the chaos of beauty (random shadows)

i was struck by the beauty of the shadows that fell across my path a few days ago.

toy soldiers*

my fantasies as a child were no different than yours. perhaps you were jealous of my solitude, but that did not matter to me. i did not have to share my toys, my books, my bedroom, my mother with anyone and although you might imagine that would make me a selfish person, it has not.

it is possible that i am better equipped to be alone, that my ability to manage on my own far exceeds that of someone with brothers, sisters, a father, and a mother. it is also possible that i am at turns gregarious, charming, shy, aloof (not necessarily as opposite as one might think, although a coolness does run through those social skills.)

these perfume bottles were my toy soldiers. i never thought how unusual it might have been that my mother had collected these bottles in the 30s and 40s and then carted them around in an old red velvet-lined silverware box. (what happened to the silver was never a topic of conversation.) i would line them up on the linoleum in the kitchen or in my bedroom; the short squat ones with the black lids the front line of defence, the thinner and taller ones making the important decisions, guarding the flanks.

the battle would stop when a bottle fell over, a quiet ceremony of picking it up, unscrewing, uncorking its cap, the left-over scent of a long-ago perfume imagined (or was it real? maybe a bit of both.) as i grew older i would try to discern the words on the labels, “mr. poulter of new york”, “divine”, “honeysuckle”, paris, london, rome, avon. each a symbol of something grander, of something more mysterious (my mother; they are mysteries to their young boys, these mothers who control your life. you know they are different, but you are unsure of what that difference is. you throw yourself into their arms in fear, in love, in fun and bury your head in their lap, their breast. your thin arms stretched around their hips, their waist for protection and reassurance.)

i’ve never thought of photographing them before today. and now that i have i think i can let them go; each wrapped in toilet paper and laid into the red velvet-lined silverware box with its faux leather exterior (a warm camel color) and bakelite black handle; soldiers buried, wars won, medals pinned to chests, conquests of foreign lands (the chenille rug, the hassock, the child’s rocking chair) remembered.

*i never had real toy soldiers; i used what was available to play my boy games. nurture or nature or fate? (all of them.)

disappointing dad

if, as freud believes, that only in our minds can the past and the present coexist, that there is no true forgetting, that every experience leaves a discoverable trace, that every memory of another person is partly a self-portrait (shredded as it may be by time, trauma, love), then this is how i want to remember my father: smelling of gasoline, cut grass and the sweat of a humid summer afternoon in springfield; happy, proud, and with a  loving smile, maybe even a little goofy as he is, having conquered the lawn, his army-booted foot atop the spoils of the grass wars, triumphant, a souvenir of his prowess, skill, masculinity.  (even the lawnmower is in on the fantasy, grinning as it is with its grill of metal teeth from rubber-tired ear to rubber-tired ear.)

this memory is wish-fulfillment at its worst and an outright lie at its best.   the few memories of my father that i have been able to dredge up from my childhood that are not based on photographs or what other people have told me over the years (at least the few years when i was interested enough to ask about him) are pleasing, warm, loving.  but there is always the undercurrent of anger, abandonment, violence (supplied as it is by the adults refusal to discuss his goodness, the goodness that you can see for yourself in the photo.  it is the image of man who loves someone, is it not?  as a child, life is not seen in the grays that adults do, it is always black & white, good or bad.)

would his nurturing, such as it might have been, changed my nature?  it’s not easy to imagine the difference his presence in my life may have had on the person that i am or that i was.  i have to believe that there would have been friction as my nature exerted itself even as my desire to emulate him smothered my instincts, my sense of identity, my not being his idea of what a son should be.

his father loved me.   as gentle a soul, as patient as job, generous, understanding, complicit in the life of the grandchildren around him, and from the photographic memories left for me to divine, the same with his own son.  why then, i have to ask, was my own father’s influence denied me?  what about him went wrong?  and here, now, it comes to mind: could my mother have been wrong?  although that seems doubtful based on the reports from the field…particularly after his return from vietnam…but even before then, he exhibited a dark side — discussed here — that seems to indicate she was not.

of course, it’s all “what if?”  what if we had had a relationship, in spite of the divorce?  what if summers had been spent with dad?  what if he had sent me a card congratulating me on good grades or some other achievement?  what if we had gone fishing, hunting or he had taught me car maintenance/repair (although mary was a fine substitute for some of these steps on the ladder to manhood)?

is it my failure as a writer that i cannot even imagine how his influence may have affected my life?  men were such foreign objects to me when i was growing up (inclusive of uncles and grandfathers, they were all too removed, either emotionally or geographically to have had any measurable impact) that trying to fathom their contribution to the life learning education of a child seems too fantastical to consider.  i look now at friends and co-workers who are fathers and i can clearly see the what and the how, the character stamp, the moral guidance, the humor, the sadness, the triumph and the failure of their influence on their children.  (some more successful than others, some got it right sooner, no need to practice on the first child and succeed with second where they failed with the first.)

