BoldUlysses.com

I’m only a bit into a wonderful book by Matthew Zapruder called Why Poetry? but it’s already provoked a paradigm shift.

Simply put, the book is a really beautifully written primer on the poetic form and why we read it, what its purpose is and how vital it is as a form of expression. A really remarkable series of signs that the book is meant for me have been the poetry he’s used as examples: “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden, which was one of the first into which I did a deep dive (pun intended, if you know the poem) as a part of my honors English class first semester in college; and John Ashbery’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, a compilation that really made a strong impression on me when I studied it for my Modern Poetry class later in college. For someone who hasn’t read a whole lot of poetry, the selection of those two in particular is really amazing, and immediately makes me feel invested in the book’s thesis.

The epiphany the book has catalyzed so far has to do with the criticality of how we experience artistic expressions that become meaningful to us. Up until now, in endeavoring to build a connection with acquaintances, I’d simply assumed it was enough to just listen to, or watch, or read things they listed as having been significant, and following on from that, share my impressions. But I’ve come to realize that everyone experiences things in their own way. Put another way, after listening to the song, or watching the film, or reading the poem, I need to ask them “How did you experience that?” or “Where were you when you read that line?” or “What did that scene remind you of?” or “What were you looking at when you heard that refrain for the first time?” or any number of less leading questions. I’ve had those moments in my own life where something absolutely mundane acquires cosmic significance just because of where I was, or what I was thinking of, or what I was feeling at the moment I witnessed it. We can’t engineer those moments—to a degree, but the book is teaching me how poetry leverages the potential of language to usher the reader into the state (emotional/spiritual/physical) with the best possible chance of evoking a transcendent moment. And given how significant and existential those moments are and closely they’re tied to what we’re reading, hearing, or viewing when they occur, trying to learn the context, the specific inflection points for others in the expressions they experience is critically important in understanding what it means to them.

P and D returned from Maine yesterday morning. I picked them up from the airport; they had been there since last Wednesday investigating an art college in Portland. I once described P as an “interesting bundle of contradictions,” and that’s certainly holding true for her college career.

After the disillusionment with the community college art classes, she started searching in earnest for someplace she felt more of an affinity with, and stumbled across the school in Maine after a Google search, of all things. Why Maine? As far as I understand it, her dream is to attend a college in a geographical location she finds desirable. Put another way, she wants to move someplace she could see herself living for the rest of her life, and our efforts to communicate that the majority of college students don’t end up living in the same region as the college where they received their degree have met with only limited success in dampening her fixation on her vision of an academic career.

Maine was a bit of a wake-up call to her in that regard. Both P and D loved the town, but P’s experience has shown her that it’s just too far away, too much of a leap for her at this point in her life. The subpar quality of the student and faculty art she surveyed played a role as well; she’s been very disillusioned at all the state of fine arts higher education, and what she saw at the Maine school reinforced that disillusionment. It’s just not worth it for her.

So, in a sense, we’re back to the drawing board (pun intended). She’s open to Appalachian State, but that would require her to live in NC for a year to be able to get in-state tuition. She’s also open to the local 4-year public university, but that surprised me given her repeatedly-stated desire to move away from home (but not too far, obviously). UTC is less than 30 minutes away (see note above about “contradictions”). Either way, we have a lot of work to do to prepare. College expenses and logistics are no joke.

as the world turns round
i was blind but
now I’m still blind

My kingdom for a woman with a voice half as angelic as Harriet Wheeler’s.

(Re)discovered The Sundays after hearing one of their songs at, of all places, the gym. And it wasn’t even their biggest hit, or close to it, but just a random track (“On Earth“) from their second album. I was doing my final set of upright rows, and Wheeler’s voice wafted in through the overhead speakers, and I had to find out what I was hearing.

In other news, it’s cold outside and our government continues to degrade itself. Every day, the news is filled with some fresh sign of our civilizational decline into autocracy, whether it’s the regime’s latest efforts to create an unaccountable paramilitary force, or Congress’ utter cowardice and wanton impotence in discharging its responsibility to check the executive branch’s corruption and use of our Constitution as toilet paper. I’ve firmly decided to vote straight Democrat in the midterms this fall. We need divided government as soon as possible; I just hope our country’s judicial system hasn’t been so politicized and compromised as to be unable to prosecute everyone involved in this shambolic and malevolent administration. My favorite perspective on the current state of affairs comes from Nick Catoggio over at The Dispatch. He’s as pessimistic concerning the outlook as I am, so reading his columns isn’t exactly a pick-me-up, but his analysis is so clear-eyed and thoughtful that it rewards thorough consideration. I’ve been reading him for the past 15-odd years, and he’s always had a remarkable talent for succinctly examining an issue, its causes and motivating factors, and its potential outcomes, and communicating them in a vivid, readable way. Recommended, but only for the reassurance that at least one other person’s eyes are open to exactly what’s going on, not as encouragement. You’d have to go elsewhere for that.

post-mortem, part 15

I drove back from D’s apartment after dropping off a few things, and at a stoplight, glanced over at the passenger footwell to see a faint wisp of white LED light shining from the front of the amp under the seat. There’s always been something deeply reassuring about small lighted sentinels “standing guard” over me, like tiny lighthouses. When I was a pre-teen, instead of turning off my radio completely at night, I’d simply turn down the volume so the red “stereo” light would remain lit, watching me as I slept. I used to have a subscription to Flying magazine, and one of my favorite ads featured the profile of a business jet cruising at night, the dim light from its windows and the spectral outline of the jet itself the only things visible in the photo. I loved the feeling of the ad, the idea that the plane’s passengers were safe and warm inside while the pilots vigilantly monitored the flight from the cockpit. And on winter nights, when I take the dog out the back door to do her business before bed, through the naked trees, I can often see the faint light of a distant window peeking through the forest.

The common element between all these is that somehow, they remind me, in a tangible way, that someone, somewhere is watching over me. Or maybe it’s all just a fancy way of saying I like nightlights. Either way, I don’t care that it may seem childish; these days, I’ll take all the sources of reassurance I can get, especially ones that have a history of connecting deeply with me.

now the years are rolling by me—
they are rockin’ evenly.
i am older than i once was,
and younger than i’ll be.
that’s not unusual

47. Perilously close to 50, but not there yet. Not quite. Besides my parents, L, bless him, was the only one to remember my birthday, with the funny card and thoughtful note he got me. Earlier in the month, P deliberately chose not to recognize D’s birthday, so I suppose she felt compelled to treat mine similarly, which is fine, really; it’s just another day to me, and L’s acknowledgement was a pleasant surprise.

The winter session of the theology class at the Anglican church downtown starts tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to it, but the assigned book gave me pause, since its author is Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar who, near the very end of his life, after having held conservative biblical values up until that point, collaborated with his son Christopher on another book advocating for full acceptance and inclusion of practicing homosexuals in church communities. It’s a book, furthermore, that I was gifted and have on my bookshelf downstairs, yet to be read—though I intend to. I don’t know the Anglican church’s actual position on the issue, but believe they lean more conservative; still, I’d like invite Sam, one of the instructors, out to lunch to pick his brain on the issue, and Hays’ trajectory. I like Sam a lot and I’m sure he would address things in a sensitive, winsome way. I’m hungry for insights from anyone and everyone who’s thoughtfully and prayerfully considered the matter.

1. It wasn’t a fluke! P wanted to play something with me both Thursday evening (Yoshi’s Woolly World) and yesterday (Mario Kart CTGP). And seemed like she was having a great time both times. I’m not sure what accounts for the renaissance of Daddy Involvement, but it’d be hard to overstate how encouraging and affirming it feels. If I had to augur a guess, between D’s confession of the full extent of her contributions to the marriage’s breakdown, and the conversation we had a few weeks ago wherein with both reaffirmed how much we love her and how much we’re on her side, advocating for her, a real realignment is underway. But even if not, even if this is destined to be only temporary, I’d be a fool to not take the opportunity to 1) enjoy interacting with her as much as possible, and 2) speak to her future aspirations as gently but as much as I can. She needs a lot of guidance in that area (among others).
2. Lovely dream last night. It’s been so long since I’ve had a good dream that I remember. I was plying some strange city, a thicket of brutalist concrete skyscrapers and office buildings, and I knew I was supposed to meet someone, the woman with whom I had been corresponding online. We had been getting along very well, and I don’t remember whether I had seen a photo of her yet, or perhaps it was just a grainy, unhelpful image, but I was apprehensive that she wouldn’t look like I imagined her to. Somehow I ended up standing on a lower roof of one of the skyscrapers, and she was behind me; I turned around, and…she looked absolutely perfect. Short brown hair, rounded features, a physicality that matched my own, and a wonderful name (Sarah). I looked, astonished for a few seconds, then put my arm around her waist, drew her to me and kissed her, just the way I kissed her not even a year ago; I relived that memory. I awoke wishing I could put more stock in the dream from a prophetic standpoint, but…I know better. But it doesn’t take away anything from how lovely it was to feel that again, if only for a few moments.

Yesterday was profoundly discouraging. The kids’ first day of their respective semesters, L’s went well enough (other than a few driving & parking hiccups), but P’s art class was a disaster. At least, that was her takeaway. Her professor reminds her of an overweening yet incompetent teacher she had in high school; she hates the dingy, claustrophobic building in which the studio’s located (all the way over on the opposite side of campus); and she despises her first assignment. After the very challenging experience of her first college-level art class last semester, all hopes for a change in trajectory seem very distant. To her credit, after she got home and had a chance to process, she did confess that her revulsion at the class may have been partially due to…physical factors. And we reviewed the syllabus together, and the subsequent assignments look more palatable than her first.

