Watching the Hurricane

Yeah, so a bit ago, I got it in my head that I needed to try my hand at spoken word performance.  I like to speak, I like words.

And I worked pretty damn hard to generate what's below, and was proud of it.

But at the end of the day, the problem with me doing spoken word is the sound of my own voice.   I'm just not a fan.

A friend asked me to publish it, in written form.   If noone else reads it, I hope he does.     If you do read it -  Hope you like it...

Watching a Hurricane

(slow, calm) It starts out as a minor disturbance, a mere ripple in a weather sea,

Someplace far, far away from your life.

(a little less chill) A bit later, it becomes a thing, it’s..noted.   

"Hey, everyone."  (point off into the distance)

"There’s a thing."

Way, way, far away.  But… it IS now a thing.

(a bit more excitement, speed up a bit) 

And now, now it’s a slightly bigger thing, and it’s not quite AS far away, and if keeps up like this, someone’s gonna name it, and shit'll be real.  

And it does keep up, and becomes a bigger thing still, a real, bigger... thing.

With a name.

And that big, real thing with a name certainly has your attention now as it continues to grow, and make its’ way slooooowly in your direction.   

You’re watching the hurricane.

And you are powerless in the face of it.   

(a bit faster, excited, fear) You watch As it grows bigger and stronger and more inevitable.  And you’ve nothing left but geography and luck, not wanting harm to befall the the island of St. Whateveritscalled, but sorta hoping it does get hit, because then the hurricane will weaken and… 

(dejected. slow down.) 

Shit. 

It missed the island, and the one after it.

And the one after IT.

(a bit panicky) And now it’s in the gulf, and it’s, it's… feeding, it's feeding and picking up strength and ferocity and… you just watch it come.

And you are powerless in the face of it.

(with increased intensity and urgency) But you follow the protocols and shut down your office, and board up your house and hoard drinking water and you decide

(exhale) to embrace the inevitable.   

Might as well.  It's inevitable.

(you're in it.  sound like it)  Then, as you watch, it’s upon you, and you’re awestruck by it’s, it's… hugeness, and you're aware of your place in the universe as the sound and fury swirls around you. 

(sad) You are tiny, so very small.

And you are powerless in the face of it.

And then...  it’s gone.   A weak, tired thing, wandering inland, away, spent.  

(pause.   whew!)

(intense again) You WATCHED and you WATCHED and you FEARED and made such a thing of it and it’s…done.

(emotional) You are battered and in need of repairs, and you know it’s gonna take a lot of time and work to fully recover but you ..SURVIVED, goddamnit. 

Not everyone does. 

You stand in your house, with the roof half gone, water running down your walls, and you are grateful that you got off light.        And you sit in the dark, waiting for the power to come back on so you can tell people you're not dead.

And your mom, a safe 900 miles away, tells you she had been watching the hurricane, too, and “You should have seen it!”   and you roll your eyes because – your mom.

And you start to get on with your life.  But you know there’s always going to be

Another hurricane to watch.

Sometimes, a hurricane isn't actually a hurricane....

Watching my daughter stomp the earth. ( Repost of article originally published elsewhere, reposting with permission)

“Look at her.” I said to my wife.

“No hands.   Geezus.”

I was watching my daughter zip-line down a steep hill, through trees, over a creek. Without holding on.

She was laughing as she sped past.

My little girl was stomping the earth.

She was a giant.

It was our last full day of vacation up north, and we were at Historic Mill Creek, having already done the fort and the lighthouse.   After an aborted attempt on a previous vacation, we were surprised when she asked if she could do it.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah! I did it at nature center camp a couple weeks ago and I loved it.” All casual.

After crossing the rope bridge, and zip-lining, one progresses to the climbing wall.

Any one of these would have been a non-started for her, seemingly just days ago.   It should not have surprised us at that point, but we watched enrapt as she determinedly made her way up the wall, problem solving with her feet and hands. It was not easy for her, but judging from the grin after she finally dropped to the ground, it was worth the effort.

And I had a new add to my list of favorite dad moments.

And, oddly enough, it made me a little sad at the same time.   She had, alarmingly, grown up some more, and did so when we were not around.   We witnessed her second zip-line experience, and clearly she had been working on her rock wall climbing at camp, too.

