest for doing things like detaining the daughter of a poet, whisking her away from Argentina to Chile, chaining her to a wall, and after she gave birth, killing her - then giving gave away her child to somebody. This is not rumor. There are records to prove it.
“The devil made me do it.” is no defense. Ever. We do it on our own. And maybe need a better God.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - November 27, 2007 - clear and warm at 9:00 a.m.

First, this, before it fades from my mind.

ONE LADY BAND - ONE BAND MAN

The time: Sunday around two o’clock in the afternoon - Buenos Aires.

The place: Defensa street, two blocks west of the Plaza Dorrego.

The circumstances: The square and the street are set aside for pedestrians during the weekly antiques and crafts fair. In addition to the vendors, there are musicians, tango dancers, jugglers, stilt-walkers, and actors dressed as indians, prostitutes, statues, emigrants, and gauchos - you can have your picture taken with these. (My favorites are the identical twin brothers dressed as Charlie Chaplin.)

The woman: If you were to see her walking along in the flow of the crowd, you would not pay her any special attention. One of many women of a certain age on an outing with their peers. Sensible shoes, classy jeans, white blouse, sweater tied across the shoulders, well-combed natural grey hair - shoulder length - practical tortoise-shell glasses parked up in her hair, and the signs of a “tourist-who-has-been-warned-to-be-careful”: no jewelry or watch, small purse well-zipped, carried with the strap across her chest and clutched firmly with one hand. Nice face - tan, the creases of age, but no makeup. You would assume that friends of her tribe were not far away, or that her mate was sitting in a cafe reading the paper while she shops.

However.
Place this same woman on a small folding stool sitting on the sidewalk in front of a shop that is closed for the day. In front of the woman is a toy trap-drum set: bass drum, snare drum, and cymbals. Across the top of the bass drum is a set of plastic cups - imitation timbales for Latin rhythms. Beside the woman is a paper bag on which an assortment of toy instruments sits - trumpet, trombone, kazoo. On the other side of the woman is her knitted hat.

This is not a common sight. What is her story? What will she do with her equipment?

Perhaps she is one of those unexpectedly financially flattened by the devaluation of the peso and is out here on Sundays to make just enough to tide her over.

Or. Perhaps she has made a break with the boring Sunday habits of her later years. Church, family lunch, siesta, tea with gossipy neighbors, TV and bed - while her husband spends the day with the papers and her children and grandchildren ritually come and ritually go. Maybe she had given the drum set and toy instruments to her grandchildren, only to find out that they had no interest in any toy that was not electronic. And so. One Sunday morning - perhaps this one - she rebelled. Just walked out with the drums and horns and hit the street. People less attractive than she, with less talent than she had managed it. How hard might this be? Put out her hat, sing a little song - play a little tune - and who knows what might happen? Life is short. Drink the wine.

She sits waiting. Looking up and down the street.
Senor Fuljumero to the rescue. Initiate the performance.
Placing a ten peso note in her hat, he smiled and stepped back.
A little startled, she laughed nervously. She began singing “The Darktown Strutters Ball” - New Orleans style, in a high pitched gravelly voice a la Louis Armstrong. She was pretty good on the drums, and did a great trumpet solo with the kazoo.

She stopped. Laughed. I applauded. And went on my way.

And then it occurred to me that she was sitting there because she had bought the drum set and horns in one of the antique shops and was only waiting for friends or husband to come along and help carry the stuff back to the car. When I looked back, she was gone.

Perhaps I was her only audience. Her only performance.
One crazy act deserves another. Money in the hat. One song. One performance. Why not?
And now we both have stories to tell.
Imagine hers.

This is what tango dancing is like. A sudden recognition across a dance floor. An attraction based on assumptions and illusions and imagination. A three minute dancing romance with a stranger. And nothing left the next day but two versions of a lovely memory made of desire for the way you want the world to be - at least momentarily.

________________________

Buenos Aires Weekend Report

Thanksgiving in the Italian Restaurant, IL DUE LADRONI, (The Two Thieves) in barrio San Telmo on Fitz Roy Street. Turkey, chestnut dressing, cranberry sauce - the works - thanks to master chef Francesco. Among the company was a family from the Imperial Valley of California - mother, son, and daughter - traveling far away from great Thanksgiving memories because of the death in an automobile accident this year of the much beloved husband/father. The size of their sorrow, the richness of their support for one another, and the clarity of the love they had for the missing member of the family touched me in a deep place. And is the best memory of this far-away thanksgiving.

Another lasting memory is having Hans and Elena move in with me for four days in my apartment. Sleeping on the couch has been comfortable enough. But it’s a rare and different experience to actually live with close friends in the same small space for a few days. Like a camping trip that gets “ruined” because of weather and you spend several days in a small tent making the best of the situation. And long afterward, you understand it was one of the best camping trips ever.

Almost two months have gone by, and already I’m pressed to take advantage of all the new acquaintances and opportunities manifesting themselves almost daily.
I already miss Buenos Aires and I’m still here!

Hasta Luego!
Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Thursday afternoon, November 22, 2007 - 90 degrees, clear, still

Happy Thanksgiving to All.

Personal note to friends and family: My dear friends Hans and Elena arrived this morning from Greece for two weeks. They learned on the way that the apartment they had arranged for was out of commission due to a broken water pipe, so now we are becoming even dearer friends - they’ve moved in with me for four days, with me on the couch - by default. Elena offered to sleep on the couch, but that meant Hans and I sleeping together. No. And if Hans slept on the couch, then Elena and I would share the bed - which was ok by me but not by Hans. So. I’ve not spent a night on a couch since fraternity days in college - and then only because I passed out there. Maybe that will be the secret once more. A lot of turkey and dressing and red wine.
By the way, for those who have met them, news that Hans and Elena have announced their wedding - June 28 - in Crete - in a small chapel overlooking Hania and then with a full all-out village celebration in Afrata. Major joy and whoopee.

Also a personal note to friends who’ve sent letters. Peg, all Argentine dishes start with meat - beef. Tom, “chica” still means short to a barber. I know. I, too, have been “chicaed” - so much for the swept back, long-locked polo jockey look I was acquiring.

And a final personal note to Lachlan who warned me about the dangers of going out at night in BsAs. I was politely mugged by four large young men. Thanks to Lachlan’s advice I only had my dummy wallet on me - 300 pesos, $100, no cards and no ID except an old driver’s license. And no jewelry, not even a watch. They took the money, patted me down for any further hidden assets and walked away. I got home using the 100 pesos I had in my shoe. Prophylactic paranoia works.

The whole city operates this way. Every shop has barred windows and steel shutters. Every shop has its own security guard. Everybody owns a dog for protection. People carry little of value with them, especially at night. Cops are everywhere on the street now. The subway shuts down at 11:00. And most people call a radio taxi instead of hailing one on the street. As with any conditions, you get used to it after awhile, since everybody is in the same boat. And people watch out for each other. Several times people have stopped me to say a pocket of my shoulder bag was open or that I should have the strap across my chest, not just on my shoulder.
The petty crime is a product of a desperate economy - improving, but still in the grips of hard times.

BIDETS - CONTINUED
No, I haven’t given up on this. It seems symbolic of something larger than plumbing. Since last I wrote I’ve asked everybody I’m acquainted with if they have ever used a bidet. One hundred per cent NO. Though some tell funny stories about children’s encounters with the device. On a walk this week I passed a large plumbing supply window with sample bathrooms on display. All featured sink, tub, toilet and bidet. So I went in. It took awhile to establish that I did not wish to buy or use a bidet, but was a writer on a mission. Nobody. NOBODY who worked there had a bidet at home or had ever used one. Nobody at the plumbing store even knew the proper way to use one. Nobody could explain why there was no adaptation to the shape of human anatomy involved. But EVERY new bathroom they installed in new apartments called for a bidet. It’s what people wanted these days - a sign of high class. Right. Something you don’t need or use. You just have it. So you’re visiting friends will think you’re moving on up.

Ate in a very fancy restaurant one night and they had a bidet. But no urinal.
(Turns out I was in the ladies room, but that’s beside the point. I was alone.)
Bathroom fixtures usually have amenities that suggest the management assumes you will make use of them. Toilet paper by toilets. Soap and towels by sinks. But nothing by the bidet. No soap, no towels, and no hooks for the clothes you must remove to use a bidet. What do you do? Run out with a bare naked bottom to the sink area for paper towels and soap? Or try to get your butt high enough off the floor to use one of those electric dryers? Absurd.

The restaurant is part of the pretension. “We’re hip, we’re upper class!” We don’t know why.
A cooler word for modern elitism - Bidetismo!

Well, enough of that, don’t you think?

