The 45 Blog

I’m at my Catholic Retreat with my friends, on the cusp of our confirmation. This is likely ’88 or ’89. There’s no warnings here. No agendas. I’m talking to John, or somebody else, and the lights go off. It stays this way for a good 15-30 seconds– enough time to cause anticipation and a little anxiety. You can hear necks move, swiveling to see what’s happening. Once in a while a knuckle or some other joint cracks in the silence. When you can’t hear anything, the the strobe lights come on– aggressively. Everybody looks horrific. Everybody’s angular movements in the chopping light– their bodies like twisted car wrecks. Then the music from Godspell comes pouring out of the speakers. But the best part is the clowns.

The Clowns come sprinting out like athletes , then divide up amongst the audience. Soon the sprint slows down to a strut , then they attack us with makeup and clothes– transforming us into clowns, just like them.

My clown’s name is Colleen. She’s two years my senior and has really dry frizzy hair that’s the color of cat piss and oatmeal. She has the best smile. Maybe I’m making that up, but she is truly the sweetest.

She sits down next to me, with a bowl of water , wipes the makeup from my nose and asks, “Who are you?”

” Ummm. James Robinson.”

“No! That’s your name. Who are you really?”

Emphasis on really. I think about it. She continues wiping the makeup off, repeating the question. WHo are you really? WHo are you really? Who are you really?”

I repeat the same answer as before– and, like before, I ‘m wrong and punished for it.

And somehow it all ends up beautiful.

You’ll feel this way again when you’re 45.

A good Sunday. Washed the cars. Smoked a chicken in the Masterbilt. Took things to the Goodwill and had an encounter with the most polite man in the world. Then I installed an irrigation system so that my wife and I can use our evenings more productively. As to why we hadn’t thought of this before, it was a different era. We happily wasted our time together watering plants– more her than me, but often together. It was nice– even childlike– I’d try to squirt her, then she’d retaliate. We’re almost 50.

Now that we have the irrigation equipment, we can both go into our private dens and work and study and read. Then we come out, talk, walk a mile, then repeat. It’s kinda perfect. Our family time consists mostly of walks and discussions– even if one daughter is absent, we may call her for the walk. Our youngest is in college and walks a lot– she almost always calls us. I wonder if she’s truly interested in talking to us, or is she just conditioned to do so?

Either way, it doesn’t matter. My wife and I love hearing from our daughters no matter what.

Unburying a few notes in my Microsoft OneNote files, I’m like a college kid in a second hand clothing store– touching, feeling and interpreting all the material and surprised they fit and feel pretty good.

Not designer, second hand Gucci– but it’s at least 2nd hand Banana Republic.

Some of the work I’m completing now was started in 2017 and before. In fact, it was during that year that I started writing with some regularity again.

Now it’s daily.

Patience, sitting and doing have been the secret. Now the quality needs to get better.

Local Library: Walking with my aunt in our hometown, our legs weary and the cold wind is far more frigid than what we’re used too . Most of our conversation is about growing up, and the imminent death of her mother, my grandmother. Wandering into the local library to warm up, we come upon a special section reserved for yearbooks from the local high school– with publications dating back to 1938. There’s a gap between the 10’s and now, but up until at least 2000 there’s one book per year.

So I snap photos of what’s inside.

Kids posing with guns and cigarettes. Some leaning up against farm equipment, sexualizing the profession. Others , like my youngest uncle, with kinky curls ironed straight.

In some ways, these were the last photographs of these people as kids, and the first as adults, going out to the world to pursue their dreams if they had any. In observing some of the people, however, it seems that their dreams stayed imprisoned in their head, in the jail of black and white photography.

No matter how many times we open the book to release their dreams into reality, they stay put like tamed zoo animals.

