Ring the Bells

I wanted to say something about light. Fractured light, noticeable for being splintered. That's often how my mind works, get an image, find something to say about it. I looked for cool quotes, and found Leonard Cohen saying, "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in." End of search.

The next morning, I had a picture I took of church bells, one I took while running. I start combing through quotes about bells and find, "Ring the bells that still can ring. / Forget your perfect offering." Also Cohen. Wow, that's cool. Then I see the piece above, and they were backwards halves, the two quotes, of the same verse.

I searched for two thoughts, separate from each other, one about light, one about bells, not looking for them to be connected at all, one at night, and then the next morning, and I might as well be talking to Leonard Cohen.

And I like where Leonard is going. We're flawed. Everything is broken. And therein lies it's beauty. That's what lets us/life shine, our wonderful brokenness. And you know what? Fu** it, ring the bells that still can ring. Don't sit around pining over what used to seem perfect, or waiting for everything to be just right. Carpe the diem, not some unpromised diem down the road.

Leonard's words have been ringing in my head since. And if you don't know his voice, it's not easily duplicated or forgotten. It stays there for a while. But don't take my word for it.

Fractures and fragments send my mind to puzzle pieces. Glimpses, not the full view. If I stick with the night sky that has caught my eyes of late, something like the sky being cracked and letting the stars light through, but not all at once.

Something like vignettes. Last night, walking up Bonfield Avenue, a fox bolted by, sprinting under the street lights and turning down a side street. Last night and the night before, the low-lying yards along the road were under water.

There are singular moments, that feel like more. That feel connected, but I don't have the balcony seats that give me that overarching perspective. I can't tell, can't see that things are connected, but I can feel it.

What to do with a limited view or perspective? Listen to Leonard. Ring the bells.

In the Field

My mind works better when my legs are moving. Thoughts are terrain, felt and experienced. There are things to be learned in the field that can't be learned seated in the classroom, or behind a desk.

My reading of late has been sucked up by Kenn Kaufman's "Kingbird Highway." It's a bit like "On the Road," if Kerouac was a birder. Kaufman dropped out of high school at age 16 and spent a year hitchhiking and getting himself around the country to see as many birds as he could. It's a look into the obsessed birding culture, as it was taking shape in the 1970s. He is now known as one of North America's top birders. I'm not a birder, but I've been a bit taken by certain members of the feathered fliers in recent months. Kaufman's book chronicles his search for himself and how he found his place on the road; in the field.

I dig the notion of field guides. Where those who have taken their search out into the world, share what they have found. Some field books describe geography, or species, some describe the writer's inner landscape as influenced by its surroundings. For some reason in the spring, I seem to reach for Seamus Heaney's "Field Work" and Robert Hass's "Field Guide." Their words, their experiences don't give answers, they make me want to get off the couch and go find things out for myself.

Words come up necessarily short. Hass gets it. Sitting in the woods, checking out birds and flowers, he wants to get them down, capture them:

                                    But I had the odd
feeling, walking to the house
to write this down, that I had left
the birds and the flowers in the field,
rooted or feeding. They are not in my
head, are not now on this page.

Warm sun on still snow-filled, frozen yard, we were building snowmen, throwing snowballs, exploring, laughing. In the trees all around us, in a moment of recognition were Eastern Bluebirds. They were close, they were playing, they were darting between pine trees. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; it was a totally new and novel experience. But I can't recreate it here. I can't conjure it or make it real for anyone who hasn't experienced the same thing, in the field. And I couldn't have known it from a book, no matter how well written. Though I guess I can recall it, if prompted by someone else's experience.

Science and spirituality have the same shortcomings, when left to be found and learned in books. I can know that the Earth goes around the sun and the sun rises in the east, but that takes on a much more profound reality when running my first ultramarathon on a 15 degree February morning, when the warmth of the sun hits a group of us runners, headlamps are switched off, and the heart and body are warmed and lighter. And whether sitting in a church or walking through the woods, faith or a glimpse or intuition of something bigger than yourself, something not quite explainable enters the soul of its own accord, not through words alone.

Clearly I have some spring restlessness going on. The need to get out and explore. But one of the things I am digging the most these days, are how many new experiences, in the field, are right under my nose; in my yard; nearby. Birds I've never paid attention to. Remembering the shakiness of being on ice skates. Running with good friends. Neither Thoreau nor Annie Dillard had to go far afield to find themselves, nature, the Universe. They just had to look for themselves.

