Posts

Posted on

Invisible Enemies

White and red click pen on white printer paper

Scummy scammers scammed my mom.

A modern-day tongue twister, which certainly has me twisted up inside.

It’s an empty feeling watching a bank account balance dwindle and getting nothing in return.

It was easy for me to hate the guy hidden away in a sweaty room with dirty keyboards and knotted phone cords, but the scammers come in all shapes and sizes.

The cable provider was happy to let my mom pay triple the price she needed to. (They had her paying for an Internet package, and she hasn’t used the Internet since 2006!)

And what about political donations? Do these folks care that she forgot she wrote a check last week? She’s given more to PACs than she has to her own children and grandchildren. And have they delivered?

The truth of the matter is many scammers work well within the law. Apparently, a legit company can legally sell a homeowner a warranty that costs $274.59 per month even if they don’t fucking need it.

But People with early-onset dementia aren’t the only ones getting taken.

And it’s not just criminals who scam.

We’re surrounded.

We’re surrounded by these invisible enemies.

Charlatans with persuasive propositions and the right tone of voice.

Politicians behind White House walls, making rules for our lives without asking our input, laying down cement barriers, and dancing on top of them.

CEOs hidden behind the velvet curtain, tucked away in corner offices, their jackets so stuffed with 100 dollar bills and 1-way tickets that they can’t move their arms anymore. No matter, they pay people to invent things that suck in the money for them. And they hire people, good people in search of the American dream (and by that I mean us), to do their bidding.

Billionaires. Should there even be such a thing? Billionaires who have all the joysticks and all the buttons but seem obsessed with finding more. Billionaires who have the connections and admission fees to influence the rule makers, become the rule makers, and tell us how to live our lives. No questions asked.

If I had any one of these invisible enemies in front of me, I would be risking jail time. Not because I’m a tough guy but because I’m so full of anger. So full of a rage that I don’t deserve to have, that I don’t know how to get rid of. And karma ain’t delivering on its promise.

Perhaps this is why we’re so quick to swing at each other: because the real enemies are out of reach, behind bullet-proof glass, far from the danger of a fist.

We can’t punch a credit card company, so we flip off the driver next to us.

We can’t put a CEO in a headlock, so we berate each other endlessly on social media.

We can’t get politicians to listen to us or care anything at all about what we’re going through, so we scream at people down here on the ground for wearing red hats and blue pins.

We can’t track down the bastard Internet scammer who robbed us so we go out into the world and take something from somebody else.

Folks, our vitriol is warranted.

But our haymakers are misdirected.

How do we justly remove the anger from our bodies when the people who gave it to us are nowhere to be seen?

What’s the right thing to do? Should we even care about being right anymore? Or is that just a silly childhood fairy tale? Shackles disguised as friendship bracelets…

My anger needs room to run. And writing letters to suits who don’t read them ain’t cutting it anymore. I’m sick of playing defense.

I think we all are.

Posted on

Stories vs Straight Lines

I’m a visual person, but I’ve come to realize that the appearance of something is much less important than the story behind it.

My house is evidence of this.

It’s… eclectic.

We tiled our backsplash with something that looks more like a butter dish. Our couches and chairs don’t match. There are little homemade things cluttering every surface. Our Christmas tree is a lopsided mess of objects that mean very little to anyone outside of the room.

I’ve lined my office with books, and when I glance at the spines, memories spark.

I suppose that’s how I decorate: by wrapping stories around me.

I’ve grown to love the fact that I refused to spend that extra few hundred bucks on arm covers for my beloved blue swivel chair and that I had to call back years later and ask for them only to get a consolation prize of “very similar” armchair covers that don’t match in color, width, or texture; they’re ridiculous. But I laugh every time I have to pick one of them up off the floor.

My own fallacy, right there in the living room. It’s great.

The fireplace I tiled with a friend over a weekend — working ’til 1 am and then drinking on the patio until 5 am.

The built-in mantel behind the drywall we found by accident trying to hang the flat screen. And how we left it exposed for months, even though there were cracks big enough for mice to fit through. Me, chasing one around the living room and toiling over whether to kill it or set it free and how far I’d have to walk so that it wouldn’t find its way back.

Oh, and then that guy who finally redid our mantle who was frighteningly brilliant and possibly insane, the same guy that showed up at my daughter’s school board meeting years later and offered the school $100,000 on the spot, after meditating in lotus position for 30 minutes in the center of the room. When I pointed out a blemish in the wood he’d cut, he told me to fuck off. I sort of liked that about him.

Everywhere I look in my house (and my life), I see stories. Stories that I created by following a good feeling, however silly or impractical. And these stories come into my life over and over again.