Still, if she had a choice, she’d be attending a four-year art school, somewhere up north and/or cold and snowy, a reasonable distance away from her family, but not far enough to make it impractical to request their help on short notice. And the truth is, I’d love be able to make that happen for her—and it may yet work out—but the resources will always be a challenge. That’s the major obstacle to her being able to attend AppState in Boone; the fact that I simply can’t afford out-of-state tuition, and the idea of living in situ for a year and working just doesn’t appeal to her. Fortunately, by the end of the evening, D and I seemed to be on the same page about at least trying to effect a change in situation for her—without making promises we may not be able to keep—with the caveat that she needs to have a Plan B and Plan C, etc, and not put all her emotional eggs in one basket. It’s a tough line to help her walk; on the one hand, there are times to simply buckle down and make the best of a bad situation, but on the other hand, no one wants to waste time and money on a sub-optimal education.

Another point of discouragement is how gung-ho and supportive D is of the absolutely shocking governmental and law enforcement situation taking place in our country at the moment. Our deranged, despicable president has assembled his very own secret police force right under our noses, and she’s cheering them on, blind to every single history lesson, or the humanity of those in the crosshairs. Truth be told, it’s not her support of them in and of itself that bothers me (I’ve long since ceased to care about her political leanings), but she represents a type, those “strength”-worshiping, myopic MAGA degenerates, especially the ones who try to slap a “nuanced” intellectual veneer on their loyalties and try to cosplay some kind of independence from the all-in, whatever-Trump-wants cultists. We’re so far beyond that point, and have been for some time. I can’t, and won’t, give him credit for anything, and my respect for D has dropped even lower than it was before. I don’t spend a lot of energy on it, but I do try to at least serve a voice from the other side in her life (one that she’s clearly not hearing) when I have the opportunity, but really, I have better things to do with my time.

1. Tomorrow’s the first day of the new semester. The kids’ classes are blessedly clustered on Tuesday and Thursday, and L is far more independent, so I’ll only be helping him make his way downtown for the first week, then, Lord willing, he’ll be able to manage on his own. Something possessed him to register for the 8 AM section of one of his classes, so he’ll have a tough time of it for a while, especially during the winter months when he’ll have to get up even earlier to scrape his truck’s windshield. As for P, she still doesn’t want to drive places on her own, so I’ll still be taking her to school twice a week. Not too onerous.
2. Speaking of P, for the first time in many long months, she expressed a desire to play something with me on one of her allotted evenings. We enjoyed a Mario Kart session (wherein I finished “only” 15 seconds or so behind her, in fourth place), and the following evening, we played Ticket to Ride for the first time, and enjoyed it—though she said she prefers the somewhat similar Carcassonne for its world-building aspects. Regardless, the fact that she wanted to play anything at all signals a kind of thaw in our relationship, one that I’m grateful for. I’m going to make the most of our times together, and pray that it continues.
3. On the book front, I finished C.S. Lewis’s The Dark Tower & Other Stories, a collection of snippets of his unfinished fiction. The genres are primarily sci-fi, but the final fragment is a retelling of the fall of Troy from the perspective of Menelaus, starting with a striking scene from inside the Trojan Horse. I’ve resumed Jane Eyre, which I’ve never read before but am actually greatly enjoying. I love her introspective asides the most; I’ll post a fuller review in here when I’ve finished.
4. My new year’s resolution on the church front was to starting staying for the weekly post-service lunch and getting to know the other congregants. It’s definitely stretching me outside my comfort zone, but it’s been a blessing in equal measure. The church is so small and intimate that it really does feel like a family, all the more since I’ve started to gel with the Friday evening book study guys in a way that I didn’t at my old church. It really helps one open up when the men across the table have similar questions and concerns about the institutional church, the Bible, practice, faith & politics, etc. I’m still on the fence about actually joining the church, though; I know there’s value in commitment, but I still find myself unsure about whether to commit to the little church I’ve been attending, or the larger Anglican congregation downtown, where I’ve been taking the Sunday evening theology classes and attending the (outstanding) Theology on Tap lectures. I feel a strong sense of personal loyalty to Greg, the pastor of my current church, and I align closely with his worldview, and it provides an opportunity for healthy growth in expanding my comfort zone and ministering more directly with the marginalized and disenfranchised BUT the church downtown has a much higher concentration of peers and potential friends with whom I feel an intellectual affinity. AND I appreciate their doctrinal stance AND they have a thriving ministry to the inner city community and beyond I could be involved in. It’s a tough choice.

From a drama/stress perspective, Christmas was better than Thanksgiving. D came over Christmas morning, and the gifting proceeded much as it has in years past. P and D seem to have buried the hatchet, just like I knew they would and said as much to D when was in the throes of it and thought she had “lost” her daughter. There certainly didn’t seem to be any bad blood between them as they oohed and aahed over each others’ gifts, and a couple of days later, D swung by to take P out shopping and they had lunch at Olive Garden, so I’m bullish on their prospects.

L received a smattering of sports apparel, some books, and a voucher for a majority contribution to his new bike fund, but truth be told, his real gift this holiday has been his truck. He loves it, and he’s relishing his newfound autonomy, driving it up and down Hixson Pike every chance he gets. We went to the bank, and he drove, and while he’s an excellent driver, if I’m honest, he still does need to grow into the truck a bit. I think it will help when I show him how to clean it out, change its oil, the location of all the mechanical bits, etc. Then he’ll feel like he’s more in command of all its faculties.

As for me, the kids collaborated and finally bought me my Lego Concorde, several years in the pipeline. I assembled it like a man possessed in about 5 straight hours Christmas afternoon, and it’s sitting on my dresser next to my bedroom’s other Lego monument, the phallic symbol a.k.a. Saturn V rocket. Given that the Concorde is predominantly horizontal, they make a good pair.

Inasmuch as poetry prioritizes experience over simply conveying information, I wish I was better at experiencing it. It’s challenging in a way that prose isn’t, and it’s frustrating because I consider myself reasonably perceptive, right-brained person who typically has little difficulty apprehending themes, symbolism, metaphor, etc, from the prose that I read.

I think a lot of my frustration stems from the fact that I don’t think my poetry is very good. I’m not a transcendently good writer, but prose comes naturally to me, and I feel very confident expressing myself this way. Poetry, on the other hand, I just don’t have a mental framework for how to go about creating it. Traditionally, it’s just been a stream-of-consciousness type of thing, completed either all in one sitting or (more rarely) cobbled together from remembered fragments jotted down at random times before they flitted away. Problem is, there’s no way to conjure that mood, and regardless of whether it comes upon me or I attempt to assume it on command, the resulting poetry just, well, sucks. It doesn’t work on any level, structurally or aesthetically.

I’d love to learn, though. Poetry feels like a dance I haven’t mastered, but I’m just out there on the hardwood flailing about, whether reading or writing it. But how do you teach something that’s so intuitively expressed? Someone can show explain a painting to me, or explain the basic mechanics of how it’s created, but without an innate connection with the medium, all I’d be doing would be to robotically ape the style, void of substance, of a more talented artist. But maybe that’s how every creator gets started. “Every artist is a cannibal / every poet is a thief,” Bono sang. One approach I haven’t tried is to simply immerse myself in poetry for an extended period of time, and trust that some of its modus operandi will rub off on me to the degree that I might find it easier to “let go” and express myself that way and be satisfied with the output. I do remember taking a modern poetry class in college (that I enjoyed very much; it was my first experience hearing poetry read well, and it made an impression), one that required extensive reading, and I recall my brain chemistry adjusted to conform to the medium. Maybe I can make that happen again.

I’m exhausted with fighting the gaslighting. D continues to try to bully her way back into the house by any means possible, clinging persistently to a kind of moral equivalency between her actions and mine in terms of the material causes of the divorce. Or at least, she did, until yesterday, when she and P, in a flashpoint, kind of ganged up on me. I had been shielding P from the full extent of D’s actions, so P’s impression had always been that the divorce was basically a mutual, 50/50 blame situation and that her mom really got the short end of the stick in the process, screwed to the wall by a vindictive Dad. But yesterday, eventually, over the course of the conversation, it reached a point where I had no choice but to (as gently as I could) remind D, in P’s presence, of what she did,. and the ways in which she potentially affected the kids in the process. P left the room midway through, but something seemed to click in D’s brain—time will tell if it’s genuine—and she abruptly went to P’s room, talked for 15-odd minutes, and emerged, telling me that P finally knew the full truth about what Mom did.

She said P told her that she doesn’t consider either of her parents to be role models, and she wants to be independent and strike out on her own as soon as she can. I would be more concerned except that much of that is normal and healthy assertion of independence at that age, so that’s the spirit in which I’m going to take it. After D left, P emerged a while later, and we talked casually, so it doesn’t feel like the revelations caused an immediate sea change in our dynamic. So I’m grateful for that also.

I went over to D’s apartment afterward to deliver some Christmas presents for her to wrap, and to check on her, since she left in a state of distress. She had recovered somewhat. Hopefully it was a turning point, and the gaslighting will diminish. Regardless, I’m still firmly resolved that she’s not returning to the house. More than anything, I just want her to make better decisions about herself, her lifestyle, and her health, for her own sake but also for the kids—and she needs help to do that. It’d be easy for me to say “Just make better choices,” but the reality is that there’s still unresolved trauma that informs her impulsiveness and lack of healthy decision-making ability, so there’s no bootstrapping here. She needs counseling, and that I would be willing to contribute to, and I offered, if she’ll take me up on it.

post-mortem, chapter fourteen

L’s graduating from community college tomorrow morning, summa cum laude. I’m so proud of him; he really has the work ethic to go a long, long way in whatever field he chooses. And he’s on track to pursue a challenging one—environmental science—without the kind of defined career path something more straightforward like graphic design, engineering, or IT might hold. I’m sure he’ll make it work, though. He’s got the academic side of things down cold, and while he still has a ways to go in terms of learning how to sell himself and ask the right questions of the right people at the right time (and a lot of that is luck), his trajectory this past year has seen him steadily build those skills. I think once he gets comfortable at UTC, which he’s excited to do, it’s no stretch to imagine him ingratiating himself with his professors and taking advantage of opportunities, both formal and informal. I hope I showed him a little of that with our volunteering efforts over the past six months (which have been a lot of fun besides).