VOCABULARY
Getting into the Internet cafe experience. Slang:
“Este aparato se congelo.” - This computer has congealed. Seized up.
“Grax!" - commuterese in Spanish for Thanks! (short form of gracias.)
And the reply is “De nax” - short form of you’re welcome -¨"de nada”
“abolado” - dented - the way you look after a hard night out
“banana” - someone who mistakenly thinks they are way cool
“pescado" - a fish - an idiot
“Sacate las pilas!” - Take your batteries out. Calm down.
“Lo atamos con alambre.” - Tie it with wire. Wire around it. Make do.
“La noche esta en panales.” - The night is in diapers. The night is still young.

Enough for now. The cafe is getting crowded because school is just out and high school students come here to get the net access time their parents don’t allow at home - if indeed they have a home computer at all. The music volume and style is adjusted to please this younger clientele. Hip-hop and rap. It’s my signal to leave.

Senor Fuljumero.

The Chronicles of Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha
Buenos Aires, Argentina - Monday, November 19, 2007 - clear, still, and hot - the edge of summer

“Si me preguntas en donde he estado, deb decir, ¨"Sucede!"
(Ask me where have I been, and I’ll tell you: “Things keep happening.")
No, my Spanish is not that good. That’s a line from one of Pablo Bermuda’s poems - explaining why he keeps writing.)

MIDNIGHT MILONGA:

She was a pink, soft-shelled crab, with gold-tipped claws, feet, and tail. Waving her antennae back and forth, she poised on the edge of her chair, alert to the slightest invitation to dance - a glance, a smile, a wink, a raised eyebrow, a nod - anything would do. She sat through three tandas. No takers. Desperate, she would have responded to a cough, a sneeze, a hiccup.
Men, who come to a milonga to connect, not to be consumed, carefully avoided contact - even accidental.

And then. Oh, then. In walked an eel. A middle-aged, middle-sized, middle-brained eel. A red-tipped black-and-white pin-striped eel - red tie, red shoes, red nose. His pomaded hair and personality slithered into the ballroom and cast about for the evening meal.
The pink, soft-shelled crab almost fell off her chair. Yes!

The eel dangled the bait - took a table for two, ordered champagne for two, but did not pull out another chair as if there would be a companion - anticipated, but not expected. He had laid the bait. Now he set the trap - popped the champagne cork himself. And only then did he scan the room, notice the crab, and raise his eyebrows.

The orchestra began a smooth D´Sarli set. The crab and the eel rose, locked eyes, walked slowly to the outer edge of her side of the floor, paused face-to-face. He offered his left hand. She placed hers in his, stepped into the frame of his embrace, settled her chest and cheek against his, floated her left hand over his head to flutter down onto his shoulder like a dove in slow motion, and closed her eyes. They did not move for 8 counts and then, without apparently touching the floor, they danced away and around and away. He, with the masterful slight-touch control of a grand prix racing driver negotiating a crowded course. She with the small, quick-quick-slow-slow, delicate steps of a shore bird drawing puzzles in the air.

No longer a crab and an eel.
But a man and a woman who brought grace and passion to the milonga
At the end of the four dances of the tanda, he escorted her to the table, and poured the champagne while they remained standing.
Hooking their arms one within the other, they drank, sat down, and laughed.

Meanwhile, Senor Fuljumero, welded into his chair at a back table, intimidated by the quality of the dancing at this milonga, scratching feeble metaphors into his notebook, taking care not to throw the invitational look accidentally while still watching carefully, wondered if he showed what he was thinking and writing to the crab and the eel if they would be amused or confused. If he got to know them would he think of them as a crab and an eel? If he knew that they were really husband and wife who met here at the dance from time to time and played out their part in the theater of tango, would he still have a story?

Given the power of a writer to push observed reality into imagined fiction, let us assume that is the story.
The world should be like that - somewhere, sometime.
Why not here and now?
And Senor Fuljumero, had he any real imagination, might have asked the crab to dance while she waited for the eel.

_________________

Report from Uruguay:

Spent four days in the delta region of the Rio de la Plata on the Argentina-Uruguay border. Three hours by boat in slashing rain on a brown, muscley river that cut through swampy jungle, opened into wide lakes, and closed back into an island-clotted inland sea. By morning the sky had cleared, the chilly wind from Antarctica trailed through, and by night it was still, with stars. Uruguay. A welcome relief from Tango-Town. Buenos Aires is provocative and exciting and powerful, but it’s a nervous, noisy, and paranoid place. Though I had been there five weeks, I had not seen the river, the horizon, an unsmoggy sky, or had a silent moment.
So, away to Uruguay. Carmelo is a small town in the countryside - green, clean, quiet. A relief. Cows, sheep, horses, corn, wheat, soy beans. The smell, the feel, the sound of green.
Nearby Colonia is a World Heritage site - still much like the original built by the Portuguese and Spanish way back when.
Uruguay is even more European than Argentina. Very little indigenous population to begin with, and none left. All immigrants - and as many from England, Germany, Belgium, and France as from Spain and Italy. It refers to itself as a South American Switzerland, and so it seems. Still, for all the pleasure of the Uruguayan countryside, it was good to get back to the electricity of BsAs.

On Saturday, there was a Gay Pride march and celebration in the city center. In the Plazo de Mayo. In front of the Pink House - the Argentinean equivalent of the White House in Washington. Not large - five blocks long. The usual flamboyant costumes and music. Very little police presence. This is more or less and Catholic country. Still, the government neither opposes nor endorses the Pride event. It’s an important symbol of freedom of expression in general.

In the dirty war of the dictatorship of 1976-83 (not so very long ago) any freedom of expression was brutally assaulted. As many as 30,000 people were detained and then “disappeared” for offending the ideology of the military dictatorship.
Just this last week a memorial wall was dedicated containing the names of 8,718 known victims of state terror. Presiding over the event was President-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, surrounded by the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo - the mothers and grandmothers and, now, the children, of the detained and disappeared. Every Thursday afternoon at 3:30 for thirty years these tireless women, in their white kerchiefs bearing the names of their children, have walked silently around the obelisk in the center of the plaza. Some were there at the Gay Pride event on Saturday. Some of their children were gay. And were detained and disappeared because of that. Times have changed. The Mothers memorialize the way it was and silently insist on the way ahead.

Walking back down Defensa toward the Plaza Dorrego, I paused at a curb to cross the street. Looking down, a necessity on the broken sidewalks of BsAs, I realized I was standing on a bronze plaque that blended into the sidewalk. The plaque said:
“Aqui vivio Paloma Alonso, militant popular. Detenida Desaparacadia por el terrismo de estado.” And across the street, in the center of the square where music was playing, I leaned up against an iron fence surrounding a small tree. Inside, barely legible, was another plaque. “Adelina Noemi Garivlo - 21.2.1944 - detenida, desaparecida - militar - 8 july 1976.” Thirty two years old.

Who were Paloma and Adelina? What did they do to deserve detention, torture, death, oblivion?
I do not know. What would they think of this world now? Of Gay Pride week? I do not know.
The Mothers do not say. But they still remember and still march because many of those who did the dirty work of the dirty war are still alive and free and unpunished. And Gay Pride is not as gay as it might otherwise be.

Misc. Notes:

Another lesson in slack-rope walking on Wednesday. With a large red umbrella in one hand and the instructor holding onto my other hand, I can do this. It’s a nice metaphor. The best direction is forward. Balance takes a combination of confidence, nerve, and speed - plus the right tools and companionship. Problems happen when you start swinging from side to side. And falling off is not good, but then, it’s not far. Can I do this when I return home? Blind Bobby Bobado - not on the high wire - on the very low rope.

Another lesson this week: an evening of nuevo tango, where the music is much the same, but the beat is provided by a set of trap drums, and the instruments are electric. The dance is a combination of tango, samba, swing, and rock. Whatever. A venue where Senor Fuljumero will wear his new double-breasted black pin-striped suit, black shirt, and bright yellow tie. Shake it up baby!

Tonight, an experiment with Peruvian/Japanese fusion food at a restaurant called OZAKA - sushi with sliced lamb.

Tuesday night, the Nacional Ballet de Espana - with flamenco dimensions, so I’m told.

And Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. Not here, of course. But pity me not. Though ten thousand miles from family and my “carinos entranables” - most beloved ones - those dear friends I’ve celebrated with for 27 years, it will not be a sad day. Luigi, the owner chef of a nearby Italian restaurant called IL DUE LADRONI - (The Two Thieves) to the rescue. He worked as a cook in New York for ten years, speaks caricaturish English like one of the Marx Brothers, and says he knows all you really need to know about cooking a turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce - with an Italian touch, of course. Garlic. Guest list: My friends Hans and Elena arrive from Greece that morning; an Uruguayan tango teacher, a Spanish flamenco dancer, an American ballet dancer, and, maybe, if I manage to contact them by Thursday, the crab and the eel.

