The 45 Blog

My wife’s garden invites color and song to the railing of our front porch. It perches there, looks around, listening to the weird little man ticking away on his keyboard, just on the other side of the pane.

Then another comes– some kind of finch. Their songs together get louder, a piercing piccolo trill with a dropped tone at the end, that I can feel in my forehead.

I didn’t see these guys last night, let alone hear them.

I was in the back, watching some tv, having a drink and a cigar. During the first third of the stick, I sensed something to my left, but didn’t confirm if anything was there.

But then, I checked.

A 5 foot rat snake, climbing the corner of my chimney, wanting to get into the dreams of my studio, just one floor above. I swatted it down, let him live.

Now he has the advantage, because every time I go outside, I’ll be looking for him and he won’t have a care in the world.

I’m different when she’s gone. When she’s here, there’s more hustle in me, knowing she’s in the other room, studying for a test she needs to take for work. When she’s here, I’m smiling under the covers, anticipating the first words from her mouth, “C’mon, let’s go for a walk.” When I come back, I journal. When she’s here, I giggle when one of her five alarms goes off for her morning snack of pumpkin.

There are three weeks of her absence, then she returns from visiting her family in Korea, while dropping our youngest off at a foreign college for a summer semester.

When she’s not here, I stick to my rules and patterns. Journal three pages, bible study, 3 mile ruck, a quick daily workout, ice, shower, go.

At night, after work, another walk , dinner, reading, writing, finish something, have a drink, go to bed.

The only difference is the resistance– my life moves at a slower pace when she’s not in the home. As to what causes the resistance, it could be anything. It could be the loneliness that sets in, that I feel right in the middle of my torso when I think the word “loneliness” into consciousness. It could be my fear of going out to talk with others and be forced into connection, only because connection is necessary. Last, it could be the rehearsal for the worst thing I can imagine , which is life without her, holding hands with the wind, calling it by her name whenever I feel heaven’s breath blow into my blood.

When my friend tells me about her job, and all the talking everybody does, and how relational it is, and how there’s so much drama, I made a quick diagnosis without her permission.

It was simple to see.

They all hate their work.

Their tasks are so meaningless to them that they’d rather gossip and gorge themselves on drama . Or the thing that they really want to do seems out of reach, so they just waste time.

We could easily say that a life without vision leads to this– but, more germane to the topic, it might be better to conclude that a life without good questions leads to this and even less.

Often times, employers are sold strategies and tactics to boost employee engagement and joy. It’s probably an industry worth billions . Yet I don’t think these tactics work. A better tactic would be to collect evidence on what really ignites a person’s curiosity and passion and see if it fits. If not, no big deal. Brag about him to one of your friends in a different industry– see if the person can fit in elsewhere– because ultimately engagement is the responsibility of the individual, not the employer.

Is having nothing to believe in, no purpose in life other than to loud the day away on whatever’s new , whatever’s contagious and whatever’s momentary. All the trends happen so fast. The whiplash chaos dizzies us into traumas so deep and varied that we want distance from ourselves. Our faded moral fabric has a hole in it. We stick our fist in , feel for something to punch and find nothing. It feels like outer space around my hand.

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, it seems that their dreams stayed imprisoned in their head, in their yearbook, in the jail of black and white photography. People have been keeping tab.

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.