This is who they say I am

Gachil, December 2012

This is my character from the Starwars Identities exhibit at the Edmonton Space Science Centre (or whatever the heck they call it now). Based on my choices, I'm a clarinet player with an ostrich head. At least that's who I thought I was in December. I wonder who I am today...

Get on with it

Power tie, March 2012

I put my day off from work today to put in a good day of work. Huh? No hospital today. I spent the sunshine hours at home polishing a story that has already be rubbed too thin, but had to be finished once and for all. Enough. I've been running it through Scribophile.com and received a pile of constructive feedback. It's pretty good now. Well, I think it's decent. I'm not sure. (Doubt rears its ugly head.)

Doesn't matter, I pushed through the doubt, wallowing along the way, and sent it off to four competitions. I'm not exactly glowing with confidence, but I feel like I have to get busy and finish the day with something creative. So I'll quit wasting time here and open something new. I can only get better by doing more right?

The tie. My boy put one on today for a school concert and I think he liked it. He looks terrific in a tie. Maybe I need to get my jeans and t-shirt self down to the thrift shop and look for some dead-man ties. It might be good to look like I give a shit for once.

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A little bit country

Slow unwind, August 2011

That's about right, August 2011

Small planet, August 2011

Grand entrance, August 2011

Red clay road, August 2011

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A story of brownies

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Arcadian pause

We had to get out. More -30°C shoveling before bread and coffee. More wool socks and balaclavas. Griping fosterage of Lazarus one and Lazarus two; both would rather have kept dreaming than sit in the school house with other people (ugh!) and learn. Sigh.

But where to escape? The options are few in Eldorado: the farm supply store or the delusionally named Burger Palace. Irritaville, 30 minutes away, has a WalMart and a Boston Pizza. Good enough! Let's go. Now.


The cruelty of this display made my dear wife terrorize many
soles with a slash of her mighty bear claws, March 2011


A 1500 cal lunch made us feel better, March 2011


Arcadian pause, March 2011


We will survive, we will survive, March 2011

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One day later

One day later: self-portraits, February 5 & 6, 2010

Friday, 10:29 a.m., my home in Lohwinkel was unsold. At 10:30 we were told that the deal was done and we will have to move in six short weeks.

History: I work two hours away in the town of Eldorado and my dear wife and I have been cleaning and staging our Lohwinkel home for potential buyers since July 2009. Our plan is to move to Eldorado so I can spend less time driving and more at home. (Eldorado and Lohwinkel are fictional names for real places.)

This change is a big deal. I felt like marking it somehow, so I shaved my beard and cut my hair. It felt like a ritual, like an offering to the Gods, a symbolic cleansing. Thus cleaned up, I poured myself two fingers of 18 year-old Japanese whisky and celebrated the night away with my dear wife and children. We are excited for this new chapter of our lives to begin.

The day after we celebrated our house sale, I fired up my treadmill and had a good, long sweat. More symbolic cleansing. I've come to feel like there's so much I want to leave behind, as if this isn't just a two hour move to a new home, new neighbors, and a new arrangement of channels on the television. I've had time to invest much thought into how this move fits in with the rest of my life. I'm perpetually reinventing myself, evolving, improving, moving away from what isn't good for me (i.e., working in Lohwinkel) and reaching towards what is good. What I believe is good.

I would like to stop moving away from the bad and questing after the good. I'd like to stop and say, "yep, this is good." Break free from the "ideal" treadmill and instead of planning, calculating, and measuring pro's and con's, just do what is best to do and be content with myself just the way I am. But old habits die hard.

What I'm starting to understand is that I attach too much meaning to life. It's fine to celebrate special occasions like selling a house, but I'm getting too caught up in conditions and shoulds. Life should be like this and in order for this to happen I have to do that. And more importantly, if I don't do that, then I will be failing at some aspect of life. Letting myself down. Not achieving my potential.

There is no ideal potential. There is me living through a continuous series of passings and becomings. Some are small like finishing this post and others are huge like packing up my family and moving to a new town. I'm not so important. I'm not at the center of a unique life. I'm an accident of DNA that randomly assembled when my parents conceived me. Bigger that that even. I am part of a family, part of a community, part of a species that shares planet with a multitude of other life forms that are all made of the same chemicals. This big swirl of DNA that codes all life could have turned out a cabbage or a sheep just as easily as it made me.

Earlier this week I visited a man who had end stage cancer. His muscles were wasted, but his bones spoke of someone who was once over six feet tall. His oxygen sats said 85 and to compensate, he breathed through a gaping O of a mouth. Agonal gasps. Dry lips and a tremulous tongue formed his words. His body was overcome by tumors: a large one that I could see pressing from his abdomen through the bedsheets and dozens of invisible ones that had clawed their way through the rest of his body, working their dark business in the lightless realm of his cells, tissues, and bones. His hands and forearms were crooked and stretched over with thin, cyanotic skin that was spotted dark as if he had held his hands up to a splattering puddle of black ink. We talked a little about swallowing, the purpose of my visit, but it was clear that more important changes were going on. He died that night, not long after I had gone home, had dinner, and put my boys to bed.

Life is a series of changes that lead without exception to old age, illness, and death. We pay attention to the changes, try to control them through avoidance or induction, but to that end we try too hard. We think too much. Through all our efforts we miss the point that it is possible to find peace with life despite the fact that we are all born to die (or even because of it). There are so many ways to do this. All it takes are eyes willing to see and a mind to accept and understand.

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A list begins

I have an agreement to sell a story to Motorcycle Mojo today. Ecstatic I have a good job to support my writing habit. I'd have to live in a box to survive on a writer's wage!

Nevertheless, I'm pleased one of my pieces will get its chance to step out onto the stage of print and face a real, live audience. Break a leg, little story.

(It is a lost and found story about a man who buys back the motorcycle of his youth after 35 satisfying years without it. He has to make some adjustments to what he believes really matters in his life.)

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March Portraits

I thought I'd try my hand at some portraiture last month. Children and their mother. I'd appreciate any critique or technical suggestions there might be floating around out there. This was a very enjoyable afternoon and I could easily imagine doing more.


01, March 2008


02, March 2008


03, March 2008


04, March 2008


05, March 2008


06, March 2008


07, March 2008

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Eye

Eye, March 2008

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Writing meditation

Blue, looking up, March 2008

Attended a short writers guild workshop last night on the topic of self-censorship in writing: too much or sometimes not enough. The presentation by Ronna Jevne made me want to be her. Lives in the country, writes professionally, does some teaching, takes pictures for art and therapy, does something called writing meditation that she says is part of the Soto Zen tradition (I have to learn more about that!), and seems very comfortable in her own clothes.

What I really took away from the night is that I need to work on my personal vision statement. Clearly state to myself what I would like to do with my life or what I AM DOING with my life. I've never done that to the level I could. Part of me resists the idea of creating a fixed reality to focus my efforts on. What if something unexpectedly wonderful comes along? What's wrong with what I have now? But she has me thinking that writing down my goals, my personal truths, would be useful. The trick is to write meaningful goals. Instead of "I see myself traveling the world with the money I earn from my books," the goal should be something like "I write to offer compassion and beauty to the lives to all living beings." Something like that, but not exactly that. More me. Metaphysical I think. I'm not sure it would be something I would share (talk about self-censorship). This is where the idea writing meditation puts up its hand and waves at me through the fog. Hello, come sit down with me. See what arises.

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