In Dallas, on a work trip, during a month long reset for my body. A few years ago, I traveled almost 50% of the time– Nashville, Milwaukee, San Jose, and DC. During that time, I noticed how hotel rooms had the power to increase the intensity of hunger, in all its positive and negative forms. In the quiet of the room, or hidden under the layers of background sounds originating from the highway and tv, my hunger for food antagonizes and disrupts my focus.

I read, then feel the hunger kick in, so I walk down to the lobby and look for snacks.

Only, I don’t buy any.

I smile. The woman at the register asks me if I need help. I smile back, then reply no, before heading up to my room to type and read.

30 minutes later, I do the same thing again, then return.

This cycle continues because I know that if I give into this particular shade of hunger , I would only complain and be upset with myself for giving up– therefore antagonizing my focus.

So I just smile, chew some gum. Read and type. Then sleep.

The day is complete, but very little was completed. I outlined 4 seasons of Queen of Wilmer County, but only after drafting a very jumbled pilot over several months.

Writing tv scripts is different than writing and drafting fiction– at least for me. Seeing the season as a whole unit helps add complexity to the characters over episodes, leading up to the finale and either a reasonable solution or at least some anticipation that resolution will happen in the next season. The outlines help.

I’m going to give myself 6 weeks to redo the pilot, then focus on writing the bible, then take another swing at editing.

Funny, to think that I was struggling to write just three-pages of fiction a few years ago and now have completed two novel drafts , a full pilot (to redo), and several longish stories.

When I got back into writing, I was focused on micro-fiction . Part of me believes I dedicated myself to producing shorter work because longer work intimidated me. Don’t get me wrong, I love short works and prefer them, but sometimes there’s just another layer to reveal or a different world to create and it can’t be done in a page.

The day passed. I saw some people. Talked to an old friend about fiction and writing. Bought some bread. Ate some salad. Re-read a story and re-categorized it to the “ready to edit” tab. Then I read some more fiction. Then I wrote. It was a normal day– except I didn’t workout nor did I do a cold plunge.

During metamorphosis, the caterpillar dissolves and destroys its own body until it becomes goo. Then all the goo gets rearranged into another insect called a butterfly. It breaks through the paper-thin material to become color and flight and light brushes of wings against your cheek.

This level of change can only happen in secret, hidden from the world, and coached by God . Only He knows the spots and patterns on your wings and where they’ll take you; only He knows the color they produce when the sun shines through the thin membrane of the wing to break your heart.

Low self-esteem and inferiority complexes are not the ingredients of a strong leader. If he or she suffers from either of these ailments, decision-making and the well-being of the constituents are compromised because the leader is always healing a wound, seeking comfort. So when people judge the sitting president as “incompetent” or being an “idiot”, I pause a bit. Listening to him speak in Maui, he attempts to make a connection and empathize with those who suffered the fires. I hear his story, loud and clear. Instead of comforting them, he wants people to feel sorry for him and to comfort him. A few months ago, when he made jokes about ice-cream before addressing the Nashville shooting, he wanted to be liked. He has a history of deficits that range from his stuttering and being picked on as a child, being the victim of inconsistent housing , being the son of a used-car salesman, and, worst of all, finding himself consistently at the bottom of his class.

Now he’s running the free world.

It’s frightening. He’s desirous for comfort, being liked, and being > than his competition. Any action agreeable to those feelings is permissible, so long as his wounds feel comfort.

What’s more frightening is that under certain circumstances, there’s a little Joe Biden in each of us. It just takes some badass childhood memory to belittle you to the point you seek comfort, just like him.

Reading some books feels like walking in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. At least that’s the feeling I have after living through Kokoro by Natsume Soseki. Because the novel is written in the first person narrative, there are pages upon pages of internal dark monologue that get burned into you. Even the way you talk to yourself changes– for the worse. You feel like a coward, you hate yourself, and the other people around you can smell it on you. And it goes on for the length of the novel . But on Saturday morning, when you close the book for the final time, you thaw, right in front of your family. Then you smile at your wife, happy that someone in the world has the courage to love you, even if just for a short time, between K dramas.