Written on Sunday afternoon, June 21, 2009, in Seattle, Washington

SUMMER SOLSTICE

The news from the U.S. Open Golf Championship is that Tiger Woods is struggling with his putting. He’s having difficulty with the greens. While not a golfer, I can relate.

It’s a struggle to sit indoors in front of a computer screen and write when it’s summer in Seattle. Writer’s block? No. Writer’s restlessness? Yes. And I, too, have a problem with my putting. Out-put erratic. In-put required. And I’m having difficulty with the green - in that I’m not outside in it. Like the earth, I tilt toward the sun, which does not shine inside. Fresh experiences in the world is required - outside - out and about and around.

So, then.
On the door of this website I’ll hang a sign that simply says,
“OUT WORKING ON PUTTING.”
And take it down in September.
May the summer go well for you.
Stay amazed, stay amused.

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. 

Written on Sunday afternoon, May 31, in Seattle, Washington

HELLO?

Ring, ring, ring . . . .
Calling my friend, Gerard. Going to dinner at his house.
“Yes?”
Soft voice of older woman. Maybe another dinner guest?
“Hey, it’s Fulghum. I’m bringing cigars and wine - anything else?”
“That’s nice, but Gerard is not here . . .”
“Who is this? Where’s Gerard?”
“It’s not Gerard - he’s not here - you have the wrong number.”
“What number is this?”
She laughs. “It’s not Gerard’s number. Gerard is not here.”
She hangs up.

Now the loony lobe of my brain takes over - that place in my head where, if examined by experts, would result in a diagnosis of ASS - Accumulated Stupidity Syndrome. Miss-dialing is one of its specialties.

So.
I call the same number again.
Why?
Because there surely must be a glitch at the phone company or somebody at Gerard’s house is pulling my leg or maybe it’s Gerard himself disguising his voice. It cannot be that my wiring is crossed again and I’ve simply dialed the wrong number. No way. Not a possibility.

Ring, ring, ring . . . .
“Yes?”
Same woman’s voice.
“Gerard?”
“No, Gerard is still not here.”
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
“I’m not Gerard. You’ve dialed the wrong number again.”
“Is this 999-9999?”
“Yes, but it’s not Gerard’s number.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure. You’ve miss-dialed.”
“Who are you?”
She laughs. “Not Gerard - that’s all you need to know.”
She hangs up.

(Now, just in case you are also afflicted with ASS -The number 999-999 is not a real number, only a literary device used here to protect the lady and Gerard. But go ahead, join the nut squad - try it. I did.)

And so.
I dial the number again.
Ring, ring, ring.
“Yes?”
Same woman’s voice.
“Look, I really hate to bother you, but I’m sure this is Gerard’s number.”
The woman begins to laugh.
“Listen,” she says, “Do you have Gerard’s number written down somewhere?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Look it up and read it to me.”
“OK . . . It’s 999-9998 . . .Oh . . . well then . . . sorry.”
“No problem,” she says, “I wrote it down, and here’s what I’ll do: If you’ll promise not to call me again - I’ll call Gerard and have him call you, OK?”
“Works for me.”
“By the way,” she asks, “Does Gerard know your number?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. By the way, did you say your name was Fulghum?”
“Yes.”
“Are you Robert Fulghum, the author?”
(long pause)
“No. He doesn’t live here anymore.”
She laughs and hangs up.

Ring. Ring. Ring.
It’s my phone.
“Hello, this is Robert Fulghum.”
“I thought so.”
Nice lady’s soft voice again. She laughs. Hangs up.
(Duh. She has caller I.D.)

Maybe I’ll call her again sometime.
When another part of my brain is working.
Even better, I’ll have Gerard call her.
I know her number.

Written on Sunday afternoon, May 31, in Seattle, Washington,

LOOK
(Street-corner thoughts, after a rainstorm . . . while standing with several other adults waiting a red light to change to green.)

This
Is not
A poem.
It is only a way
Of using words
In slow motion
To show you something.

One day
last week
After noon
After rain
A train of small children
Each holding to a loop
Of group rope
Passed by.
Teacher in the lead.
Another as caboose.
All still in raingear.

A boy let go
The rope
Stepped aside.
Stopped.
Shouted,
“Look, look, look -
A Rainbow!”
We all looked up.

The sky
had cleared.
Rainbow?
Where?

Then
We all looked
At the boy
Who was looking
Down,
Pointing at a puddle
In the grimy street
On which floated
A rainbow
In an oily film.

The teacher looked
At the boy.
The boy looked
At the teacher.
(The rules
Are clear:
Do not let go
Of the rope.
Stay with
The group.)