Frayed edges, chipped paint, the hand-carved wooden zoo animals on the table outside my office that fall over at least once a week.

Far from perfect. Yeah, they take some getting used to.

But they’re so much more rewarding than a straight line ever could be.

Posted on

Two Prisoners

Sunset over an Australian Beach

I don’t get get. How can you smile in here?

Because smiling is better than frowning.

But we’re locked in this room all day and beaten and tortured at night. We’re fed the same rotten food every day. We are ridiculed and yelled at. We are forgotten.

This is all true.

So?

So, what do those things have to do with joy?

Nothing! They’re not joyful things at all. That’s my point. There’s nothing joyful in here!

What about the sunset?

There is no sunset.

Of course there is. I remember the sunset. I remember watching the sunset with my daughter.

Why would you do that to yourself. Remembering hurts.

But it’s joyful before it hurts. It’s our longing that creates hurt. I don’t long for the moment, I just remember it. And it’s beautiful.

There you go again, smiling when there is no reason to smile.

Tell me, friend. Do you wish to be happy?

That’s a stupid question.

Do you wish to be happy?

Yes, of course I wish to be happy.

Then be happy.

What do I got to be happy about?

You’re looking in the wrong places. There is always something to be happy about.

You’re crazy. You’re lying to yourself.

Maybe.

Why are you smiling again?

Because you’re more worried about being sane than being happy.

Whatever.

You can be crazy, my friend. I don’t mind.

See, that’s the thing, you don’t mind. It’s like you’re not even here.

Wrong, my friend. I am more here than you. You are the one who is not here. You are at the sunset, you are being tortured. You are eating bad food.

Those things are our life now.

They are part of our life.

A big part.

Big compared to what?

I don’t know. Anything.

What?

Anything.

Anything? Like any moment when those other things are not happening?

Yeah.

Like now?

Yeah, like now. I guess.

So why is now smaller than before?

Because it doesn’t hurt.

You’re so attached to hurt, my friend.

How do I get unattached?

It’s not about getting unattached. Losing hurt would be sad.

Well, how do I make it hurt less? I just want it to hurt less.

Let the things that do not hurt grow bigger.

And how do I do that?

——

Are you listening to me? How the hell do I do that? C’mon, don’t shut off now.

——

Why aren’t you talking? C’mon, friend! Talk to me!

——

Wait. Are you crying?

Yes.

Why? After all your stupid smiling and talking about joyfulness, why are you crying NOW? Are you sad?

No. I am not sad.

Then why are you crying?

Because I am happy.

Okay. Then, why are you happy?

Because this moment has grown bigger for you... and me.

Posted on

Anxiety

Grayscale photo of chair inside the establishment

Anxiety is a trapped THOUGHT in a straight jacket banging against the walls of your mind, trying to get out.

It’s relentless, constantly moving, and doesn’t care what time it is.

When the outside world gets quiet, the banging and slamming and SCREAMING get louder.

The more you try to ignore the thought or distract yourself from it, the more it runs around in there, trying to break the cage you’ve put it in.

Rebellion will persist as long as there are walls to slam against.

That’s why therapy helps, or talking to a friend, or having a difficult conversation, or writing in your journal: you’re releasing the thought, unbinding it, and letting it walk freely in the real world.

This is a kind gesture: setting our thoughts free. And it always works, once we get over our fear of what they will do on the outside.

Posted on

Future Clogs & Such Things

Gray surface

Neighbors are great for impromptu chats, standing in the street with dogs, with trash bags, with full bottles of wine (I had a French neighbor once).

Dave noticed the pipes that had just shown up running along my fence, down the garden, and letting out onto the sidewalk.

“Ar those 4-inchers?”

“No clue.”

“Those look like 4-inchers.”

My expression must have given me away.

“You want 6-incher for drainage. 4-inchers might clog.”

I looked at the shiny white piping snaking up the garden, running along the garage roof, behind the steps, and disappearing into the ground.

And then, without really trying to, I summed up a bit of my life philosophy, the thing that keeps my hair from going grey, that keeps me sleeping so deep at night.

I tapped the end of the 4-inch pipe with the toe of my sneaker and looked up at Dave.

“I guess I don’t worry about what could go wrong.”

Dave’s eyes got wide.

“Wow. I wish I was like that.” Thank god for Dave’s reaction. He made me feel proud, not foolish. But, come to think of it, fools can be proud. And they’re smarter than smart people, depending on your metric.

“It’s draining well enough,” I said. “If I gotta dig it up and repipe it in 5 years, worrying about it now ain’t going to do me any good.”

And that was the end of it.