Learning Ava Lessons

I'm not sure younger daughter Ava hears the drums that other spirited kids march to. They might distract her from coloring or building Legos. As she turns 10 (Feb. 12), I'm still not sure I have her figured out. Which is one of the things I love most about her.

We do birthdays quickly, like pulling off a Band-Aid. Ava's older sister Anna turned 13 on Jan. 31. Less than two weeks later and both girls are in double digits. The winter months are ripe with the passage of time.

Ava projectile vomited for the first year of her life. Damn acid reflux. She was queen of the wardrobe change and I was pretty well shirtless during my shifts at night when she was a newborn. She would only sleep soundly on your chest and shoulder, no crib or bassinet. I watched marathon's of MTV's "Viva La Bam," "Office Space," "Swingers," "First Blood," "Road House," or anything else on late night.

Ava's sister Anna is me through and through. She thinks like I do, asks questions I asked, cops the same attitude. I understand her, maybe too well. I've never had that with Ava, which means I have to pay closer attention; try to figure her out. I'm grateful for how different that has made our relationship; for how different she and her sister can be.

A couple years ago Ava wanted to sign up for gymnastics so she could learn to do the perfect cartwheel. She did. She has a mind that is all focus when she wants it to be, something I have never had. She is dingy, air-headed, but easily makes honor roll. What she lacks in common sense, she easily makes up for with determination, action, and compassion. She is quick to know if I am feeling down and how to lift my spirits.

Ava is the self-starter that neither her sister or I am. She can move on a whim. She is not, however, a morning person, like Anna and I are. Ava's differences teach me when I listen. And I try to listen.

For years now, Ava has done something which seems rare with kids now: she entertains herself. She comes up with things to do. She will read before bed or when the mood strikes her. Dolls, Legos, bocce, hikes, almost anything is an option.

Especially in the past year, Ava and I have connected because we are different. I don't know that I would have seen that coming or that I can put it into words. There's something about Ava that maybe I realized I don't need to understand to enjoy. What can be frustration at first, can quickly turn into laughter when blue eyes meet and smiles crack.

One of my favorite Ava lessons is that there doesn't need to be any wasted moments, any lost time. I always carry a pocket notebook and pen to write with. Ava goes further. In her school backpack, she carries an extra coloring book and 96-pack of Crayola crayons. Not 16. Not 64. The Ole 96'er. She colors at home; she colors in the car; this past Saturday, she had me pack a large coloring tablet and markers when we went to watch her cousins play indoor soccer. She colored in the bleachers.

At home on the couch, making a book about Halloween that she would bind with a cover

The Ole 96'er, because sometimes six shades of yellow aren't enough.

You can only watch so much soccer in a morning.

Last March I tried to remind myself not to waste another single day. Carpe the fu**ing diem. Make every day count. Wake up. Live. Love. Play. Work. Ava is my living, blood, daily reminder of that. Pack 96 crayons if that's what you need. Draw, or color, or write, or run, or watch the snow fall out the back door or walk back roads and see a tree full of cardinals, a phenomenon you've never seen in 42 years.

I frequently carry a backpack or messenger bag with me. Notebooks and books or graphic novels, Ava's coloring book and travel markers. Be prepared. Don't miss out. I'm learning my Ava lessons.

Happy 10th birthday to the one who shows me the world differently and reminds me to pay attention.

Carryovers: Ten Things from 2014 to Build on for 2015

Yeah, I know, this list is sssooooo 2014. But it's a top 10 list, a retrospective, so that's cool, right? What I'm thinking about here are the things I enjoyed the most in 2014, and how they can help look forward to 2015. It's not definitive, but it's fun to remember sometimes. So in no particular order:

1. Music - When I look at the music I listened to in 2014, I am looking at what is different than other years. An artist that came onto the radar screen, or back on, who wasn't there as much in years past. There are two that standout: D'Angelo and Stevie Wonder. This has been a year where I have been in the habit of putting music on and just leaving it on, bollocks to the TV. D'Angelo's "Voodoo" and newly released "Black Messiah," I can just put on and let roll. And Stevie. Well shit. I don't even know where to begin. "Songs in the Key of Life" is like an emotional autobiography that can just float me around the house. And "The Definitive Collection" is a greatest hits where you know every song, you can nod your head doing dishes at the kitchen sink, or slow it down and just, well, wonder. I know, sorry :)

2. Bocce - I think I have been threatening to play bocce on a regular basis since I worked at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and we were kicking around the idea of playing at lunch. Moving to a new house at the end of the summer, one with an expansive outdoors, pushed the envelope, and younger daughter Ava has picked up on it. We prefer bocce through the woods. Other friends have picked it up as well, and it is a great way to walk around outside, catch up, drink beer, and just imbibe life while pretending to work on your eye-hand coordination.

