PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's Notebook

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34452045111914477742012-02-16T21:00:05.085-05:00PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's NotebookLet this stand as a record that we are trying our best for the world that we imagine, for the world we believe in, and for the world we know is possible in this very moment.Deborah Cowellnoreply@blogger.comBlogger921100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3445204511191447774.post-13248571161496061752010-11-06T10:15:00.062-04:002011-09-11T10:58:58.333-04:00PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's Notebook<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Practice is Zen and the Art of Handball.</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The signature is the primary trademark.</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's Notebook is part confession, part autobiography, part stream of consciousness, and in parts, roman a clef. It is an instructional tool on the discovery of art through writing. Available as content for review via this website, the written text serves as an artist's meditation in study, development and final production. ~~~~ </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">PLAIN VIEW : Correspondence from A Traveler’s Notebook</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">by Deborah Cowell</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <div style="font-family: Times; text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Preface to the On-Line Text : Choose Your Romance</div></div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I do not suppose this is one of those letters that I will ever send.  Because the world is a much different place now.  Things move way too fast.  High speed technology has a strangle hold on everything and there is no room to say, "I love you."  Not the way we used to.</div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">     </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">There used to be a time when a warm smile could get you five minutes of conversation.  And that five minutes would lead to someone asking someone out to dinner and hearing the answer, "Yes," because the someone who asked was special.  Dinner would lead to friendship.  And friendship would lead to romance.  And it would all be beautiful because it was about love.  Now?  I do not really know what the "now" is or how to describe it.  Every single message sent is a digital trail.  Folks no longer prepare for "happily ever after." </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">     </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Am I out of place in this culture because I believe: in holding hands?  In nights spent quietly talking over dinner? Am I out of place in this world because I believe: that sunsets are made for preparing to dream in love and sunrise was invented so that lovers could wake up together?  I am way behind in circles, I guess, because I believe that being social is about seeing people face to face to tell them you adore them.</div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">     </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">What is left of what we used to call love, really?  Are there even people out there anymore who care enough to go on the adventure to find out?  "Who is going to write that story?" is one question, but "Who is going to live it?" is another?</div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">     </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Why do we do this?  Why do we open ourselves up this way?  Why do we think that maybe, in our case, things will be different?  Because there used to be a time when a warm smile could get you five minutes of conversation.  And that five minutes would lead to someone asking someone out to dinner and hearing the answer, "Yes," because the someone who asked was special.   Dinner would lead to friendship.  And friendship would lead to romance. And it would all be beautiful because it was about love.</div><div style="font-family: Times; text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">***</div></div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">For some of us every single thing we do, every single road we walk on, leads us back to the page.  For those of us addicted to this thing called writing -- dare I say, this thing called life -- this is why we read.  It is also why we go out and savor the world.  We realize that what we are moved by most is the pursuit of the beauty of life.  With time we learn to do away with the illusions brought on by comparison and concentrate more on the world through the lens of experience.  So much to choose from, to be sure.  Think only in the best of terms.  And then be brave.  Be wonderful.  Be yourself.  Life teaches.</div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">                                                                                                      Always,</div><div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">                                                                                                               d.