Thanksgiving was stressful. The first one post-divorce, D decided she wanted to cook and host us at her apartment. I ended up running errands picking up ingredients, taking out trash, etc, while she prepped, and the kids and I were finally were admitted late in the evening for dinner around 8 PM. She made a great spread (she’s always been a fantastic cook), and I did some cleaning while she finished. The food was fantastic, but the conversation ventured into political territory, a subject about which D’s always had strong opinions, and the kids, especially P, are beginning to have equally strong feelings, so there was a degree of tension when D regurgitated tinfold hat anti-government conspiracy theories and I pushed back. P is SO shell-shocked and conflict-averse that I could tell it was really stressing her out.

My heart continues to break for her, and it’s hard to know what to do. As far as she’s concerned, Daddy kicked Mommy out of the house mid-year, and continues to heartlessly insist she can’t return. D’s made real overtures to bond with her, which is fine as far as that goes, but one of the effects is to ally P very closely with D’s perspective on the divorce, a worldview in which I’m the bad guy, or at least equally responsible for the marriage’s breakdown, and thus what I’ve “inflicted” on D seems excessive and disproportionate. Nevermind the fact that she had literal YEARS to get her ducks in a row, as it were, and find a job and learn how to be independent, but only did the former after being obviously conned by a man who promised her the moon, and really doesn’t seem to have any desire to do the latter, at least not fully, given the number of things it’s still requested that I do for her. And I’m OK with doing them, generally speaking; it would just be nice to see more concerted movement toward independence. She got very used to relying on me to keep the family and the house on the rails, and the way she’s continuing to act makes me feel even more exhausted and taken for granted.

But back to P. She’s so traumatized by the whole experience that she just wants to move away, attend a college in NC (preferably App State in Boone) and live in the dorm and be away from the place where her family was torn apart. I get that; I really do, and I want to make it happen for her, but 1) the financial picture is tricky—not impossible, just tricky—and 2) her natural instincts prompt her to venture in the direction of independence only rarely. For example, she got her driver’s license before L did, but has only driven by herself once, to Walmart and back. L drives himself to work and back every weekend, and to school and back twice a week. And she’s still hesitant to make phone calls, even to people she knows, and she needed me to help her talk to her supervisors at work about returning from college leave. These aren’t hard things. So, she talks a good game, but the reality is that she’s not where she needs to be in order to live her dreams of independence. I’m gently helping to nudge her in that direction—which is maybe all I need to do at this juncture. Just staying in the game is hard some days.

On Sunday evening, for the second lecture of her half of the course, Mary unpacked Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Much like Sam, her lectures are chock-full of content, but unlike his, they have a personal, empathetic, pastoral quality that seems to resonate a bit more with the makeup of the class, even if they’re somewhat lighter on actual information. That’s perfectly OK, of course; they’re just different approaches to the material, both appropriate in their own ways.

During the Q&A session, I commented how encouraging it was that although Ecclesiastes in particular doesn’t offer any firm resolution to the questions it poses and existential issues it raises, we have language, a vocabulary we can use to contend with the questions. In other words, at least we’re able to shake our fist at the universe and by extension, the universe’s Maker; if life were truly random, we wouldn’t be able to do that, everything would be senseless on a fundamental level.

A few questions later, and I don’t remember exactly what it was in reference to, Mary brought up the idea that the present is the period of time (as opposed the past or the future) that most closely resembles eternity, in the sense that God inhabits an eternal present. That being the case, it follows that there’s much value in living in the present, being mindful of the moment, and everything that entails. It excited me that she brought up the concept, since it’s essentially lifted, word-for-word, C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. I hung around after class to share my excitement that she had employed the framework, but she was deep in conversation with a couple other attendees, so after loitering for a minute or so, I skipped out—only to have her flag me down, since I had sent her an email with a question about the Psalms the previous Monday and she wanted to apologize for not getting back to me. I was perfectly fine with it, of course, but it gave me a chance to discuss the book reference, and talk about other Christian authors with a similar gift for analogy. She mentioned Tim Keller and N.T. Wright, and I name dropped Ross Douthat by way of contrast. Among other things. It was good to have a one-on-one conversation, albeit brief, outside of class, and I’m looking forward to her reply to my email. And that’s all there is to say about that.

post-mortem, thirteen

In the past 12 months…

• I got divorced after 18 years of marriage.
• My youngest graduated high school.
• I changed churches after almost 12 years.
• I started volunteering.
• I tried to make new friends for the first time in ages.
• I read more books than I had in the previous 10 years combined—and it changed my brain chemistry for the better.
• I fell in love for the first time in my life.
• Following from the above, I endured (and continue to heal from) a brutal breakup.
• I bought two new (to me) cars.
• I started sleeping in a bed again after 11.5 years of being on the couch.
• I changed jobs after 9.5 years at my previous one.
• I started counseling.
• Both my kids got their driver’s licenses and starting driving on their own.
• I signed up to run in a race for the first time since 2012.

…among many other things. It’s been…an eventful year. And there’s still a month and a bit left.

post-mortem, part XII

When I take a step back and think about it, it really is remarkable how much progress L has made on the driving front in the past 4-5 months. He went from barely being able to make it around the neighborhood without clipping a mailbox or running off the road, to confidently driving himself to and from work, and driving himself to community college and back—no mean feat—this past Thursday. He has the opposite stress response to his sister; she, ironically, gets more lax and borderline careless, and he clenches up and becomes cautious to the point of inaction. I joked that the perfect new driver exists somewhere in the space between; I should just rig up a vehicle with dual steering wheels and pedals, and have it average out their inputs, and I’d have nothing to worry about. Seriously though, I’m so proud of him. For someone for whom the unspoken rules of the road—and there are quite a few that we take for granted—don’t come naturally, he’s applied himself and encoded them in his brain impressively well. Continued areas to work on include turning right on red (it frustrates him that we allow this “rule-bending”), parking, and, well, closing the garage door when he leaves the house. But he’s aware of these weaknesses in his technique, and he’s applying himself to shore them up. And as pleased as I’ve been with his progress, the real “tell” that he’s arrived will be when I can completely relax whether I’m riding with him, or he’s away on his own. That’s when I’ll know. But it may take a little while for that Dad Vigilance™ to completely subside—if it ever does.

Radio Paradise played this one on their “Mellow Mix” on the way home yesterday after dropping L off at his RCIA class:

It’s just…a stunning song. I turned it up and drove home in a distant-eyed trance as the chords & lyrics came through the minivan’s speakers. It’s a Patti Griffin cover, and the singers added an extra verse at the end that bolsters the song’s contemporary relevance. But even beyond that, I can’t really explain, besides the obvious artistry, my feelings about the song. They’re inscrutable; the only intelligible sensation that I can make out is an overwhelming feeling of YES, I want to be that for you, act that way toward you—forever. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but if I’ve learned anything about relationships through the years, it’s that being “careful” with a woman requires a delicate, ever-shifting balance of resolve, decisiveness, sensitivity, intuition, wisdom, tenderness, and a host of other attributes—and all those specifically calibrated to the particular needs and person of the woman I’m with. It takes constant vigilance and effort, yes, but it takes MORE than just that; there has to be some intrinsic understanding, some intuitive, baseline level on which she feels seen and understood before any conscious effort is applied. There really is a certain sense in which you can’t get There from Here; either you have it or you don’t. I think the song reminds me of how the act of “being careful” requires both the intuitive connection AND the effort, and how vanishingly rare it is to find someone with whom you feel that connection, and who feels it toward you. I thought I had earlier this year, but it turned out to be a false hope, something both profoundly discouraging after adding all that (happy) effort, but also somehow encouraging that it did happen—which means it could happen again. Maybe.

Three weeks into the Sunday evening theology class at The Mission, and it continues to edify. Sam is a fantastic instructor, almost Sproul-like in his ability to speak conversationally yet in a way where you could transcribe his lectures, word for word, and it would translate almost perfectly into print. The title of the course is “Wrestling with Scripture II: Kings, Prophets, and Wisdom” and it covers the prophetic and wisdom literature of the Old Testament. The reader for the course has been challenging—but in a good way; the authors, particularly Walter Brueggemann, seem to adopt a more higher-critical stance on the text (they all conspicuously avoid gendered pronouns for God, among other things), but still have a deep reverence for the content in spite of the fact that they seem at times to subtly undermine—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—the kind of circular reasoning that often bolsters an uncritical position on biblical inerrancy. I appreciate that; it feels like they’re demonstrating a safe space, a way forward, a place I can intellectually inhabit. I haven’t raised that point with Sam yet, but I feel like he would be sympathetic.

