You know what’s harder than that? Trying to explain yoga to your precious family of aging Southern Baptists.

Because if it’s not explicitly typed in the King James version of the Holy Bible then it’s most likely of the devil, who probably created yoga to trick Christians into performing exercises that would get them into positions they couldn’t get out of, thus holding them in place so he could catch them.

But, yoga is a later issue.

First, we have to address a more pressing item, though there are several items overall, not the least of which is the fact that my hair has suddenly gone from brown to a bronze-red, due to a slight miscalculation of coloring when I tried to turn it fully blonde. For me to get bored, you see, is a dangerous mistake.

One my family, specifically U.L., prays constantly about.

So, last Sunday, U.L. asked me how I’d been doing, all the while staring at my mane of flame. I did a fair amount of traveling over this past holiday and hadn’t been “at home” as much as I usually am.

Some of that, though, was by choice. We’re still rebuilding the burned bridge from several months back when I finally had to break down and confess to my family that I was indeed a vegetarian.

And that’s what I’m writing about today: vegetarianism.

To say that I was a vegetarian was as shocking a statement to make as saying, “I’m gay,” or worse yet, “I’m moving my letter to the Episcopal church.”

I plead the fifth on both, for the time being because they pale in comparison to what I actually said, which was, “Yes, Virginia, I am a Vegetarian.” (Virginia is GamVa’s real name, by the way).

Man cannot live by peppers alone...entirely. He will also need tomatoes.

To admit that I was no longer eating meat was tantamount to saying I only read the short chapters in the Bible, or that I think the Flood was really God’s tears about the danger of having termites on board the Ark.

My family is rather self-sufficient. We grow (and certainly used to, back in the day) most, if not all, our own vegetables. We have a good bit of land, and we share what we grow with our neighbors, because that’s in the Bible, and we can what’s left over so we have homegrown vegetables in the winter, etc. etc.

On top of this, we also have our own private cattle farm. Which means fresh, organic meat. And when various hunting seasons start, we send out our gentle menfolk to kill for the sake of eating. We keep in stock fresh deer meat, and have been known to wrangle up a real, bona fide turkey for Thanksgiving.

All of which I, for many years, enjoyed. I do not deny this: I grew up with meat, and I liked it.

But, then, I had a horrible, disgusting dream about eating meat which was so pervasive that it forced me into becoming a vegetarian, and to this day, I honor it. I will actually celebrate my tenth month anniversary (which is almost as long as any relationship I’ve ever had) as a veg-head, next Sunday.

I don’t have anything big planned, other than an argument.

Because that’s what it’s become. Every Sunday. An argument.

Is this what lifelong veg-heads have had to endure? Every week, I have to defend the fact that I choose not to eat meat to my family. I have never known such judgment as I’ve encountered since becoming 100% veggie-friendly.

I have been castigated about everything, and not just by my family. They’re biggest gripe really is the meat part, if you will. Because Nana cooks so much of it, each week.  Very meat-centric.

Ok, now, blow.

Now, every sniffle I have, every little bitty cough, and their immediate diagnosis is, “Well, if you ate meat…”

I had no idea that meat was such a cure-all. The next time U.L. gets the flu, I’ll see to it that he gets a nice hot bowl of chicken fried steak.

I mean, it’s not that I disagree entirely: I think all food is cyclically healthy, in its own way, but there are substitutions…good, FDA-approved substitutions.

And, my god, the way we eat, each week, I’m surprised none of us are dead, yet.

But, the judgment from others, is what’s staggering. I’ve been looked up and down and chastised for my “vegetarianism” while I seem to have no trouble “wearing leather gloves.”

They were a gift, by the way.

People have joked about what shoes I’m wearing, what materials my clothes are made of, and it’s not just animal-based products either. There is no end in sight to the scope of judgment I’ve shouldered, all in good humor: plastics, woods, and…well, OK, my list has an end, but that’s just because I have no political agenda about the “cause.” So, I don’t keep a tally of what’s “in” and “out” where “green” is concerned.

It has, still, however, brought a lot to light.

Am I just caving into a trend with my dietary habits? Am I really a true vegetarian? (I know I can’t be vegan because I could never do without cheese, and though tapioca is a fun substitute, it just doesn’t do it for me).

Or is doing even a little good, just not good enough? Now, I’m starting to question everything I touch, buy, or put in my mouth, on my face, on my body, near an elbow, you name it…I worry about it.

I recently returned from NYC, and I made sure that every purchase of mine was animal-, environment-, and judgment-free. From my shoes, to my shirts, to the foods I ate. And at quite a cost.

The (insert noun here)-free world is not a cheap one. Which sometimes smells a little like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?

What started out as such a simple way to make the world a little bit better has quickly escalated into an addiction, and one with a price tag.

Which brings me to two points: 1) We must be doing something wrong in this country because hundreds of other countries live this way and don’t go broke doing it, and 2) U.L.’s argument that what I’m doing is somehow “wrong” is testament to what this current culture has become: Lost.

Because in a sense, the way I’m living now, the way I’m eating and thinking about eating is no different than the way U.L. grew up (or me, for the most part). They farmed everything themselves, they grew fresh vegetables, they milked cows, they created their own health.

Cow, sheep, goat, soy, or rice. God loves us all the same.

And took pride in it.

But, somehow, because what “was” has now fallen into the hands  of what “is” (meaning people who use words like yoga as well as people who are part of the corporate-farming network), it has become a dirty thing, a nasty deed, practically ungodly.

However, I hold firm because I still believe that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step…and what matters is that you take that step, either way: whether you’re vegetarian, pescatarian, or Presbyterian.

So…you know, just hush up and start walking, already.

A thousand miles is a long, long way to go.

Related Posts:

• Five foods that made me who I am.
• I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.
• Gary makes me hungry.
• So, you know…I really like a potato log.
• I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Can Brag About [...]*

I like to think I’m savvy and a smooth operator, most of the time, but I had a bit of a bitter pill to swallow yesterday, when, on my way back from Scooba (perish the thought!), I had to stop and get gas.

This is hardly a new thing for me, but unlike my usual stop-and-gos at the Scooba Junction gas station, I had neglected to look at my gas gauge until I was in Brooksville, about twenty minutes north. I had no choice but to pull in at the only other gas station on Highway 45 between Starkville and Scooba.

I can’t remember the feebly-attempted witty name it had (Kountry Korner, or some other god-awful collective rape of the alphabet), so I shall refer to it as a vortex of evil. But, that’s as far as I’ll go because, oddly enough, I’m not here to talk about the gas station itself, other than this last thing: they overprice Every Thing.

No, what I’m here to talk about is the elderly black man with his walker pumping his own gas, which he somehow did by propping the pump itself in between the upper and lower handles of his walker. He left it there, and got back in his car. 

I swear I need to get a digital camera.

I had finished pumping my gas, at this point, and as I drove away, he looked up at me.

So, I smiled the same smile I’ve been giving all people-I-don’t-know-but-I-want-to-appear-like-a-decent-human-being for years. He returned my smile with a look that was, if I do say so myself, dismissive and impolite.

I need to frame the rest of the story first, though.

No snake eyes for me.