I once read somewhere that researchers say it takes about 42 days to get comfortable in a new environment. Now, having passed that mark in BsAs, it is the case that Senor Fuljumero is at ease. And, as I said at the beginning of this journal entry, Things keep happening.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who attend that feast. To those who do not, wish you were here on Thursday.

Fuljumero

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Nov. 12, 2007
cloudy, warm, spring

BIDET

What comes to mind when you read that word? Like me, you’ve probably encountered one, but don’t have one, and may never have used one or even considered using one. An object of curiosity. French. And the French do have some amusing ideas about a lot of things, not to except bodily sanitation. The only use I ever made of a bidet was years ago when some friends and I iced down several bottles of champagne in a bidet in a hotel suite in San Francisco.

In Argentina bidets are common. In my hotel rooms. In the nicer restaurants. And there is one in my apartment. At first I ignored it, but it’s the 21st century and we’re all grownups and a bidet should not intimidate one, should it. Unless my memory fails me, I cannot remember ever encountering a literary reference to a bidet. Or having a conversation about one. Or seeing any instructions on how the thing is properly used. So, then . . . time to break new ground.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, I considered the bidet as objectively as possible. Since it is not curved in some way to suggest anatomical fit, which direction does one sit on it? Try the controls. Cold, hot. And the knob that either swirls water around in the basin, or, if turned, will spray water straight up. Turned to max, the spray will come up out of the nozzle about four feet when the pump kicks in. Do I really want to sit on this? And can you sit on it without taking off your shoes, socks, trousers, and underpants - or, as the case may be, pantyhose? Because if you do not disrobe, a lot of your clothes are going to get wet. Trust me. And a lot of the floor area around the bidet is going to get wet, too. Trust me. And then there is the fact that it really doesn’t do it’s job if you sit facing the controls, but if you sit the other way, you have to adjust the controls behind your back. And then there’s the matter of soap and a towel. And a certain annoyance when you send the spray up your back as far as your neck.

A cat or a small dog could be washed in this thing. You could park goldfish in it while you cleaned their tank. Or maybe wash mud off dirty shoes in it. But wash your own butt in it, I don’t think so.

It occurs to me that if you really want to approach personal sanitation of this sort, take my advice: Wait until dark, strip off, run out into the bushes in the yard and use a garden hose with a nozzle attached. No, I haven’t actually tried this, but it would be quicker, cleaner, and kinkier than trying to gracefully use a bidet. The French are truly mad.

_________

Further notes from life in BsAs:

1. In answer to an inquiry, yes, they do wear polo shirts when playing polo. Ralph is onto a good thing.
And, yes, women do play polo.
My memory of seeing several games played merges with my imagination of what centaurs must be like. The riders and horses seem like on creature. It was a pleasure to see Adolfo Cambiaso play - the greatest active player - ten goal handicap, but it should be more. Like watching Michael Jordan play basketball. Even if you don’t like the game, the excellence is a joy to behold.

2. New vocabulary: “buac” - yucky. “Tengo ganas trasbocar.” - I feel like puking. “Tengo chaki!” I’m hungover. “Malditos” - Damn! (never mind the circumstances under which Senor Fulmero acquired these words and terms. You don’t want to know. Better is “¿Bailamos” Want to dance?

3. One serious aspect of this exile adventure is to take a deep plunge into the literature of South America - especially Argentina - and that means Borges - his biography, poems, fictions, and essays. Much of his finest work was written late in life when he was blind. He was not born blind, and went blind slowly, but still, he spent a large part of his life without sight - relying on memory and an intensification of the receptivity of his other senses.

I live in his old neighborhood, the barrio Palermo, and have walked the streets familiar to him. As an experiment I’ve tried sitting on a park bench and keeping my eyes shut as long as possible, while focusing on what I could hear and smell. This is not easy to do. At first I could do it only for a short time - 7-10 minutes.

And then Saturday, when I went to the horse races at the Hipodrome for the Grand National, I sat high in the stands for more than hour - in a timelessness - all the way through four races - listening, smelling at a whole new level. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Astonishing emotional rush. But I did open them. I had money on a horse - just because of his name.

And I watched The Eye of The Tiger - a black horse of beauty and speed - come from behind and win going away. Then I closed my eyes again and thought of Borges, who wrote a poem about tigers - provoked by a memory of childhood at the zoo and the fact that in his blindness he could still perceive the color orange with one eye. And I imagined tiger racing instead of horseracing. And wished I was a poet.

Borges would have seen it, don’t you think?

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007
warm, muggy, showers

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE THAT IS BUENOS AIRES

1. Polo. Thoughts from the Hurlingham Club on Sunday, November 4, where the Hurlingham Open is being played - the 114th anniversary of the tournament. Sponsored by Mercedes Benz, Rolex, and Mumm Champagne (that should give you a clue about the fans.)
Want to field a team?
It helps to be very rich or have very rich friends with deep pockets to play polo.
You will need some men - Roman-faced - tan, fit, macho, with forearms and thighs and butts of steel - with names like Adolfo, Matias, Mariano, Cesar, Sebastian, Alejandro, Horacio, Santiago or Ignacio.
(Some of the great names of American polo: Devereux Milburn, Foxhall Keene, J. Monty Waterburn, and Harry Payne Whitney.)
The men will each need a dozen long-handled mallets made of whippy cane with wooden heads.
And several saddles each - boots, spurs, leather knee guards, a glove for the right hand (no left handed players).
And grooms and stable hands and trainers. And chicas to hang around.
At least four men, with a substitute or two (players fall off and get injured)
And each team will need 30 to 40 horses per game - a horse gets ridden for about 7 minutes on average.
Two referees, and a king-sized real-grass football field flat as a chessboard.
For about an hour your team will charge like cavalry combat up and down the field at as much as 60 kmh, whacking the ball and each other in an effort to slam a ball the size of a small grapefruit between wicker posts.
Meanwhile, the spectators sit politely - and applaude politely when pleased - an elegant crowd - tan, sleek, lots of teeth. English clothes - the same people who ski at St. Moritz in winter, sail in the Med in summer, and inhabit spas.
All in all, very high class.
But. Do they tango? I asked. No. Not really.
Well, then, never mind polo.
Here ends the report.

2. The smallest circus in the world. In a park I saw a man and a pig. The pig was dressed in a red and white polka dot outfit, with a sequined pointed hat. The man was dressed the same. There was a hoop, a teeter-totter, a large red ball, and a box, upon which the pig sat and looked at the audience with contempt for amusement (it’s hard to know what a pig thinks.) Meanwhile, the man announced to the audience what the pig would do, then explained to the pig, and then demonstrated to the pig how the trick worked. The pig never moved.
The man exhorted, implored, and demonstrated each trick. He jumped through the hoop, rolled around on the ball, teeter-tottered, and rolled over and played dead. He was quite good, actually. But the pig did nothing but sit. At the end, the man got on his knees in front of the pig and begged the pig to do something. The pig got down off his box and walked away. End of circus.

3- Teenagers. There is a high school near my apartment. Students go down the street to a quick-food joint to eat and talk at lunchtime.
Sitting at a nearby table I heard these Spanish words: Estupendamente! Fabulos! Es la bomba! Fenomenal! Fantastico! Exquisita!
Es lo Maximo! Efenctamente! And Cooly Cool! And Esa chica una mamita! Recognize the words? (the last phrase is for A BABE!)

4. More words I like: “Ni fu ni fa” - so so. “Es una juerguista.” - party animal.

5. For text messaging you end with 50538 50538 - which reads BESOS BESOS - kisses kisses - when read upside down on your phone.

Enough for today, class.
Tonight is a concert of the Mujnicipal Tango Orchestra of BA at Collegio Guadalupe, and a milongo at La Viruta. And Friday night at La Boca Tango Club - a maximum event.
More to come. Besos Besos.

Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha.

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Saturday afternoon, November 3, 2007
clear, warm, windy

Senor don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha has moved camp from the barrio San Telmo far across Bs.As. to the barrio Palermo. Like moving from the early 19th century to the late 20th. From narrow, canyoned, tree-less, cobbled streets to an area of parks, tree-lined streets with two-story houses and buildings for the most part. My apartment is on the fringe of Palermo. A former corn storage and processing commercial factory now turned into lofts. At the corner of Dorrego and - I like the sound - Zapiola Street.

Leaving the residential tango academy, the Mansion Dandi, was a sad day. Every member of the staff was kind and generous to me - from the manager to the front desk staff to the teachers, maids and waiters and maintenance personnel. I knew them by name and personality. I spent a happy month there. I’m already nostalgic about the Dandi and I’ve only been away three days. I write this in part because I know they read my website, but also to praise the Dandi for anyone who wants a lovely introduction to Buenos Aires and tango.