This did not seem fair.   Not just that we were not there, but that she did these things and the folks who WERE there, didn’t understand what they were witnessing…

I brushed those thoughts aside, enjoying my new addition to favorite dad moments, and happy to have the opportunity to be with my family right then, right there.

It only sounds funny in your head.

He was flabbergasted, or whatever 15 year old kid equivalent is to flabbergasted.

"I was going slow!"

Ah, but to us, out here, you were not.  
So we explained to him about ones' tendency to read fast, and how you need to slow it down to what may seem a ridiculous amount, for your audience to be able to process everything you're saying.

And he had a lot of cool shit to say.  And had put a lot of work into what was on the page in front of him.    People needed to be able to hear it, to process it.  

I had looked at what he had prepared, along with 1/2 dozen or so others. in advance of them being read aloud.
 
Every single one of them looked like a solid block of words, no breaks, no paragraphs, no spots... for breathing.   The kind of writing that my lazy, aging brain balks at.  
"I don't wanna have to read this, and figure out where to insert commas and paragraph breaks and ellipses. "    

Oh, brain.  Quit your whining.    And no more crossing your arms and stomping your feet.   Grow up.

It's why I would suck at being an editor.   I don't want to read anything that's in need of actual  editing.

 He read it from the podium again,   slowing it down just enough.  

"That sounded really funny to me."   he remarked, upon finishing.  

Ah, but it only sounded funny in your head.  

Growing up, my brain would frequently be moving so fast that my mouth couldn't keep up, and words would stumble over one another on their way out, to none's benefit.  
So I slowed down.  I became unnaturally (for me at the time) deliberate in my speech, so that others could hear and process what I was saying.   It only sounded funny in my head for a bit.   People could understand me more consistently, but I often was afraid that I'd lose my train of thought trying to play catch up with my brain.    
I know this was going somewhere, when I started the sentence... huh.  

Next it was stagecraft.   Blocking.    I think we used to call it cheating.   Cheat a little bit upstage, cheat a bit to the left when...      The crazy kids thought they should interact with one another  in a natural manner, facing one another to speak... crazy stuff like that.      
Crash course in trying to look natural to people watching you, when it feels completely unnatural.
Turn your bodies away from each other, aim them to the front, just turn your heads to interact with one another.  And for gods' sake, never turn your back on your audience.  

It only feels funny in your head.

Life's hard like that.  
Behaving in ways that don't seem genuine to you, because of to whom you're trying to communicate.  
The idea that what you say or what you write isn't, by itself, enough, no matter how good it might be.  The idea of catering message to audience.
The kids don't realize that on some levels, they've already been doing that, even if not by name.

That's the nature of any effective communication you hope to have for the rest of your life.
Understanding your audience.

The notion that folks are going to be watching what you do with your body when you're interacting with others, and might lose interest and connection, if you do something that is seemingly insignificant.  
the idea that the worst thing you could do is to turn your back on those with whom your trying to connect.

Life is hard like that.  

I suggested to a couple of them that if they were going to go home and do a bit of editing anyhow, to write the whole thing out like they were going to read it.   Spread it out.   Space it out. Use larger type. That densely packed 1/3 of a page... turn it into two pages.   Don't worry how weird it looks.

Because you're going to look up for second, and when you look back down, you'll have to find your place again, and everyone will be watching, and  the time it takes to get back on track will feel like tortuous forever.

Even if it only seems like tortuous forever in your head.  

So that was my evening, helping 1/2 dozen kids work through a sunday service that they were responsible for totally planning out and, in 36 hours, executing.  

Perhaps it was only profound in my head.  








 

Just a little bit more.

Is that you I hear, laughing quietly in the dark?
Like you've just realized a happy thing you were not expecting?
Realizing, perhaps, that there's actually a little bit more than you thought?
A bit more in the bottle
A little bit more comfort from the person next to you
A bit more time with your dog in your lap, loving you unconditionally.
A slightly crumpled but functional cigarette in the drawer by the futon?
A bit more light from the moon, enough to see, enough to remind you.
More stars?  Are you laughing quietly in the dark because of the sheer wonder brought on by so many more starts than you were expecting?
An unexpected bit of shake in the bottom of the baggie, just enough?

A bit more physical love?   
A bit more enjoyment out of the book you picked up from the library on a whim?

A bit more battery life on your phone?   
Don't waste it playing candy crush.  
Call someone.
Talk with them for a bit, and unexpected bit.    Be the reason THEY laugh quietly in the dark.

