Vanity Thy Name is Stew (A Reckoning of Sorts)

When I returned to these meanderings, I was at a rough point and feeling raw. I had no intention and I was at a metaphoric crossroads. I had watched social media, what had become my primary social interaction, pass through a few iterations until it had become something far removed from what had initially drawn me to it. Where it had been a distraction and a place to amuse myself, to sometimes learn of or experience what was outside my own world, it had become a gateway to overt hostility and was no longer about connection. Instead of posting silly, fun or musically instructive things, I was spending most of my time ignoring and deleting hate mail, trying diplomatically to tell people who were hitting me up for free instruments that I am not rich and fielding strange random missives from people who had never interacted with me prior but who I somehow betrayed by showing affection or amusement to my actual friends. This was my outlet for, well, just about everything that was percolating in the grey matter.

But things change. And as I read those comments posted here in the last months, I reflect on what this page has become for me. What I've left here recently has been neither insightful nor amusing. I've been carping. Nearing the end of each month I would think, 'Oo! Better blog!'

The truth is I'm not who I was when I started The Unheard Music. It's not about the artist's path or the struggle of an individual to sort through trauma in a changing world. And, funnily enough, it stands in direct opposition to my assertion that I want invisibility.

Of course the truth is I don't. Invisibility, while possibly an inevitability for me and those like me, is actually an inversion of what I want. It's not to be famous or remarkable or anything similar, but to be seen. Ideally by one person, bu probably to feel like my thoughts and feelings mean something.

They do and they don't.

To me obviously they're at the center of everything. Outside of me, they're meaningless. And in keeping with so much of what went into these posts, irrelevance is nothing to throw at people again and again.

The other day I had the most bizarre exchange online. Someone posted an odd comment on one of my videos. I attempted to reply, sharing facts. The poster claimed that because he didn't know me or what I'd done (having a career in music) that it couldn't have happened and that I was instead delusional. As those things I wrote about earlier in the month, it was a coffin nail. It's evident I no longer understand how people interact and should therefore restrict how and when I do. Buying groceries, paying bills and what's on that order are probably safer.

So perhaps someday I'll turn Facebook on to prove I was here. Maybe there will be something significant that occurs in my quiet life that will merit my sharing words, thoughts and feelings. Who knows? Maybe I'll return to performing, recording and teaching. Maybe I'll finish and try to publish the book.

Maybe not.

Living a quiet beautiful life was enough. I think it can be again.

Take care, all. See you in the funny pages.

Nails in a Metaphorical Coffin

So I've mentioned more than occasionally that I'm at odds with consensual reality. No, this hasn't changed. I'm actually about to spew some more virtual blather about why that's still the case. This is your chance to head elsewhere rather than slog through the morass.

There have been a handful of hallmarks in my communications with lovers before, during and after our time together. I am powerfully aware that my side of that equation is not ideal. While I've tried making sure that's understood going into a relationship, liaison, affair or whatever term one chooses to use for connubial time shared, I know I'm not an easy partner. I wish that weren't true, but it is.

But it's the other side of things that remain baffling. Yes, years after I've washed my hands of having a playmate or even the abstraction of one. You see, I know I'm crazy but even with that as a given, I'm still hoping someone can help me with understanding things like what I'm about to throw into the electronic ether.

Like most peoples', the breakups I've got through have been painful, extreme, unpleasant and at times just bizarre. I've enumerated too much here already, so this meander is really not going to be about circumstances so much as it is about, for lack of a better term, communication.

At the end of one relationship -- what I didn't know was the end of one -- my partner had gone ahead of me to find us a new place. I had my hands full with work and used the time to finish my commitments performing and recording with various people. We checked in daily to see how things were going for each other. Until the day she didn't answer, and the subsequent days she neither answered nor returned my calls.

I'm going to interject at this point that I know it's seldom an easy thing to leave a loved one. I know that the decision was not an easy one for anyone I'm about to describe. Even thinking of leaving someone can be brutal. Having only had to do it twice myself, it's horrible. Being left and blindsided isn't much better, but that's the side of the coin I call familiar. Tangent over.

She finally called me and was ominously quiet, using short phrases and leaving long pauses. While it was clear at this point something was up, I left it to her to explain rather than push or wheedle to get some resolution to my curiosity. And then she offered that she didn't want me to join her, that she didn't want to be with me anymore. I'll spare you my emotional reaction to that statement, but after a long pause of my own I asked if she'd made arrangements to have the rest of her things picked up.

She exploded, demanding if that was it. I tried pointing out that us living in different places and her not wanting to be with me made it seem like, yes, that was it. She railed at me for several more minutes before the call ended.

Now you're likely seething. Yes, the romantic in me did want to fight to save us. But we'd already been through months of couple's therapy with more than one counselor. We'd tried all kinds of exercises, given one another time and made various attempts at spontaneity. I was tired and sad. Even if it wasn't clear to her in that moment, she'd made up her mind. With time to talk about things, she'd opted to leave and announce her decision this way. I don't blame her, although at the time I was devastated. What leaves me wondering is this particular exchange, not her choice of actions.