I’m not able to do this sort of mind-shift with all things, but with pipes I guess I can. Of course, the drawback is I end up not being ready for some of the stuff that comes at me, like, say, a clogged pipe in 5 years.

But having fewer worries overall seems like a pretty good tradeoff. And I had a good laugh with the Guatemalan guys who dug the trench and actually met one of their kids, who came to watch.

To do the math, I get 5 good years of no headache in return for 2 (possible) days of headache.

If, in fact, the pipe clogs.

Which it may.

But it might not.

—-

Huh.

I did my best.

I’m good with that.

Posted on

Batten Down The Hatches

For the first time in 5 years, I didn’t write a blog post.

Nothing occurred to me. And when Sunday night rolled around, and I had nothing in the queue, I just sort of shrugged and wrapped myself in a blanket.

No real accomplishments to speak of. Not many thoughts. I’ve just been going about my day, doing one task and then another. Not cooking anything interesting, not writing, not reading, no podcasts, not veering off the same neighborhood loop when I take Ziggy for a walk.

I’m not even dreaming.

I’m on autopilot: trying to line up work for myself, trying to help other people find work, people who seem as dazed and empty as me.

It’s not depression. It’s something else.

Yesterday, my daily drift took me into the backyard, where I power-washed our inflatable waterslide, then dried it by hand. It took 10 towels.

From there, I put the umbrellas away, swept the leaves, brought in the hammock, took down the silk and trapeze, tucked the bikes under the shed…

In a sense, removing fun and relaxation from all corners of our yard. Not the best feeling, but a requirement. It’s winter and there’s a storm coming.

How fucking appropriate.

A storm coming…

We certainly have something looming on the horizon.

Half of the country thinks it’s the end of democracy. The other half is glad they didn’t lose.

Both halves know we’re in for complete and total disruption. That’s what we’ve been promised. And whether we cry or cheer, that’s what’s going to happen – disruption. There’s already a blueprint. We’ve been shown the brochure.

The storm is coming.

A storm is coming, and we’re all just drifting around like kindergartners looking for our moms at the mall. Some of us expecting to find her, others well past hope but still moving about.

I’m wondering if I did enough.

Do I need to clean the gutters? Bring in the patio cushions? How strong will the winds be?

People speak of the calm before the storm, but it doesn’t feel calm at all.

There’s a rhythmic up-and-down motion of the sea that keeps me uneasy. There’s a low rumble in the earth.

I know for certain that If I look out to the horizon, I’ll see the waves, that if I lay my ear to the ground, I’ll hear the beginning of an earthquake.

But I don’t do these things. And I don’t talk about it.

I just put my broom away and go inside.

Posted on

The Disappearance of Truth

Ice pieces in water

We live in a world where people tell you they didn’t say something they said, even if you have a video of them saying it. And people make videos of you saying things you didn’t say.

Sadly, there are plenty of people — people with great power — who are awful enough to want to do these things to us for as long as it takes to gain more power.

Truth is gone.

Like an island sinking or (a more apt metaphor) a glacier breaking apart, its pieces drift away from each other.

Instead of one agreed-upon place of truth — newscasts, universities, libraries — we have the Internet, we have social media, which guide us into earshot of hundreds of unvetted mouthpieces telling us different stories. Our part in this? In the same way we regard religion: we assume the story that we are told is the right one.

To be a writer of history, an authoritative voice that is followed, you need not be qualified; you need not be well-read; you need not have lived through the experience you’re covering or talked to anyone who has; you need not be divine.

You need only be compelling to watch.

Our esteemed storytellers’ top credentials have become charisma. No, not even that. Just, spectacle. Giving us something that’s hard to stop watching.

The jesters have taken over the castle while the King is off somewhere in a separate wing, under a stack of blankets, coughing and wheezing, bruised and beaten.

We’ve pummeled Knowledge to death through our nonchalant tapping of “like” and “subscribe” buttons.

Unfortunately — and it hurts even to write this — a single, trusted Truth will never return.

You can’t put a glacier back together.

There is no boat coming. The people with boats, they all own houses, and fireplaces, and heated indoor swimming pools with faux-fiberglass icebergs. They make the videos. They make the buttons. They edit our minds.

And we, the masses who far outnumber the architects, we’re dying of cold.

Our only hope of survival, as we stand alone on these drifting pieces of ice, is selfless, even ridiculous, acts that make no sense.

Jumping into the water.
Breaking off a piece of our iceberg and leaving it behind.
Fishing with our hands.
Screaming at the top of our lungs.
Diving deep deep deep down into the cold.

For, it is only through these ridiculous acts that we may find each other.