This excursion to Buenos Aires is a kind of affirmative self-imposed exile. Not in the sense of running away from my so-called normal life, but a matter of letting go of some of the self-accumulated complexities of that life. Often I think of writers of the past who made long journeys to far-away lands - those old guys - without typewriter, laptop, or internet access. No TV, radio, daily newspaper, or cell phone. And no American Express or Visa or ATM. They just flung themselves out into the world, armed with pen and paper, with the open eye, the tender heart, the inquiring mind, and the power point of the raw meat between their ears. All senses turned to Maximum - to soak up and process, to enjoy and endure, and to really be present. Could I have done that? Traveled like Lear or Twain or Maugham?

But in so far as it is possible, I will try. This means taking careful notes, walking and thinking, writing as much as possible before I walk a couple of miles to an internet cafe to put the results into cyberspace. This way requires a different state of mind. Having a computer handy to cobble up rough drafts direct means less happens in the mind. One inspiration for this way is the great gesture made by Einstein when he was at Princeton. After a reporter toured the Advanced Institute with Einstein, he asked where the great man’s laboratory was. Einstein smiled and pointed at his head.

So, then.

Where was Senor Don Roberto last night? At the Cafe Esquina Osvaldo Pugliese, where, every Friday night, the most famous of the old-time tango singers gather and perform from about 10:30 until 3:00 the next morning. Grey hair and double-breasted suits with ties for the elderly gentlemen. Dyed hair, full paint and jewelry and high heels for the ladies. But they still have the chops - the stage presence - the timing - the ability to scoop up an audience and carry it away. Oscar Ferrari was there. Famous in the 1950´s. Tiny man with great reserve and dignity. Huge voice, passionate, intense - brought the house down. He’s 83.

As a break between singers there was a tango performance in three styles - classic, show, and hot. The man was appropriately swarthy, sinister, and talented. But his partner stole the show. A blond woman with a very slight body who had succumbed to the trend for cosmetic augmentation. Her breasts were more like a subdivision - half her body weight was upstairs. And, obeying the rule, “Ïf you got ém, flaunt ém¨” she wore a dress in the second set that did not quite move in synch with her weighty bosom, and when her partner turned her upside down in the final pose of the dance, there was a stunned silence just before the rowdy applause. The 83 year old man gave her a standing ovation. When it is made clear that tango is danced chest to chest, there are some interesting possibilities available.

And where was Senor Roberto at noon today? At the Confiteria Ideal for a practica - an event where the usual rules of the milonga are suspended and dancers who are less than proficient can practice their moves. Senor Don Roberto went with a discrete sign saying “English-Speaking Beginner” - and attracted a Japanese woman - Junzaburo Eiko - who has just been transferred to Bs.As. with a shipping company. Social dancing - “shako dansu”- is still not all that common in Japan, but she has caught the tango bug and wants to learn Argentine style -“ashi no karami” - legs intertwined. She liked practicing with Senor Roberto because he is a gentleman. She referred to her previous partner as a taco” - an octopus - because he had has hands all over her.

Random Notes:

Hellado- ice cream - is as big here as espresso bars are in the States. Many fancy boutique operations that offer home delivery like our pizza parlors. Senor Roberto was perusing the list at VESSA when a police car came wailing up with blue lights flashing. An officer jumped out, piled into the store, ordered a kilo of chocolate, was expediently served, paid his bill, and rushed back to the police car, which roared off with siren at full blast. Must have been a critical need at the station. The man at the counter said it happened every night.

There are no Starbuck´s here and, as far as I can tell, no take-away espresso drinks.
“Why would you walk around alone with your coffee when you could sit and talk?”

The jacaranda trees are in bloom now - an ordinarily modest tree that explodes in spring with pale lilac-blue blossoms, frilly foliage, black trunk - and paint the sidewalks with their falling flowers. Bread is delivered by bicycle in huge wicker laundry baskets - when they suddenly appear in the streets, it’s an early warning sign of lunch.

Argentine humor: The portenos - the people of the port of Buenos Aires are mostly Italians who speak Spanish, think French, dress English and imitate Americans. They talk a lot with their hands. If you want to say an Argentinean from drowning, talk to him while he is in the water. They are very considered with their physical appearance. If you ask one for a light for a cigarette, he will pat himself looking for his lighter and then say he doesn’t have a lighter, but he was reminded that he has a very nice body.

Enough for now. By the time Senor Roberto walks back to his apartment, he will be ready for the 5 o’clock ritual in the bar of the building - the 1940. An ice-cold martini in a fragile glass with a black olive - the olive comes with a stem and a pit. It’s a little dangerous - which is why it is called “The Spider.”

Tomorrow, a day at the Hurlingham Club for the annual polo tournament.
Next week a milonga held at a building that was once La Association de Carboneros Genoveses - the hall of the Genoese Association of Coal Merchants.

And so on and so forth . . . .

Fuljumero

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Monday, October 29, 2007

A LETTER FROM ARGENTINA, CONTINUED

Yesterday, Senora Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was elected as expected - La Presidenta - and life went on today in a normal way. Most people act nonchalant when asked about it, but in fact there has been enough political excitement in Argentina in the last ten years and a little business-as-usual is welcome.

“Chile has a woman president and also Germany - and ours is better looking - at least there is that.”
So says Maria Jose.

The economic crisis of 6 years ago was equivalent to the Great Depression in the U.S. in many ways. First galloping inflation, and then a radical devaluation of the peso. Many middle class people suddenly were poor. Some lasting signs of the economic crisis: the numbers of small vendors with goods spread out on the sidewalks, the sellers of single flowers and tissues and oranges, the endless antique shops stocked with all those things people had to sell to get by - family silverware, heirlooms, jewelry, watches, and fur coats; an endless offering of high quality crafts - leather goods, wooden objects, silver jewelry, ceramics - like the sixties in the U.S.. and creative work like jugglers at traffic lights and girls who will bare their breasts or ass late at night for 5 pesos. Just as sad are the scavengers who sort through the garbage left curbside - an army of young and old pushing wheeled carts of every description comb the streets at night for anything of use that can be sold - `paper, plastic, aluminum, wire, plumbing parts - whatever.

Another side of hard times are the street scams worked by three people. One is up on a scaffold or in a tree and he drops salsa or a mix of ketchup-mustard-and-vinegar (imitation bird shit) on you. A second guy just happens to have some napkins and water handy and he sympathizes with you and starts wiping you off or else offers to hold your bag while you take off your jacket - and a third guy comes running by and makes off with your coat and bag. The cleaner types just mash ice cream into you. I had been warned. I got the salsa, but walked away from the cleanup guy - and saw someone else get the ice cream.

I wonder what I would do if desperate enough?

And then there are the shoe-shine men. My age, surprisingly well dressed, stone-faced in their mute acceptance of a humiliating way to make some money in a difficult time. Daily I have my shoes shined and pay them well above the going rate. I could be them. I have shined shoes in my life - when I was a freshman in college - working in a shoe repair shop - doing all the odd jobs - including giving each pair of shoes a final shine before being given back to the customers. The smell of new soles and used shoes remains with me still.

Argentina is a rich country - with significant resources, and a history of corruption and repression that are expressions of raw greed and brute power, not ideology. It should be a shining land. Instead it is a country in anguish, running afraid of its history, and deeply hopeful that a woman’s soft and careful touch at the helm will move it on toward the better times it deserves. Good luck, Cristina.

Just to keep you updated on cosmetic surgery. This weekend’s specials included a¨"Total Body Lift” which looked like the woman’s skin was pulled up like a pair of panty hose stretched to her neck and then trimmed off. The other item covered was the “Brazil Butt” which involves sucking live fat off your tummy and injecting it in your butt so your cheeks hang out just right on each side of your thong. This I watched in a restaurant while eating a rib-eye steak. The lady sitting at the next table took down the doctor’s name at the end of the program. These cosmetic programs are liking watching cooking shows.

Finally, an upbeat note. At the flamenco venue on Friday night, Avilar, I was intrigued by a view of the chef through a window into the kitchen. A face with deep-set eyes - like a sorrowful raccoon. He paid close attention to the musicians onstage, then suddenly raised his eyebrows, and disappeared from my view. Moments later he rushed onto the stage - still in his food-stained apron - and with hands raised over his head, danced flamenco with great passion. After slashing and pounding the stage to the cataclysmic ending of the song, he rushed offstage as quickly as he came and reappeared in the kitchen window, serving up plates of tapas. When I asked the waiter if the man was a cook or a dancer, he said both - he is “gitano¨- a gypsy man. Does he do this every night? No, only when he is moved.
What does it take to move him? Well, senor, we never know. but when he is moved, he comes and dances and we are pleased. It is natural - not such a strange thing.