I have a tendency to turn the rearview mirror onto myself when I drive. It’s silly and a bit narcissistic, but it also makes me feel less alone when I’m on the road. I’m not much in the way of this world, but I can be a fun traveling companion.

Also, I like looking at myself.

And, I’m not one bit ashamed to admit it.

I’m not gorgeous, it’s not that, I just like to see someone I respect looking back at me on my sojourns.

I say that to say this (a lovely phrase for so many cliched reasons), when I offered my smile to this man, I was actually able to catch my own reflection of said smile, in the process.

I’d never noticed this before, but as I drove past him, mulling over his look of disapproval, I, for the first time in my entire life, actually saw the smile that I gave him. The same smile I have given to thousands.

And boy was I in for a shock.

What I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles (but only the King James’ ones) was a sweet, how-do-you-do smile was in fact, a smirk.

I saw it, myself. A bona fide, certified smirk.

To be honest, the big one on the bottom scares me.

All this time, all these years, I thought I was giving a kind, acceptable and welcoming smile and instead, what was coming across my face was a holier-than-thou-even-if-there-could-be-a-week-of-Easter-Sundays grimace of sorts.

I looked as if I were a snooty man whose sole purpose was to drive through evil gas stations and through nothing but the sheer force of my facial expression alone moderate comeuppance to others.

I couldn’t believe it. I hated that look on my face, and above all, certainly because I wasn’t snooty.

Or, was I?

Because the little niggling doubt in the back of my mind is that I have a somewhat solid foothold in the belief that there’s a direct line of truthful communication between your subconscious and your face…even your head.

The Japanese hold to a belief that the head will always tell the truth, no matter what the voice is saying, that’s what Makoto told me.

So, I tried it, and it worked. Try it, yourself. Next time you ask someone a question, like, Do you think I look fat in this? Watch their heads. They may say No, but their heads will nod yes. Afterwards, jump down their throats for not telling you the truth.

Time and again, U.L. has said, Be mindful of your face. It’ll often say what you won’t. Head, face, it doesn’t matter. I need to get better acquainted with them both.

The horror is I think I was doing just what U.L. said, yesterday. God knows, I don’t mean half the things I must subconsciously think, but it’s hard to escape an upbringing. It’s hard to get away from your “home culture.” And part of our “home culture” in the Deep South is thinking, to some degree, that we’re a little bit better than other people. At least, those people at the end of the street, right?

And, who knows, maybe I was thinking that yesterday, without realizing it. Offering what I believed was a smile, saying, in effect, Hey, sir, we both get gas at the same place; we’re not so different, after all. But, my mind was apparently saying, I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas. Ha, ha.

Thus, the smirk.

Would you trust this man?

I’m a bit upset by this. But, my only alternative would be to show my pearly-whites from now ’til kingdom come, and that just won’t do.

I’d look like an idiot.

That’s what I said to Siciliana.

She came back with, ”Yeah, but at least you’d be an honest one.”

Can’t argue with that.

Related Posts:

• Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.
• I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Can Brag About [...]*
• How on earth do you wash a Fedora? [and other random thoughts]…
• This is a sappy blog, and it was well overdue.
• Excuse me, did you just call me a fad?

• I am 33 years old. And I’m OK with it.
• I had a great birthday, hobnobbed with artists, all my favorite people around me, and a chocolate cake that could create world peace. And,
• I didn’t do anything I had to apologize for the morning after, although there were some broken dishes in the middle of the street before the night was over. (And none of the guests were Greek, either).

It was a weekend full of good things, good, true things. And despite this lingering head cold, I actually felt great, the whole night long. Because for the first time in my life, I truly felt like a grown-up. Well, no, more than that:  I felt like a man.

And it didn’t feel tacky or gross.

It felt…right.

For years, I’ve struggled with my sexual identity, specifically where my sex was concerned: I never wanted to be a man. Or a Man.

What I think I realized this weekend, though, is that there are many kinds of men (and Men) in this world, and my problem was in trying to be everyone else’s man, instead of my own.

But, Friday night, I became my own Man. And I like him. I’m quite happy with him, actually.

Oh, chocolate cake, what can't you fix?

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like who I am becoming.

And saying that, aloud, is wonderfully freeing.

Because I’m not sure that many of us like who we are, at all.

I can understand that. I think we all experience that; isn’t it mandatory in order to get through the seventh grade, or something, to hate yourself?  I’m thankful that I’m coming through to the other side of it, though, because there’s not a whole lot of good that comes out of hating yourself, or keeping so many walls up.

…except poetry, I guess. But. I’d argue that it probably isn’t really good poetry.

It takes an awful lot of energy to keep so many walls standing. I used to do it, though. I waited in fear of my coming Battle of Jericho because I’d built those walls on purpose. They had a real reason for being built: to keep everyone else out.

Until, I suppose, this past weekend, when I decided, you know, if push comes to shove, I’d much rather bring my own walls down, instead of letting someone else.

That’s a big step to come to terms with, and No, I didn’t come up with all this courage in the past three days…it’s been a process for the last two years. Since becoming single.

I didn’t bring my first wall down, alone, you know. Much as I hate admitting that.

This isn't going to be good.

But, I was damn sure not going to let the rest of them be taken down without permission. And that decision is what pushed me along this sudden path to manhood. A path I think I finally found good footing on this weekend, and that’s all.

That’s all I’m trying to say.

I’m not sure, I can only guess, but I think perhaps I’ve spent this first part of my life as my mother. Now, I feel like I’m changing, and that would mean, spending the next part of my life as my father. It’s a hazardous guess, I’m aware of that, but it makes some bizarre sense to me.

I know my mother believed that the unexamined life is the same as being without a man, in other words, unacceptable. My father, I would say, believes there is no such thing as an unexamined life. Which puts me somewhere in the middle of thinking that Love, and the act of it, is both life and its final exam.

Or, rather, by the time I get to the end of this second part of my life that will be my truism. At the moment, I consider Love to be that rare thing that can still exist even if you don’t believe in it.

You can have love without giving it. You can know love without believing in it. You can love without being loved back.

Sometimes, it’s a lonely thing. And sometimes, it’s like being Jesus.

I bet no less than fifteen people said this to me, last weekend: Wow, you’re 33. That’s how old Jesus was when he was crucified.

I’m not sure even Miss Manners would have an appropriate response to that.

Above all, I hope it’s not an implication re: my 33^rd year. I’m just shy of having all trees in my line of sight cut down, just in case. (I also will do my best not to befriend any one from North Africa named Simon).

I know it was meant as conversation fodder, some twisted style of joking, and I carried it off as that, up until the fifteenth time it was said to me. By then, I’d managed to work my way through half a bottle of Moscato Spumante, and the last thing on my mind was What Would Jesus Do?

I was on the very verge of trying to Noel Coward the poor young man who’d been Number 15, when I stopped. The cake had been brought out, and I was itching to get my mouth on chocolate. I’m sure whatever I had been prepared to say would have been wit-worthy.

But, though the comment has dried up and away, the residue of fifteen separate people having the urge to say the exact same thing fifteen times to me, has settled into a small corner in the back of my mind.