In chaos, there can still be kindness.

And kindness is, and always will be, the kindling that generates hope.

Perhaps, under this murky, ice-cold water, tangled up in the subterranean roots of an unknown species we’ve yet to discover, there is an ingredient we all need, perhaps the drifting is how we will find it.

Or perhaps, even more far-fetched than that, if we all begin to scream and swim, we will eventually hear each other, and that will be enough to make us move in the right direction: toward, not away.


Posted on

The Day After Today

Silhouette of golden gate bridge during golden hour

The dark cloud has been over us for so long, I think we’re used to it.

Even when it’s sunny, it’s not really as sunny as it used to be.

But all of that can change.

Some decisions are hard, but not the ones where love is all the way on one side.

I’m tired of the hate.

Tired of the hate.

Ready for that cloud to pass.

Posted on

More White Space

Flowers and frame

Ironically, it’s the absence of words on a page that makes people read the words.

It’s the white space between these lines that makes you want to read the next one.

Designers call this “visual rest.”

We could stand to do this more in conversation:

add

a

little

white

space.

When it comes to two people in a room, we need conversations, not soliloquies.

And if there are three of you in that room and one is doing all the talking, while they go on with their yap, stop and look at the other person.

No eye-rolling, just eye contact.

And not a glance, something longer than that, hold it there and stay with them. You’re in the same boat.

The eyes can say a lot — they can whisper and they can scream — particularly during a shared experience.

If you truly want to connect with someone, if you want them to come back to you with something new, don’t fill the space.

Create it.

Posted on

A Little Light Left

Light through hole in dark room

Her church was the first to call.

“She’s forgetting things.”

It was sort of blamey, at least that’s how I took it — me, one of two sons, 22 hours away. Or two flights and a long shuttle ride, which has to be coordinated ahead of time.

The last time I went, I got to step into her routine, rigid and repetitive; it’s the only thing she has, really – the routine. Roast beef and yogurt sandwiches every day. Leg cramp pills four times a day. Free bus ride to the grocery store twice a week, church on Saturday and Sunday, post office (less and less), free coffee and cookie at the bank on Friday. It’s a life, not one I’d want to have, but she claims she’s happy. That’s what she tells me on the phone, after she talks about the leg cramp pills and her roast beef sandwiches.

“Really? After you take the pills, the cramps just go away?”

When I was there, I tried to take her to our favorite pizza place, the one with sawdust on the floor and my initials etched in the table, but she freaked out. I felt like an idiot, like Tom Cruise in Rainman, taking this scared person somewhere for my own benefit… to reminisce.

Is that the definition of selfishness? Asking a woman who’s losing her memory to reminisce.

What the hell was I thinking? That we’d sit on the benches and look for my initials? No, it’s over here. No, I swear it’s on this one. Remember how we used to play pinball?

She bolted out the door, not out of anger, so much as panic. Once in her apartment, we nestled back into her routine. Ah, the routine. CNN in the living room. Yogurt sandwich offered. Sun setting.

So now its the bank calling. Same concerned, blamey tone, at least that’s how I took it. But they were nice. They didn’t have to do it.

“We’re worried about her.”

Yeah, no shit.

How do I tell them she’s difficult, that you don’t just convince her to do things, that she’s adamant about no nursing homes, that I’ve been trying to get someone to visit her apartment for months, that she’s always been hard to be around, that she’s pushed away just about everyone that’s ever been in her life?

I think about another plane ride, of the long ride from the airport, the weird hello in the doorway like she sorta knows me but is a little suspicious of this friendly guy with the stories. We’d sit on her balcony, drink Budweisers, listen to her tell me about the parking long across the street. No more drug dealers and thank God they painted…

What the hell am I gonna do up there? I’ll tell her what needs to be done, and she’ll say she ain’t gonna do it. Or she’ll just get quiet.

And then I’ll tell her again…cuz that’s my role now.

It’s like we’re standing in front of a door that’s closing, and there’s barely any light coming out of it, and she’s not doing anything about it.

Maybe if I fly up there, I can wedge my foot in, I can wedge it in enough to pry it open.

But let’s be honest, I don’t want to go in there. I’m afraid of what’s inside. Like, real afraid.

And that’s the awful part. I do nothing and it’s bad, but I do something and it’s worse.

It’s no wonder I keep doing what I’m doing: feeding her cues and pretending she’s okay, or at least maybe she’s staying at the same level of not-okay.

Hey mom, It’s Cliff, your son in Oakland. Yeah, the one who bought you the TV. No way. Really? The pain just goes away? Just like that? That’s crazy.

It’s sad. It’s weak.

But at least I know what comes next.