For us older dogs...
Jun. 22nd, 2012 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaI'm challenging myself to write a novel about real life. Not fantasy, not fiction. Real life. Not necessarily mine, either, although my life will be the center from which the rest of the story spins. It'll be a collection of essays, I think, about life from the view point of my world, the Old Guy World. Since I've hit this point in my life - I'm 55 this year - I can honestly say... I'm getting older.
Clocks have always been an interest of mine. The way the mechanism moves just so and the gears move just so, and the hands move, yes, just so. If this were a work of fiction, I'd be researching and checking out clock mechanisms so I could sound oh so much smarter than I really am. Instead, I'll just say clocks are my candy. I dig how they work. I even dig them when they don't. Cuz I can fix them. I don't have to know gear ratios and timing and stuff like that to say "Hmm. this goes here." and it does and the darn thing just works. I love clocks.
Time, not so much. Time is my closest friend and worstest enemy. Closest because time has been with me since my beginning. Worstest because there is never enough of it and time stubbornly refuses to give me more.
Time has taken away some great people I've known. Time has taken away relatives just as I was getting to know them. Time is the melter of my ice cream and the spoiler of my milk. Time is not a good person.
So here I stand, or sit rather, and look back over multiple millions of clock ticks and one long running river of Time, snaking darkly backwards like a never-ending skid mark in the shorts of my life.
I have certain doubts that I will impart any great wisdom in these essays. I have certain doubts I'm all that wise, although I do have my "Damn I'm good" moments when things just click just right and the world does it's happy dance and the Universe smiles. There are folks that tell me I'm wise. Or at least full of wisdom. Or maybe it was just that I'm full of it.
I suspect that anyone who has lived a full life can be said to have a certain amount of wisdom. Regardless of the silly and sometimes stupid things we, as we are wont to do, do. If a certain amount of wisdom didn't enter into this, then I'm pretty sure that death would be the end result.
Here's an example. As a child of maybe 14 - and keep in mind, to a child of 14, they are not a child. They aren't sure what they are. Anyway, as a child of 14, I was working with a light socket. My younger brother, one whom time has stolen from me, named James decided, on his own, to help me by plugging the socket in. While I was working with it. Barehanded, the shock tossed me into another universe where I witnessed my own death and birth, and I was glad. Not glad to have gotten the shock, no. I was glad that I was alive.
My brother James did not suffer ill at my hands because of his decision. No, he did not. I'm not exactly sure what transpired after it was all said and done, but I know I did him no harm. Knowing my baby brother, he probably hi-tailed it down the stairs to be somewhere else when I came to. Regardless, I learned a valuable lesson. Electricity can be fun and adventurous. It can also scramble your neurons to make you believe, for a brief period, that you are the captain of a star ship, on the run from the police, and the only way to escape is to dive past the edge of the Universe.
True stuff, that.
So I dove, taking first mate and crew members with me, dying on the way, passing eternity in a black space and then, like Sands in the Hour Glass, wound up heading towards that vaginal tunnel of light known as Betty Jo Beebe. I wish I could remember all of it. I'm glad I can't. My life has become more complex ever since birth, and I suspect it will continue until I'm not here to complain about it.
The wisdom that came from this is to be careful when dealing with electricity, because well meaning folks might decide to help you. When I work with wires, I don't care if they are running hot or not. I only touch one at a time. There. That's the secret to electricity. Touch just one wire at a time, and keep your wits about you. And don't let my brother help you.
Time. I was talking about time. I can say this about time. Regardless of those who say that they wouldn't change a thing in their past, I have to wonder... would I? There are things I would do differently, like a few late night meetings that I would go back and whisper in my younger ear "Not tonight, chum. Trust me on this." Or a few job offers that I would strongly hint that I shouldn't change a thing, or a few places that I would say "Take a right turn here, rather than a left." Do I wish I could change a few things? Yep, because just like that hole hidden behind the picture from where you hammered just a half inch out of plumb, there are holes in my life that I would rather not have happened.
Regrets? Hmm. Like time, I'd be lying to say I don't have any. I think anybody would be lying to say that. Because, on the whole if it, if a person has no regrets, they are one callous bastard who never apologized for the crummy way they treated someone or the dog they kicked or the car they wrecked. Someone without regrets forgets what sort of a creep they have been at one time or another in their life. It's part of life, to be a creep, and then regret. Because it is from the regret that we learn. See? Regret isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing. A learning tool. I'm glad I've regretted a few times. Keeps me humble.
Now, on the other hand, if I regretted NOT having done something, then that would just tick me off. If a person says "I have no regrets!" then they have gone to every place they've wanted to go to, done everything they have wanted to do, offended everyone they wanted to offend, and became such a remarkably lonely person because nobody would have anything to do with them.