Years later, another relationship ended abruptly by my other simply disappearing. No goodbye, no explanation. I am expressive, though, and wrote for months after. She regularly wrote that she missed me, although she never explained what changed for her or why she left. In fact, she still hasn't said goodbye. Eventually she stopped replying to anything. I wrote to tell her that I felt foolish and wouldn't write anymore.

Then she wrote her first real communication since before her disappearance, telling me she would be sad if I stopped writing as she adored reading my words.

Huh??

I tried explaining that it felt masochistic to put my thoughts and feelings into communications that were never returned. She wrote to tell me she could understand what I meant, but she still wished I would write.

More than a decade after the end of a relationship, I had a fun night and it reminded me of an ex. I sent a quick text about the evening, ending it with the explanation that I wouldn't write again. For the first time in I don't know how long, she replied and asked me to please stay in touch even though she was terrible at doing the same. For the first time in my life, I didn't bother to reply.

There are other things I could bring up but this is probably too much already.

Again, I'm no prize. I know I've left an awful wake of my own and have hurt others, regardless of my intention. Has this resolved anything? Nope. Sure hasn't. But I am willing to bet that others have stories like these. If you've endured these kinds of things and you're still willing to march into the fray, you have my admiration. Maybe things will change for me. After all, I am always in love. That doesn't change. And I am mightily infatuated on a regular basis. No matter how I've tried to exorcise it, sentiment remains. That yearning for love, affection, romance and the host of goodies they bring are all still alive in me, I'm just tired.

And for someone with aspirations of invisibility, it's probably not a good idea to fan the flames of this particular hope.

Probably...

Crawling from the Mire

It’s really something to reach a point where I can look back at my own life and just be amazed. I’ve been in love, homeless, worked an assembly line, written for an international magazine, made the cover of a magazine, met some of my heroes, crossed the country alone more times than I can easily remember, helped to build a community and a hell of a lot more in my time so far. Someone once even wrote to tell me I’m his musical hero! For someone who expected to be wiped out in nuclear war before ever reaching puberty, this is nothing short of remarkable. 

My wont is normally to kind of kvetch and crack wise here, so this is a conscious effort not to do that. Doesn’t mean I’ll succeed, but I always figure I don’t know what I can do until I try. 

And there have been avenues I didn’t tread, too. I was offered work in the porn and escorting worlds. I had a chance to audition for one of the biggest bands in history. Though offered the chance, I never shot heroin or snorted coke. Although I’ve worked in them, I’ve shied away from becoming a full time studio musician. Could have married younger or jumped on a freighter bound for the Caribbean. 

Life is all about choices and consequences. Cause and effect. Living with what we decide and not carrying the kind of regret that makes us constantly ask, ‘what if…?’ So while these last years have probably been the quietest in my few decades, the quality of them and the ways I’ve spent my time have been good. I may have been taught not to be proud as a boy, but I feel like I’ve accomplished more than my healthy imagination could have predicted. 

That’s more than a little cool. 

So when I step back and think that not only am I still alive but there’s more ahead, it’s mind-blowing. 

Had you told juvenile me that I’d be described at different points as a pioneer, a cult leader, a lothario, a svengali, a role model, an inspiration or infamous, my response would have been 

incredulousness, shock or most likely uproarious laughter. Which is why when I look back, I still sometimes think I’m looking at someone else’s life.

Along the way there have been things that were tougher to learn or accept. Understanding I can choose to be happy was a big one. Truly grasping that I can be or do anything, well, there are times that one hasn’t fully sunk in, but the biggest thing I carry with me is that I don’t have to be as hard on myself as I historically have been. I don’t fully understand the mechanism, but the cutting of slack is not easy. Not for me. For much of my life, I’ve held myself to an impossible standard and beaten the snot out of me when I all but inevitably failed. I was well into my 40’s before I could even seriously call myself an artist. I’ve been one of those people who accepts all the negative I hear or read when it comes to me and would probably receive uranium before a compliment. So getting word that I’m talented or talentless strikes me in very different ways. 

Thus it’s been kind of a revelation when I’ve spoken with those I’ve looked up to only to have them tell me they only see the mistakes and shortcomings in what they do. Some of these are individuals considered iconoclasts and legends, but trailblazers across the board. It’s even more inspiring having seen them do what they do with such (seeming) confidence and facility. One of the things I hear most among creative types is that this constant questioning and demand for more and better keeps one honest but also striving. One of the things I hear from the rest of the planet is that this is commonly called beating oneself up. 

Contradictory input seems to be a recurring theme in my life and in my posts here.

So maybe it’s just that lines are blurrier for humans than for most other critters. Maybe, as a friend points out, there is no truth or that if there is, we aren’t destined to know it while we walk the earth. I don’t know. 

But I know that it’s seldom too late to learn. If we want to grow and change, we can. Where we’re blind to things about ourselves, we will have occasion to see. Whether or not we do anything about it is personal choice. 

Again, choice. 

These things to which we’re blind in ourselves are often also the same things that rankle when we see them in others. This has got to be one of the strangest things in human nature. People who cheat on their partners are often the most jealous and demanding. Those who bloviate are aggravated hearing others get on a soapbox. The intolerant criticize this same behavior in others. Or as the Russian proverb holds, don’t blame the mirror for your ugly face.