</div> <div style="text-align: center;">~~~~ </div> A Formal Introduction to the Text In the beginning there was scripture and the scripture was art. In the age of the Internet we are at the beginning of a time that knows no bounds, and the key to art is content... Often we hear about the lack of good writing across all disciplines, which is a much broader statement than, "Where are all the good books?" There is something to be said for writing, in all of its forms, the way it has been done before the introduction of the computer keyboard. A walk through any museum will tell you this. Or, for that matter, any library. You don't just wake up one morning and say, "Gee, I want to be a writer." In some ways your life has to have always been a reflection of that fact. In the letters you write. In the notes you keep. In the grocery lists. Dare I say, even the handwriting? Somehow, something gives you away as a creative spirit. Whether you know it or not. Whether you are ambitious or not. If you are serious -- when you become serious -- simply, you must practice. It is the only way to produce a body of work. PLAIN VIEW is both written and published in the shape of a philosophical circle. The finished work appeared to be a blog because of the technology, but what you are looking at in truth is a working business model for how writers across all disciplines can actually develop creative content in real time for the Internet that can easily be transferred to print format. Honestly, it requires the writer to do most of the work up front rather than proposing to do it, which is how it used to be. Upon closer review you will find that 'the work' for me involves travel, an intense reading schedule, and an actively applied background in reader response theory and the culture of books. The model itself can be applied to writers across all disciplines. For PLAIN VIEW to be accessible to a wide audience it needs both marketing and publicity components. Translation? If you like what you read here feel free to spread the word. The flow of the narrative is now unobstructed and much easier for the reader to see how the text/content works seamlessly as a personal story and, quite frankly, as an interactive narrative written specifically for initial distribution on the web. See how the reading experience feels for you now that it is one continuing narrative instead of entries that were posted in reverse. The real time postings can be tracked by the time stamps on the original posts that follow the finished text. For everyone who takes a moment to read, thank you for taking the time to share in what has turned out to be an amazing learning experience. For me it turned out to be a specific path to Buddhist structure. The goal is to market the return to reading and writing across all cultures and disciplines. The hope is to encourage learning through travel which can then be applied to any number of things, including what a young person might want to major in when they apply to college after having seen the world while showing a demonstration of progress while writing about it. The university system then becomes a way to continue research that began with practical knowledge. My hope is that PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's Notebook functions as a text that helps lay the groundwork for new ways -- that used to be old ways -- to look at education and learning. The planet, for me, is the ultimate classroom. It is always a joy to learn. The more I traveled, the more I started paying attention to the technology. I was sending e-mail from Laos while reading Beloved and instant messaging from Nepal while discovering Haruki Murakami. What started out as the sharing of a personal story -- specifically about love and friendship -- became figuring out productive uses for the web as a creative thinker. On the surface I was writing but subconsciously I was using technology via the Internet to do something a bit different with what was taking shape first in my notebook. And then I took a giant step back as I finished my narrative to discover that something amazing really does happen when we unplug. What I have learned most of all from this experience is that it is our backgrounds, personally and professionally, that shape the way we interpret the computer screen. In this regard I think of myself as extremely fortunate. Because I am a formally trained book editor my site is specific to publishing in the way that it is constructed. To me the Google Language button is the equivalent of world rights in the acquisition process. The individual posts that follow the finished text, each with forwarding capability, constitute first and second serial rights. The final typescript, given the make-up and coding of the Internet, is already copyright protected -- there is the little time stamp plus the original work in my notebooks.  It also actively serves as readily accessible content for review throughout the industry of publishing that now includes any and all who have access to the world wide web. Once again, if you like what you see here in terms of content, feel free to share it. PLAIN VIEW: Correspondence from A Traveler's Notebook is, at its core, a labor of love. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for love</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for friends</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for family</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"If you say...that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with all enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if hearts were not so big." -- William James</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Dear M, What frustrates me more than anything else in this moment is the fact that I feel as though I must preface everything I am about to say with the phrase, "This is not about race." Because I was raised to not look at things that way. And when you respect indigenous people from all walks of life you realize that the spectrum for us all is really just varying shades of brown. There are no white people. People with light skin turn red in the sun and then become golden brown. There are no black people. People with brown skin turn red in the sun, and then they become darker brown. Sand and earth? It is all land. On the streets and the beaches, in the cities and the towns -- we are all just people. Everywhere. This paragraph, I suppose, serves as a bit of a disclaimer. Decide for yourself if it is out of place. For me there came a point when I figured out that what is really being discussed is good and poor behavior. No one is exempt. We are what we learn as children and then we teach what we become. I had a relaxer in my hair since I was  8 years-old. Kids as dark as me, and darker, called me 'blackie.' Kids as dark as me called me 'tar baby.' Kids as dark as me called me 'spook.' I never smiled because I got teased — my gums are dark, not pink. And my teeth have