One question I did pose earlier this evening was about the recommended framework with which to approach the book of Jeremiah. The book is an account of the prophet’s experience of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE and the cataclysmic, profoundly traumatic experience that was, primarily for the nation, but also for him as someone who felt called to be a messenger of or advocate for God’s truth to a thoroughly apostate covenant people. The text for that part of the course was an excerpt from Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery (a book I should probably read in its entirety), one of the first to recommend a trauma-informed reading of Jeremiah as a way to parse the author’s mindset and make sense of his many seemingly-contradictory truth claims. Herman’s book identifies categories a people group experiences as they live through a historical trauma like the one Israel suffered, categories like Constriction (Numbing), Hypervigilance, Fragmentation, and Doublethink. Those could all be unpacked at length, and Sam did to a degree during the allotted time, but in my own study, the categories really resonated with me personally in thinking about my own experiences of the past year (and more). So my question for Sam was whether it was appropriate to derive any kind of solidarity as an individual from experiences the prophet related with the goal of giving voice to something communal. In other words, I want to be very carefully on guard against the this-is-what-it-means-to-ME hermeneutic so prevalent in the average home Bible study or Sunday school class. To take something penned in the context of the community and scale it down, as it were, and map it onto my own life as a default just seems… Disrespectful of the text, somehow? Or like I’m moralizing something that has no business being moralized. Sam recommended a couple of books that I’m going to add to the Goodreads list. But—and I discussed this with my counselor on Friday—regardless of what application, if any, I draw from Jeremiah’s text, learning about those categories of trauma has been helpful in labeling experiences I’ve had, and labeling, naming, is the beginning of finding meaning in them, and integrating them into my concept of Self. More work to do, but it feels like a few more puzzle pieces fitting into place. Do I feel any different? Not really. But if there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that I can’t engineer feelings; all I can do is plant the mental groundwork and trust that it will, somehow, some way, bear fruit. That’s the hope, at least.

Some thoughts on recent books I’ve read:

Believe, Ross Douthat: It’s difficult to pin down who the author’s intended audience is. Christians reading the book are already persuaded, and non-believers will accuse him of fatal bias. To the extent that there’s a very small persuadable minority of open-minded non-theists, they might find it interesting; compelling is another matter. Still—Douthat’s style is appealingly nerdy and philosophically compact, but it falls short of being the “Mere Christianity for the 21st century” many have been hailing it as. Douthat simply doesn’t have Lewis’s everyman tone (he writes from a more academic, white-collar perspective), nor Lewis’s genius for analogy. The best parts of the book are where the author meditates on the relevance of current developments like AI and what that means for the case for a noumenal layer to the universe, probably because those events are immediate to his day job as a newspaper columnist. I’d still recommend the book, but mainly for those looking to buttress their faith against accusations & doubts, both from within and without.

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir: Hoo boy. Take The Martian, add an existential crisis for humanity and a funny alien sidekick, and you have this pulpy sci-fi romp. As with his earlier (and vastly superior) book, it purports to be scientifically grounded, but the amount of Gary Stu-ishness completely breaks suspension of disbelief and, ironically, makes for a worse read than if he had simply stuffed the book less full of techno-babble. And I say this as someone who loves thoroughly nerdy sci-fi that revels in its in-world precision. The characterizations were desperately thin as well; everyone was a cardboard cutout, a cultural stereotype without any arc to speak of, and the protagonist was simply the author’s self-insert fantasy, Mark Watney Part 2. The only bright spot was the chemistry between himself and his alien sidekick; it was genuinely funny and touching at times. Otherwise yeah, a brisk, low-calorie read.

Out of Sight, Elmore Leonard: The movie’s one of my very favorites, basically perfect in every way, so I’d been eager to read the source material for a while. So how does it compare? It’s both better, and worse. It’s worse in the sense that the film definitely tightened up the plot. The movie really benefits from Steven Soderbergh’s (the director’s) non-linear structure, the chronology is more compressed, the characters more crisp and clear. The book is better in that it feels like a director’s cut of the scenes involving dialogue—which are the core of the story. The lines are fleshed out, and you hear their internal monologue. The movie has the luxury of showing that, versus telling, but the book does an equally good, if not slightly better job given the constraints of its medium. Leonard’s style is conversational, clipped, choppy, well-researched and seems to assume some familiarity on the part of the reader with crime dramas or police procedurals, which I’m not, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been able to follow the plot without having been familiar with the film. I might try another Leonard book to test myself on that front, one that hasn’t been adapted to a movie. Oh, and by the way, Jack & Karen’s romance is every bit as compelling and sexy—without being lurid or graphic—in print as it is on screen. Still, the plot, especially the ending, feels half-baked compared to the film’s screenplay, particularly when it comes to the supporting characters like Ripley, Adele, and Chino. Ripley barely even appears in the book, where he’s pretty critical to the plot of the movie, helping to illuminate Jack’s inability to sustain any kind of “normal” life, among other things. I’d recommend the book, but only as a sketch, a warm-up to a film viewing.

Slicked-back concrete, the odd swish of the wipers. A sharp right up onto Georgia Street; the entrance always looks like a dormant pedestrian area. Climb the hill toward Veterans’ Bridge, Radio Paradise on. “The Shape of My Heart” plays as I crest the rise and head out over the bridge, stacked rows of lights merge the foreground of the riverbanks with the background of the ridge in the rainy November evening. Elmore Leonard on the brain. The wheels thump over the manhole covers; I wind my way up toward Hixson, glancing just once to my right before I reach Altamont. That’s all you get. All. You. Get. And I keep going, retracing a route I know well, applying a translucent veneer of my current state in the process. Memories get overlaid, layer by layer, day by day, minute by minute, second by eternal second. Moments like this help; the urban evening becomes a companion, I borrow the city’s life, and I’m a little less alone. For a while.

all along, along, there were incidents and accidents
there were hints and allegations

So, what did I learn?

1. Discuss ALL the dealbreakers up front, as soon as a conversational baseline and some basic interest is established. Heaven forbid they come up later in the relationship, when you’re more emotionally invested.
2. Unless she explicitly asks, or it’s somehow directly relevant to the discussion at hand (and even then, think twice), DO NOT share anything about previous relationships, experiences you’ve had, things you’ve done, etc. The ONLY possibly acceptable information to volunteer would be things you haven’t done and would like to experience for the first time with her. Anything more invites comparisons, feelings of inadequacy, or worse.
3. Be VERY careful about expressing any kind of certainty about your future early in the relationship. Be upfront and honest about your intentions, but slow roll any kind of commitment-level talk—even if she does. Time is your friend. Build a foundation first.
4. It should be relatively easy in the beginning. Relationships take work, yes, but if it feels like drudgery from the get-go just to think of things to do with her, or to purchase/make for her, then it could be a sign that you’re trying too hard to make something work when there’s no spark. In other words, ensure you actually fall in love. The work will come later. She should walk on water, so to speak, for the first month or so.
5. Let the physical side of the relationship develop at a natural pace; don’t stifle it OR indulge it to the point of distraction in either extreme. Make sure she feels desired, and that you’re on the same wavelength, but don’t let it crowd out needed exploration of other areas like spiritual commitments or common interests.
6. Be confident in your nerdiness. Don’t talk at her until her eyes glaze over, but if she asks, there is absolutely nothing wrong with flexing that you know, for example, a high-pitched airliner noise comes from the IAE V2500 engines of an Airbus A320-214 on approach. No need to act ashamed that your mind is stuffed with random tidbits like that.
7. Make sure your commitment to the kids is always front and center. Let her know exactly how much time the kids require, and assess her expectations with it comes to time spent together. Find a balance that works—and maintain it.
8. Be open and honest, but don’t go out of your way to talk ill of your former spouse. Unless she asks, don’t bring up the sordid details of the scenes that led to the marriage’s breakdown. And be clear that there is NO grieving or lingering attachment present.
9. Make sure you try to plan for every conceivable contingency in every scenario. Bring supplies for every possible activity OR thing that could go wrong. Concert in a faraway city running late, for example? Have a hotel in mind and a change of clothes on hand. Things like that.
10. Remember that there is nothing lonelier than being trapped in a bad marriage. You have agency, flexibility now; recognize that for the gift it is. You can be cast aside, but you aren’t trapped in a prison of rejection. Are you lonely? Sure. But, there are many women out there who would jump at the chance to pursue a relationship with you—even if their feelings aren’t reciprocated. You’ve (gently) turned down four already just in the last two months. Seize the opportunity when it comes, and remember that you have a lot to offer in spite of your loneliness.
11. Don’t be afraid of conflict, but discuss your inexperience with conflict and your resolutions and wishes for how to resolve it before you have a fight, so she knows she can trust your verbal and emotional backstops.

post-mortem eleven

I still don’t know what she saw in me.

College, second half of sophomore year. After the complete disaster that was the fall semester (lived in a dorm far away from main campus on account of having missed the window of opportunity to claim closer lodging), I secured a cozy room in the basement of Syme, and I was roommate-less until the final month or so of the semester. Having overindulged in television during the first half of the school year, I went tube-free for the spring. I bought a nice rug for the floor, and I put my record player on the wide windowsill and frequented the music stores on Hillsborough Street and Avent Ferry to add to the vinyl collection. I remember leaving the small window cracked on cool spring evenings, and listening to the “quiet storm” jazz station while I read my textbooks. After being trapped in a spiral of laziness the previous semester, I’m honestly not sure where my newfound motivation to make a “home” on campus came from. If I had to augur a guess, I’d say it was something intrinsic to the dorm; Syme has an appealing texture, and its immediate proximity to the design school means some of the aesthetic sensibilities of its academic neighbor rub off. Regardless, I’d found my nest for the next 3 years.