Come back,
Said the teacher
To the group,
Take a look.
Billy has found
A rainbow
In the street.
The children came.
The children looked.
Yes!

The teacher
smiled.
Gently took the boy
By the hand
And placed it
back in his loop
On the rope.
She knelt by him,
Hugged him
And said,
“Thank you. Billy
For seeing the rainbow.”

Come, along,
She said to the children,
And they did that,
Leaving me behind
On the corner
Looking down
Thinking about
Where
Rainbows are
Found
And how many
I must have overlooked.
And how Billy
Will feel
About rainbows
Always.

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?

Written on Friday, February 13, 2009
Seattle, Washington - clear, cold, and still at daybreak

UPDATE:
Despite bad dreams that the ship carrying the books would sink somewhere into the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean on the way, the first batch of my novel, Third Wish, arrived safely and was shipped by Amazon last week. Take a look at their website regarding the novel - it’s quite impressive.
And now the adventure goes on. The first new inquiries about international publication are coming in. The Greek publisher, Livani, made an offer yesterday. Moreover, the work on my next novel is also up on the rails and running, with a collaborator, consultant, illustrator, and, of course, the Czech publisher, Argo, all on board.

The title of the new novel is “If You Love Me Still, Will You Love Me Moving?” Subtitle: “Tales from the Century Ballroom.” Since this is Valentine’s day weekend, in the spirit of love, here’s an excerpt from the opening chapter:

“For the first time they walked out onto a dance floor together.
He held her in close embrace just before the music began.
She turned her face to look into his eyes.
He was afraid - she could see it.
“Breathe,” she whispered.
Slowly, quietly, he inhaled.
He released his breath - his nose and mouth almost touching hers.
Slowly, quietly, she inhaled.
“Again,” she whispered.
He inhaled - the breath that was once hers passed back into him.
In rhythmic time now, they breathed the life of one another.
In. . . . out. . . in . . . out. . . . back and forth . . . .
Now they were holding each other’s breath.
Now the music began.
“Shall we dance?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
And, for the first time, they did that.
She smiled, tears in her eyes. Finally she had the answer to her question:
‘If you love me still, will you love me moving?’
Yes.”

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.

*

From Ubud, Penestanan Bali - cloudy, warm, humid on Monday, the 5th of January 2009

LARRY, MOE, AND CURLY

Just returned from a morning walk out into the rice fields, where once again I have met the man I’ve come to think of as Larry-Moe-And-Curly. A Balinese gentleman of middle age and middle size who lives in a middling house in the middle of his rice paddies. He often wears a white T-shirt with the names of the Three Stooges printed on it. He does not know what the names refer to. His wife gave him the shirt. She does not know either. So neither of them know the reason for my broad smile when I greet them. It’s hard to be somber with this reminder of goofy madness as a dimension of morning conversation.

Larry-Moe-And-Curly is not an unsophisticated uncivilized man - he wears a wristwatch, has a cell phone, a motor bike, and tractor, and electricity comes to his house. He speaks minimal English and knows all about Obama. But he has not lost touch with his roots. Daily he tends the altar of his ancestors, and, taking off his sandals, walks barefooted out into his land because he likes to feel the earth with his feet.

Larry-Moe-And-Curly is out early every morning taking his rooster for a walk. Like many Balinese men he keeps a fighting cock for a pet. Since cock-fighting is illegal, the roosters are kept by Balinese men for the same reasons an American man might have a bulldog or a fox terrier. Larry-Moe-And-Curly keeps his bird in a domed bamboo cage with a handle on the top. He does not walk out with the bird on a leash, but carries the cage to the edge of the forest or near a stream of water or on the bank of a paddy where ducks are at working chasing bugs and eels. He says these excursions keep his rooster happy. No, it is not a fighting rooster - he doesn’t like violence - and he doesn’t want his rooster to get hurt. He takes the rooster out, cradles it in his hands, and speaks to it like a mother hen calming chicks. In truth, in comparison with many of the magnificent cocks I have seen in Bali, the rooster of Larry-Moe-And-Curly is rather small and ordinary. To me, just a chicken. But to him, a living thing with a spirit within - and a mutually satisfying relationship. The chicken seems content. Larry-Moe-And-Curly seems content. The infinite green fields of Bali seem content. And even I, usually restless at sunrise, am also content.

That’s the New Year’s News from Bali.
For me, a loss of clarity about what day and what time it is.
A lassitude of calmly calmness, sitting quietly in silence in a rice field at dawn with Larry-And-Moe-And-Curly and his chicken.
A satisfying beginning to the year that already moves along too quickly.

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 se