But it isn’t that we’re ugly souls so much as the fact that we assume we are where we aren’t and gloss over the things about us that are. An absolute gem of a line popped up in an otherwise bad film: “He’s a prince who thinks he’s a frog.”

And this is the beauty of aging: gaining perspective when we let ourselves. There are so many things that are hard to see or accept, but once we acknowledge simply that we’re human and imperfect, once we accept something less than glorious in the mirror, we can begin to accept more. We don’t have the power to change everything about ourselves, we can change a lot. More importantly, we can change how we feel about things. While we can’t change circumstance, we can change how we react to it. 

I was thinking the other day about some past relationships and partners who chose to walk (or run) away rather than work through problems. I’m not excusing myself from issues in those relationships and have certainly been complicit or denied that problems have been there, but these are individuals whose patterns I’ve watched repeat again and again. What a horribly glaring way to see one of those childhood cliches proven: those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. 

As a stubborn cuss who is anything but enlightened, I offer you some small hope at this point. It isn’t impossible to cast ourselves in a different light, see some of those things and then work to change them. Find good friends who you trust to give you the truth and ask about this stuff. There are professionals paid for this. While your friends love you, there is some real benefit to talking with someone who’s not only trained to navigate the psyche but whose concern is your wellbeing. If finances permit, it can be a good choice. But as is the case with all relationships, not all therapists are a good fit for all patients just as there is no one method of teaching that can be applied universally. 

All that written, and as I pointed out recently, it’s definitely time for me to start doing some of this more assiduously. Working on the book has shown me just how far from the person I want to be I am now. But I know I can change. I know that while it’s not fun to see those parts of my character I don’t like, it’s about having the will and dedication to metamorphose. I’ve done it before and will do it again. If I can do it without sagotaging the process or making myself feel bad for not succeeding immediately, then I am indeed learning.

I’ll take that.

The Architecture of Balance / Connection-Disconnection

Being human, thankfully, means that imperfection is built into the equation. We change, forget, assert, guess and demand, but through it all we just kind of cruise along and call it life. For some time now my wacky universe has been out of whack and when it was recently called to my attention that my reactions to things, as well as my decisions when dealing with them, have been unexpected, it finally dawned on me that my own humanity was making an appearance... as well as reminding me that it's time for a change.

In the past I've written that learning for me is a slow process that really means relearning continually. I've also scrawled a bit about my own personal Camelot, that glorious window in my life of calm and contentment. It was the one time I actually felt sane.

So how does this all intersect and is it worth writing about again as well as sitting through for you, the reader? Per usual, I'm just improvising at the keyboard and you're the one who'll have to decide if what's here is drivel, dross or a murky fog concealing actual insight.

As a boy I was painfully -- or gloriously -- unaware of labels or the boxes into which people like to put other people. Being raised around art and hearing from the earliest that those who made art were geniuses and world changers meant that I assumed I was not one of them. Instead I simply did what I did, even when it was deemed odd or went against what most took for my own grain. I was a powerfully emotional little guy whose strong instincts were always being challenged by teachers and the other authority figures in my life who all chanted the same chorus: you're intelligent, so why aren't you letting reason guide you?

But no matter how many times I gave the same answer nobody took it to heart: reason doesn't work for me.

I was taught that people generally do the right thing and that being female meant possessing a specific weakness that required protecting girls and women. But the short history of my time on earth showed me again and again these things weren't true. People most often worked in their own interest and femininity equates (not past tense) with strength. Those world leaders who worked for peace, which to me seemed one of the highest goals, were made fun of and mocked. Artists and musicians were described as fringe dwellers, yet those people who described them this way lauded art and could not go a day without listening to music.

Thus while I was confused anyway, what I was being taught and shown did not make things in any way clearer. So is it any real surprise that I was middle aged before anything like clarity found its way into my paradigm?

So I didn't think it strange that I loved writing, making music, playing sports or spending hours in nature. These things all spoke to something at my core. But with each year those around me told me two things simultaneously and with increasing vehemence: 'you need to focus on your path, but don't change who you are for anyone.'

Huh?!?

It was a strange event that helped to form the man I am now. When I was in college I studied with a published poet, someone whose writing I enjoyed and whose observations inspired me. She asked me to meet her and talk about my writing. When I arrived she was cheerful and encouraging, but she quickly shocked me. "You're a good writer," she said, "but you could be much better. I asked about you and people told me that you play music. Seriously. That you're considering majoring in it. I'd like to tell you that as long as you're serving two masters, you'll never be great at either art. As someone who's read what you've written, I want you to consider writing."

I could not have been more surprised if she had leaned across her desk and punched me in the head.

This had never occurred to me. I enjoyed both pursuits and never thought myself particularly talented in either regard. Music came from an emotional place and writing from a cerebral one. Her statement was well intentioned but jarring. She may as well have told me, "Look, you can have romantic love or agape. Why would you want both? Do you think they coexist?"

I didn't say it, but I was indignant. This came on a a Friday afternoon and -- pardon the pun -- I stewed all weekend.

Then a curious thing happened: I had one of those decisions that makes no sense to me. I had been making music (trying, anyway) for most of my life. I had not gotten serious about writing until I was probably 10 or 11 years old. It may have felt like it, but the reality was that neither of these durations was a great span.