Besides my lodging situation, another new development was interest shown by the former roommate of a girl I briefly dated freshman year (and who holds the distinction of having claimed my first kiss). As roommates, they didn’t work out; rumor had it an actual physical curtain was erected down the middle of the room after only a few weeks. I’d never officially met the girl who expressed interest in me, and I actually don’t even remember how she struck up a friendship; I have a vague memory of her cold-calling me and leaving a message on my campus voicemail. If so, that must’ve taken some guts. I was curious, and met her for lunch. She was medium height, with short brown hair, and was a Park Scholar (full ride + benefits), so there was intelligence there—albeit coupled to almost unbearable shyness. For what it’s worth, I remember putting my best foot forward, even inviting her to one of my friend Greg’s (chaste) pool parties, where she essentially cowered in the corner of the pool despite our best efforts to include her in a game of volleyball. The chemistry wasn’t there, and I really wasn’t that attracted to her, but I also wasn’t mature enough to consider her feelings and keep from stringing her along, since I enjoyed the interest, even if I was still mystified about what prompted it.

I don’t look back on the final (literal) dance with a great deal of pride. After yet another date spent trying desperately to coax her out of her shell, I invited her back to my dorm room, and we sat rigidly on the futon together and attempted to converse. I think maybe she was expecting a “move” at that point, but instead, for some reason, I decided to indulge a fantasy, and I put Suzanne Vega’s “Gypsy” on the record player and asked her to dance with me on my little rug. She agreed, and we swayed awkwardly for the duration of the song, and a few minutes later…went our separate ways. I don’t remember seeing her again. Given her academic credentials, I’ve no doubt she’s doing fine. For my part, I wish I had taken lessons from that non-fling and resolved to not lead girls on, but unfortunately, over the subsequent years, it would take a few more failures before I would really commit to being upfront as early as possible.

It’s always a good feeling when you can correct the teacher.

I was only in my mid-20s, but I was already considerably farther along than the other students. There were a handful that matched my age, but most were still pimply-faced teenagers, straight out of high school, and didn’t have my life experience, or more significantly, my mechanical experience—both practical AND theoretical. I’d simply steeped myself in the knowledge of the inner workings of aircraft (and cars) for most of my life, and had actually rolled up my sleeves and gotten to know cars in particular in a hands-on way for the better part of the previous decade. So obviously, the more technically focused sections of the private pilot’s license curriculum weren’t that much of a challenge for me (learning to fly by feel was—but that’s a post for another day). At the end of the first semester, we took the written part of our license evaluation, and Mr Hahn promised a steak dinner to anyone who received a perfect score. I was crushed that I only missed one question. So close.

The practical test—the checkride—came at the end of the second semester. Prior to the checkride, we’d have one final evaluation with the lead instructor, Mr Kelly: The dreaded final stage check. I say “dreaded” because the entire purpose of the exercise was for Mr Kelly to nitpick every little misstep and discrepancy in our technique, with the idea that the checkride itself would be less stringent in comparison, and so the stage check would take the edge off, as it were. How that worked out in general practice, I’m not sure, but I do remember being equally nervous for both…

In any event, for the stage check, the day was crisp and perfectly clear. The little Cessna 172 was fueled up, waiting on the ramp. Mr Kelly, clipboard in hand, gestured me over to the plane, and I completed the preflight by the book. I hadn’t flown with him before, but he had a reputation as a gruff, demanding instructor who tolerated little deviation by his students, but produced highly competent pilots. I was intimidated, but went through my checklists, started the plane, and taxied to the runway. So far, so good. The wind was northerly, so the plan was to take off on runway 2, over the 50-foot trees just north of the threshold, fly to the practice area, and do whatever exercises he told me to do with the aircraft (presumably some slow flight, stalls, turns around a point, flying on instruments, and so on). I back-taxied down the runway, swung the plane around, made the appropriate radio calls, and gunned the engine. The little Lycoming roared, and we were on our way, hurtling down the runway and up into the air. On instrument panel, there were a whole host of switches and knobs, and two that controlled the engine: The throttle and mixture knobs. For takeoff, per procedure, I had set the mixture knob to full rich (all the way in), when I advanced the throttle (also all the way in). Standard protocol dictated leaving the mixture on full rich all the way up to cruising altitude, which, on that day, would likely have been somewhere between three and four thousand feet. At that height, the air density is less than at sea level—not much less, but a measurable amount. I knew, from my mechanical experience, that an internal combustion engine runs best at a certain air/fuel ratio: Typically 14.7 (air) to 1 (fuel), or a little leaner (less fuel). So, as the plane climbed, and the air thinned ever so slightly, I instinctively reached for the mixture knob and backed off the fuel a little bit, just to help maintain the right ratio for optimal engine performance.

“What are you doing that for?” barked Mr Kelly.

“Just leaning out the mixture a little since we’re going up in altitude,” I stammered.

Silence.

“Push that knob all the way in and keep it there.” Mr Kelly finally retorted.

I complied, and remained focused on my instruments and the task at hand, but from the tone of his voice, if I had had the capacity to be able to glance over at his face, I have a feeling I would have caught a smile.

And I did pass the stage check.

post-mortem, chapter x

Another productive counseling session yesterday, if not quite as much of a watershed as the last one. We had good intentions of picking up where we left off in discussing how to “fight well,” but she let me ramble on for a little while about various aspects of my personal history, friendship history, and the evolution of my convictions. We eventually came around to discussing conflict, and I had flagged a few things to explore coming out of the previous session:

• Identifying the cause(s) of frustration.  Many times in my marriage, I’d be deeply frustrated and/or angry, but couldn’t pinpoint the cause in order to be able to have a conversation.  Or maybe there would be multiple causes (they tended to stack up after a while).  But I would just have a general sense of malaise or a deep unhappiness that I couldn’t tie to anything concrete, even after dedicated thought.  This has been a challenge for me for my whole life.
• Determining whether the pressure point even deserves to be shared and worked out in the first place.  Kind of relates to the “self-advocacy vs. selfishness” question I raised last time.  Do I just share everything and let the chips fall where they may?  That seems like it could be exasperating/discouraging for a partner.
• Strategies for compromising.  How do I know if I’m conceding too much, or not enough?

We camped out on the first bullet point for a while. She reassured me that it’s a challenge for many people to identify why they’re feeling frustrated or upset, but that there’s an element of acceptance that could be beneficial. I tried to explain how, for me, my process of conflict resolution is kind of like a flow chart, and determining the source of the frustration is Step 1. In other words, if I can’t independently tag the emotion and its cause, I can make any progress. It ties back to the “airtight case” mindset I’ve always had about interpersonal conflict; it’s always felt like I’ve had to have something to present as I initiate the conversation. That way, I related, even if I get shot down, at least I’ll have a sense of personal integrity to fall back on, as it were; I’ll know that I failed in pursuit of a righteous cause, so to speak. This seemed like a novel approach to my therapist, to the point where she started taking notes for the first time in one of our sessions. I expressed surprise, as it dawned on me that there might be another way to resolve conflict, and I started to consider for the first time how that might work itself out. Maybe, just maybe, I could have a talk with a partner wherein I identify the causes of the frustration, and work out a solution in real time. I actually got emotional when I began to speculate about what that would require: A commitment by both parties to some basic ground rules, like no threatening to leave, no blanket accusations, listening while assuming the best of the other person’s intentions, and a whole host of other dynamics and resolutions that I’ve never, ever seen or experienced in a relationship. I think I’m beginning to understand why this whole idea of “fighting well” has seemed so alien to me, and has made me feel so insecure, when in reality, it’s something that I should, if not actually look forward to, at least be prepared to encounter as a normal part of a relationship. But still—just the idea that there could be someone out there with whom I could have a conflict and not have them dangle everything and the kitchen sink out the window in an attempt to get their way… The mind boggles.

Radio Paradise delivers yet again. Also, Billy Corgan is a genius and I will brook no dissent.

Well, the bloom is off the rose—for P, at least. We reunited after her classes today, and she was, if not exactly distraught, then something close to it. Disillusioned at the very least. Turns out she got into a heated, two-versus-one debate on the acceptability of using AI for art, and one of the two on the “pro” side was her art class professor. To her credit, she said she stayed calm, and tried to keep the conversation on reasonable grounds, but still, when her peers and even an erstwhile mentor are using a machine to generate art prompts, or to shortcut life-giving, consciousness-expanding parts of the artistic process, she felt something was deeply wrong—and I share her point of view. The creative process is so personal for her, so deeply knit into the fabric of who she is, that outsourcing it to an algorithm amounts to surrendering part of her humanity. And I get it. Are we that wedded to convenience, to the idea of saving ourselves just a little time (especially in an arena like art, where time is less critical) and constructive effort that we’d forego part of the very process that defines the product in the first place? Leaving aside the question of the quality of AI-generated art, we create not only for others, but also for ourselves, and I struggle to imagine how skipping part of the journey enriches the experience. It’s like training for a marathon and thinking that riding a few laps on a golf cart is going to make you more fit for the race. No—it’s the struggle, the effort, the push that feeds us.

In spite of her newfound disillusionment, I’m so proud of her. She has a worldview, a robust mindset about her craft—and she’s not afraid to defend it. That’s going to carry her a long way. She thinks about these things, and thinks clearly. I can honestly say that one of the best things about the kids, and P in particular, getting older is the privilege of having these kinds of “debriefs.” It’s a meeting of a fellow mind, and I’m beginning to learn as much from her as I hope she has from me.

Excellent, productive counseling session today. I’m so grateful for her. She listens well, she’s thoughtful in her responses and in what she encourages and how she gently nudges the outcome of my mental groundwork in particular, healthy directions. Significantly, I feel like I can express myself well in her presence; there’s a quality to the dialogue that makes it easier for me to articulate (and in doing so, often come to a realization about) what I’m thinking and feeling. That’s no small thing.