A cookie?  Did you expect to find the cookie jar empty, and instead found one more? Celebrate that cookie.

Time?  at the end of the day, we all just want a bit more of that.

Did the match book have more matches, did the lighter you thought dead do it's job just one more time, and this is a win in your book?     Did you just empty out your wallet and find an extra fiver in there that you thought was spent?  

Y'see, that's really what it's about, fellow travelers.   The desire for just a bit more.  More than you THINK you have.  
 A bit more understanding, 
a bit more love, 
a bit more adventure, 
a bit more sense of relevancy, the feeling that you just...matter, dammit.
a bit more money, 
a bit more.... what?  What's your bit more?   What would you consider a win?  What little bit more would result in you laughing, quietly, in the dark?

A bit more of me?   Well, you'll get that, after we hear from one of our...eclectic sponsors.





"Yes!" he said aloud, laughing quietly in the night as he groped around the car's console.  It had been so long since he was behind the wheel this late at night in a place unknown to him.  He had forgotten about the radio.  How long had it been since he had just listened to the radio, taking whatever it was offering?  
He lit a smoke, a slightly crumpled but functional one, and pressed the button to roll down the window.   He exhaled out into the moist and vaguely fragrant air as the commercial for 5 year supplies of dried food ended.

"A bit more of you should be just what I need."

Arrive in time for the Opener.

Yeah, so I heard a song on my drive home from my daughter's violin lesson a bit ago.  
Song is Treason, from the band Naked Raygun.

Naked Raygun's a punk band outta Chicago, were active late 80's - early 90's, the same time period that found me working at my Alma Mater's FM radio station.   WDBM, East Lansing.  

Man, I was such a fan of this song, and the record that contained it.  The copy at the radio station was even pressed on red vinyl.      Sweet.

Snuck back to my hometown on a weeknight to catch them play the State Theatre, got back to my apartment around 2am, half deaf, half drunk and feeling so goddam cool for having gone on that adventure.  

Fast forward 12 years, I'm at the now-defunct rock club, The Double Door, In Chicago.
A good friend of ours boyfriends' band was one of six on the bill, a fundraiser for the Red Cross, JUST after 9/11.   We didn't love his band, but we loved our friend, Cara, and we liked being out with her, around music.    And of course, it WAS the Double Door, and I believe we might have been on the guest list.  It happened once or twice.  
So there we were, low musical expectations, half drunk and feeling so goddam cool....  

One of the other bands on the bill, The Pegboys, took the stage.   They played a song, and then stopped.  The guitarist stepped up to the microphone, and announced that for that night, given the circumstances of the show, maybe a different bands' music would be more appropriate.
Turns out, half the band were previously in... Naked Raygun.   I'm standing within spitting distance of the stage, watching an impromptu Naked Raygun set.   I was... transfixed, transcended, transported....
It was cool.

And I never would have experienced that, if I had not put myself in a position to be surprised and delighted.

Hey, it frequently didn't pan out.   For every surprise reunion set from a favorite band, were two nights where we decided it was more fun to stand out on the sidewalk, where the band noise was sufficiently muffled.  

But what if something amazing happened, and you weren't there?

In staying with the live music theme -  This is why we always try to arrive in time to catch the openers, and to stay for the headliner if the band we WANT to see's opening.     Because what if something amazing happened, and.....

Shoot, man.  You paid for the whole concert.    
And while it frequently doesn't pan out, if we didn't put ourselves in a position to be surprised and delighted, we never would have discovered Carbon Leaf.   We would showed up just in time for the headliner, enjoyed their set, and left, none the wiser.   20 years of awesome concerts, in three different states later, they've given us far more musical joy and memories, with far more friends, than any 5 other bands.    
All because we were open to putting ourselves in a position to be surprised and delighted.

Random Travel thoughts 2, Electric Boogaloo. I got out more.

So, The whole "Call a random # and find out about your car" bit worked shockingly well.
Almost like those folks had done this before.   Car was a Caddy, as apparently it was the only one in the area, so I got nudged up for nothing.
Driver was a very chatty guy from Thailand, originally.  
We got along well enough, except that about halfway to my hotel, he started talking about how he was going home for a vacation soon, and while there, he planned to visit prostitutes, because that's what you do on vacation.  That segued into a long, drawn out diatribe about how marriage is bad and.... I kinda put him on mute, in my head, after that.