Enough for now. More adventures of Senor Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha to come.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Friday afternoon, October 26, 2007 - full moon over Argentina tonight - clear skies.

LETTER HOME TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Herewith is the rest of a letter home I was writing two days ago when someone else had a huge need to use this computer.

If you would like to see my tango teacher. Noelia, and know more about her consider her website, http://www.tangonyn.com.ar - and if you would like to see my research assistant and translator, who is also a tango professional, take a look at http://www.blogdetango.blogspot.com She, Maria Jose took me yesterday to see the Municipal Tango Orchestra of BsAs that features 26 of the best or most famous musicians of the city. The passionate responses from the audience of aficionados was almost as amazing as the orchestra. It plays every other Wednesday - and I will go again.

Three more remarkable aspects of life in BsAs.

Tango is, and has been for a long time, very big in Japan - since the 1920´s. The “beauty of sadness” motif of tango fits perfectly well into the Japanese mentality. So it is no surprise to go to a milonga, have a bus-load of Japanese tourists march in, whip out their shoes and hit the floor. Unlike most American tour groups, the Japanese come milonga-ready, having had many lessons and much practice at home. They are a little flashy, since they like a more international style - the close embrace on the dance floor is not Japanese. Still, the group I watched left the native milongueros most impressed - they gave the Japanese a standing ovation when they left.

Elective cosmetic surgery is common in BsAs, mostly for women. Face lifts, nose jobs, tummy tucks, breast implants, etc. It’s more socially acceptable than in the U.S., done with skill by a corps of professionals, and is cheap enough to attract a sizeable tourist trade. Even more surprising, the procedures are shown on reality TV - before and after and during. No effort is made to hide the identity of the patient and some amazing changes to faces. There’s only the slightest gesture of modesty in making fuzzy the nipples of women’s breasts - but you can see through the fuzz!

I watch every afternoon before my nap. It’s more interesting than Rugby. There was this sad little woman named Pilar who was turned into a babe in three weeks - nose, chin, lips, breasts, and toes - plus a full makeover with cosmetics and hair. When asked what she was going to do next - yes, you guessed it - tango!

Finally, the next hot popular rage after yoga, pilates, and pole dancing is circus. There are circus schools all over the city - using parking garages late at night to teach juggling, balancing, tumbling, stilt-walking, clowning, and even aerial trapeze work. I have seen this with my own eyes in the barrio San Telmo. And just what, you may ask, appeals to Senor Don Roberto? Slack rope walking. It’s a matter of concentration, and you’re only about a foot off the ground, and you can use a long pole or an umbrella for balance. So . . . .And now, ladies and gentlemen, on the very low, very slack wire, the AMAZING BLIND BOBBI BOBADA!
Watch carefully, the show doesn’t last long.

This brings the project total to 6: tango, Latin American literature, polo, billiards, horseracing and circus. Enough.

Tonight, Maria Jose, Estefania, Alejandro, and I are going to a Spanish restaurant and stay for the flamenco show. Estefania was trained in flamenco in Madrid and knows the dancers. Afterward, a party. This means getting home no earlier than 4:00 a.m. Ole´!

¨”!Como rie la vida!” say the Argentineans - How the life laughs!

Hasta luego! Fuljumero

Buenos Aires, Argentina - clear, 74 degrees, with a breeze off the River Plate
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A LETTER HOME TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS - THE NEWS FROM ARGENTINA

It takes awhile to adjust to this country, which is not all that much like Mexico or Cuba or Brazil, where I have been. More like Italy and Spain - more European. The United States has a minimal presence - no products, few English-language magazines or newspapers, and only a minor place in the daily news. Part of this is the huge tax on anything imported, part is an orientation toward Europe, part is a disdain for what is seen as American abuse of power (very anti-Bush) and part is the hemispheric disjunction - it’s a long way away.
Being out of the daily loop of the States is a refreshing change. When something really major happens, like the California fires, it makes the headline news here, but mostly the U.S.A. is a sidebar to daily life in Argentina.

On a personal level, everything seems a little out of kilter - jet-lag is not much because it’s a north/south shift - only one hour ahead of New York - but there is a season-lag, moving suddenly from early fall to early spring without winter in between. The stars are not the same. Even the full moon seems upside down and in the wrong part of the sky. And last Sunday, October 21, was Mothers Day here.

This coming Sunday, October 28, is the national election. Cristina, the wife of the current president, will win by a wide margin - enough to be elected on the first ballot, so say the polls. She is smart, attractive, well educated, ambitious, sophisticated, and experienced - a serving senator elected on her own merit. With a huge amount of money and political clout. People profess not to like her, but all signs are that they will elect her. Sound familiar? She will be elected in part because Argentina has had 4 years of stability after a disastrous economic crisis and people don’t want to rock the boat. Technically she is a Peronist, but that’s more of a popular label than a political platform. The country feels like it is walking on thin ice - nobody trusts banks or the value of the peso - even though growth seems healthy and the government seems determined to keep inflation down. It´s the only modern country I´ve been in recently where people prefer dollars to their own currency, even though the dollar is so weak.

The Pumas - the national rugby team - came third in Paris, being beaten only by the eventual winners, South Africa. It’s amazing how people rally behind a national team - how powerful sport is to unite when being united is so yearned for. Even I, who know little about rugby, sat in a bar and screamed for the Pumas along with the rest. A man here in the hotel is from Boston and he is going mad because of the Red Sox. He admits he has never been to a game and knows as much about baseball as I know about rugby, but now he is Red Sox Nation.

I do like the Argentine national colors - the sky above Buenos Aires is the same pale blue, and when the big puffy white clouds float by, it is without doubt an Argentine sky.

The language barrier is higher than I expected. Argentine Spanish is neither the Tex-Mex of my childhood, nor the Castillian of my college courses, and my short-term memory abilities make learning the correct words a chore. In a crisis I fall back on my pidgin Greek, much to the dismay of the natives. English is not nearly as common here, even in minimal form, as it is in Europe, so I work a lot out of a language guide and a dictionary. Not a bad thing, but definitely an effort.

I have engaged a part-time personal assistant, Maria Jose, who is from Uruguay. Her mother runs an English-language school, so she is superb with English. She is also a tango teacher who makes her living dancing in shows around town. But she can unlock doors when I cannot even find the handle, so now there is an exponential increase in my connection to Buenos Aires, and I can go places where tourists never go - for music, dance, food, art, and even to consult a fortune-teller.

In a week I will move to an apartment for two months in a very different part of town - a loft in a remodeled factory building. Closer to parks, polo, horse racing, and the river. Dancing lessons will continue, though going out late at night to the milongas has its drawbacks - lots of street crime - easy to get robbed if one is not careful. Despite trying to look as non-tourist Argentinean as possible, I might as well wear a sign that identifies me: “Norteamericano” - so say my Argentino friends.

It is good to be here - stressful at times, as with all new environments - but productive for writing and life.

Enough. Think of me from time to time, as I think of you.
With great affection.
Fulghum

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Monday, October 22, 2007
The Continuing Chronicles of Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha

?And what did Don Roberto eat, you ask? Fordesayuno, between eleven and noon, cafe con leche, juice of the small oranges, chocolate croissants, and cognac.
?Donde? Daily. At El Hipopotamo at the Parque Lezema in the barrio San Telmo.

?And for the segundo? To prime the senor for the rigors of the tango, an early meal at 8:00 at El Desnivel on Defensa near the Plaza Derrego. Passing in through the front door by the grill sizzling with fat sausages, halves of chickens, and parts of beef, some recognizable and not. The waiter, Juan Carlos, the Bull - a man of heroic proportions, greets regulars with an embrace that lifts them off the floor, turns them completely around, and sets them on their way to a table by the walls where all the pictures are hung crooked.

The tables are covered with oil cloth, and the knife and fork are for serious carving or self-defense in a fight. No menu is offered. The Bull knows what to bring - carne, vino tinto, onions, tomatoes, and . And in no time at all the man places on the table: water from the snows of the Andes, a bottle of Malbec from Mendoza, the salad, hot bread and whatever cut of beef Juan Carlos deems the best on the grill tonight - usually a Mariposa - a butterflied boneless T-bone steak the size of a catcher’s mitt.

And the rest is up to Don Roberto. There is no hurry. No rush. Slowly. Flan and coffee will come when the food is dispatched and the table cleared. The toothpicks by the door are mint-flavored. Juan Carlos the Bull provides a parting embrace, lifting up Don Roberto and placing him gently on the sidewalk of the night. The long walk to the milonga is just enough to settle the meal and arouse the desire to dance.