So for a year, I would only do one art or the other. If at the end of that period, I could not live without the other, I'd reevaluate.

Since music had been a part of things for me longer and that it made me feel better, I opted to forego writing. No poetry, no fiction, no essays... nothing but assignments and what was required to function in society.

It was a wildly productive year. Without the split in my brain between where I felt these two parts lived in me being at odds, I made great strides as a musician and specifically as a bassist. A friend told me about something he'd seen on TV, a new type of music school. I immediately contacted The Musicians Institute for literature (ironic!), and weeks later I decided to apply.

Not only was I accepted, but it led to one of the most intense years of my young life. I was constantly working on my technique, playing in bands and recording. Learning while teaching and performing, without the distraction of any other pursuits freed me dive aggressively in and take chances I never had.

But then at the end of that year, something else curious happened. I hit a saturation point. So much had lodged itself in my brain and under my fingers that I just had no desire to play. I needed to decompress and process, not necessarily in that order. At 23 I needed a break from the arts.

For three years to the day, I worked in retail. I took the stage a handful of times in that period, but I didn't teach and I doubt I wrote three tunes. Of course this too led to another crossroads because trying to live like everyone around me didn't work. I'd denied myself the emotional outlet of music and the intellectual release of writing. Trying to be 'normal' was a complete fallacy. What I didn't see and couldn't articulate was that we are all simply different, but much of what we feel is the same. We don't deal with things the same way, but we're told that there is one. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what that is. Dozens of people have told me their solutions but none of them seems to realize that they're different from everyone they address.

So yeah, balance comes for me in fits and starts. And I am out of balance. I forget that balance needs to be tested. Things have to be shaken up. I have to relearn.

For six years I wrote for a music magazine and people told me more and more than I'm a writer. I finally hit a point where I had nothing to offer in my own column, but I'd started working on the book by then. In fact, I've been working on it for almost three years now. When I gave notice at the magazine and dove into my own world building project, there was an initial feeling of relief, as if I'd taken a bunch of pressure off myself. Maybe I had. Pages and pages flowed freely and before I knew it the cabin was littered with reams of writing, covered in research materials and there were paths on the floor from the front door to the kitchen and the bathroom, with a little trail leading to my bed.

When someone pointed out the aforementioned curious reactions and decisions I was making, a few things dawned on me. Slowly. First, a big wave of bass related hate mail crashed over me at almost exactly the same time I decided to resign at the magazine. Second, I really hadn't been making music in any significant way since I'd injured my arm a few years back. I'd worked to get it back into shape, but if and when I picked up my instruments, it was more noodling that creating.

Again, out of balance. Again, slow learning. Relearning.

So all that brings me full circle. It's time to forge a new equilibrium. No matter what else may be true, I'm an artist. There is no way I'll gain enough objectivity to see whether I have what I consider talent, but it's moot. I have these different facets and expressing them makes me feel good. As I'm human and imperfect, I'll no doubt continue stumbling along my way, but that's fine. What's emotional and instinctive lives side by side with what's intellectual and rational. Of course they're at odds. Of course I feel crazy.

But I've had balance and perspective. I've been healthy and had contentment. There was a window where I lived without want. It is absolutely possible to form a new kind of balance. It's just as possible I'll lose it again.

That's just fine. Whatever I am, whatever I'm not, I'm just this guy. Like Howard the Duck, trapped in a world I never made. But for all the hostility and harshness, this is not a bad world. There's beauty all around me. Not just in the grand vistas and great art, but in the small momentary, day to day ways. Little things can be glories. A look or a word might just be perfect in a certain moment.

If you don't see me here or on mainstream social media, I'm working on navigating more smoothly. I'm teaching myself to see a bigger picture and making peace with my place in it. Time to forgive myself for being human and letting go of a lot that's keeping me from enjoying it.

Does this mean I'm going to have Buddha-like equanimity and mythic enlightenment? Probably not in this short lifetime. But it means I hope for good, both within me and in my ability to put that into the world. Will I squelch the snark in me? Doubtful. Will I purge cynicism and sarcasm from my humor? HAH!! But I can be my own enemy a little less, and I can let love both in and out more.

At the very least, I can hope.

There are Worlds Between the Worlds

It isn't that there's been nothing to write so much as time's gotten away from me. I stepped away from one job to try and have more time for writing and music (not necessarily in that order), but time's been gobbled up by life, the living and the dying of it. Bass and the book get their allotment, but it's the day to day that keeps me offline. Ultimately that may not be a bad thing as, let's face facts, the rambling I do here is nothing that needs to be posted (foisted) with any kind of urgency or regularity. And in that spirit, let the blather commence.

The last span has been odd. Yes, even in the context of my lack of life. The fire still burns on the mountain, about 40% contained now. And while we can't see flames lapping up the hillsides, the air is still disturbing. Skies are sometimes orange-grey and air quality is... chewy. Some strange mass has taken refuge in my sinuses, rattling around when I blow my nose or gasp while trying to sleep through the night. Coughing has become a regular part of my functioning. This is not so much a complaint as it is my way of giggling at the fact that the accoutrements of 'old man-ism' are now on prominent display. Maybe it's time to add whippersnapper to the lexicon and start yelling at those kids to get off my lawn.