I don’t really remember what prompted it, but I shared some of my ponderings about fighting in relationships, and my desire to learn how to “fight well,” and that topic defined the latter half of today’s session. I asked her if she could help me learn, and she replied “Absolutely” with such a definite tone that it made me smile. We delved a little deeper into the possible causes for my (perceived?) inability to fight well: My fear of abandonment that I still don’t know the source of and it drives me crazy, and the fact that, like I shared previously, I never saw my parents fight and reconcile, which, as I told my counselor about, it dawned on me that it was perhaps a more significant obstacle than I thought. I’ve always given them a pass because I knew they made the resolution to never fight in front of us kids with good, honorable intentions, but in the long run, it may actually have done more harm than good. Am I resentful to them for making that decision? Not at all—neither of them exactly had happy childhoods, and it’s really nothing short of miraculous that they turned out to be the fantastic parents they are. But they weren’t perfect, and I would be well served to start challenging my own convictions about key choices they made, ones that I’ve always bought into. When I think about it way, it gives me a lot of hope that I can uncover things that will enable me to gain some real confidence when it comes to future relationships. I’ve told my counselor that I don’t know what I don’t know when it comes to my past, but I’ve always had a vague sense of…something like foreboding, maybe, when I envision a new relationship, anticipating a similar pattern repeating itself. For the first time, I feel like I may have a glimpse of a real off-ramp.

post-mortem, ninth installment

Incredibly vivid dream last night. It was the first time I can recall, ever, sobbing my eyes out in a dream and feeling my face for streaked tears upon waking. I sent myself a shorthand version of it on my phone, but let me see if I can flesh it out some more. I won’t be able to do it justice, not by a long shot.

I was in Boston, and the whole dream was centered around a long, long slide down the crook in a series of grassy hills. I remember some kind of aerial survey beforehand, where I recognized the slide path by the difference in grass textures. It was like a long, twisty, single-person rollercoaster. I drove on a narrow, winding road to the top in order to start the slide, but for some reason, I couldn’t start at the very top, so I had to enter using an opening in the track a certain ways down. The slide was inside the hill at this point, and I had to maneuver through small openings to gain access, at one point having to completely turn around and back through the small door. I vividly remember thinking of Alice in Wonderland.

The horrific part of the dream started here, where I was given what amounted to a living cat hand puppet: Just a head, and kind of a fabric “cape” coming off the neck, and I was supposed to hold onto this all the way down the slide. I remember asking if the cat was alive, and I was told yes, it was, but that it didn’t have long, and would die shortly. This was (obviously) heart-rending, and I cried, great wrenching sobs that were mirrored by a nameless other in my dream.

I woke up and felt my face. I looked around and saw Draco on the pillow next to mine, and Odin occupying the other side of the pillow my head was on. I petted them both and felt very grateful it was only a dream.

The second session of the three-part lecture series on US history from an indigenous perspective was just as fantastic as the first—even if it felt a little compressed. Greg covered, in his words, “annihilation and assimilation,” or roughly the period from 1790-1930, when native tribes were systematically marginalized and yes, there was an attempted genocide, and then whoever was left afterwards was forcibly assimilated into white, Euro-centric culture, being taught that everything about their indigenous heritage was wrong and undesirable (to put it mildly). It was a profoundly shameful and, well, evil period in American history. We have a lot to account for as a nation, and there’s still so much work to be done. It was a lot of ground to cover, and Greg did the best he could in an hour and a bit, but we could have been there for much longer.

During the Q&A session at the end, we discussed in more detail the philosophical underpinnings of these policies, concepts like the “doctrine of discovery” and “manifest destiny.” Greg pointed out how wrongheaded those concepts were from the standpoint of evangelism, assuming, as they did, that the native populations were completely in the dark spiritually, and only the enlightened Europeans could deliver the gospel on a silver platter. But, as he pointed out, the Holy Spirit is at work everywhere around the globe, and it’s the height of presumption to assume that missionaries are coming into cultures completely bereft of any kind of spiritual insight. Instead, he argued, it’s our job as believers to simply learn from the native populations, to recognize what the Holy Spirit is already doing, and to simply lean into that, and never in any kind of coercive or make-the-sale kind of way. Greg decried the motivation that underpins a lot of (most?) missionary organizations: The desire to hasten Jesus’ second coming because of a literal take on Matthew 24:14, and the quasi-mechanical missionary-industrial complex that produces. I pointed out one of the similarities between the indigenous genocide and the modern missions movement is that they both seem to be profoundly selfish and ignorant initiatives in search of philosophical or spiritual justification to prop them up. Greg roundly agreed. I can tell you, it really motivates me to be on the lookout for other ass-backward, cart-before-the-horse assumptions and mindsets. They’re SO insidious; the cultural air we breathe, and so destructive. Looking forward to the final lecture this week.

Having finished the book, here are some selected favorite quotes from Sarah Addison Allen’s Other Birds:

• Zoey had spent too much of her life as an outsider to ever think of running to anyone when she was afraid. It wasn’t that she was particularly brave, she just didn’t want the disappointment of being turned away.
• It had taken him all his life to understand this, but even unlikable things have worth. It was how, after all, he’d learned to live with himself.
• She was still trying to process the fact that what she knew might be all she would ever know, and there would be no guidance on where she came from or where she should go from here.
• She was young enough to think that drama was something you had to run toward. She had no idea that drama doesn’t need to be chased. It knows exactly where you live.
• Oliver now found himself in the untenable position of not knowing how to maintain her interest, because he didn’t know where it was coming from.
• She was feeling emotionally spent, and when that happened the real her, the one who craved permanence and connections and simply being still, started peeking through the cracks.
• …a local accent that always sounded to Charlotte like they were getting to the good part of a story.
• It was an odd feeling, when she really thought about it, not having anyone in the world who knew everything about you and loved you anyway.
• Stories aren’t fiction. Stories are fabric. They’re the white sheets we drape over our ghosts so we can see them.
• So Zoey understood that mothering was in the details you never saw. And the lack of it was the things you always noticed.
• She had been the source of all that was good in his life. Had she known that? Was part of his holding on proving to her how much he loved her, because he hadn’t said it enough?
• “Does it ever feel to you like the best things go away too fast, and the worst things never, ever leave you alone?”
• Oliver knew she had a long road ahead of her, learning to accept that the one person you wanted to love you the most was the one person who never would.
• …it hadn’t actually been dread he’d been feeling—dread at facing all those boxes, or the walls that were literally closing in on him, or another argument with his mother, which he would sometimes pick on purpose to try to get her to say something other than “You think I had a choice?” when he demanded to know why she’d had him in the first place. No, it hadn’t been dread at all. It had been hope. Hope that, somehow, things would be different. Every single day that hope had buoyed him, and then sunk him.
• “Is today your birthday?” That made him smile, the same smile from his early school photos. She found herself thinking, There you are.
• There were only two times in a person’s life when a family secret should be revealed—at the very beginning, or at the very end.
• She was used to bottling everything up until she fell with a white-hot intensity that felt like the hunger of her childhood, when she would quickly fill herself out of fear of not getting enough.
• I spend my childhood believing the birds were actually these people, simply transformed. I remember the musty, sweet scent of them. I remember the bloom of dust on their wings.

I have to admit that in the act of compiling the quotes, my appreciation for the book has deepened. On the surface, it seemed like and easy, breezy read, and there’s nothing challenging whatsoever about the prose, but it’s peppered (pun intended) with little piquant points of profundity and beauty, like the ones above. Some characters are more successful than others, and Charlotte in particular seems to be the more completely realized one, maybe because she’s the one in whom the author saw herself the most. The ending, with the sudden arrival of Charlotte’s mother, felt like a bit of a “reverse” deus ex machina, and the climax is resolved with an action sequence that Allen doesn’t really have the chops to pull off, but otherwise, the mystery is engrossing, and the reveals felt well paced and organic. One nitpick would be the sprawl of characters and perspectives; there are sudden shifts in internal monologue that require rapid recall and reorientation to the mindset of the present character. The book feels like a piece of theater, and I think a tighter, somewhat deeper cast would have served the story better. Still—those are minor complaints; overall, I really enjoyed it, and some of the author’s descriptions of alienation, rejection and being hounded by a past you’re desperate to leave behind hit close to home in some ways, and will stick with me.

Greg and Tricia were out of town, so after my (slightly caveat-ed) wonderful experience at Theology on Tap last Tuesday at the Anglican church downtown, I thought I’d actually attend a Sunday morning service, just to check it out.

First impression: It was packed. They have 3 services: 2 on Sunday, and 1 on Saturday, and the 2nd Sunday service I attended was just full to overflowing. If I had to hazard a guess as to why, it’s because people are just so hungry for something of substance, something grounded, and yet spirit-filled and transcendent, and the blend of liturgy with contemporary elements in the service delivers that in spades.

The church is also located in a rougher neighborhood downtown, and heavily prioritizes mercy ministries in its budget, which is attractive also. People want to be a part of that—myself included. It felt a little strange, but also appropriate, to be driving by the county Family Services Center and all the unhoused folks out front on the way to church. There was a man handing out pizzas from the back of a pickup truck after church; he was getting a lot of attention.

Other thoughts: The worship team is very proficient and artistic, and we sang “Not I, But Through Christ in Me,” which is a favorite. The later parts of the worship got a little mantra-ish, which bugs me somewhat; shades of the charismatic church I used to attend back in NC. I really like the fact that there are women in senior positions on the ministry team (read: pastors), and I liked all the call-and-response participation in the service. No simple spectating. I was bothered by the communion process, specifically the fact that everyone is compelled to come forward, and indicate whether or not they feel prepared to receive the elements by either holding out their hands if so, or crossing them over their chest (and receiving prayer) if not. The service is SO packed, that there wouldn’t have been room to scoot around someone who decided to remain seated, so I get it, but even so, I would have felt very exposed, if I hadn’t felt worthy, but stood in line and crossed my arms for everyone to see when I reached the front of the line. There were four lines, but still… I wonder if that’s a general Anglican thing, or whether it was just informed by the logistics of this particular church?