Jesus, whether you like him or not, or follow him or what, was still a real person, a Man, who died in a most horrible manner at the age of 33. And that shouldn’t happen to anyone. When the dust settled, the literal dust, what was left, was a life that offers us, even now in this day and age, a prime example of Love. Compassion. Mercy.

But, mostly, Love.

Start with yourself, first.

He left a legacy of words, which, in my book, is about the highest honor a Man can have. But, he also left a legacy of common sense, of humanity, of decency.

And that, I can relate to.

Instead of throwing myself into another’s arms, what would happen if I opened mine out for someone, this time? Rather than desperately seek for What I Think I’m Owed, would it be so bad to “pay off some of my debts, or trespasses, to others?” Why hold anger against those I don’t like, for whatever reason? Would it kill me to forgive? Is it out-of-fashion to be a decent human being in the 21^st Century? Out of vogue to have common sense?

Would it really be so bad to be like Jesus?

I don’t think so.

Of course, I’m probably going to have to hold onto that glass of Moscato, but that still leaves a hand free to break down another wall or two.

Hell, that’d be a good toast, so let’s make it one: Here’s to going one wall at a time.

And, maybe, two on Sundays.

Related Posts:

• Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.
• Because hands can do everything but lie.
• I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.
• This raises an interesting question within my Articles of Faith [...]
• That time I almost met Harper Lee.

* The full, real title is I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Feel I Have the Right to Brag About and also Things I Cannot Stand. Just, you know, FYI.

You should know that what follows is a) a partial list only, and b) they’re not in any particular order of Cannot Stand vs. Brag. I would say to put your Big Boy Panties on and read carefully, but it’s odd how similar the things I can’t stand and the things I want to brag about actually are.

I’m not sure what that says about me, but anyway – to be safe – how about I don’t say anything about your panties. No need to tip the scales against me…

This is the very face of irony. And its finger.

Just enjoy the read.

• I will not eat food while wearing a jacket.
• I’ve never been bitten by a rattlesnake.
• Pudding, Cool Whip, and/or meringue, formless foods that try to make you think they can stand alone.
• I cannot, cannot, cannot abide a haircut where they “wet your hair” instead of rinsing it, fully.
• I hate talking on the phone.
• I have good teeth.
• People who pass gas and are proud of it.
• I don’t like people who don’t use turn signals, myself included.
• I rarely get sick.
• Animals like me.
• I’m a very good driver.
• I can listen to a song I like on repeat way, way longer than you can.
• I do not appreciate tardy people, and I tell them that.
• I cook well.
• Interestingly, I can give myself a fever.
• I disapprove of people who smack.
• I am, for the most part, actually clever.
• I’ve been featured on the back cover of The Dramatist three times.
• Spandex.
• I frown on poor penmanship.
• People who say “kewl.”
• I’ve never broken any bones…well, not my own. (Please see the next bulleted point).
• Once, I got so mad at this boy, at some Christian Bible camp I had to go to, that I wished and wished he’d get hurt. And he did, he broke his collar bone.
• I dreamed once that a man was going to drown, and he did.
• Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. And talk of future meetings.
• I am routinely complimented on my penmanship. FYI.
• Truckers.
• I learned Hebrew when I was four.
• I’ve never had a mullet.
• But, I have eyelashes of jealous, enviable length.
• No one in my family has ever baby talked the babies.
• I wrote my first poem when I was eleven.
• People who prefer not to use deodorant.
• 4-way stops.
• Answering the phone. (Please see the fifth bulleted point, above).
• Lying.
• I only have original art in my house.
• I’m more than likely the reincarnation of either Truman Capote, Noel Coward, or Oscar Wilde. I’m just saying. Because that’s like, totally something to brag about.
• Fedoras and scarves.
• My cat, Aristophanes, is part-bobcat.
• Church cantatas that include handbells. 
• My legs.
• Hang nails.
• I have a brother who is half-Iranian, a second brother and sister who are half-Polish, and a third brother who is half-Cherokee, between my parents. On top of that, as you might have guessed, we’re all half-siblings. Now, add on top of that this: the Iranian brother is Muslim, but our mother comes from a Jewish family, which makes us Jewish, so I feel certain war will eventually break out between us. Talk about a conflict of interest.
• I was once ranked third in the state in Men’s singles tennis.
• My brother who is half-Iranian is also an up-and-coming rap artist, in Las Vegas, by the way. I thought you should know that.
• I have an autographed book by Eudora Welty, who was a friend of my mother’s.
• Screaming, and any variation of it.
• Proselytizers.
• Mississippi is no longer the fattest state in the nation.
• My grandmother once made me stop the car and get out, to help a turtle get across the road. That’s the stock I come from.
• Billy Hull, who lived down the road from me, was once the longest-serving County Supervisor in the United States. He held the record until he died.
• My cousin, Lucy, was a second-alternate for the 1996 Olympic gymnastics team, behind Amanda Borden.
• My Uncle Oscar started Morrison’s Cafeterias.
• My Nana is deaf in the same ear as Caesar.
• Feet.
• I was Little Mr. Winston County in 1983.
• Fred Phelps.
• I won the Mississippi State Horticulture award in 1994, even though I didn’t climb the tree like everyone else at the week-long camp did to retrieve a sample of blighted mistletoe.
• Boogers.
• People who end all of their sentences as if they’re asking questions.
• I’ve never gotten pregnant.
• I almost met Harper Lee.
• I can play the piano by ear, if the piano is out of tune like U.L’s.
• Oh, and get this, U.L. had a brother who was a dwarf, named Ran.
• I saved a young boy from drowning when I was fifteen.
• Coffee.
• I know the world’s greatest drummer. No lie.
• That being said, the world’s foremost banjo player is from my hometown.
• My mother dated Marty Stuart, years ago.
• Pumpkin pie.
• I once sang a note, and held it for a minute and twenty-eight seconds. But, only once.
• Even people who hate me, like me.
• Sweating in work clothes.
• Computers that are slow.
• I once got stung by twelve yellow jackets, at the same time. Three on the face, alone. And lived to tell it.
• I used to make my own books of poetry from discarded gift boxes and wood glue, which I for years thought was more durable than normal glue. They fell apart, though, after about five reads.
• One of my neighbors, growing up, had a pet monkey that did not like curtains, or his daughter.
• My Aunt Sally lived to be 100; my Uncle Pat, 102.
• I am the Cat Whisperer.
• People who pepper their conversations with French. How gauche.
• My blog is an app on someone’s iPhone.
• Rude children.
• Waking up.

Both art and a good philosophy.

I’d like to continue but, ironically, another thing I can’t stand is writing. Who’d’ve thunk it? I’m driven to write, though, I can’t ignore that, but I still find it painful and grueling.  Probably because it’s such a raw craft, makes me vulnerable…or better yet, makes me think and feel that I’m vulnerable.

Which reminds me…

•  Being vulnerable, you know, and stupid things like that.

Oh, and, one last thing…

•  I’ve held a baby gopher turtle. I bet you haven’t.

I know that makes you jealous, the baby gopher turtle part, and I’m sorry for that. I would be too, I mean, come on! It was a baby gopher turtle! You’ve probably never even heard of a gopher turtle, in the first place…raise your hands if you have.

I didn’t see a single hand go up.