3. Stand-Up Paddleboarding - I had been digging the occasional SUP adventure in previous years. And older daughter Anna has keyed in on the same thing. 2014 was the year I pulled the trigger and bought a used board and paddle from a friend who is a front of the pack SUP'er always upgrading. Paddleboarding, as much as, or maybe more than other things this past year has created a number of adventures, both with the girls, who have both picked it up, or with friends--from a 9-mile Father's Day paddle, to around the cove shenanigans, to epic and windy Deepwater Point and Trippe Creek throwdowns. I hope to make 2015 even more a year of the SUP.

4. Reading/books - In terms of number of books read, 2014 was a non-starter. But it was big for reading, especially in terms of re-reading. I've talked about Robert Hass on here, ad infinitum, but even reading a book like "Sun Under Wood," for the umpteenth time, I am struck by how books change with your life experience. Until you have gone through something, you don't get what the writer is really saying. In 2014, I discovered Kenneth Rexroth, who is huge for me. I also made it a point to cross a book off my to-read list that I have wanted to read for years, in Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian." I would like to hope that 2015 is the year I will finally cross "Ulysses" off that list, but right now I am caught up in non-fiction and in Borges.

5. Tribe/Carpe Diem/Stupidity/Adventures - In life, you have your family and you have your tribe. Sometimes those two overlap. Your tribe are those folks that get you, who are like you in some ways, who resonate. I've said it before, but I am fortunate to have a tribe who will read Blood Meridian, drink beer together, and sign on and show up for endurance adventures in stupidity. I have maintained that one of the reasons I want to keep in decent shape is because I don't want to miss out on any adventure that sounds fun. I love that I have fallen in with a bunch of 40-somethings, or soon to be 40-somethings, who refuse to grow up; who are moved to move, to get outside; and who want to carpe every single diem.

6. Trust the Universe and Louis Goldstein - I have definitely had some fog or haze over my eyes at various points in 2014. I've lost my way, been manic, and tried to claw my way back to where I thought I was supposed to go. I think it took me until the fall to step back and trust the Universe a bit more. But this isn't a passive trust I am talking about. When I graduated from Washington College, the longtime Maryland Comptroller Louis Goldstein was one of the speakers. His words of wisdom to the graduates was his mantra, his guiding philosophy in life: "If it's to be, it's up to me." I think that is an equal part in trusting the Universe. Trust, yes, don't feel like you need every answer or a road map ahead of time, but if you want something, and you want to make something happen, then it is up to you. If you are more religious, it's the same thing as saying "God helps those who help themselves." Trust the Universe, And get off your ass.

7. (Cold) Beverages - 2014 has definitely been the year of Dale's Pale Ale for me. I've enjoyed it before, but it became a staple like bread, eggs, bacon. My refrigerator is rarely without some waiting to be imbibed. 2014 was also the year of Irish Whiskey, whether Jameson's or Bushmills. And that has been a taste I didn't know I had acquired, generally preferring bourbon for my sipping.

8. Graphic Novels - This has been the year that pictures and art commingled themselves again with the words I am always searching and searching for. From Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker with Iron Fist, Hawkeye, or Captain America, or Neil Gaiman with The Sandman, or Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis with Daredevil, storytelling for me regained some of its vital visual nature, which informs how I think about writing and telling stories. Even Ava and Anna have taken to graphic novels, Ava more so.

9. Outings/Adventures - I have always been one for outings. If the girls and I are sitting around bored, and the weather is decent, we have always had the mindset to jump in the truck and go explore. That became even more important in 2014. The girls are interacting with the world differently month by month; the language they use to understand things; their quirky senses of humor; their curiosity; their experiences, both shared and unique. I hope our outings and adventures continue to be a big part of how they engage the world.

10. Slowing down - I've been a runner on and off since I was 15. Since 2005, I've been running marathons, trail races, ultra marathons, what have you. A funny thing happened this year. I started hiking, whether in group adventures like our Mason Dixon expeditions, or hiking in the Virginia mountains, or making time to wander the maritime museum where I used to work, or a couple recent strolls around Oxford. Not being in a hurry. Allowing the sites to sink in. Sharing stories, imbibing the history behind buildings, rocks, parks, benches, an unmapped stop in a tavern. There is something to catching your breath, only to have it taken away by something you didn't expect and wouldn't have caught if you were in too big of a hurry.