It’s tough. I feel a strong sense of loyalty to Greg and his church, but it’s so small, and there’s a much greater likelihood of me finding a community where I feel fed at the Anglican church. Also, the PCA is still against women in ministry leadership roles, and that bothers me more and more. There’s the possibility I could attend the Saturday service downtown, then Sunday morning at Greg’s church, but that’s a lot, and anyway, not until L is driving himself back from work. I think I’ll stay the course for now, but open a dialogue with the Anglican church to see what their small group situation is like. I can’t express how much I enjoyed the ToT lecture, and the prospect of finding like-minded folk who also enjoy discussing and thinking about the topics covered is very tantalizing.

It felt almost cruel.

I attended a lecture at an Anglican church in downtown Chattanooga yesterday evening. The lecture was titled “The Subversive Prophetic Imagination: How the Arts (and Brueggemann) Can Help Us Navigate the Rise of Christian Nationalism,” and the speaker, one Mary McCampbell, wove together various threads of cultural history, from ancient to modern, to construct the thesis that true creative enterprise is inherently anti-“empire,” her term for a perverse fusion of the religious and political—a phenomenon she took pains to elucidate goes back pretty much to the dawn of history; it’s nothing new. She used Walter Brueggemann’s book Prophetic Imagination to scaffold the lecture, but referenced a whole bunch of works by luminaries I need to read, from Flannery O’Connor to Frederick Douglass to Michel Foucault to Charlotte Brontë (the Goodreads list is about to get much longer).

The lecture was hosted by a local group called Theology on Tap, whose name hearkens back to the one I used to attend 20-odd years ago at a pub in downtown Raleigh. I felt refreshingly at home with the attendees, echoes of my last, best real friend group prior to marriage occurring and overwriting that whole side of my life. I definitely plan to continue attending, and not just because of the free beer, although the tasty Oktoberfest I sipped while listening to the lecture certainly enhanced the experience.

So what felt cruel? During the lecture, as mentioned, the speaker name-dropped Flannery O’Connor, an act which drew an enthusiastic burst of mini-clapping from the pretty woman sitting by herself, offset a bit to the right in the row ahead of mine. During the break between the lecture and the Q&A session, I leaned forward and mentioned offhand that I still needed to finish Mystery & Manners, a compilation of O’Connor’s essays and short stories I’ve had sitting on my shelf for ages. We struck up a conversation, and I learned she’s an English professor at Bryan College up in Dayton, married to a videographer and filmmaker, and that they collaborate on films; she writes the screenplays that he directs. She joked that she felt a little like an army wife because of how much he’s away on shoots. She inquired about what I did for a living, and we discussed a few other things before the Q&A session started, and during one of the speaker’s answers about whether or not art is always subversive, or can be used in service of “empire,” I muttered “Birth of a Nation” and the woman immediately countered with “Triumph of the Will,” and we both chuckled.

That’s all I want. All. I. Want. A tall, pretty college professor (any subject; it doesn’t even have to be English) to whom I can just sit and listen for hours as she rattles off the highlights (or lowlights) of her day in front of her students, or navigating the vagaries of academic administration. I don’t think that’s asking for much. Maybe it is. And it keeps getting dangled in front of me, tauntingly close—or within my hands!—before being cruelly jerked away (not that I would have ever in a million years done anything with the woman at the lecture; but she embodied the concept). The fact that it happened within the context of the lecture, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed, makes it seem even more wanton. I know it’s all in my own head, and I shouldn’t let it color my overwhelmingly positive impression of the evening, but just the same, it’s hard to shake a feeling of divine capriciousness. It’s still difficult to imagine how it could possibly get any better than it was earlier in the year, but in order to have patience, if I put any stock at all in his promises, I have to remind myself that the Lord does have something better for me, whether in this life or the next. Or maybe he doesn’t; maybe that was the romantic high water mark of my life. Either way—I’ve got nothing left but that blind hope. There’s no solace there except some vague notion of singular, in-and-of-myself integrity and consistency, which is fine as far as that goes, but it certainly doesn’t do my emotional state any favors. I’d sure like some good news one of these days, Lord. It’s hard to be patient, but I have no alternative.

I always wanted to visit the cockpit. I still do. It’s my “dream office,” and why I didn’t pursue it in earnest, I’m not entirely sure. I was still into aircraft during my later high school years, when conversations about potential careers start to firm up, but I only remember drifting into design because it’s what my parents said I would be good at. Architecture held a bit of aspirational appeal, partially because of the occupation itself, but if I’m honest, also because I thought it would be cool to introduce myself as an architect. The idea of the profession held a certain cachet. But to be a pilot? I don’t clearly recall the reasons I dismissed it as a career choice.

If I had to speculate, I’d say it was probably because I had a very fixed idea of the track I needed to be on in order to enter the profession, namely, getting my private pilot license as early as possible (age 16) and then, well, I wasn’t really sure what would happen next. I think my parents would have been hesitant to foot the bill for lessons, but… Seeing how supportive they were of my aborted attempt at becoming a missionary pilot 8 years later, they might have entertained the idea of bankrolling me if I had shown the requisite drive and focus—two things that were in short supply toward any end at that point in my life, I’m ashamed to admit.

Another reason may have been the fact that I’d always been more attracted to the aesthetics of flying than the act of flying. I loved the way planes looked, and the way they worked, and the concept of freedom in three axes that accompanies flight, but I knew from early on that the reality of an airline pilot’s task is very constrained by rules and procedures—all good, to maximize efficiency and especially safety, but the dream of just hopping in a plane and losing yourself somewhere up there in the air doesn’t correspond with the day-to-day of cockpit life. But, as I wouldn’t learn until I actually started pilot training, there is something supremely satisfying about learning all those rules and procedures, and mastering the act of controlling a flying machine—not that I ever mastered it, but the appeal began to break through my prejudices, and, having accomplished that, to fuse with my love for the aesthetics of the activity, becoming a complete attraction. I even did have the experience of just tooling around freely in the air, many times, when I took my little 172 north up into the practice area and just did whatever my heart desired under the cloudless blue sky: turns, stalls, climbs, descents, figure eights. It was everything I imagined it would be. And I wish I had known all that prior to college.

Still, to this day, I always take a peek at the instrument panel when entering or exiting the plane, a little ritual not unlike my habit of touching the aluminum skin of the door frame, a tactile reminder that in just a few dozen minutes that same skin will be shielding the plane’s occupants from sub-zero temperatures and tornado-force winds. I flew so frequently in my early life, but the activity never, ever lost its luster. I remember the end of one flight on a 767, probably one of our many transatlantic jaunts, visiting the cockpit, tightly clutching a phrase in my mind like a talisman, one with which I hoped to impress the pilots. The connecting flight just prior had been on a then-new Airbus A320, and looking out of the window at the constant movement of the control surfaces along the trailing edge during landing, something struck me that I decided I wanted to share with the pilots of the larger Boeing. Having gotten permission, I entered the cockpit, looked around for a minute or two, and then said, in as casual a can-you-believe-those-crazy-Europeans tone as I could muster (though I’m sure it didn’t sound casual since the phrase had been throbbing in my brain for the past 30 minutes), “We flew on an A320 earlier, and it was nuts; the wing didn’t even have high-speed ailerons.” The pilots looked at each other, and one replied, kindly, “Well, it’s amazing what that plane doesn’t have,” leaning into the perennial Boeing-Airbus rivalry, something on which most pilots inevitably take a side. I didn’t exactly feel affirmed in my effort to sound more au courant about the nuances of aircraft design than the average cockpit visitor, but to the pilot’s infinite credit, I didn’t feel condescended to or dismissed either. Of course, later I learned that no airliner smaller than a 767 has high-speed ailerons—including Boeing’s own A320 competitor, the 737—and felt retroactively mortified at my comment, so it discouraged me from any further attempts to sound intelligent on the flight deck. But it never dampened my attraction to the world of flying, if not, at that point in my life, its signature profession.

I love this place more every time I visit. And yes, the downspout will get reattached to the gutters once they reinstall them; they’re replacing the roof at the moment.

I spent Labor Day afternoon there, by myself for the first time. I wanted to take a little road trip, and do a “dry run” to ensure I can turn on the water and all the correct breakers when I visit for longer. That task done successfully, I sat in the carport and did crosswords for a little while before moving inside and taking a restful nap on the couch for about an hour.

Even the drive was pleasant. I put on old R.C. Sproul podcasts, part of his series of the history of philosophy, and listened to him discuss Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard as I drove down the Ocoee on 64. The only slight blip was that I had to make an unscheduled stop in Ducktown to tuck the car’s loose plastic undertray back into place, and in leaving the parking lot of the bank in which I had completed the task, I spied, for the first time, the little East Polk Public Library, a strip-mall, hole-in-the-wall type library that reminded me of…things. This really is going to take a long, long time. But otherwise, it was a very pleasant trip, and reaffirmed my love for the little house and its environs.

Thinking about my post from a few days ago, it occurred to me that singing whilst mowing is something I’ve done a lot, and it goes all the way back to my earliest forays into lawn care.