and then there’s this:  i know no father of a gay child.   how easy would it be to accept that difference as a man, a father?  does having a gay child kill your dreams of a legacy, a future, a future where you exist as part of another human being?  your quest for immortality snuffed out by a chromosome.   oh yes, i know you’re reading this, you liberals, you enlightened ones, and thinking, “it would matter not, hetero- or homo-sexual, i would love them equally the same.”  but i challenge you to dig deep and not find that little bit of regret that is hanging around like a cough that you just can’t squelch.  (“ahem,” he interjected.)

i would never have looked as eager to be camping with a bunch of strange boys as my father does in this photo.  my social awkwardness with heterosexual men at that age (let’s say he’s 12 or 13) was a disability and immediately hung a big fat sign around my neck that read, “not like you”.

oh, i know you’re out there, the gay boys and men who fit as naturally into the hetero world as if there were no difference (or you’ve convinced yourself that you do), but there are many of us who never felt that way growing up.   adult life experience does change you, obviously.   i do believe i can hold my own in a group of straight men, but i still lack the knowledge of the secret handshake, the code words, the key that opens the door to “hey buddy, wassup?” said in all earnestness, care and brotherly love.

the disappointment then.  there is plenty of it.  i never called him ‘dad’.  if i called him anything as a child, it was probably some derivative of poppa.  the only opportunity that i had to address him as an adult, we settled on lee, his christian name and that only came haltingly from my lips; i avoided calling him by name, if i needed his attention i waited until he was looking at me.  we spoke hardly at all, the uncomfortableness of being in each other’s company a shroud, a winding sheet.  he tried then, during that short period of time, to exert his influence over me, but i ignored it and did as i pleased without a comment from him.  and then i left and he left and we left it at that.

it makes me cry.  i don’t feel cheated, i’m not angry,  i received a huge gift of love from my mother, my grandmothers, from mary and from my mother’s last husband, roy.  i am not advocating for the traditional family; i think children can be raised to be loving, caring, contributing members of society by single mothers, fathers, gay couples and any other permutation of ‘family’ as long as there is love in their hearts,  but i do feel the loss of the “what if i’d had a dad?” for good or for bad, however it may have played out.

clouds over the ocean (a challenge)

 

how often can you write about the clouds, the sunrise, the canyon, the bluffs, the palms, the pacific ocean?  when do you think  you’ve said, you’ve written, you’ve photographed these same things enough?

you’re not expecting me to answer those questions, are you?

aren’t these photographs enough proof for you that there is no limit to the variations, the subtleties, the grand gestures nature provides us each and every day?  do you not see beauty everyday?

i challenge you to prove me wrong.  tell me of the day you did not encounter one beautiful thing, moment, animal, word, thought, deed, action, heartbeat, kiss, look.

a travelogue, in which the author visits with jean-hippolyte flandrin & considers other points of interest along the road

for many years, when i was a boy, i could lay on my bed and travel the world just by looking up or looking sideways; my walls were papered with maps that came with national geographic (a yearly christmas gift from my wyoming grandparents–the homesteaders, who liked to travel, at least in the continental west, in fact i don’t recall if they ever went east of the missouri river in all of their years together, but they were on intimate terms with the spine of the states–this side of the rockies and that one, from canada to mexico and all of the little nooks and crannies in-between.)

the imaginary adventures i went on, down the amazon and up the nile (it is interesting to note how some rivers are ‘up’ rivers and others are ‘down’, isn’t it? or is that just me?  no matter.)  these dreams of travel were flat, pre-galileo, pre-columbian if you’d rather, so flat that it always confounded me later, after i started to get around on my own, how round the world seemed, particularly if viewed from a great height, not just in an airplane, but from the top of a tall building or the peak of a mountain (pisgah, harney, pike’s, haleakala) when all the world it seems is laid at your feet, and your stomach does that little flip of acknowledgement of your smallness in spite of conquering the world as you are with your feet spread wide, the wind blowing your clothes so tight against your body you might actually be flying with the eagles, soaring, dipping, and riding the currents of time and nature.

i haven’t traveled much, at least not compared with some of my friends and acquaintances.  yes, i’ve been here and there and i’ve had a lot fun in _____ and _______; amazed by this monument, and fell in love (again) with this painter or another when i finally saw their work in situ, the emanations of their life rumbling under the soles of my feet as i stood outside the door of their studio (i need not tell you the where, you can imagine that on your own) or stood at the very top of _____ ____ and let literature come to life, bells ringing, the crowd below roaring (or that could have been my companion poleaxed by vertigo screaming for me to come down from there).