Actually, the demeanor has changed. I saw a photo of me a couple of years back with what looked like a blossoming bald spot, a patch of thinning hair, and thought I'd just head it off at the pass. Yep, shaved the dome. I could reminisce or opine my locks, but the reality is that it'd been years since anyone other than a coiffeuse or me ran fingers through it. Before I bought clippers, I visited a barber a few times. That was enough window into grumpy old man culture that I not only bought my own depilation apparatus, but I quickly became proficient with it. If you haven't, let me tell you that grooming with two mirrors and learning to instruct one's muscles to operate completely counter to what instinct dictates is quite something.

And if you thought that was exciting, I grew a beard. Not one of those lumberjack accessories that hipsters seem to enjoy, the ones that require combs and oils to maintain, but something like you'd have seen on Sean Connery in decades past. Only without the style or flair of that legendary Scot. But I do have a lot more salt than pepper, and while the women in my life tell me that's very attractive to the fairer sex, I have no evidence to support it.

Which works out just fine. For yes, I crave the company of a woman, but I'm even less in a place to have that in my life than I was before. I have only enough clarity now to know I'm completely off balance and out of whack. Then again, when was I ever in whack?

Life of course seldom lets up with its parade of the strange and unexpected. In a rare moment of peace recently, not one but three of my exes wrote. Not to ask how I am or to see what was up, but to flirt or unveil emotional need out of the blue. Neither of these is a bad thing, but it wasn't anything I saw coming. Of course that may be why they reach out, but I'll never know. And in tried and true fashion, as soon as I reach back, they disappear.

But the deepening invisibility is good for perspective. Taking my vanity out of the mix has meant that I can simply go my way anon. There's a line in an anime film that I adore and I apologize if I've brought it up prior, but a character is in existential crisis. While he's a considered and cerebral figure, he's also known and needed for his less savory skills. When discussing who and what he is versus who he wants to be, he paraphrases a Buddhist poem:

'Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.'

And it's to this I subscribe. It would be lovely to share me with someone who wants to share herself, too, but I think unless things line up just so, this is not a contingency for which I need to account. In all honesty, as I'm never out of love, there's no real need for someone in my life. The pleasantness of a partner or playmate is offset too often by that jarring, jagged weirdness of the blindsiding that occurs when something has come up in her cognition and rather than bring it up for discussion, she simply launches into some strange behavior or diatribe counter to whoever she's been to that point. If I have learned anything it's that this is the point where she's already got one foot out the door and this is the gesture that makes that exit easier and smoother. For her.

So I remain a solo act. I have a life filled with love, but I have no human contact. No canoodling or cahoots. I hug two or three people a year, but I'm more likely to roll around with a dog than caress a lover. I dole out some of the carnal on the written page, and I think there's sensuality -- even sentimentality -- in my music, but none of that is spent easing my own flesh. This is a time for living in my head, not below the neck. Maybe again someday, but not today.

Nope. Off kilter is not something to invite someone to join. Whoever I am now, it's not who I was a few years ago when I enjoyed the company of a lover or the squishier emotions. This person is too impatient and not empathetic enough for a partner. A time when I want attention is the time not to have it. If I feel that, then I have nothing to bring to a relationship. As nice as it would be to receive, I'm too damaged at the moment to give. This is when I need to let go, to find those things that are toxic and send them into the ether. So much needs untethering.

So how's that for a ramble? Sean Connery, Buddhist elephant imagery and a fire that won't stop burning. Sounds about par for this course, for discourse.

Blather While the Mountain Burns

Living in a fringe community, one expects a certain amount out of the ordinary. I've lived in a few and find them much more welcoming than big cities, where I used to thrive. As a young man I lived on an island for a while. Life on a mountain isn't the same as that but it isn't wholly different.

I remember the day I came to see the cabin. Every fifty or so yards on the one little road into town was another warning: mudslides, rock slides, bears and deer in the roads, wildfire. As strange as this is going to read, I knew I was home. More than a dozen years later that's still true, even as a fire required us to evacuate yesterday.

This isn't the first time and I doubt it will be the last. The town's been closed due to snowfall and a few years back we made national news when 9' drifts of mud took out the road and the president actually deemed our tiny town a disaster area. Last summer an arsonist (coincidentally one working in the Fire Service) started a blaze that forced me to return to work on a Friday evening and camp out. Because of all this I started keeping basic supplies in my car a long time back. Last night I was glad the sleeping bag was among them.

But they named this burn: the Valley Fire. Before I left home they had estimated 200 acres had burned. By the time I made it into the flatlands a few hours later it was up to 400. When I finally packed it in last night, 1000 acres were gone. This morning it's still at 0% containment.

Here's where I play the age card. Even though I live in a town with a population that swings between 1000-1200, I found out a few years ago that we actually have a handful of public access webcams on 24 hour feed. A friend told me about them when I was trying to find out about snow conditions one winter, to see if I'd be allowed up the road. So for the last half day I've been able to go online or provide a link for people to get in the moment status on the mountain. Even ten years ago I couldn't have imagined such a thing. As much as I kvetch about the state of things and the direction they're going, I really do think this is kind of a positive. At least in the sense that I can assuage the concerns of some about my situation; they all still know that I'm nuts.