He loves his daughter though, a ton.  Talked about her a lot.   Didn't see the disconnect...

Checked into my hotel, it was 7:45, which is 10:45pm in my head, and in my empty belly.
Hotel's on an island, there's...one restaurant, at the OTHER hotel on the island.  Guess I'll eat there.

Was offered a table by a portable heater, on the patio, overlooking the river and downtown Long Beach.  Realized that everyone there was seated by a heater.   It was sixty out, still.  
Um.... yeah.  Ok if I sit by the water over...there?
A $21 quesadilla and one beer later, and I'm walking back to my hotel.  

Day 2:    I stayed up crazy late watching TV, in hopes that I would NOT wake up at 2:30 local time this morning.   Forgot to turn off my phone, so the text my wife sent me at 2:15 CA time.... woke me up real good.
Curses.

Drifted back for a bit, eventually, but overall, I sink further into the hole.

Hoped to stumble across fellow employees at Residence Inn's free breakfast.   Dare to hope, even though I had no idea what they looked like.     I needed a ride to the conference...

Didn't really matter what they looked like, because the room was full of eastern european men in business casual, sitting together, and a couple tables of folks so obviously, stereotypically dressed to go on a cruise that I wondered if they were play acting.  

2nd cup of coffee went really well with the sunrise.  

random travel thoughts - I need to get out more - Part 1

Transcribed from original long hand form....

I sit here in seat 26D.
I've not been on an airplane in five years.  Five years ago - two different trips, five different airports, in 10 days.
Then... nothing.

Hasn't changed much, except perhaps the airlines have gotten even stingier with beverages.

So, 26D, midway through a flight from ORD to LAX.  I've already eaten the worlds smallest bag of pretzels, and drank a coke, and watched one of the movies I downloaded in preparation for this flight.

REDS - Fun movie.   Take the time, if you've not already seen it.

My wife and daughter gave up a book on spirituality and Minecraft, respectively, so that I could watch movies on the Kindle on my trip.
Wait..
Wife... daughter... spirituality.. minecraft....  YEP.  I got them in the right order.    

I'm writing this longhand, something I stopped doing a long time ago.  I have to slow my brain down when writing long hand.  That's not something I do well.

One of the first passengers to board in my section promptly threw up, upon finding their seat.  Yep, they HAD to know they were not well, two minutes earlier when they had not yet boarded the plane, but hey, no reason to NOT get on the plane, that will be full of people.    Those of us in the aisle noticed the smell, first.     The attendant claimed it was the smell of the plane de-icer, right to our faces, as we watched them clean up the mess.

So I got that going for me.
............................

I'm writing this with my Dale Carnegie pen, given to me at the end of one class, for having given the most inspirational speech of the week.  
It was about moving forward anyhow.

The universe kicks you in the nuts (gender specific, I realize...), you find very uncertain future ahead of you all the sudden, but you build the chicken coop and buy the chickens anyhow.
Because that was the deal, the promise.
So you just decide that it's all gonna work out, and...you keep the promise.  You buy the chickens.

That two minutes of livestock-themed inspiration earned me a pen.    I confess, now, to all of you here, that this was a speech I made up in class that very evening, after realizing that the one I practiced all the way to class, would offend at least half of the people in the room, after hearing all of them talk about their relationships with jesus christ.  

 I meant every word, but....  Ya just never know what's gonna resonate with folks.

I could have written all of that in 1/4 the time on a laptop.....
...........................
When I sat down, I thought maybe, Just maybe...this would be the flight I'd finally, after all these years, be able to sleep thru.

Silly boy.

............

We just hit a bump of turbulence, and I heard "uuuggghhhhhhhh" from behind me.   Hope that's not the puker....

..........

You know al those videos you see on FB, of the ridiculous LA traffic?    Yes, that's where I'm headed. And I'm supposed to calla phone # upon landing, give whomever answers my reservation #, and then find out when my car service will show up, and where.   Hope it's comfy, as it looks like I'll be sitting in it for awhile.

One day conference tomorrow, followed by three days/nights catching up w/ an old friend.  Itinerary's loose, almost comically so.

I will be happy just to be outside.

I hope there's pudding.

The evolution of adventure - the introduction of fretting

So, was chatting with an old friend the other day, catching up on lives, what we've got going on, etc.

