"Something about the duality of man, sir"

 
I'm a dog with my nose in the wind. And I sit with my back to the wind, watching water flow by, un-doglike. Seems I sometimes have a view that sees flip-sides of a coin.

I'm not much of a walker, but I am worse at sitting on my ass. With more than 13 weeks of no running now, walking at lunch offers at least some mobility. I can see why Frank O'Hara dug his lunch walks and writing. Stretch the legs and the mind, together.

Sitting on a bench along the Ft. McNair waterfront, the tide runs the way my legs want to. Jets land and take off from Reagan, a marvel of science every minute. This D.C. moves at a different pace. Clouds are the only traffic.

I walk back in front of the National War College, and it strikes me, having and watching kids, that they don't need to be taught to fight. Maybe taught how to win? Taught to resolve?

"I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir."

Private Joker (Matthew Modine) in Full Metal Jacket is one of the movie characters I have most strongly identified with. It comes down to his ability, his willingness, to be neck-deep in a situation and stand outside it, observing, at the same time. His "Born to Kill" helmet with the peace sign pin speaks before and after his suggest something about the duality of man, sir, line.

"Basic Military Journalism. You gotta be shittin' me, Joker. You think you're Mickey Spillane? You think you're some kind of a fuckin' writer?"

"I wrote for my high school newspaper, sir."

As sensible an answer as you could give. A killer and a writer. A neck-deep participant and an observer. I'm not sure whether I first saw Jacket in 1987 or 1988, but beyond being one of the most quotable movies of all time, that has always stuck with me.

And Private Joker's suggest something about the duality of man, sir, line and character is what pops into my head walking by the National War College, on a pristine summer day, with the rivers flowing and the breeze both in my face and at my back.

Fringes

William Carlos Williams was a doctor. Wallace Stevens sold insurance. Frank O'Hara worked at a museum. If that's all they did, we wouldn't know them--wouldn't remember.

We know them for their fringes. For what they did with the edges of their days--their mornings, commutes, lunch breaks, nights.

Ultimately, they weren't defined by their jobs.

I take cues from people like this in my life. From the naval architect who plays the mandolin. From the teacher and graphic designer who spend nights in their art studios. From the carpenter who still checks the Ocean City surf report and migrates to Costa Rica when he can. From the pediatrician who got me skateboarding again.

It's the fringes that are ours to claim. Those times outside the lines of our jobs.

What do you do when no one is telling you what to do?

Is that what we make of our lives? Is that how we'll be remembered?

If it is, I hope I paint my fringes aquamarine and wear them on my sleeve, or feet or hat. I hope I stretch them from night to morning and hang them on my office wall.

I hope I wrap our girls in fringes so that they will cultivate and decorate and color their own.

"You just go on your nerve."

Frank O'Hara is like laxative, creatively speaking. Not that he pulls crap out of you, but that he gets creativity rolling like bran muffins.

O'Hara held that to write, to live, "you just go on your nerve." He writes close to the bone, no unnecessary flourish or convention. This from the cat that wrote a book of poems all during his lunch breaks. His "Lunch Poems" has been one of the seminal inspirational find-you-when-you-need-it books for me.

Erik Mongrain performed at NightCat in Easton last week. His guitar is it for him. His life and dedication pour out from it. He looks at his instrument as holding more sounds and more possibilities than most would consider. He is not constrained by convention. Nor was O'Hara.

I hope to come at words that way. Yet sometimes I feel like words are the lamest medium, for being the most used and thereby hollow or tinny for their misuse. If we spoke in music notes, perhaps they'd be cliche riddled.

But we work with words. And we converse by convention, which makes it harder to break out, to "go on your nerve."

Where are the times when I live by going on my nerve? When I run down a winding, wooded singletrack or quick step over rocks and roots running downhill. No thinking, just instinct, nerve.

When I am lost in the sound and vibration of polyurethane skateboard wheels humming on new pavement. Presence.

In the improvisation of Miles or Monk or Coltrane. Or the nerve of O'Hara.

Through all of it, I learn to peel back the skin, with a ballpoint pen, to expose sinew and bone. To live and write from the core, from beneath the surface, pushing past appearances. At least that's the hope. To sometimes get it right, going on nerve.