So as I look out at an orange sky that's normally slate and soft pastel purple at this time of day, knowing that I'm going to spend a big chunk of my weekend living at work, I find myself surprisingly not too curmudgeonly. There are reasons to carp if I want them, but why go down that road? I'm awake and alive. The handful of things I managed to bring down the hill other than my clothes mean I have the absolute luxury of writing, reading and making music. If that isn't luckier than I deserve, I don't know what is.

Of course my being here means there could be another incident of online word vomiting before the weekend's gone, so you may not be so lucky.

And so it goes.

Time, Distance and Equilibrium

It's been a while since I sat here to write. Not for lack of desire, but for lack of time. Random life events and unexpected drama mixed with the busyness of my day to day and successfully conspired to keep me from clogging the internet with more of my meandering ruminations. But with my first breather comes this return to the screens of strangers with... what?

Nothing. Genuinely nothing. No planned course for the word flow and nothing to get off my chest or out of the grey matter. Simply a return to the improvised silliness that for some reason makes me feel better.

For someone shy and without a lot of self-confidence who chose to make a living as a performer (funny how that works), there may be a sort of symmetry in my choosing to quietly fade into the background. I've come into that point in my life where I look around and see that years have passed in what I thought were months. Friends' kids are going off to college, starting careers and building families. Some I remember as young people are now homeowners and rising corporate stars. Fans of mine have gone on to stardom. This is wild to see and also gratifying. In a strange way it feels good to be irrelevant.

At the same time realizing I am in the 21st century and that there really isn't a way out of it, I've decided to actively pursue what roleplaying game nerds and authors call world building. For the last few years I've been writing more than what appears here, on others' websites or in the magazine. In my free time (I love and loathe that phrase) I've been working on a story. Initially I was thinking it would be a novel but the deeper I get into the characters and the cosmology, the more I realize it will be a series. I like rereading that sentence because it makes the practical considerations of telling the story sound so pretentious!

To keep my heart in it and to make the rest of my life bearable, I'm scribbling away with no plans to even try and publish. That could change but right now it's just delicious to leave the concerns of the world in the flatlands and sit in a cabin where I can step into a world that's like this one but different. Different horrors, delights, truths and dangers. I don't need to worry about genres or pigeonholing or anything more than letting the characters interact and the events unfold.

So what is it? I don't know how I'd describe it. I've been telling friends it's anachronistic fiction, but the truth is that it has elements of fantasy, conspiracy, philosophy, action and even comedy. There's a bit of intrigue, but what I'm enjoying in the penning of it is the dichotomy between what happens on the page versus the unwritten, the internal life of my protagonist.

Is it autobiographical? I suppose, kind of. I'm not a good enough writer than I know how not to draw from my experience and perspective. Everything in the text is filtered through my brain as much as my hand so I suppose so. The man character is/was an artist and a hermit. He's on a literal and metaphorical/metaphysical journey. There's transformation in the tale, but I'm not going to get into that here.

Instead I'll tell you that this return to the mechanics and logistics of writing, of immersing myself in it whether or not it goes beyond the reams of scrawl in my cabin, has proven cathartic and liberating. Taking myself from the largely right brain creative process of making music to what for me is a much more left brain activity has done great things for how I see and express things. Others around me may disagree, but my inner life is the colorful one now. That's probably what I have most in common with my main character. Our worlds are changing around us, but the only thing that allows either of us to cope is through the struggle of trying to make some sense of what's within. So maybe my work is more paralleling my life than reflecting it?

Dunno. But as I work on that, as I see more gray in my hair and watch more of what I know disappearing from the world, I acknowledge the inevitability of things. I've made my peace with it. I think it's reassuring that the world has no need of me, that I have made some impact and also that the world isn't done with me. It's nice that as I become more and more invisible, I can look around and watch all those things that I can't understand and simply marvel. Then when I'm through with the surreal for a while, I can climb the mountain, close the door to my cabin and return to crafting another world and do my best to tell one story from there.

I was so terrified of change and the unexpected when I was a boy. Now these are among my sources of delight. Another symmetry, perhaps, and one I treasure.

Cynicism, Romance and the Confessions of an Idiot

So I carp a lot. This isn't lost on me. And to anyone who slogs through these words, thank you for persevering and enduring. It is appreciated. This junk is all trapped in my head so being able to put it 'out there' is powerfully therapeutic. I imagine it's either entertaining, disturbing or some mix of the two for you, however.

I repeat: thank you.

I figure rather than pontificate or offer up something like life advice, perspective or whatever what I typically post might be described as, this piece is going to be more about insight into me. You know, the kind of thing that shows you why I write the things I do and why I've made the choices I did. More than usual, I'll wish you good luck getting through the morass.

I've described myself as a grudging romantic. That's not really accurate. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. I love the stuff. I still get choked up watching or reading (or writing) love stories. Love is about as close to religion as I'm going to get. In my case it really is all I need. I have lived for it and I will not be surprised if I die for -- or from -- it. I love love. I was once called a love junkie. That may well be true.

Let that sink in.

If you've read more posts than the one you're pushing through, let that sink in more.