Euclid Road, mid-’80s. My dad enlisted my “help” in pushing the mower the summer before we moved to begin our first stint in France. The yard was sloped, and I’d wait while he handled the “tricky parts,” i.e. around the bushes and trees. I remember being unable to actually push the mower by myself, and marveling that anyone could be strong enough to do so. We pushed side-by-side, my hands next to his on the handle. And I sang, thinking that because I couldn’t hear myself over the din of the mower, that no one else could. My dad popped that bubble, though, telling me one day that he could hear me, and that he enjoyed my singing, and that he sang along with me (which I hadn’t heard); while I was flattered by the compliment and the solidarity, I think it abashed me a little, and compelled me to sing more quietly as we mowed together.

Eastwind Place, ’90s. The first time I mowed by myself. My parents bought a self-propelled push mower that was, let’s just say, unwieldy at times. I still wasn’t really strong enough to push it myself, but at least the yard was relatively small. My skills improved, to the point where I went door-to-door in the neighborhood offering to mow neighbors’ lawns. I didn’t get many bites (I’ve never been a salesman), but made a little extra cash one summer from the half-dozen or so lawns I mowed.

Chemin de la Plus Haute Sine, ’92. Ah, the bubble-blower era. My first, and thankfully only, experience with an electric mower, corded, no less. Our rented house was almost new, and the yard was small and flat and had only fresh grass. The little appliance of a mower was nearly overwhelmed by its (admittedly easy) task, and the exercise of moving the cord out of the way by hand after every row was supremely annoying. My parents have pictures of me pushing the dinky thing back and forth, looking miserable. If it had been a larger yard, I’d have mutinied.

Birchwood Drive, ’05-’10. The first time I mowed “my” yard. I remember feeling satisfied with my experience of a domestic chore, in a detached, “Isn’t this quaint?” sort of way. Of course, after a few hundred mows, and larger, more challenging yards, the event loses some of the luster it had during that period. Still, I have good memories like mowing around the absolutely gigantic oak tree in the front yard, and actually fixing the mower’s carburetor (pinhole in the float).

Sedgewick Ridge Court, ’11-’13. An absolutely massive yard compared to what had come before. The back, in particular, was huge, and bounded by tall, skinny cypresses. The previous owners left a self-propelled push mower, which was very helpful. I loved the crested lot, and every time I mowed it reminded me how pleased I was with how it sloped away from the house on each side. Also, this was the first time I put any effort into edging and weeding the yard, cleaning up the driveway and doing some basic primping around the margins.

Demars Lane, ’13-’20. Boy, I hated this yard. It didn’t take me long to mow, but it was sloped into the house in the front, a constant reminder of the awkwardness of its situation. And the back was sloped in the extreme down to the base of the oak tree, necessitating some weedwhacker work to finish it off—when I felt like it. The kids did help me mow a small, flat square of the front yard, and earned a few bucks in the process. I remember feeling satisfied as I stood there, arms crossed, and watching them push the mower back and forth, beneficiary of a little delegation.

Current house, ’20-present. To mow the full yard, edge it, blow the clippings, and spray the weeds, takes me a full 2.5 hours. But boy, is it satisfying when it’s done. Several innovations were introduced with this yard, including listening to music via Bluetooth earbuds, availing myself of sweat bands, and using a gas-powered leaf blower to remove the clippings from the driveway and sidewalk. I enjoy it. And I still sing.

time goes slow and time goes fast

P’s 18th birthday was yesterday. Hard to believe it’s been 18 years since that day, when at 1:25 in the afternoon, all of a sudden there was one more person in the hospital room. I remember trying to sleep that first night in the hospital in that awful square-armed torture device they call a recliner, but my discomfort was nothing compared to what D went through, both before and after. It was a hard time, with lots of overwhelm. But P has turned out exactly as I would have wished her to be: Brilliant, artistic, lovely, thoughtful, a complete nerd with fantastic musical taste. I couldn’t be more pleased with her.

Only two of her girlfriends showed up for the party, held at Whitebird restaurant in downtown Chattanooga, but P had a great time nonetheless. We adjourned to the Twilight Market at the Choo Choo afterward, and they plied the stalls and took photos together in the photobooth. At bumpy as her high school years were at times, she really did emerge from them with a spectacular group of friends, who would move heaven and earth for her if she needed them to. I really, really hope she maintains those friendships.

It was a warm evening in the city, all the co-mingling smells twisting around each other as our shoes gently rocked the loose bricks of the sidewalk. My only consistent experience with cities has been in Europe, and snatches of indistinct scent memories dappled my mind like diffuse droplets on a car windshield. It reminded me of how city walks allow you, just for a while, to sidestep your naivete and feel like an old soul, purposeful, with just a healthy touch of cynicism. There’s something energizing, empowering about it that I hadn’t felt in a while.

I’ve never been happier to be shunned.

I consider myself a fairly fast walker, but yesterday, after P met me in the library, as we were making our way back to the car to drive home, she lagged behind, even though I felt like I was walking more even more slowly than usual, so that I could keep in step with her and ask her about her day. I pointed out that fact, and she replied, not in a mean way (really), “Daddy, I just don’t want to associated with you.” And I was pleased to hear it; it means she’s bedding in to campus, embracing her college life and all the relative independence that entails. She elaborated further when we reached the car: “I just really like walking around the college on my own, sitting on the benches and being by myself.” I remember that feeling, freshman year, when I would hang out in the NCSU Brickyard, feeling old and wise and observant, eating my meatball sub, and tapping “poetry” fragments into my Sharp electronic daily planner I received as a graduation present and never really used for its intended purpose. It was exhilarating, in its way.

P will start packing her own lunches next week and be on her own for the majority of the day and hopefully, soon, driving herself to school. Fingers crossed.

For the record, I’m not resentful toward my parents about any of these. They were doing what any parents would: Putting their child in various circumstances to give him exposure, to nudge him out of his comfort zone, with the goal that he’d grow and perhaps embrace the challenge. It’s not their fault that each ended up being somewhat traumatic, to varying degrees. And they all happened in France.

• The ski test. Auron ski resort, 1989. I learned to ski in 1987 at age 8, and after some initial teething challenges, really took to it. I remember psyching myself up, even at that age, by reminding myself to keep an open mind and embrace the activity. My parents enrolled me in group lessons, and at the end of each series, the instructors awarded the students based on their test results. The initial steps were called “étoiles” (French for “stars”), and I handily passed the tests for both my 1st and 2nd étoiles and the conclusion of their respective series. For my 3rd étoile, part of the test involved skiing down a blue (medium difficulty) slope, slaloming between a series of poles, within a certain time limit. I felt confident, and passed all the other parts of the test with flying colors, but ended up just over the time limit for the slalom portion. I felt so ashamed, especially since my best friend Timothy had passed the test, and I lied to my parents and told them that I didn’t realize it was timed, an explanation they bought without question. But the truth was that I had failed the test outright. I’ve since come clean to them, and they laughed it off, but it wasn’t my finest moment.
• The tennis match. Tennis Club de Vence, 1993 (?). I took group lessons here for a number of months, and enjoyed it. Our instructor was an older man who seemed to like me, and helped me focus on my footwork, and encouraged me to make the follow-through on my backhand more compact, among other things. I remember the first time I served in front of the group of students, I completely whiffed, and heard very audible snickers coming from their side of the court. But the next serve I took flat and just drilled it, which silenced them from then on; that felt good. Toward the end of my time there, my parents signed up me up for a intra-club tournament. I remember feeling ambivalent about it; I wanted to do well, but wouldn’t have been crushed if I lost. My first match was held on one of the lower courts in the complex, on a typically warm (but dry), blue-skied Vence day. I don’t recall anything about my opponent, but what stands out in my memory is my dad sitting by the side of the court, head in his hands, seemingly deep in meditation or prayer or something, not even looking at me as I played the match. I think I acquitted myself fairly well, but still lost, and felt a mild sense of relief at not having to go through that again. A footnote would be to contrast my dad’s behavior in that instance with how he looked whenever we’d play each other, and he always had the biggest grin on his face on the other side of the court. I noticed that, and I loved it.
• The recital. La Gaude, 1992. This is easily the most traumatic of the three. I played accordion for a few years in my late tweens. When my mom began homeschooling my brothers and I, she asked me what instrument I wanted to play, and I said “The accordion,” earnestly, because I liked the way it sounded. Amazingly in that pre-internet age, she managed to track down a local ex-hippie who gave lessons, and I learned the basics from him before we moved to France, where, because of the relative popularity of the instrument, resources were more plentiful. My French instructor was more demanding, but he was friendly, and grounded me more in the fundamentals of the instrument than my previous instructor, who flew a bit more by the seat of his pants. After a few months, it was time for a studio-wide recital, something by which I remember being a little blindsided. I selected my favorite song to play, even though it was somewhat challenging, and I couldn’t make it consistently all the way through without flubbing a note or two. The day of the recital came, and I was a nervous wreck, absolutely terrified, but I watched myself stagger to the front of the room and begin. And…I choked. I had to restart the song several times, stumbled my way to the end and was met with a warm, generous round of applause from all the parents for actually finishing the song. I somehow made it out of the auditorium and, for all intents and purposes had a nervous breakdown, sobbing, hyperventilating, etc. I told my parents that I didn’t want to play anymore. Several days later, my instructor, the sweet man that he was, actually made a house call and talked with my parents and explained, not in a critical way, that I didn’t have that “I want to show them what I can do” mentality exhibited with respect to performance by some of his other students at or around my skill level, but said that he still wanted to work with me. My parents thanked him for making the time, but told him they’d respect my desire to not continue. Do I wish now that I had kept on? Kind of. Perhaps I could have negotiated lessons with no recitals, or some other arrangement that would have enabled me to burnish my proficiency and decide myself when I’d be ready to perform again. I should pick up the instrument again and see if ANY muscle memory is still there after 30+ years.