?Tango. What is tango? ¨Speak to me of tango,¨ he has said to the milongueros, and in the space of three weeks he has these phrases in response:
“Tango is a mode of transportation.
Tango is a conversation with legs.
Tango is Tai-Chi for two, Akido for two, yoga for two, a martial art for two, with music.
Tango is a three-minute romance.
Tango is a Way in the world, a state of mind, an art, a religion, an addiction.
Tango begins when you decide to live in another country in another time in your mind, while continuing to function in the life you are living.
When people speak of tango they use words like love, passion, fear, desire, sorrow, exile, longing, and anguish. No other social dance form is described with these words.
It is not completely true that it takes two to tango. It takes three. An audience. Witnesses.
Tango is a syndrome, a gestalt.
Tango is a sad thought that can be danced.
Tango expresses and creates exile.
Tango is a ritual of encounters and separations.
Tango is the music, the lyrics, the instruments, and the dance - they cannot be separated.
Tango is whatever a milongero or milongera says it is for them.
Tango is Argentina.
Si.”

Conversation:
“Änd you have danced all your life, Don Hector?”
“Si. And I loved every woman I danced with. For the time of the tanda they were the one and only - every one of them.¨
“You must have been dangerous to dance with¨.”
“Si. I was a serial killer on the floor.”
“And now that you are a jubilado - a man of substantial seniority?”
“Even more dangerous - they do not see me coming. And they think I will be slow.”
“How many years are you, senor?”
“Eighty.”
“And to what do you attribute your long life and good health, senor?”
“Tango.”

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Friday, October 19, 2007
The Continuing Tango Chronicles of Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha

?And how did Don Roberto appear at the practices in those early days. As a man might appear as a stand-in at a rehearsal for an execution. Sincerely rigid, knowing there were no bullets in the rifles of the death squad. But always a little uncertain, since mistakes have been made. Still, he walked to his place on the dance floor, counting, five...six...seven...eight, stood tall and still, and awaited the commands of his captain, the teacher. He would decline the blindfold. He thought of accepting a last cigarette.

?And how did Don Roberto dress. White shirt, black vest, grey pin-striped trousers, black suspenders. And his shoes. Well, the shoes.
Since Don Roberto was determined to have tango shoes that fit perfectly above all, and since Don Roberto wanted only the plainest, classical style, he had first sought a shoe for his right foot - the smaller one - and, indeed, the perfect fit was found in black for that foot.
Alas, the left shoe did not fit well enough. Another pair, then - to fit the left foot - but the perfect shoe was only available in red.
So. Why not? There are many beautiful shoes to be seen on the feet of men at Milongas in Buenos Aires - black and white, striped, checked, in the skins of many reptiles, suede, with high heels and low. But no milonguero has ever danced with one black shoe and one red shoe. He will be recalled, if not remembered.

?And what did his teacher think. ¨Don Roberto,¨´ says his teacher, Noelia, ¨¨Your shoes are as eccentric as your dancing.¨ She smiles. Don Roberto likes it when Noelia smiles. She has a tiny diamond in her right incisor. It is why he does not ask for the blindfold at the daily rehearsal for the execution. Her wish is his command, but when she announced they would practice ¨la mordita¨ - the little bite - he was disappointed to learn it was a dance step where the man momentarily traps one of the woman’s feet between his. He imagined a little nip on the neck - as a way to get him to dance instead of preparing for execution - lightly, with sincere delight, on the balls of his feet, always.

?And what of the hair of Don Roberto. As is his custom, he went to the pelequeria- the place of the barber - and asked for the style of the country - especially that of the Argentine tanguero. Now, well-oiled, his hair is combed straight back. Sleek as a seal, he is. And his beard and moustache are trimmed like that of a Spanish conquistadore. A look of a benevolent devil, perhaps. If one is going to be in show business, one must have the complete look, si?

(The author of the Great Gatsby is said to have said that a writer is many people trying to be one person. Yes. At times. But it is also possible that a writer is one person who has a self-issued license to be as many people as possible, as long as nobody gets hurt. This is the plan.)

?Where does Don Roberto sit and think upon these things. At - the Hippopotamus Bar - on the Plaza Lazema - with a glass of the afternoon aperitif in hand. ¨Fernet¨ it is called - a drink to brood on. It is a combination of Old Spice Shaving Lotion and CocaCola - or so it seems at first. But when Don Roberto has two, it puts his mind in motion to continue practicing the special street tango of the portenos on the way home. To dodge random sausages of dog shit, unexplained broken sections of sidewalk, sodden heaps of garbage, and little old ladies with shopping carts - and cross streets avoiding assaultive busses as a matador might finesse a bull - these are the steps of the dance of the life of Buenos Aires. Don Roberto is learning this dance - always moving lightly with sincere delight, on the balls of his feet.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Wednesday, October 16, 2007
A fine day in spring - cool, clear, soft afternoon breeze blowing off the River Plate

A LETTER HOME

For more than six weeks no new writing has appeared on this website. But that does not mean the writing has not continued - just the flow of words has been interrupted. The absorbing of experience and environment with the sponge of my mind is ongoing. What gets set down here must meet some vague standard of being useful or entertaining. Hence the stories from the book tour in September did not meet the standard and were not written down. Flogging books from town to town is a grind - more like a hallucination than a reality. Broken only by lucid moments when those who read my writing come to say hello, to offer a gift, to be in touch with handshakes or arms around, and to laugh. To those who came: my deepest gratitude. For those I missed: next time.

The dominant theme in my mind for months has been the dream of Argentina and tango. From experience I know that whatever you imagine a new country to be, reality will adjust your imagination. What is in the guide books is all too often a description of a Disney World that exists only for tourists who will be satisfied with illusions. It is best to be prepared to be disappointed by what you anticipate, surprised by what you encounter, and delighted by what you find.

So, then, how is BsAs and tango, you may ask? I will tell you. In the form of the South American literary tradition of magic realism, The Tango Chronicles of Senor Don Roberto Juan Carlos Fuljumero y Suipacha. You may draw your own conclusions.

CHRONICLES CINCO - Primo Milonga

She was a hot water heater. With handles. And wheels. A solid tube of a woman, standing with hands on her hips, leaning against a wall elaborated with graffiti. Her surprisingly slim legs came to a conclusion with dainty feet lightly clad in high-heeled dancing shoes of red leather.

Nine o’clock on a Sunday evening when the tradesmen’s booths of the Plaza Dorrego fair had been cleared away, the milongueros appeared, the mats were laid down on the cobbles, the DJ played a few songs to establish the style of the evening, and those who have come in couples lead the way for the first tanda of four tangos by the orchestra of D’Sarli.

Senor Suipacha walks to the edge of the plaza to watch. A tanguero he is not - probably. Not a native porteno for certain. But he is well dressed, alert, and interested. As yet not familiar with the protocols of a public milonga, Senor Suipacha looks at the hot water heater with interest. White hair, like his, with red lips, gold hoop earrings, and all the rest, as has been already noted.

His look of interest is that of a writer. But for the hot water heater it is a cabcera - the look of invitation to tango. She raises her eyebrows. He raises his eyebrows. The water heater accepts. Senor Suipacha, drawn like a gnat to an approaching lady spider, cannot explain or reject. He offers the embrace. She steps into his clumsily constructed frame of dance. And waits. And waits. Senor Suipacha is petrified. This is the moment he has come for. “Dance, fool!¨“

Finally, he shifts weight, confidently steps back to begin the dance, the hot water heater closes her eyes, but the music stops and the dance is over. Senor Suipacha has spent the dance frozen in time and space. The hot water heater steps back, smiles, pats him on the face, and says, ¨"Standing still is not dancing, Senor. You must move at times. ¨” She walks away. And turns back to say, ¨Be careful with the cabacera.¨” “Si. Gracias.”

So ends the first lesson in tango for Senor Suipacha outside the safe world of the school.
If you throw the cabacera, you must dance with the woman who catches it.
Or it is you who will be thought of as a water heater - full of cold water.

Sunday, September 2, 2007 - Labor Day Weekend
From Seattle, Washington

MAN IN MOTION

Please Note: During the month of September I’ll be shuttling around the country publicizing my new book of essays. The ostensible purpose of book tours is to increase book sales and give readers a chance to experience authors first hand. But I don’t go to be seen or sell books. I go to meet readers - to add some fleshy reality to those I address: “To Whom It May Concern.” If you are a “To Whom” and I’m in your town, come say hello.

At the end of the publicity tour I’ll return to Seattle for two days to change suitcases before leaving for Buenos Aires for three months of immersion in tango culture. A novel with a tango theme is already churning in my head.