Here's my regret. That I have hurt someone. and I have. Oh, I've hurt folks terribly, ignored their pain, walked away when I shouldn't have. Heck, I've cost people, good people, their jobs. And there are place I wanted to go. Not to late, you say? Hmm, say I. I wonder. Sometimes it is just too late to do much of anything. There are times when the places no longer exist.
My home where I was born on a hot summer day was in Indiana, a small town dying from the lack of iron in it's cultural blood. When the auto industry started moving, so did the jobs. My house was a small 5 room affair that had an actual coal bin. I used to play on the front porch and smell the sweet sharp tang of the honeysuckle bush that grew under, around and over the single paned dining room window, being well aware of the deep basso profundo drone of the hundreds of bees that came to enjoy the honeysuckle too. My mother loved that house. My father... I'm not sure what my father thought. He was gone a lot, playing in bands or orchestras or on a business trip or just running away from my mother's alcoholism.
It was this tiny house, with the enormous oak tree on the front easement and another two oaky giants in the backyard, it was this house that taught me that little people, as in fairy folks, are as real to any boy as are the stones in his shoes.
One of the trees out back, a brooding teenage oak tree, whose depressive arms reached nearly to the ground as if asking, "What's the point of it all?", welcomed me to climb onto it's lower leafy shoulders and sit, or sleep on occasion, and think and dream. I actually, and I kid you not, drank the morning dew from a cup made from a honeysuckle, sitting in the safety of my teenage woody friend. It was the sweetest nectar I have ever held in my mouth. Looking backward down the strip of time, I must have seemed to be Peter Pan. And the little people did love their Pan, indeed they did.
Now, I won't go into the mad details of how the little people came to become part of my real world. I will say that, although it is quite likely that I imagined them, it is just as likely that I did not. I can tell you what they look like, though I never rightly saw one. I can tell you what they sound like, though I never rightly talked to one. They were there, none the less. And that is really all I have to say about the little people. Unless you ask. Or I decide to tell more.
This bit of novel isn't about little people or the psychotic loneliness of an over imaginative young boy who spends his days hidden away in a Carnegie library built 150 years before he was born or hanging in the branches of a 200 year old oak tree, listening to the deep, slow thoughts as they passed from green neuron to green neuron.
This bit of a novel is going to be about me, looking back at me, telling tales out of school, and giving you my insight, for what it's worth. My friend Jack suggested a series of essays. I don't have a problem with this as long as I don't have to obey to essay format.
And so, a series of essays may become a novel. This novel may become my life. and my life, for what it's worth or meaning, may last forever, or it may last only long enough to hear the last tick of the ugliest clock in the universe.
The human heart.
Clocks have always been an interest of mine. The way the mechanism moves just so and the gears move just so, and the hands move, yes, just so. If this were a work of fiction, I'd be researching and checking out clock mechanisms so I could sound oh so much smarter than I really am. Instead, I'll just say clocks are my candy. I dig how they work. I even dig them when they don't. Cuz I can fix them. I don't have to know gear ratios and timing and stuff like that to say "Hmm. this goes here." and it does and the darn thing just works. I love clocks.
Time, not so much. Time is my closest friend and worstest enemy. Closest because time has been with me since my beginning. Worstest because there is never enough of it and time stubbornly refuses to give me more.
Time has taken away some great people I've known. Time has taken away relatives just as I was getting to know them. Time is the melter of my ice cream and the spoiler of my milk. Time is not a good person.
So here I stand, or sit rather, and look back over multiple millions of clock ticks and one long running river of Time, snaking darkly backwards like a never-ending skid mark in the shorts of my life.
I have certain doubts that I will impart any great wisdom in these essays. I have certain doubts I'm all that wise, although I do have my "Damn I'm good" moments when things just click just right and the world does it's happy dance and the Universe smiles. There are folks that tell me I'm wise. Or at least full of wisdom. Or maybe it was just that I'm full of it.
I suspect that anyone who has lived a full life can be said to have a certain amount of wisdom. Regardless of the silly and sometimes stupid things we, as we are wont to do, do. If a certain amount of wisdom didn't enter into this, then I'm pretty sure that death would be the end result.
Here's an example. As a child of maybe 14 - and keep in mind, to a child of 14, they are not a child. They aren't sure what they are. Anyway, as a child of 14, I was working with a light socket. My younger brother, one whom time has stolen from me, named James decided, on his own, to help me by plugging the socket in. While I was working with it. Barehanded, the shock tossed me into another universe where I witnessed my own death and birth, and I was glad. Not glad to have gotten the shock, no. I was glad that I was alive.
My brother James did not suffer ill at my hands because of his decision. No, he did not. I'm not exactly sure what transpired after it was all said and done, but I know I did him no harm. Knowing my baby brother, he probably hi-tailed it down the stairs to be somewhere else when I came to. Regardless, I learned a valuable lesson. Electricity can be fun and adventurous. It can also scramble your neurons to make you believe, for a brief period, that you are the captain of a star ship, on the run from the police, and the only way to escape is to dive past the edge of the Universe.