Ok, I’m done. That’s all for now.

So…go on and have a good one.

Related Posts:

• Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.
• I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.
• I try not to abuse the privilege of a horn.
• Suffice it to say, I was spanked, a second time, OR The 100th Blog.
• I can't die here, not this close to the Mennonite bakery.

Don’t worry, no one saw me.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not cry stone tears. Anymore.

The lights were off, and most were, I’m happy to say, engrossed in the video documentary I was showing on Tennessee Williams.  I counted three sleeping students, but I only heard two of them…so I let them rest.

They’re athletes and all, you know.

I’ve seen this A&E video on Williams a hundred thousand and six times, but today, today, the story resonated in a deep and tragic way, wholly new to me. I suppose it’s the stress, I’m saying it’s the stress, but whatever it was, it touched me. It moved me.

SPOILER ALERT: Sappiness is going to run rampant through this blog, so do what you got to do to get ready.

There are few things on this great earth I enjoy more than being moved. It makes me feel so normal and human.

Perhaps that’s just my church upbringing, but it’s, I feel, it’s akin to “seeing faith,” when you’re physically and mentally moved.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, to be honest. Tennessee Williams certainly has a psychological hold over us in Mississippi, especially when you teach theatre right down the road from his birthplace. But, there’s so much more that students here find challenging when they initially hear his story: his homosexuality, his alcoholism, his drug abuse, his abusive father, his demanding mother, his relentless pursuit of _________.

It affects them because, I think,  at some level, it’s a similar story to theirs. As it is to mine. It just has a greater perspective than most of our lives do, at the outset: Williams never gave up.

I guess that’s what got to me, that despite the critics, the bad reviews, he furiously held onto the belief he had in his talent. He knew, doubtlessly, that he had one thing to do in this life, and that was to write. So, that’s what he did.

Amid the grunts and the exasperated responses to the commentary about Williams’ blatant sexuality, which was to be expected, the students eventually settled on the idea of what impact can truly do. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to get past his sexual nature, at first, or be willing to look beyond what such a life does to the eager gossip mill in Smalltown America, but I think they did. I believe they saw that what he had to say was so much more vital and important than what he was.

At the end of this particular video, Dakin, his brother, says that in his mind, ”Tennessee was the greatest playwright that ever lived.” He stops, then, and corrects himself, “No, he is. He is the greatest playwright that ever lived.” And right then, at that moment, he chokes up.

As you can see, my class was riveted to the idea of a documentary.

So did I. So did a couple of students in the class. Because it’s human, it’s real, when Dakin talks about Williams’ legacy. He means it, and that’s moving.

We don’t often consider the purpose of legacy.

We don’t often have the foresight to persevere; we rarely have the motivation to pursue anything based on belief, alone…not to the point of ridicule, of being made a laughingstock. That’s what happened to Williams; it’s heartbreaking. And who knows, maybe he wasn’t aware of his drive, his own motivation. Maybe he was simply following instinct, or trying to destroy it.

The story doesn’t change, either way, for me, not at its base level, not at its Moral:  To find faith, one must lose something; to have it, everything.

So, then, I couldn’t help it. I started thinking of things I’ve lost, trying to separate the Big Ones from the Little Ones. I wanted to see if my theory could hold any water, aside from its apparent inability to hold tears.

• I’ve lost people. Loved ones, friends, martyred by illness or fate, or poor relationships. I think of one in particular on a daily basis and the importance his life meant to me, when I was struggling to find truth in myself. And, I somehow have maintained my foothold in the faith that because they lived, or still do, I grew longer wings.
• I’ve lost a continent. (And here I give a nod to the great Elizabeth Bishop). I tried to find a life in Europe with my father and his family there. I did try. I think he did, too. That was all I needed, really:  to see, feel, hear the effort. It restored my faith in small things, quiet gestures, honest attempts. After all, he is a man I owe my life to.
• I’ve lost time. Wasted it, worried it to death, forgotten it, tried to steal it…instead of just living through it. Nothing is as costlier or more valuable. We never use it wisely, and we never have enough. Lose a little time for yourself; you’ll see.  You’ll put a lot more faith in the time left, next time around.
• I’ve lost respect. For myself and others, family members. I’ve allowed hate and anger and malice and greed and envy to get too comfortable in my living room. It’s the hardest thing in the world to look at yourself in the morning when you lose respect, yours or someone else’s. It’s awfully hard to get it back, too. Faith cuts a humble pie with a very sharp knife, sometimes. And sometimes, we all need our Mothers, no matter what.

Once, and I must have been 8 or 9 at the time, I was sitting in church and the offering plate was being passed around. I’d pulled five dollars from my piggy bank (also known as a McRae’s watch box, which always had the most delicious smell, wafting from that soft, black felt), and I was so very eager to put these five dollars in the offering plate, like a bona fide grown-up. As the plate came down the pew to me, though, I saw this small postcard with a few simple lines printed on it. It read:

This is what Faith is: You step off into the Great Unknown, knowing one of two things will happen: you’ll either find something solid to stand on, or God will teach you to fly.

Had this been in the offering plate, I might not have seen the card.

I took that little card, in exchange for my five dollars, and tucked it away in that small McRae’s watch box. Sadly, I have no idea where that watch box is, anymore.

I guess I’ve lost it. So…

• I’ve lost that McRae’s watch box. But, it’s OK. It served its purpose; it gave me my first working definition of Faith. And that has made all the difference to me. And when the world becomes too much with us (a nod to Wordsworth), I am very quick to remind myself that today would be as good a day as any to learn how to fly…

If I could just get my feet to take that first step.

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All this talk about 2012, and the end of the world, has made me both hungry and excited. That’s a dangerous combination, coupled with the fact that Lil’ Wayne, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Janeane Garofalo are listed on various 2012 websites as celebrity believers in this Doomsday Prophecy. I mean, please…

That’s enough right there to make me gorge myself to near death on a jar of warm mayonnaise.

The essential southern food staple in repose.

To be honest, I’m not sure where my depth of awe in the Apocalypse even comes from. I don’t know why it intrigues me so much. I’m sure, like most everything else I learned, it was tacked onto the underside of some Bible lesson I was taught as a child, at Tigi’s feet, which were usually planted right in front of the stove. It’s not an uncommon sight: mixing faith with a wooden spoon.

That makes it sound a little like a beating.

It wasn’t, not really. Not physically, anyway.

I recognize that faith requires a bruise, sometimes…or, a deep cut across that list of things you think, or want, or try to believe in. It was a good reminder to learn about faith while supper was being fixed. There’s a definite correlation between the two; it’s what makes cornbread soul food.

In the Christian faith there’s hardly a more anticipatory event than the marriage of Them to Rapture nee Apocalypse.  For everyone else, I suppose there’s just the anxious wait…to see if comes true or not. But, whichever way you want to spin it, it’s all getting a little out of hand, this Doomsday business.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

I’m young, but I’ve lived through a lot. And not just me, I mean my whole generation. The laundry list of events we’ve witnessed firsthand is staggering: Katrina, 9/11, the 2004 Tsunami, Y2K, William Shatner’s Roast on Comedy Central. It seems like tragic world events are happening with more and more frequency.