always been cream. My roots are Caribbean and we do look different. When you are a child, though, nobody calls it "rasta." Especially not in America. Today, for a moment, I lost the ability to speak. Face to face. With anyone. You have no idea how much the written word is saving my life right now. I do not remember passing out, only coming to. And being told that I'd hit my face on the curb as I'd fallen. There is a knot on my forehead that is rapidly swelling. The skin above my lip is gone. I felt bits of teeth, too, embedded in my lower lip. I removed the debris myself by sucking out the fluid forming around it and probing the wound with my tongue. I could not bring myself to look in the mirror until later in the evening. I saw for the first time what people really think they are looking at when they see me. Of all the things to lose, I suppose it could have been worse than my two front teeth. There are much higher costs than one's smile. This story is supposed to end happily. And so rather than jumping off a cliff or hurling myself into molten lava flow, both of which are easy enough to do in this moment, I am going to refuse this as an ending and make it the beginning as I share with you what I know. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~ </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The swelling has since subsided. I have decided to look at this all as a blessing in disguise. The two teeth that I lost needed fixing anyway, though the fact that they were removed by a loss of consciousness and contact with a curb is just...well...what happened. Island life has its privileges. It also has its drawbacks. The most beautiful thing about it though, is that it has its moments. It gives you an opportunity to sit back and think about so much. Personally, I will always credit that to the afternoon breeze. But there is so much more. I think you may have thought while we were traveling together that what I'd intended to do was to take specific notes on every single thing we did and then come back to the United States and try to sell that into the marketplace. And what I tried to explain, over and over again, is that this is not how writing works. For some, maybe. I guess. And now for an even more select few. How writing really works is that you do just take it all in and when you sit down to look at the blank page, otherwise known as the writer's mirror, who you are really comes through. It is just what happens. Mostly, I let my pencil go where my heart takes me because in these past two years I have lost so much. But I refuse to let any of it be an excuse. There are things you should know. I suppose in this instance I will call what follows 'context' instead of 'points of clarification'. Both are way too technical, though. It is just added insight should you decide to ever read it. For me, honestly, it is simply keeping up my end of the bargain that I have made with myself. There is something to Italo Calvino's work, especially If on a winter’s night a traveler. On each page there are words, lines, and phrases that will touch you. There is one paragraph in particular that almost broke my heart. So much so that I cannot even bring myself to share it with you. Just a few pages later, though, were words that let me know that I am not one beat too late: You have turned up here at a time when those hanging around publishing houses are no longer aspiring poets or novelists, as in the past, would be poetesses or lady writers; this is the moment (in the history of Western culture) when self realization on paper is sought not so much by isolated individuals as by collectives: study seminars, working parties, research teams, as if intellectual labor were too dismaying to be faced alone. The next few pages spoke loud and clear to me. "Put down this book," they said. "If you don't it will be impossible for you to move forward." Advice in the unspoken word to a would be poetess and lady writer on how to continue. Do you remember the day we sat down and I explained to you how a book becomes a book? We were in Nepal for the first time after that detour through Mexico. You had just come back from a morning walk and you were excited about the mountain you'd seen in the distance. It was also freezing and we were both learning how to warm up in sunlight. In this moment, as I write this, I must say that it is a wonder that our lungs did not bleed after the day spent sitting in front of the kerosene heater. What you'd said when I told you about the business was, "No wonder you're so serious." I just kinda looked at you and said, "Yeah." Because there were all kinds of things going on in my head. Not just about the business of books, but also about everything that we had seen. We'd already been to Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Mexico and India. Nepal? That changed the rules. For me. As a writer. That was not the time, in my opinion, to tell you that I had begun to think about words differently. Or my relationship to them as someone who edits. I would not have known where to begin. And so I made a conscious decision to keep living and see where life would take me -- us-- as I thought about how best to define things, first for myself, on the page. I don't know whether blogging was especially new when I first started doing it. Hindsight tells me that I may have even come to it a bit late. Because we were on the move I had mainly taken to sending out e-mail blasts every once in a while whenever the mood would strike me. There was this one time in particular that I am not certain if you remember. You were watching BBC World one morning while we were in that little green house in Thailand. A story had just come on about a group of people being outraged over the publication of a cartoon. I watched the story with you and then went for my morning walk. The whole time I was out I was thinking about all of the ways so much in the world seemed to be spinning out of control while at the same time wherever we were just seemed to be so quiet. It's weird because the Gulf of Siam was to my left not more than twenty yards away, and to my right there was a line of bushes, a field, and then a grove of coconut trees. Up ahead in the distance was a lone monk also on his morning walk. I wished that the people I knew back in the states could share the visual. And it was my intention before the report about the cartoon to think of a way to share that atmosphere with words. But somehow I got all worked up and by the time I got back to the house I was ready to add my thoughts, on-line, to the cartoon discussion.  