This friend's a great guy for catching up.   Good sense of humor, wicked sharp and quick.

Was telling me that he had a weekend getaway adventure coming up, with just he and his wife.
They're going to a hotel in a bigger city.
What's on the itinerary?
Eating, talking.  Probably sometimes both at the same time.  

Man, that sounded pretty nice.      Not high on the adventure meter, but well earned for them.

Told him of my at-the-time unformed plans for a couple of days in Los Angeles, just around the corner.    The at-the-time unformed part was weighing on me a bit.  I was... fretting.  
One of my many goals for the new year is to fret less often, and I was off to a rocky start.

Biggest fret was uncertainty of where I'd be "crashing".

My friend, who knows this first hand more than anyone else I know, opined that this uncertainty was part of the romance, 25+ years ago, when you're doing it by design.   If you walk all night or catch a nap on a park bench somewhere in Europe because the random just didn't pan out that day... what a great adventure, a great story, a great memory......


But if it's NOT part of the plan....


Crashing.    A word that meant a lot more, 25 years ago.    A corner, a couch, a spare blanket... that was all that was needed.  It was the place you laid your head, gently or otherwise, at the end of your night.     And you frequently didn't know where that would be, until you realized it was the end of the night, and looked around.....

Dude, don't sweat it.  you can crash on my couch.  Here's a spare pillow.    

If you were lucky, there might even have been an old blanket available.

My favorite was a dilapidated fold out love seat in my buddy Neil's basement.  I used it frequently enough that I should have had a drawer there for a change of clothes and a toothbrush....  If your weight was too far toward the head of it, you'd flip the whole thing up like a teeter totter.  
That's value added, right there.

Most of us, at this point in our adult lives (unless you're one my younger readers.  Or the ONE younger reader....), might still use the word without thinking about it, but we're not as interested in crashing.  We've oftentimes others who will be needing to crash, too.   Spouse. kids.....  
Now, in word or not, we're asking to "Stay".  
"Can we stay at your place?" You ask, usually of someone who's home is a home now, and not just a convenient place for falling asleep and putting your shit.  
"Of course!" might be the answer, as the person begins mentally shuffling their family members around and thinking about towels and bedding.  

I've got absolutely no problem with doing it this way now.    I've worked hard to elevate my own level of existence over the last 25 years, to where I'm used to NOT sleeping on a floor.   And I know my friends have all done the same.   I don't need turn down service, but embrace the bougie-ness of not sleeping in a car.

But there's something lost in this middle aged need for comfort and stability and making sure your people are taken care of.    The "Fuck it" is kind of gone.  What constitutes "the adventure" is more and more just the stuff you plan to do "when you get there".  Instead of... the getting there.

Probably went away incrementally.  
Started with that one night where you found yourself driving at midnight still, further and further north in Wisconsin, because of two plus hours of no vacancies, each fruitless exit making you picture  hitting the MN north shore after being up for 28 hours straight, until you luck into the very last room at some random place so far away from everywhere that it must exist only to cater to... people like us.   Oh, and you got that very last room  because you decided NOT to hold the door for the folks who pulled in right behind you.  Lack of courtesy wins!  You get the key, and turn around, and see the dozen folks who have been going through the exact same thing.  A lobby full of dumb asses who are re-thinking their "Fuck it".

Then a bit more "Fuck it" melts away when you find that the hotel you reserved weeks ago, normally NOT full this time of year, is packed to the gills because some local issue with army reserve facilities, and that every other hotel that's not terrible in all of Blytheville, AR is similarly full up.  

Know what's near Blytheville, AR, my friends?   NOTHING.   just 80 minutes more interstate to a major city that's known for domestic abuse and vehicular homicide, and another couple hours further to... the next place down the road....

And then there was the time you tried finding two hotel rooms in the middle of nowhere during spring break, and the first 10 places you looked at were sold out because it's the middle of nowhere where everyone stops on their way to and from.. .spring break.  

And "fuck it" becomes "Fuck that" and you decide it's better to fret, going forward.


But, with the assurance from my buddy in L.A. that one way or the other, I will not get shanked by a homeless person for stealing their bench... I've chucked fretting.  
This time.
It's part of the adventure.       The likes of which I've not had the good fortune to have in far too long.

And I'm looking forward to it.