What's your frequency, Kenneth?

Either that, or I’m watching too much television.

It all makes me nervous. Then, again, it’s supposed to. We’ve been living in the Age of Anxiety since the end of World War II. I think I believe that. I need to believe it; it makes me more sympathetic to U.L.

I’ve said before that the attraction we perversely find in ourselves when drawn to such disasters is the safe and equalizing effect such disasters have over us. After 9/11, we remembered that we were a nation of peoples, different but necessary. We loved each other. Churches became important again. Faith was found, in the backs of closets and dusty, but still: there it was. So, we pulled it out and put it on the coffee table. We made pies and casseroles and invited friends over. We ran up phone bills, went over our “minutes.”

Until it felt OK to not care so much, so vividly. That’s sort of how our cycle goes: we stress into doing right, we rest into being wrong.

But, now, here we are again, thanks to the Mayans, sitting in a new testy silence ruminating on the threatening possibility of another absolute annihilation at the end of 2012 (in December, my birthday month no less).

The fear comes from our complete inability to do anything about it, if it’s true.

There’s certainly nothing I can do about it, in the next three and a half years. I mean, not about stopping the world from ending, but I can eat. I am more than capable of going broke pub-clubbing from restaurant to restaurant, in this present interim.

So, I’m thinking about that, instead. 

And that’s a lot of stress, to think about what foods I want to eat, or what dishes I want to try in the kitchen over the next 42 months. I don’t even know where Tigi’s wooden spoon is. This is not an easy task: planning will be have to planned. I’ll have to quit my job, take what meager savings I have and map out a clear, concise itinerary for my Doomsday Delectables Tour, highlighting which restaurants are truly worth stopping for, which grocers stock the finest ingredients.

It’s intense.

I liken it to the extreme pressure a death row inmate must face when he leans across the table and tells his lawyer what he wants for his last meal. There are simply too many delicious food combos to consider: do you go classic and simple and keep it all PB&J, or do you demand a choice filet with a rich peppercorn sauce and Baked Alaska for dessert?

It’s maddening to think about, and I’ve only got 1196 days left. Which I should point out is hardly fair: death row inmates get years and years to listen and understand their pallate’s sincerest needs. According to the 2012 Doomsday Clock, I won’t even have enough time to finish my doctorate before the world ends, much less commit a capitol murder offense.

Right now, you're wishing you'd taken that bite.

And that’s fine by me because I just don’t have that kind of time, right now.

There’s such a huge degree of uncertainty, these days: will the world end; where will I be when it ends; is the economy permanently damaged; who keeps turning on the water hose behind my house and leaving it on all day…I mean these are the important questions.

And, I’m sorry, but I can only answer one of them. I know exactly where I’ll be when the world ends:  in the kitchen, cooking.

I always make extra, don’t worry…so feel free to drop by. And, on the way, could you stop by Wal-Mart, or somewhere, and get a few things?  Like water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks, and vegetable seeds. We’re going to need these things if we intend to survive.

Oh, yeah, and a bottle of white, too, please. Pinot Grigio (not a dreadful Chardonnay)

I mean, the end of the world is not an excuse to be tacky, right? 

Let’s  go out as gauche as we came in…

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It’s true. But, no worries, I’m not perfect. For instance, I have a cowlick.

100% Natural Cow Lick

No, what I’m referring to is my “curse.” I have one. (I probably have more than one, but I have one that is simply prevalent, at all costs, regardless of any personal demographic).

I never forget an injustice.

Ever. As a matter of awkward fact, I could go for years without seeing you, or thinking about you, and not even a second after a re-introduction, or a chance meeting, I immediately am reminded of That Thing You Did.

I can’t help it.

Once, I was at The Pig to buy some veggie dogs, and, because as always happens in the grocery store I simply cannot leave with only what I went there to buy, I’d decided to get some Fig Newtons, and as I turned the corner, there stood a person I’d not seen (hadn’t really wanted to run into, either, to be honest) in over a year, holding a bag of potato chips, the real good kind.

“Well, Kris, I’ll be…how on earth are you?”

I was so hoping I’d not been spotted. I was shoulder-level to a row of canned squash (perish the thought) and of course, I pretended to need four cans of it, announcing that I was in quite a hurry, and how good it was to see them (it wasn’t good to see them – we’d never been that close), and how was the family, and blah, blah, blah.

Ahem. You’ve been there, before, I know…you’ve filled your buggy with cans of squash a time or two, I’m sure.

I should have been nicer, more southern, I knew better, I did, but I couldn’t look at them without recalling that time (and this was back in high school!) that they’d stolen two candy bars from the Store (we sold candy in between classes to raise money for the annual) and then blamed me for it.

No one believe it, not for one hot second, of course, but still…I had not forgotten. I hadn’t remembered that I’d not forgotten until right then, but you see my dilemma.

This raises an interesting question within my Articles of Faith, you understand.

If I can’t truly forget what you’ve done to me, for whatever reason (and I’m sure a few were warranted), then can I truly forgive? 

I hate to sound petty and trite about this, but I am a little worried. Why does my subconscious care so much?  Have I somehow given such absolute weight to every grievance done to me? (And is this a reciprocal action?)

Godspell.

I mean, Lord knows, I’ve not gotten hung up on your wrongdoing in my daily life, or routine, but why should your “mistake” (let’s call it) be the first thing to crop back into my mind, the moment we run into each other again?  I accept the fact that I’m human, and thus, flawed. Fine.

But, what else lies down there in my psyche? 

I had no idea you could carry a grudge and not feel it, not know it…

What’s the point of anger, in that case?

It’s even a little embarrassing. I try to make light of it, to joke about it, but it still sits there, right under my eyebrow, there I am sitting at the bar with you watching you sip, sip, sip your G-a-T; or, there I am, elbow-to-elbow with you in the audience enjoying a play, a musical, a concert; or, there I am passing by you in Wal-Mart, pretending I’m not recalling that time you stood me up, didn’t pay me back, spread a lie about me, left me off the invite list, whatever – it never has to be a big thing, you know, doesn’t have to be a major event.

Probably, I could argue, that it’s the smaller ones that hurt the most, that my psyche clings to.

But, get this, it’s not even that I care that much about it, or that I’m usually that offended by the oversight…the kicker is that my mind thinks it is. Heck, if I kept a list off all the things that overlooked me, the times that stood me up, the unpaid debts, and so forth, I’d go missing.

What I hate is that the moment we reconnect, this is the first thing I think of. I go straight to it. And so, I have to re-evaluate my dialogue, in that conversation, because you’re probably not thinking of that stray moment, either…and I don’t want to bring it up, necessarily, myself.

I’m just not sure how to work through it. I swear, I don’t really keep a tally. (Maybe I should, though, maybe that would alleviate this need I have mentally to “judge”).

It’s a horrible thing to discover that about yourself, that you judge others, when you really, truly, didn’t think you did. It’s like discovering those sebaceous pimples – the kind that hurt, that bump up, but they never break the surface, so no one else really believes you have a pimple.

Oh, but you do. You do. And you know you do.