I tell you about my travels so that you will know why the postings on this website for the next four months will be somewhat erratic and unpredictable.
Since a laptop and a cell phone are not part of my travel gear, and since I am not connected directly to the internet, it’s a piggly-wiggly deal to write and post. But, from time to time I will manage it.

Meanwhile, here’s a going-out-the-door essay:

WHAT I DO

In interviews in advance of the publication of a new book I’m often asked about being a writer - the how, what, and where of it. Usually I duck and weave because I would rather write than talk about writing. Still, in a way, I have elaborated my version of the writing life in a work of fiction - my novel, THIRD WISH - published in Europe. Since it may be a long time, if ever, before the novel appears in English, I’ll share what I’ve written.

In the last volume, two characters are talking about their craft - one, named Alice-Alice is an actress and the other, nicknamed “Dog” (his name is Daniels Doggett). As always in fiction, the ideas are those of the author.

____________________________

Alice-Alice said, “Dog, you’re avoiding what I do want to know. Come on, I talked about being an actress. Fair’s fair. Tell me about being a writer.”

(Silence.)

“Come on. Tell me anything. Please.”
He looked at her with resignation, as one might turn credentials over to an arresting authority when there was no choice - when refusal might have unwanted consequences.
“This will be an improvisation. Pretty random. I usually evade talking about writing. I don’t think of myself as a writer. Not in the same sense that you think of yourself as an actress. I didn’t prepare to be a writer the way you’ve trained to be an actress. I could never give a public lecture about writing.
“Words on paper are only the evidence of what I am and the life I’ve led. Like shavings on the floor of a workshop. The shadows of a man in motion. Or ashes from a campfire that burned brightly and well. Words are the by-product of the story factory in my head.
He thought for a moment, and continued.
“There’s a mirror out in one corner of my garden. One of those huge old hallway entrance mirrors - left over from remodeling my house. It’s angled so that it seems to be the entrance to somewhere else. It’s been out there so long that it is weather beaten and dirty, and the silver is coming off the back. It has cloudy vagueness about it. You cannot see yourself sharply in it. But I know how to walk through it - into the land of imagination.

“I replaced it in the house with a flexible Mylar fun-house mirror. One that can be bent and set in different shapes so that sometimes you look tall, sometimes wide, sometimes short, and sometimes deformed. I can walk through that mirror, too.

(Pause.)

“I’m my primary audience. I write for me. And most of what I put down on paper is a private performance - only because I don’t need anybody else to appreciate it, and don’t want to try to explain what’s going on. What I write can seem a little weird.”

“Like how weird? Give me some weirdness,” said Alice-Alice.

“Well, for example, when I was younger I used to write ransom notes from imaginary kidnappers of imaginary people - demanding outlandish things like a ton of chocolate bunnies. And I wrote notes to be given to tellers when I robbed a bank or a toy store. I still have some of the notes.

“And there’s an accumulation somewhere of secret formulas. They look good - just like serious equations - but they’re meaningless nonsense.”

“What else?”

“I’ve written notes, put them in bottles, and tossed them into the sea. And I can tell you the story of who found them and what happened next. Same thing with notes tied to balloons I’ve released. Or notes I’ve tied to trees or left on park benches and trains. I never know what really happens to the notes. But I can imagine. I can tell you the rest of the story.

“So,” said Alice-Alice, “That’s what the Dedication to your novel is about. It is a literary device. A note in a bottle thrown into the sea. You wrote it and imagined what would become of it. You had a story – you just hadn’t written it down. And then I showed up. The real deal walked out of your looking glass carrying your note. Surprise!”

“You could say that.”
“I did say it. It’s true, isn’t it? The last thing you expected was me.“
He hesitated.
“Maybe.”

“If you want to press the point, it’s more accurate to say that I was open to any possibility. I just hadn’t considered all the possibilities. The whole novel is about surprise. So - I got surprised. That’s the best part.

“Just because I don’t see something coming, doesn’t mean that what comes is unwelcome. It just takes a little time to adjust. Oddly enough, when you write fiction, it must be plausible and credible. Reality, on the other hand, often isn’t.”
“That’s a little vague. A little abstract, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I’m avoiding a straight answer. No, Alice-Alice, I wasn’t expecting you. Or anybody like you.” He reached over and caught her hand in his, bridging the distance between them in the tree boats. “But you . . . .”

(Silence.)

“Is that enough about being a writer?” Daniels asked.
“No, keep going. What else?”
“If you insist.”
“I insist.”

“I’ve written reams of nonsense verse. And nonsense recipes for nonsense dishes and meals. That’s why I like old Edward Lear so much - he could let his mind run free. He attached his destiny to whimsy and pulled his toy on a string behind him across the world. He allowed foolishness and delight free rein. But he always still had the rein of reality firmly in hand.

“Anything else?”

“Lists. I have lists of the contents of closets that don’t exist. And love letters between people who never met in person. And instructions for how to assemble devices that won’t work even if put together as described. And there’s more. This is the Loony Division of David Daniels Doggett, Inc. It’s one way I keep my restless mind from boiling over.

He fell silent and looked away.

“Don’t stop.”

“Well . . . part of the writing comes from reading. I read my way through the Encyclopedia Britannica when I was in high school - and also the yellow pages of the telephone book - a thesaurus or two, several rhyming dictionaries, and too many books of quotations to count.

“I once planned to read every English word in existence, and got up to “R” in the Complete Oxford English Dictionary. Someday I’ll finish that task, though there’s a supplement of new words from time to time and I’m losing ground. I used to write down all the words I liked for one reason or another, but I’ve stopped doing that. The list got too long. I liked too many words.

“Don’t think I’m obsessive compulsive. These habits come and go in a haphazard way. My head is like a construction site on wheels. I have a collection of titles for books I’ll never write. I don’t have to write them. I can imagine the whole book. It’s usually a book I wouldn’t want to read, anyhow.”

He laughed.

“Give me some examples,” she said.
“Tango Lessons for Satyrs.” “A Travel Guide For Imaginary States.” “Macaroni for Myrtle – the Opera.” A sequel to the Orient Express – “The Occidental Service Station.” “The Cow Did It.” “Words For What Cannot Be Said.” “What The Tree Thought.” “Great Zen After-Dinner Speeches.” Stuff like that.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’d at least pick up the book and look at it, wondering what-the-hell kind of mind was at work.”

(Pause.)

“Keep going,” she said.

“All of this – all of it – is just part of a passion for words and language and ideas. That’s the biggest part of being a writer - loving ideas - loving words – respecting imagination - loving stories.”

“Dog, everything you’ve told me so far is fascinating. But it’s safe. Let me ask you a serious question. One with danger in it. May I?”
“Well . . .”
“Trust me. I trusted you.”
“Ask me.”
“What do you risk, Dog? What’s at stake?”
“What do you mean?”

“When an actor or director steps into a play, the first question is, ‘What does the main character want?’ The second question is, ‘What will he or she risk to get that?’ And the next question is “What will be gained or lost by taking the risk?’ Those are life questions, as well. You’ve answered the first one. Answer the other two: what do you risk and what’s at stake?”

(Silence.)

“Madness. I risk madness. Going crazy. Most mornings I get up out of bed and step into a pit – a wild animal trap. The pit is me. And I spend the rest of the day trying to talk my way out of the hole on a ladder of words.

“Children are taught that ‘Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you.’ Not true. Words can destroy your mind or break your heart or take you on dangerous trips. Words and sentences and paragraphs can destroy you. Imagination can kill you. Or make you wish you were dead.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m driving a wagon pulled by six wild horses down a steep hill. Only luck prevents a disastrous spill at the bottom.

“There’s a card in front of my computer that says, ‘It’s fiction. Invent anything.’ If you give yourself that kind of permission to unlock your inhibitions and live on the other side of the mirror, it can be very hard to come back to the world of telephones and bills and real people and trees.

“The world I invent is usually more exciting, more interesting, and more rewarding than the so-called real world. What might happen - what could happen - is always more satisfying than what did or does happen. That’s Aristotle’s notion, actually. ‘A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility.’

“I can make things be by thinking them up. I can exist on that. There are many people in asylums who would understand and agree.”

(Pause.)

“I know,” said Alice-Alice. “I know what you mean. Being in the theater is like that. Sometimes I’m so far into a play . . . so far . . . I don’t want the curtain to ever come down. I want that life to continue. Sometimes I feel like staying in costume and character and spending the night in the Green Room ready to go right on when everybody else shows up for the next performance.”

“What’s real? That’s the Wonderland question,” said Daniels. “Or which reality do you prefer? We operate on memory and desire more than reality. What did you do yesterday? And the day before that? And the same day a week ago? Do you really remember? Or do you re-fabricate your life?