True stuff, that.
So I dove, taking first mate and crew members with me, dying on the way, passing eternity in a black space and then, like Sands in the Hour Glass, wound up heading towards that vaginal tunnel of light known as Betty Jo Beebe. I wish I could remember all of it. I'm glad I can't. My life has become more complex ever since birth, and I suspect it will continue until I'm not here to complain about it.
The wisdom that came from this is to be careful when dealing with electricity, because well meaning folks might decide to help you. When I work with wires, I don't care if they are running hot or not. I only touch one at a time. There. That's the secret to electricity. Touch just one wire at a time, and keep your wits about you. And don't let my brother help you.
Time. I was talking about time. I can say this about time. Regardless of those who say that they wouldn't change a thing in their past, I have to wonder... would I? There are things I would do differently, like a few late night meetings that I would go back and whisper in my younger ear "Not tonight, chum. Trust me on this." Or a few job offers that I would strongly hint that I shouldn't change a thing, or a few places that I would say "Take a right turn here, rather than a left." Do I wish I could change a few things? Yep, because just like that hole hidden behind the picture from where you hammered just a half inch out of plumb, there are holes in my life that I would rather not have happened.
Regrets? Hmm. Like time, I'd be lying to say I don't have any. I think anybody would be lying to say that. Because, on the whole if it, if a person has no regrets, they are one callous bastard who never apologized for the crummy way they treated someone or the dog they kicked or the car they wrecked. Someone without regrets forgets what sort of a creep they have been at one time or another in their life. It's part of life, to be a creep, and then regret. Because it is from the regret that we learn. See? Regret isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing. A learning tool. I'm glad I've regretted a few times. Keeps me humble.
Now, on the other hand, if I regretted NOT having done something, then that would just tick me off. If a person says "I have no regrets!" then they have gone to every place they've wanted to go to, done everything they have wanted to do, offended everyone they wanted to offend, and became such a remarkably lonely person because nobody would have anything to do with them.
Here's my regret. That I have hurt someone. and I have. Oh, I've hurt folks terribly, ignored their pain, walked away when I shouldn't have. Heck, I've cost people, good people, their jobs. And there are place I wanted to go. Not to late, you say? Hmm, say I. I wonder. Sometimes it is just too late to do much of anything. There are times when the places no longer exist.
My home where I was born on a hot summer day was in Indiana, a small town dying from the lack of iron in it's cultural blood. When the auto industry started moving, so did the jobs. My house was a small 5 room affair that had an actual coal bin. I used to play on the front porch and smell the sweet sharp tang of the honeysuckle bush that grew under, around and over the single paned dining room window, being well aware of the deep basso profundo drone of the hundreds of bees that came to enjoy the honeysuckle too. My mother loved that house. My father... I'm not sure what my father thought. He was gone a lot, playing in bands or orchestras or on a business trip or just running away from my mother's alcoholism.
It was this tiny house, with the enormous oak tree on the front easement and another two oaky giants in the backyard, it was this house that taught me that little people, as in fairy folks, are as real to any boy as are the stones in his shoes.
One of the trees out back, a brooding teenage oak tree, whose depressive arms reached nearly to the ground as if asking, "What's the point of it all?", welcomed me to climb onto it's lower leafy shoulders and sit, or sleep on occasion, and think and dream. I actually, and I kid you not, drank the morning dew from a cup made from a honeysuckle, sitting in the safety of my teenage woody friend. It was the sweetest nectar I have ever held in my mouth. Looking backward down the strip of time, I must have seemed to be Peter Pan. And the little people did love their Pan, indeed they did.
Now, I won't go into the mad details of how the little people came to become part of my real world. I will say that, although it is quite likely that I imagined them, it is just as likely that I did not. I can tell you what they look like, though I never rightly saw one. I can tell you what they sound like, though I never rightly talked to one. They were there, none the less. And that is really all I have to say about the little people. Unless you ask. Or I decide to tell more.
This bit of novel isn't about little people or the psychotic loneliness of an over imaginative young boy who spends his days hidden away in a Carnegie library built 150 years before he was born or hanging in the branches of a 200 year old oak tree, listening to the deep, slow thoughts as they passed from green neuron to green neuron.
This bit of a novel is going to be about me, looking back at me, telling tales out of school, and giving you my insight, for what it's worth. My friend Jack suggested a series of essays. I don't have a problem with this as long as I don't have to obey to essay format.
And so, a series of essays may become a novel. This novel may become my life. and my life, for what it's worth or meaning, may last forever, or it may last only long enough to hear the last tick of the ugliest clock in the universe.
The human heart.