I’m not even sure therapy would help. I tend to think of the subconscious as being this massive sieve, and all day long it sweeps through the murk, the mud, the mess and collects all those moments, issues, feelings, etc. that you couldn’t deal with and its first attempt comes that night, through your dreams. (This is why I’m a vegetarian).

But, if it doesn’t get a chance to release them then, it just throws them into a back room until later. Later, by the way, usually manifests as aggravation, anger, frustration, irritation, divorce, diarrhea, headache, bankruptcy, and suicide. Sometimes, the only symptom is mild discomfort, but you should still consult your phys — wait, wait, wait. I’ve gotten this confused with Levitra.

Doctor Feelgood isn't in. Ever.

What I mean to say is, probably that’s the basis of my Mistake Retention. I’m just projecting onto something within my control that stems from something that isn’t or wasn’t. Maybe that’s the whole reason we make the mistakes we make in the first place. We just haven’t cleaned up, on the inside. All that clutter gets in the way and the next thing you know, we’re operating under the Best Intentions Rule.

If best intentions were money, we’d have no poverty left in the world, would we? I haven’t met a soul yet who doesn’t have them.

The trouble is, we just don’t know how to spend them.

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Friday started early, for me. I headed to Jackson to visit with my dear, sweet friend Lora. She’s staying for a week at this resort and spa known as the University Medical Center.  It’s all on account of her cancer diet (her joke, by the way).

Ah, the tasty goodness. (Sans turkey, plus seafood)

I stayed there for a good, long time, sharing stories with her about faith, the future, etc. She had quite a busy day: former students, new acquaintances (everyone knows and loves Lora), and pleasant doctors all stopping by to offer well-wishes, and to remark on not just how good she was looking, but also to notice how high her spirits were.

The only real negative of the day was the food. The hospital’s food. I couldn’t blame her: even the onion rings were soggy. I was sent to Subway for a Seafood Creations sandwich, six-inch.

Lora was my initial reason for going to Jackson. And after my visit, I decided I would swing by the mall. I think we only have three in the state of Mississippi.  But, as I’m starting my new job this week, I wanted a fresh look.

And underwear.

Amanda called me around 3:00PM and told me not to forget that it was tax-free weekend.

I said I couldn’t forget what I didn’t know. Elaborate, please.

Apparently, Mississippi’s governor heralded this past weekend as Tax-Free Weekend. But, just on clothes and shoes. God bless the woman at Wal-Mart in Starkville who misunderstood and piled several buggies (that’s what we call shopping carts down south) with a month’s worth of groceries and all the school supplies her four children would ever need from now until graduate school.

None of that counted. It was only shoes and clothes. Very New York of us.

Having not previously heard of this tax-free business, I was unprepared for the disaster that was the highway to the mall. It was ridiculous. The traffic was reminiscent of all those last-minute people at Christmas Eve, who foolishly wait until hours before the exchange of gifts to buy all their gifts and I had no choice but to buy the leftover detritus for even the babies that Christmas because I am not good with time-management.  And, so,  lesson learned.

But, this? This was insanity. I guess, in theory, it sounds wonderful, despite the fact that you’re really only saving upwards of 7% to every dollar you spend, so results only surface if you’re heading toward multiple triple digits. 

I don’t know. I’m not good at math, which is why I was elated to have a Tax-Free Weekend.

Until I got stuck in 45 minutes worth of traffic merely four lights from the mall’s entrance. It’s like driving by Disney World and pretending you were there simply because you saw the top of Thunder Mountain from I-4. You know, you saw enough to describe the ride, but it’s not quite the same, right?

I finally got to the mall, and at that point, had decided it wouldn’t be worth all the stress of getting here unless I bought a lot of things. (In retrospect, I think this type of groupthink is what motivates and maintains the economy in this state, if not the country).

So, I did my American/Mississippi duty and bought things. Lots of things. to be honest, though, I didn’t really feel like I was getting any sort of a “deal” just by not having to pay sales tax.  My wallet certainly didn’t know the difference. Besides, a gift by any other name is just a tax called an embargo.

It ain't easy living in a coin-operated economy.

(I’m hoping that that last sentence, whereas perhaps not logically correct could at least fool enough people as to seem funny).

I returned home, the next morning, laden with what I consider appropriate apparrel to, at the least, appear professorial in the classroom.

The drive home was ugly: rain and rain and rain and I think, maybe a tornado around the Goshen Springs exit. I didn’t stick around to find out.

I’m still not sure what I did Saturday night, aside from watching the musical revue, Let Freedom Sing, at the theatre, downtown. It was a USO-related revue, and the end of the thing was a real tear-jerker.

I admit it; I cried.

There was an entire montage of projected photographs featuring soldiers from the area, and also pictures of those who had already passed on. I mean come on, nothing gets a tear out of me more than true reality. It almost doesn’t even matter what song is being sung or played in the background: post pictures up of those who are risking their lives, on a daily basis (still!), to ensure my freedom to sit in a 45-minute jam a la traffic and get aggravated at the cars in front of me, and all for the sheer pleasure of shopping…well.

I cried because it humbled me. And embarrassed me. And shamed me. (At least, at first). I mean, I consistently return to it, but I almost always manage to misplace my focus, my attention on what’s important…temporarily, anyway.

After the show, I called Aggy, a friend of mine in the Navy, and I told him about the production, and about my subsequent guilt. Wood, of course, is already in Afghanistan, so I couldn’t call him. Aggy told me that it didn’t offend him that I had been shopping. That knowing that, sort of encouraged him all the more to defend my rights, our rights, etc. To him, it was a story that resembled normalcy. And that’s what he wanted more than anything else.

I went to another department store yesterday and bought him some underwear, socks, and T-shirts. Because I liked his answer. If for no other reason than because it assuaged my guilt. (FYI: The tax-free weekend ended at midnight on Saturday, so this was like a real gift).

It’s hard to know how to feel about things you can’t change.

I miss Ma Onie and her smokehouse antics.

I ended my weekend with two of my nephews, who were for the most part, well-behaved. Though, somewhere after the gallon of sweet tea (which in Mississippi has now supplanted breast milk – but don’t worry, Ma Onie for years fermented her own sugar syrup, and also another FYI: when you use the word “ferment” it automatically means healthy and good for you.  It goes down, swimmingly, you might say), the two boys, nicknamed Chunk and Bug, hit the top of their threshold of behavior and went berserk.

I was at a loss as to what to do, mostly because I was exhausted from my first half of the weekend.

Nana, then, from regions unknown in the second sitting room, emerged and declared that she had cherries. (Not the real kind, the Maraschino-style kind, coated in 100% sugar and 0% amaretto).

It was as if a miracle occurred. Both Bug and Chunk stopped their misguided revelry, and in a zombie-trance, worthy of kitsch, stalked to the nook table and sat down, like miniature adults, and ate two plates of staining cherries.

I’d never seen anything like it; never was made aware of the lure of a maraschino cherry.

I’ve filed it away for future playdates/babysitting responsibilities. And I can’t say I’m shocked, after all that sugar intake, that the first thing both of them asked for when they were finished, was a glass of ice.

Classic. Better ice, though, than what their mothers ate for a snack, back in their younger days: butter.

I just don’t know how Aunt Lola lived to be 98. Gamva turns 93 in October, and Uncle Pat died at 101. Gran just hit 92.