That's my top ten list from 2014, ten things that helped define some of the good parts of the year. And ten things I hope to build on as we begin 2015.

Home is where the blank is

In March we were walking through Monticello. The docent was walloping us with stories and facts, how long it took to build; how Jefferson entertained guests; all that he put into making the perfect home for himself. We're going to gloss over the slave labor, etc., that was required to build and maintain Monticello, because that's not what this post is about. It's about what "home" means to people. Because that's where my mind went. What do we want/need out of our home? What do I want out of a home. And I guess I've come up with some ideas, some things that I need for a house, condo, apartment, estate, to be a home. After all, home is where the [blank] is.

Home as sanctuary. This is big for me. Like maybe number one. When I have had a shitty day; when the world weighs on my shoulders; when I am beat down from a beach traffic-laden commute, when I walk in my house, I want it to damn near forcibly pull the stress off my shoulders and give it a beat down to not let it inside. When it rains or snows, or blows, or is ice in the beard cold, I want to be able to exhale peace and comfort inside. If I want to be a hermit, which sometimes I do, I want to unfold myself into my home.

Home as launching pad. This is about inspiration and adventure. I am admittedly a homebody. But I've also been born with a bit of wanderlust, and even more so the concept of carpe'ing the diem. I want to paddleboard on a Sunday afternoon. I want to go hunting for snails/periwinkles with the girls. I want to go look for Mason Dixon markers. I want to wake up in the morning, pick up a book and be transported and inspired to write, to think, to explore somewhere I haven't been. I want my home to help add to that sense.

And here is the thing about home as a launching pad. For it to be one, home can't be a burden unto itself. It can't require me to spend all weekend as a slave to the yard, the house, the laundry. Because ultimately, and time and time again, I have found through experience, that all that stuff is still there waiting for you when you get back. But a spontaneous adventure, just as it happens, may only exist at that particular time.

Home as connection. This works on a lot of levels. Ideally, home should connect you to the place you live. The Eastern Shore, or Easton, or Oxford, or wherever. It should connect you to your family, your friends, your history. And this can be done even in a one room apartment.

Growing up, the above bookcase was full of Betamax tapes. It had my Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Future Primitive skateboarding tape, you name it. If memory serves it belonged to my great grandmother. I have always dug it, and it has come with me many places. It reminds me of family. It reminds me of the places I've lived. It reminds me of the various things that have lived in it. It's the bookcase, in this case, that helps make the home, both for the memories it brings back, but also for one of the most essential things for me to have in any home: books.

Home as fun. There are times when I sit around and reminisce on the great times, the parties, the cookouts, the impromptu back yard happy hours. Home should be the setting for some of your most fun times. The kind that make you smile just sitting and looking around and wondering what the walls' perspective would be, were they able to tell stories. Maybe home as playground would be included within the fun bucket.

Home as self. Or more like an extension of self. And this ties to some of the above, but it can mean a lot of different things. To some people, it is hard wood floors or tile kitchens; to some it is the paint scheme, the furniture or the landscaping; to some it is the garage or the main cave. A friend who knew Joe Namath's daughter said Broadway Joe had a massive bathroom, from where he conducted most of his business. To each their own. If you rent a place, or can't afford a home that is how you see yourself, or would want to see yourself, there are still ways to make it feel like you. For me, again, books. Maybe beer and backpacks hanging waiting to go on a trip. Running shoes asking to be taken out for a run.

Home as love/Home as feeling. Or its ability to evoke a feeling, from you. When you pull up on the street, or in the driveway, the hope is that your home makes you feel good. So many things contribute to that: pets, kids, memories, all of the things mentioned above. For some, that means a simple house that is easy to maintain. For others, a palatial estate where they can go Gatsby in their parties and entertaining. For some a log cabin, for others a cottage. For some, a place to hang a coat and suitcase and get mail between travels.

That's the thing. Home is a loaded four-letter word. It means different things to different people. It's a fill in the blank exercise. Home is where the [blank] is.

The Gaslight Anthem: Clothing or Baring the Soul

Sometimes, fu** the good old days. Looking backwards makes it tough to walk forward. And I am one to tell stories, the good stories of where we've been, as much as any other. But you can't live there. And trying to negates where you are, where you are going. Which might be nowhere.