“Would you rather live in dreams or be awake? If you can’t keep the lines of the braid of your life straight, you can tie your mind in permanent knots. People will say you’re crazy and shun you. So that’s the answer to your question about ‘stakes’- sanity is at risk. Sanity is an improvisation.”

(Pause.)

“You’re pretty good at improvisation, Dog,” said Alice-Alice. “You know how to play.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way until you came along. But it’s true - I can make up a story from very little stimulation - something I see or hear or read or smell. It’s an ability like dreaming - no training, no planning, and not much control over what happens. Not a skill I’ve learned or practiced. My brain just does it. So I let it. There are many ways to tell the truth.

“My being an arborist balances the equation. The work is made of facts and hands-on tasks. A chain saw tearing through a limb is real. A ‘tree guy’ has to be sane and rational and competent. Or he falls and breaks his neck.”

(Pause.)

“The idea of multiple personalities doesn’t seem far-fetched to me. There’s the public ‘me’ and there’s all the other people in my head. I suppose the difference between being certifiably crazy and reasonably sane is the ability to keep the crowd in your mind from getting out of control. But if you can, you’re never alone - you always have lively company.”

(Pause.)

He stopped talking. Alice-Alice remained silent, her eyes closed. Leaves rustled in the light breeze. Two blue jays shrieked at each other somewhere in the branches of the tree above them. A ferry blew three blasts on its horn as it departed the dock on the waterfront far below. Waves rose out on the bay, moved on, and disappeared.

Daniels sat up. “Alice-Alice, you must think I am mad.”

She sat up, put one hand on his knee and the other on her head. “Me? An actress? Me? The woman who walked into your novel? Dog, there are enough personalities in my head to fill a stadium. Nobody is one person. Everybody is a group. And everybody is a character in somebody else’s play.

“You’re not normal, Dog – that’s true. But normal is for sissies.”

“The only difference between us is that you put some of your people on paper and I play some of mine onstage. Success is keeping your people working, not milling around. You need the Imagination Police in your mind for crowd control.

“The dumbest advice anybody ever gets is to ‘Just be yourself.’ In the first place, you can’t ever be anything else. You can’t be anybody else but you. The only question is ‘Which self shall I be at this moment?’

____________________

So now you know more about what goes on my head; why it’s easier to talk about in fiction; and why I give short, ambiguous answers when journalists ask me what it’s like to be a writer.

Written Wednesday, August 22, 2007
From Seattle, Washington

THE TANGO CHRONICLES - Four

“So, what’s new with Tango - you haven’t said much lately. Given up?”

Question from a friend. Not an unreasonable inquiry. But my silence is that of one who has made it across the shaky Bridge of Beginning to the solid ground of confidence where continuing on is possible. I have moved from “Can I do it? to “This can be done.”

“Less talk - more Tango.” is my motto. Shut up and dance.

I’m encouraged by an article my Tango teacher gave me. It’s about the axiom of “Use It or Lose It” in reference to an aging mind. In studies of mental and physical activities that reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, the most successful was social dancing. Learning a new dance and dancing four times a week reduced the risk of mental atrophy by 76%. And Tango was judged the most challenging.

Why? Dancing simultaneously engages the mind, the body, and the musical and emotional processes. Making split-second decisions using all your faculties seems to be the key. It doesn’t hurt that you’re doing it while all dressed up, out in the world, surrounded by people, having a good time.

When people say, “Tango? At your age? Have lost your mind?”
I can answer, “No, and I don’t intend to.”

Often I ask others, “Do you dance?”
It saddens me when they reply they cannot.
“Why?”
“I look like an idiot on a dance floor.” or “I’m just not a dancer.”

My neighbor is one of these. He does not dance.
He is 30 years old, in great shape, 6 feet 4 inches, 220 lbs., an ex football star and two-time state heavyweight wrestling champion. A law degree, and an MBA from Stanford. Nimble in body and mind.
He watches me go out at night. He knows where I’m going. But he ignores me. His wife would like it if he would take her out dancing. But he’s not going. He says he cannot dance. He would be embarrassed to try.

I said to him, “Let me get this straight. You mean you used to dress up in a set of tights I wouldn’t wear to a Gay Pride parade, and get out in the middle of a gym on the floor with another guy - one you don’t even know - and get all wrapped up and sweaty with him in an intense embrace, while a couple of thousand people screamed at you, but it would embarrass you to put on a suit and tie and take your wife to a nightclub, hold her close, and move around in the dark to music? ARE YOU CRAZY?”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. He knows I have him in a mental hold and could take him down two falls out of three with this line of thinking. He’s avoiding me now. And his wife is driving him crazy for being a chicken.
My neighbor thinks that dancing is a natural gift - something you’re either born with or not. And he’s not.

Once-upon-a-time I taught drawing and painting in a high school. My favorite class was called “Art For Turkeys” because it was for those students who thought they had no artistic talent, could not draw, but wished they could. I promised I could teach them to draw - i.e. be able to report with a line on paper an image of what they perceived.

In truth, I did not teach them to draw. I taught them to see.
Once they gave up their mental preconceptions of what the world looked like and saw the world as it is, they could draw. Learning to See takes time and effort, to be sure. But it can be done. All of the students could draw.

And once they gave up their image of themselves as those who had no art in them they began to see their lives as their art. Dancing is like this. It means giving up an untruth about yourself. To see yourself in a new light.

If I had my life to life over, I would teach dancing. Or better said, I would teach people to see themselves as dancers - to recognize and employ the dance within them - in tune with the beat of their hearts, the pulse of their blood, the music in their minds. Human beings are hard-wired to dance.

It’s a natural thing to do. More natural than golf or tennis or any sport. We are programmed to do it - all it takes is lessons and practice - like yoga or Tai-Chi or meditation - just faster.

The secret to learning these things later in life is “Beginner’s Mind.”
An attitude that says “I don’t know - yet - but I can still learn.”

So the correct question is not, “Can you dance?”
The question is, “Can you still learn?”
If you can - take dance lessons.
And if you can’t, then you’re probably going out of your mind.
Sooner rather than later.

Written Wednesday, August 15, 2007
From Seattle, Washington

THE IDES OF AUGUST

The teeter-totter of time suddenly shifts and my end of the board tips and picks up downward speed as if someone else unexpectedly abandoned the other end. Here comes September, with a new and urgent “things-to-do-list.”

The list of all the things I was going to accomplish this summer was at least cut in half - about par for the course. Items such as “repair the garage” is not marked off. But then I knew I wouldn’t get it done when I put it on the list. Good intentions count. But not much. When it finally gets to “tear down the garage” something may happen. Though “burn down the garage” might be more realistic. That would be fun. I like being around firemen.

Merchants are the early warning sign that summer is over. Somewhere an Alpha Store puts up the sign, “Back to School Sale” - triggering ads all over town. Momentarily I felt a need to get new school clothes and supplies. The announcement seems to cathect the feeling that the days are getting shorter.

The summer camps held in the schoolyard across the street have ended. The momentary peace and quiet is broken by the sound of maintenance crews tidying the grounds with mowers and blowers in preparation for the start of school only two weeks away. A few cars appear in the parking lot - those of administrators reopening the mines of learning.

This morning I headed the last daisies, which will not flower again until next spring. The purple lavender is fading into a dried grey. The roses are struggling before giving up. The grass is brown. And even the weeds have topped out, spread their seeds, and shut down.

The resident crows abandoned my yard. Two fledglings were briefly on the ground, with one parent standing guard beside the cawing juveniles and the other parent flying air cover. When I approached in their direction, their aggressive intent was unambiguous. I retreated to the safety of the porch to watch. The flying parent dived at me even there. Message received: Don’t mess with the babies.

The next afternoon the construction crew was back, working right under the big pine tree with their dragon-like street-eating machine, removing damaged sections of the roadway and patching pot holes. Between me and the machines, the crows must have had enough. The nest fell silent. The fruit I left on the outdoor table wasn’t touched. And the crows have not returned.
So ends my brief bird watching career.

On my porch this morning was a paper bag full of yellow squash and green zucchini from the usual overabundant crop in the neighborhood P patch. A sure sign of summer’s end. I suspect several of the local ladies, but I’ve never caught one abandoning bounty at my door. Ninja farmers.

People talk about the weather a lot in summer - because they are out in it. As with most summers it was hotter and dryer than usual in one place and colder and wetter than usual in others. Experts say that either the ice will melt and the seas will rise, or else the ice will increase and the glaciers will return. If the latter proves true, my garage problem will be solved once and for all.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac notes on this date: “Footsteps on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.” Maybe I could at least get up off my butt, set nostalgia aside for a day, and clean out the garage.

On the other hand, what’s wrong with butt marks on the sands of time?