I don’t know much, but I know this: There’s no way it was on this diet.

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I’m sure there’s a finer art to it than what I’m putting to paper. No, I know there is as evidenced by PaperGirlMemoir’s blog. I enjoy her blog, among several others, those detailing their writing journeys. I suppose she’s serving as a “model,” though she has a much better, cleaner handle on how to go about writing one than I do. I tend to ramble. (I’m pretending it’s my style, so don’t say anything).

Sometimes, it reads like this, but it doesn't feel like it.

At first, I thought, why on earth would I think anyone wants to read a memoir by me. And then, I thought, why not?  Words don’t exist just for those with accomplished lives. Nor do they wait for sentences that only come from the pens of established literati. I have lived, and that is miracle enough.

If we take Jung at his word, and dip our own toes in the “collective unconscious,” then surely there is no life unworthy of being written about.

Besides, what you say isn’t the point, is it?  The challenge comes in how you say it.

I’ve been stressing and stressing this to my students, this first summer term: that their opinions are of merit, that they really already know most of this critical theory “stuff,” (we do it daily in our normal lives) they’ve just never had to give it a name, before.  The higher hill to climb for them is in learning just that: how to justify their opinions. Most of them immediately jump to Reader-Response criticism, overlooking the necessity of understanding the purpose of becoming an “informed reader” within an “interpretive community.”

But, twisting that critical concept, a bit, I suppose, that’s what I’m trying to do, too: justify my opinions (except in this case, they all total up to My Life)…but, I mean, that’s one way of looking at a memoir, or the impetus behind writing one, right? It’s the ability to interpret your community.

I’ve been irregularly writing a memoir, or two, for the last couple of years. I never put a great deal of steady stock in it, but the idea, I find intoxicating. One day, maybe, I’ll put all these random pages together. But, in the meantime, I thought I might share a couple with you.  I’ve put, perhaps, a total of 60 pages into two different collections; the reason for that is they come from two very different stylistic approaches: singular personal (mostly me with opinions) and plural personal (mostly me + others + opinions). The titles I’ve given them are Loud Enough and Deer in the Road. I’m writing the titles here for posterity’s sake.

I got first dibs, in other words. (I worked really hard on coming up with them, too). 

…from Loud Enough

Maybe this is a work of fiction.  There’d be a certain irony in that, if it were.  Maybe this is an autobiography; there’s a good deal of personal experience and truth to the subject matter.  Or, maybe it doesn’t matter.  I’m probably only vaguely aware of what I’m saying.  But first things first, of course.

I’d been obsessing over a book, a memoir, for a long time because I thought I was interesting; I’d conquered (and that’s a term I’m using loosely) prose and poetry and playwriting.  Granted, these conquests occurred mainly in the privacy of my room, and the only witness was my cat, Aristophanes.  

Still, she was nonetheless proud and a harsh critic. 

But you know, I almost didn’t get this far.  I was almost too afraid of having to be responsible for words.  I’ve also been obsessed with that concept, with language in general.  For instance, I don’t own any of these words, and yet, by putting them into these sentences I’m basically contracting myself to their overall impression, their intent. 

There are few words more disappointing, more potentially upsetting in the whole English language than intent. It’s a frightening responsibility, too, to commit to something as determined as intent [...]

I was haphazardly cast as The Tutor in Sartre’s The Flies, one February, early in the month, years ago.  I use haphazard because, to be honest, I didn’t want to be in the play.  I’d grown very upset with acting and tired and weary.  After all, I’d just turned 27.  I was already washed up, I felt.  I’d done nothing with my life, in theatre, at that point, of any real significance and I’d had such plans.  God, did I have plans.  All my friends were doing their, you know, plans, but not I.

Even a picture of flies is aggravating.

I fell in love.

That’s not so necessary for this book, though. 

At least not for this part.

I still had my professional experiences.  I still worked with good people who had a lot of knowledge about their place in the world of theatre and masks. 

A large criticism in my past has been my reluctance to commit; perhaps, I should use the colloquial term here for easy reference:  I was lazy.  But, now wait.  I had a good reason to be.  My procrastination came from an abundance of directions.  I was consumed with ideas for plays, for scenes, as an actor, as a singer, cabaret artist, and in character analysis, for design and costume, and so on and on and on.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities, and when you’re  faced with an endless array of potential, no matter which way you turn…what do you do?  I slept, usually.  My potential was deeply rooted in depression, a rhetorically habitual Remembrance of Things Past (I really should have read more Proust in life), a negligence of what was right in front of my face – I was nearly my own demise. 

Surely, you know that feeling.

Now, of course, I should explain about Sartre.  He’s really the reason I’m at this point, and really, in all honesty, why the hell should you care if I don’t at least explain the basis of this bizarre ramble…because of all the things I’m kinda OK at, rambling is not one of them – I’m more than OK at it; I am a Master of rambling. 

And, besides, you have no idea who I am.  But, you will.  You’ll care, because despite the idiosyncracies that are me, despite how different I might seem, I represent you, in a way.  I had a story I wanted to tell, and now I’m telling it.  I just decided, Enough!  It’s self-pity or self-preservation.  I suppose, though, you’ll decide that later, after reading this.  Still, that sort of passion in life is sorely overlooked, I think.

Don’t you?

As I said, I was The Tutor.  I had been unwilling to accept the role, even though I was asked three times to take it; the director, bless her beautiful heart, had offered it to me originally but I was suffering from a severe nonchalance of the stage. I’d spent, a few months earlier, over 350 rehearsal hours, every day of the week, on a somewhat shoddily written, original musical (though two of the songs were digestible), with a director incapable of producing a random scribble from a pencil, much less a vision for the piece (which was in and of itself a powerful story), and this, all from a nonprofit theatre organization with really good intentions (i.e., we all had day jobs, other contracts, etc.).  It was a painful process and nearly destroyed my faith in theatre.  That’s the part that would be severe. 

So, I wasn’t terribly excited or looking forward to another venture on stage.  Especially, Sartre’s The Flies, in which, I almost had to perform barefoot…which I never do. Ever. It was quite a struggle: me and the costumer.

You should know, first off, that The Flies is an excruciatingly lengthy production, and not one of his best.  Or perhaps that was only the case for ours? Most of our leads were magnificent, I must say, (though we did have a weak Orestes), and personally, I loved the material. It was, perhaps, my reticence that kept me; I also got in trouble for sneaking out, in costume, during Act One, third night of the run, and buying a bottle of champagne. I also got gas; I was on empty. (For shame!) But, The Tutor doesn’t come back on, after Act One, for a very long time. (Kris, Kris, Kris).

The play was still a poignant piece, and well-attended.  But, I took the role out of pity, a major offense in the craft of acting. 

No caption necessary.

That didn’t change much throughout the course of the run, either. I carried my plastic cup of pathos everywhere I went.

However, despite my best efforts at being indifferent and “put-upon,” Sartre got to me with one line. One line that would not escape me. One single line that made the entire show “worth it.”

[...]