The issue in my case was that I didn't realize until I was in my 40's (yes, you read right) that not everyone has the same idea of love. By that point I'd made the connection that not everyone knows what he or she wants. Okay, most of us don't know what we want... but we think we do. The point here is that what love is to me is not what it is for most people. I kind of wish someone had explained things to me better as a kid, but I don't know that I could have or would have heard.

(Tangent: you begin to see why the conditional tense and I are not friends.)

For me love is what I was taught. It's what I read in books and saw in movies. It's that massive thing. It's Big Love. This means it has nothing to do with reality. In fact my definition of love is divorced from worldly concerns. Love is what makes it possible for me to endure the world.

So all the times I've opined being left or hurt, the truth is that I have really never lived much in the real world. I've had jobs, paid rent, been homeless, etc., etc., but for me it's always been about love. Big Love. If there were problems in a relationship, love would be enough to see us through.

Wrong.

Love was enough to see me through.

I remember vividly the first time a woman I was with told me love isn't enough. I can even remember what I felt. All of it. How could someone say that????

Easy. It was true.

Not for me. It's still not true for me. But now I grasp that the way I see the world is not a common thing. I don't give a shit about much. Looks, money, ambition, career... pretty much meaningless to me. But openness, directness, honesty... these are sacred. Probably because they're unicorns.

It's taken me a lifetime to realize that what someone says may have no bearing on what he or she thinks, feels or believes. I know for most people that's obvious, but I am not most people. And by now you realize that I learn slowly. Sometimes I don't know if I learn at all. For much of my life, I believed what people told me. In other words I led a disillusioned life. I was disappointed, frustrated and confused. A lot. Well, I'm still those things but not for the same reasons. For a long time that disappointment, frustration and confusion brought out a cynical, sarcastic edge. I could put some of that down to going through adolescence in the 80's when cynicism and sarcasm were kind of the way, but that would be inaccurate. I wore that armor as a defense. And I ripped it off every time I ended up in a relationship.

So, yeah, I was left by most of the women in my life. No explanation and no goodbye in most cases. Like many romantics, I saw this as being done to me. I saw me as the victim. That was only true inasmuch as I was naive. I clung desperately to a belief that my view was THE view.

But as I wrote earlier, my view was just my view.

Period.

Does that mean I've embraced cynicism? Am I well and truly sarcastic now?

Quite the opposite. I'm a romantic and I'm open about it. But I don't generally have faith in humans. I just don't. I don't even like most humans. The things I see, hear and read these days hurt me. People are open with hate and hostility. I can't say that things were ever 'golden' but things are different than they were and the direction I see things going scares the hell out of me.

So why would I choose to be a romantic?

Because it's the only fucking thing that makes sense.

Once again, let that sink in.

Take a moment if you need it.

In a world that's gritty and actually uses terms like 'murder porn', where a reality TV star is president of the US, where nuclear war is actually BACK on peoples' minds as a very real possibility, I choose love.

This is not a wide-eyed, puppy love. No. It's me being brutally frank and acknowledging that most people will never see things as I do. It's holding out as a solo act unless I meet someone who actually wants to know me and not be infatuated with some concept of me. It's a part of why I stopped recording and performing music in public. It's a part of why I shaved my head. It's a part of why I'm not particularly social. I make music every day, don't want my looks to be a factor in anything and am happiest when my interactions are one-on-one.

And I don't advocate these choices for anyone. Not for a soul. I choose a solitary life because it makes it easier for me to function. It strips away illusions and simultaneously allows me to spend more time in a world I prefer. The fiction I write is not happy or sappy. But there's humor and affection mixed with the carnage and chaos. My characters live as I would if I had their opportunities or if the world I spread on those pages was the one I wake to daily.

We aren't built to be alone. Not biologically and not sociologically. But most of us aren't built to love the way I do. I've written that I don't know how to fall out of love. That's true. I'm still in love with everyone I've ever loved, but since most of them have cut me out of their lives it makes no difference. I don't hear from them and I rarely see them. Having left social media for the most part, I don't even hear about them anymore. Not really. And I doubt given the chance I would ever be with any of them again. Trust is gone. But I do love them. I always will. And I'll continue to hope for the best for them. It's strange and hurtful to me that the friendships had to end, particularly with no explanation or saying goodbye, but that's life. It just is.

So, yeah, I'll still pen the harder edged comments but now you know that beneath the armor, under the scarred surface, I'm a marshmallow. I'm goopy and sugary. An idiot.

But you know what? Love is all I need. Having felt Big Love, even having lost it a few times, I'll take love over the alternative. I salute those who can live in the real world. They have my undying admiration. But my wiring is different and even if I could change it, I don't think I would. Sometimes the thought of feeling less or hurting less is appealing, but then I think I wouldn't mute the colors of my world. Not if there's a choice.

So I'll take the loss and the derision. The pain is a badge of honor, in a weird way. I may never be with anyone again. But I can live honestly, even if it's as a fringe dweller.

This is not abandoning hope but is actually embracing it. And for someone who lived most of his life as a pessimist, that's saying something.

If life has taught me anything it's that the unexpected is far more commonplace than I ever think. Half a century down and I'm still here. That's something, too.