and it’s interesting to note that i don’t mind so much that i haven’t been everywhere i dreamed of as a child, the jungles, the deserts, the savannahs, the mountains, and the seas (although someday i do hope to visit ___ in southern ______, because i feel a strong connection to that specific area of that particular continent–although i fear it may be only because of learning and not a spiritual one; the answer would only be found by being there.)   but i consider myself fortunate to have visited as many places as i have through books, maps, paintings, and music and whether or not i ever stay at chateau de roussan or get to see “jeune homme nu assis au bord de la mer” at the louvre again doesn’t really matter; i’m quite happy traveling there in the comfort of my imagination.

walk and talk

 

on yesterday’s long walk with joey, i noticed that nature consistently ignored man’s warnings.  thumbing its nose at, turning its back on, basically flipping man the proverbial bird (a bird may have done a flip, idk.)  no matter where i looked nature was doing the opposite of man.  where man was all yellow and black sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, nature was deep blue and wispy clouds in complete counterpoint to man’s prevailing nonsense (at this juncture, it’s fairly obvious that a street dead ends into another street, making the sign a redundancy, is what nature appeared to be saying–if you were paying attention, and i know how hard that can be, you know, paying attention to the obvious.)

many years ago, a friend of mine whose opinion i valued (and likewise, i believe) would call me up and say, “let’s go for a walk and talk.”  so ‘walk and talk’ became shorthand for sorting out life’s mysteries, stupidities and complications.   i recommend it (even if your companion has four legs.)

the effects of moonlight on sunrise (and your day)

do you commune with nature?

“hey, moon, wassup?”  or “what about those yankees?”

or perhaps you have a more inquisitive nature: “so, moon, do you find competition from the sun irritating?  you’ve been waxing for several nights and suddenly the sun’s all like up in your face, before you’ve even taken your final bow, like some bad actor talking over your laugh.”

alright.  i know. you’re more of the silent type and you stand there and let nature reveal itself to you, more of a listener (always a good trait to have, even when you’re dealing with humans), letting it have its way with you.

here’s what happened to me:  “my god, you should see the moon in the sky with the sunrise over the ocean,” i gushed, the dogs jostling each other on their way to the kitchen for their breakfast, “i wish i’d had my camera, it was magnificent.”  “i’m feeding them, why don’t you grab the camera and go take some photos?” he offered.  (this would have been a cartoon moment; i would have just been a blur of color as i did exactly that, grabbed the camera, dashed out the door and seconds later found myself standing at the top of the driveway, communing, as i do, with nature.)

and as it often is, it was perfect.

the movement of air experienced by trees

 

 

Fill in the _____ (captions ‘r’ us)

okay.  this is how this will work:  i am posting several photographs that i took yesterday.  i will start the caption below each photographs leaving one or more spaces empty for you to add your suggested insertions.  everyone will be a winner! not that you’ll receive anything (well, anything tangible) for your efforts, so some of you may feel that’s a lot like losing.  but!  you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to this worthy cause.  and that’s winning, isn’t it?  (if you need to win, at least it’s something.  there may be those of you for whom the idea of winning and/or losing as the be-all end-all might be somewhat distasteful.  i mean, the very idea of striving may be anathema to you (you know who you are.)

so.  let’s get started.

1.  a rose is a ________ and by any other name may ___________ as ________.

2.  the devil and _ were talking the other day.  ”what were you thinking,” he said, “when you _______ that?”

3.  as i was walking down the _________, i thought about ______ and ______, but no sooner had i _______ than those thoughts ____________.

4.  ”but, he cried,” in some distress, “that is not what i _______.  you have taken my words and ____________.”

5.  i stood a bit, the cool wind brushing against my face and contemplated ___ existence of ______ and how nature seems to be the __________ of all that is good with the world.

6.  and, as if on cue (the stage manager sotto voce) i turned to the ____ and realized that it was true what they _________   _____ ______.   it somehow assuaged the despair i had been feeling earlier.

 

i walked

i almost missed you yesterday.  so small & shy, a true wallflower (if there were walls out-of-doors), only your profusion/profession/confession stopped me (the dog as well, but for him, not you, but for me, it was you.)  microscopic blossoms arrayed in a funeral spray (at first) or a wedding bouquet (at last) draped over the elegant arm of (this, someone else’s fantasy.)  the leaves with their scratchy edges & hard surfaces of delicious, edible green (but i didn’t, eat them.)

for you i stopped dead in my tracks (a little puff of gravel dust rose up around my ankles, the pathway as trite as the metaphor.)  where had you been hiding yourself all this time?  i’ve walked this path for years & have never seen you (was i blind to your charms?  are you there just one day of the year?)  look at you!  those pleading pillow lips, the seductive golden throat (a song emanating from it, the melody not a melody, but a long howl of beauty that brought me to my knees in front of you.)  i leaned in closer hoping to smell you, to put my nose on your shoulder, lean my head against your delicate clavicle, but you kept your distance from my bumbling, scuttling movement, allowing a quick photo, & then dismissal “that’s all for now.”

the blossoms spoiled me.  i wait now for nature’s next bit of spectacle, perhaps the moiré ocean will be pulled clean off its table, a magic trick best left for those with more talent than i.