There’s a moment in the opening of the play in which Orestes, the rightful heir to the throne of Argos (though I can’t see for the life of me why he’d want it) turns to The Tutor who had begun to politely berate him, if you will, about his aloofness to his upbringing and of course Orestes, being displaced royalty and spoiled, immediately starts in with “I know how lucky I am, but all the same, yadda yadda yadda…”

Kids.

But then, in one of his diatribes to The Tutor, he actually turns the tables.  It’s very slight, very subtle.  He’s in the middle of another “yadda yadda yadda” spiel when he suddenly (this is Sartre, so the use of the word suddenly is generous) accuses The Tutor of having no “joy in going somewhere definite.”

And all of a sudden, just like that, I was not The Tutor anymore. 

I was a 27-year-old man on a plain stage in Bloomington, Indiana, and I was…well, I was exactly what Orestes said, a man who had no joy, not going anywhere definite, not really going anywhere at all. 

Anymore.

And I wanted to know what happened to that curly-headed kid in glasses from Mississippi who had all his life been lauded as the next great piece of poetry in motion.  When did he slow down?  And why? 

So, here I am, writing a book about my life as if I’m great, one painful, pulled minute after another.  As if I’m worth it.  

And you want to know why? You want to hear the truth?  It’s because I’ve never believed I wasn’t. And that’s why I’m not afraid to write. This or anything else.

More to come…?

God, I hope so…(though it is a tad boring. But, I’m working on that, sorry).

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God is in there somewhere.

But the potency, when it’s there, is one that is, that must be, for me, necessarily Fascinating and Disturbing in its minutiae, as it invades my mind, my lobes, with its obsessive and small details; isn’t that where God is, according to van der Rohe? I make no bones about how my dreams are often too vivid and verbal, to the point of Hamletian madness; I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I lose what little sense I have left by Christmas.  (But, I would imagine, we all have dreams like that…and that we’ll all be mad by Christmas.  That seems to be the universal deadline).

So, true to fashion, here’s the Aunt Lola dream, one that has bothered me and moved me in myserious ways, since I dreamed it a couple of years ago. It has a residue that I can’t shake from off my soul.

I dreamed that I was running late for class, for Kay’s class, (this was toward the end of my graduate degree). I got to campus and there taped on the door was a scripted note telling me that she’d changed locations at the last minute, to an abandoned nursing home, one that I’d driven by many times, and wondered why it still stood. It was such an eyesore.

It seems as if she’d made this decision because of some research-oriented assignment – I vaguely could recall, I thought, her mentioning this, the research assignment, in a class the week before but in that announcement we were going to meet at the zoo in Jackson; no one, though, was upset either by the fact that we hadn’t gone to the zoo, as promised, nor by the fact that we were sitting on the floor in the large dining hall of this abandoned nursing home. Of course, being an Educator, we’re always striving to enhance the informational exchange rate, so to speak, so nothing really surprises us: zoos, nursing homes, a cow with a glass window in her one of her stomachs (this can be actually and physically viewed and touched at the Wise Center, the famous Vet School at Mississippi State University – look it up).  

Anyway, I’m late, and there’s the obligatory long hall that I’m desperately running down, (is that Archetypal? It seems so collectively Jungian) and there’s Kay, sitting crosslegged in the doorway of the dining hall. She’s motioning for me to hurry. We’re in the process of giving presentations today, and I’m next, she mouths. Did I forget?

I did, but I’m almost to the room when I realize that I’ve got to go the bathroom, immediately, and I mouth this back, in response, to Kay, who grins (in real life, I often have to go to the bathroom; I say it’s because I have a tipped kidney), but she’s also silently adamant that I not miss my turn to go. She appreciates order and routine.

I won’t miss my turn, I assure her. I just need a minute or two.

I come out of the bathroom and am on my way to the “class”room, to give my presentation, when a voice to my right calls my name. I turn and it’s my Aunt Lola, who passed away several years ago, at the age of 98. She’s the same age, now, standing there looking at me, but without any complications, and most notably, without that crook in her back that bent her toward the grave before the rest of her was ready. I’d heard her say that many times before.

She looks radiant, youthful, active, if you will. She’s wearing a blue nightgown and matching robe, and again, I can’t quite describe it, but she’s beautiful, a light. There’s a corona, edging beyond her, that I am afraid to enter, to approach, and yet, I’m delighted that this fear has put me at a crossroads, a carrefour, especially in the presence of a woman I loved so deeply, as a child. This must be what happens to the dead; they become a tendril to their corporeal life. I’m sure they do that just as an effort to put us at ease, but slightly. I’m not saying I believe in apparitions anymore than I’m saying I don’t.

I cry, “How can you be here? How can you be alive?”

I’m ecstatic that she is, and I want everyone to know that God must be real, how else could she have returned; its’s so natural a thing to believe, blinded as I am by her softness. I mean, there’s no other way she could be talking to me if not for the fact that all my life the faith I’ve held in Christ and God is actual. She’s proof, right?

So, I rush down the hall to the class because I want them to know the truth, this truth.

You've been here before, right?

I’ve rarely been this fervent in real life, about anything, but all of a sudden, in my dream, this is what I must tell everyone. I must bring them into the hall and show them Aunt Lola. She will prove all things. I know this, you understand, in the dream. But Aunt Lola refuses.

Kay looks at me, upset, that I’d interrupt her class at so crucial a time.

“We’re doing presentations, for chrissake, Kris,” she says.

Aunt Lola pulls me back into the hall of this abandoned nursing home, and looks up into my face. I’m now racked with guilt. I admit to her how sorry I was that I didn’t ‘do right by her dying.’ I was indifferent; I was immature; I was afraid to see her stilled, against that plush casket. I tried looking at her in the casket, at Nowell’s, but I couldn’t. I was too overwhelmed; I’d never before been flooded with such simple reasons to not want someone to die: her homemade meatloaf, those beds and beds of calla lillies, helping her pick up pecans from the front yard.

It didn’t make sense. How amazingly, these simple things made her great in my eyes. I should have looked at her in the casket, I know, I should have. She overlooks this weakness, “Forget that. I have to tell you something.”

I can hardly look at her, she’s so bright, and she says, “You almost died the other night.”

This is the residue part. It is a chilling thing to have someone tell you that you almost died.

“I’ve come to tell you that it’s ok; it’s not time yet. Soon, but not yet. You need to live, first.”

“I am living,” I argue. I’m upset now, not just that I almost died, but also because she’d waste such time on so old a cliche. I’m hysterical at this point. She remains gentle; the dead, in my dreams, are always so gentle. She won’t tell me what I almost died from, what almost was responsible for taking my life; instead, she implies that I am not appreciating the normal, the mundane, and the ordinary.

So, now, of course, I intend to be suspicious of everything plain.

This shoe closet is messy. Sadly, it's also mine.

She tells me that’s ridiculous, guessing at my suspicion. She implies that God has put in these plain things a necessary, if to me, rudimentary, exuberance that surpasses human understanding. She is telling me to slow down, to take notice, and to take a breath.

And so that morning, when I woke up, I let my initial disappointment ebb, and found that I was quite happy, content. I crawled out of bed, and that’s when I rediscovered, and rather accidentally, a lost pair of favorite shoes.

Would that work as something simple? I felt that it would.

And that meant the whole world to me.

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