The Gaslight Anthem is the band I can't stop listening to at present. They are not new, but they are becoming my soundtrack for the spring and summer. I play them on the back deck with a beer, cooking or doing dishes in the kitchen. Or as a shuffled playlist on a run. And this is a line that stuck in my head as my Saucony's pounded the pavement:

And God help the man who says, "if you'd have known me when..."
Old haunts are for forgotten ghosts

And that sets me off. I never want to get to the point in my life where all I have are stories, where the past was more than the present. Where I was more interesting, funnier, faster, and can't find something to be, something offer, something to become, something to be, now. I don't want life to be a series of photo albums, scrap books, articles, memories. Not just those things. Even into old age, if I get there, I want to be a grandfather, or just an old druid/dude, who people want to hear what I have to say; be at ball games and drinking coffee with the sunrise; still writing as relevantly as W.S. Merwin; still going for bike rides or hikes; still going to concerts; still trying to do something in the garden; still sipping a Dale's Pale Ale in the evening; embracing the differences that life gives you over time.

Obviously we don't control everything, how we age, what happens to us (we have some control there), and I am not sure I am aging, or will age gracefully, I fight that clock as best I can, just by having fun and trying to enjoy what is in front of me. I hope I can continue doing that.

Change, like shit, happens. And that isn't always a bad thing. I think we all know people, we all have friends we love, who are still the exact same person they were 20 years ago. And as much fun as I had 20 years ago, it seems like being in that same place would get old. So here is the next Gaslight thought that hit me during the same run:

But the clothes I wore just don't fit my soul anymore.
No the clothes I wore just don't fit my soul anymore.

Different song. But the thread continued in my head. The soul grows, changes, doesn't fit into the same ways or clothes it did. That's not to say your soul is getting fat. Though a fat soul sounds jolly in its own right. But I don't think that's what is going on there. I think in how I see the soul evolving, it becomes more clear and more stated as you get to know it. It starts to bare itself. Maybe the soul doesn't need the clothes you used to put on it to conceal it, to keep it covered.

Maybe the soul needs to be naked. Maybe life is a striptease for the soul, until we get to that point in the dance where we are comfortable enough to bare our souls. And once we do that, who wants to put soul clothes back on?

So here's to looking forward. To not saying, if you'd have known me when. Of being worth knowing now. Carpe the diem. And here is to bare, naked souls. Leave your soul clothes at the door.

Two concerts

I was a born-again freshman sitting in the St. James dining hall when the hippie-chick librarian raised her hand. "I'm getting tickets to see Stevie Ray Vaughn in concert if anyone is interested in going." I knew who Stevie Ray was, but hadn't really listened to him. He didn't fit my lexicon of hardcore/punk-reggae-and-heavy metal that I had dialed in at the time.

It would be a few years later that I couldn't hear his songs enough. That "Pride and Joy" would be a shared song for Robin and I (by virtue of just digging it and dancing when Bad Influence or Tino Martinez would play it at Pope's Tavern in Oxford).

The librarian, who was also new at St. James that fall, went to see Stevie Ray. It's one of two concerts I wish I had a do-over, that something had spoken to me and said, fu%^ it, you aren't doing anything, do yourself a favor and go to that show. Now I'm not talking about a concert like saying you should have gone to see Bob Marley or Jimi Hendrix--your dream concert--rather a concert you had opportunity and offer to go see, but opted not to. Just because. And then you don't get another chance to.

Stevie Ray was dead before I really started rocking to him. It goes to the carpe the diem theory. Sometimes you've got to jump at the opportunity. Because you never know.

The second concert came probably seven years later. Sitting in a fraternity house at N.C. State. Kretzer and Murphy and a few friends were heading over to Chapel Hill to the Dean-Dome to see Blind Melon and Lenny Kravitz. Everybody knew Blind Melon's "No Rain" and Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way," but the show didn't seem that epic. There would be other chances.

And then there weren't. And it was only after the fact that I started burning up Blind Melon's first album and looking for more music from them. That I realized how cool it would have been to check them out that night. A night I did really nothing in particular.

I try to remind myself that I had opportunity and offer to see Stevie Ray and Blind Melon. And I didn't. I try to look at opportunities now and make sure I carpe the diem when opportunity and offer come together. Or I try to bring the two together.

What are your (two) concerts? Those things offered up that you wish you had jumped at. I'm not one to go back and rearrange shit--I think that your decisions and opportunities, etc. ultimately lead you to where you are and who you are? But man those would have been fun shows.