I'll take that and rise to meet whatever's ahead for me.

Bring it on.

Digital Emancipation and That Kind of Thing

I don't like to threaten. It feels childish, like I'm taking a position on the playground, drawing a line in the sand. Instead I'd rather just state my intent, giving plenty of notice and follow through. So before I shut down my primary social media profile today, I wrote about it there more than a week ago. Throughout the week, even though almost no one saw it, I posted it so that anyone who might see would not be blindsided. Yesterday afternoon I noticed a post from someone I know about people making empty threats about closing their accounts, essentially browbeating them as cowards.

It was all the reassurance I needed to fire up the computer this morning and turn my back on what's become, for lack of a better term, the gauntlet. 

When I first meandered into social media, it was nascent. News boards and forum groups. But it was growing fast into something else. It still is. But back then, more than 15 years ago, my life was different and I was a different person. I wanted attention and I had a career in music to promote. My marriage was breaking down. I spent more time on the road and playing in clubs when I was in town than I did with friends or loved ones. Feeling something like validation in the form of 'likes' and even flirtation fed into that craving. Fostering virtual friendships and seeing the number of followers rise was more than pleasant; it was satisfying. It meant something to me that I had more than 25,000 profiles following mine on MySpace before I left that site. It was no less exciting watching as I quickly maxed out the number of 'friends' I could have on Facebook and having to open a second profile, a music page.

But my life has changed and so have I. The need and desire to take 'breaks' from virtual reality became a bigger thing. The last time I did it lasted years. For the last month I have done a little experiment. Every Monday morning before I left home, I'd open Facebook and scroll through my feed. Each week it took longer to find something I wanted to see. Last week, after an hour of looking, I gave up. What wasn't openly hostile was depressing. Painting politics in black and white or sharing video footage of cruelty to animals. Emojis depicting laughing uproariously were the only commentary and captioning of cell phone captured celebrations of human stupidity. Memes had become more popular than the construction of sentences or coherent thoughts. The only way to have any exchange with actual friends was in private messaging or risk incurring derision from others who've decided that public 'conversation' is really an invitation to be mocked. Or worse.

Again, I don't want this to read like I'm taking a superior position or that I'm slamming social media. I'm not. In fact, I still belong to a few sites. But the reasons I go to them now are not what they were in the past. It's rare that I'm seeking anything more than some momentary diversion or distraction. To do that in some places is like walking onto a shooting range wearing a target. 

It's taken me a long time to build a life that I like. I'll take that over what I generally see online now. I'm too old to decipher the changing vernacular, to decode a language I don't really want to understand. If it's a place you enjoy, I hope you continue to. You'll find me in the world of matter these days, not in the online soap opera and feud factory. 

Except of course that I posted this online. 

To Be This Particular Animal

Normally I sit here and simply vomit words onto the keyboard and ultimately the screen, but I have started this multiple times. My initial intention was to write something lighter, about being a middle aged man who's never been able to make sense of the mixed message that have come at me from society and from women in general. But the truth is no one really cares about that, including me. We're all bombarded by things that make no sense. What a man deals with is nothing compared to the horse shit that comes at women like it's shot from a bazooka. Yet I see some people who are able to simply... be.

Whether it's being told we're not enough, not conforming to some idea of what we're supposed to be (that damn conditional tense again) or just being made fun of for being different, we're besieged by this stupidity. As a man, the messages are confusing and conflicting. As a woman, they're insane and somewhere beyond the far side of debilitating. 

So how are some able to push past all of it and even thrive?

In some cases it's the result of being raised to believe in oneself and having that belief reinforced. This is more than having confidence. It's a synergy of elements and conditions that can put an individual on a positive trajectory.

In some cases it's finding the right partner, be it personally or in one's field of endeavor. That collaboration and support is rare.

But some individuals have none of these things and manage to succeed. How?

The answer, as far as I can tell, is to believe in oneself and in one's goals to the point of simply knowing they're right. This means not getting caught up in the messages of individuals or society to the contrary. 

In some ways this lines up with the earlier post about answers being out there, but I think this is deeper than that which was really about hard work and tenacity. This is more ineffable. Doing all the hard work in the world means nothing if you're not working toward something. 

And this is obviously a lot harder than what we teach children. This requires more than depth of conviction, more than the confidence that comes from training. I'm talking about knowing in one's blood and bones that something is what one's meant to do, that it must be done. In a way this is rising to one's calling. 

No, I'm not on about something so grandiose as starting a religion or saving a culture. This is more about developing into the person one wants to be or creating something, be it in the arts, sciences or manufacturing fields. This is knowing one's truth before ever setting foot on the road of life. This is what we marvel at without ever really stopping to think about what this kind of individual faces in terms of resistance constantly. 

We can all learn from people like this, but in this day and age what I see is much more often a chorus of those trying to bring him or her down. Being different and 'other' should be embraced because it throws light onto what we are not. It shows us that there is another way to be and another way to approach things. 

Yes, I'm aware that I've employed the conditional tense, but this is also the sort of context where that works. 

Maybe next time will be the lighter piece and I can blather about the woes of being a clueless guy who's wanted love and romance and found himself a hermit. Or maybe I'll finally pen something cohesive. This time you got neither.