In a way that was both measured and unbelievably clear because of the way that it had been tempered by all that I had just seen. You saw me writing and asked me what I was up to. "Nothing," I said. You looked at me, paused for a moment, and then let me just get back to work. When I was done I saved what I had written to disk on my already outdated laptop and told you that I'd be back. I met a woman on the shared cab ride who randomly asked me why I seemed so calm and I told her, "I am going to ask my friends in New York to join me in the quiet of the future." I was always thrilled by the fact that Thailand is twelve hours ahead. In time and space. There was absolute peace there. I pressed the 'send' button shortly thereafter. It is hard to explain, but I felt so much better about adding my two cents. And this was before blogging. The experience let me know that, no matter what, I was making the right decision to remain on the other side of the editorial desk. There is so much...so much...involved in the decision to remain in publishing. As a writer. As an editor. As a thinker who wants to make a difference. I started my first blog not long after and continued without saying much to you. I thought it would be better that way. Honestly. I have to say that I made the right decision because it helped me to focus. Over time my work on the Internet represents in real time the development of a writer at work. In a failed economy where there are no "jobs" I took it upon myself to create my own. The process is indeed work. I have discovered, too, that it is my life's calling.  And it is also, officially, my business. I have had an opportunity that most people never have — to live out my wildest dreams in the farthest reaches of the world and take a closer look, too, at the places where I am from. You know, and everyone else who knows me well knows, that the experiences that I have had in the world have not changed me. I still do not take one day or one minute for granted. If nothing else, I have come to a deeper understanding of who I am and who we all are on this planet, together. It is nice to feel yourself growing, too, in a kinder and more gentle direction. This is the energy that shapes my day, each day, and the spirit with which I write this. So many people, including you, have said I am too nice. I heard it in Asia. I heard it in America. And I heard it, too, in Africa. But all seeing the world has done is make me nicer. I know that I can look mean sometimes, but that's just for my own protection. You learn after one too many cab rides to nowhere that people do take advantage of the pious. And, frankly, that just ain't where I'm coming from as I talk to you about all of this. This life that we have shared together has taught me patience. It has also taught me to give back with a real sense of order. That day in Nepal I was really only talking about one book to explain to you the business of books. Now, because of all we have been through and because of experience, I am now talking about myself as a business in the industry of books. Globally. Not everyone can do that. Not because not everyone has seen the world, but because not everyone who has seen the world has walked through the world of books. That really changes things. We who walk in the world of books exchange books and stories. We understand what it means to see something grand and then share our lives. Because so many people — more than we could ever imagine — turn to the page when they get lonely. We who walk in the world of books are, by nature and by design, in service. To the reader. I did not reach this place by accident. Well, the broken teeth part was an accident but you know, whatever... I can still eat a sandwich. And soon they will be fixed. And instead of just seeming to write aimlessly in a vacuum I can now share my story. Because there's so much you still don't know. We can know a person all our lives and still make assumptions. By now you know exactly where I stand on that matter. I sat back and thought about my first experience in publishing. It is a story that I never even thought of sharing until now but one that I think is relevant. It was as my high school's yearbook editor. My political science teacher served as the publisher. He taught me all the technical publishing terms which amounted to much more than what picas were and the difference between 'n' and 'm' dashes. We did all the layouts by hand. I also learned how to both allocate and take responsibility and how to appreciate the feeling of looking at a finished work that most people would take for granted because they really had no idea how much time, effort — work — our staff put into the whole project from beginning to year's end. At some point one stops listing "High School Yearbook Editor" on the resume, but it does matter as a starting point when you look back and see that it was your first step into the wonderful world of publishing. I was sixteen. Who knew? Not more than a year later I began keeping a journal after a series of false starts. The older you become the more you understand that what may have seemed like teenage scribblings are in fact the beginning of the development of a writing soul. The beginning of a writing life taking shape. This has nothing to do with "publishing" and everything to do with the work involved in getting the words down on the page. The fact of the matter is that writers just write. Because they read. Constantly. And, inevitably, they lose themselves in books. Thankfully, too, it is also where they can be found. If they are serious. When they are serious. When we first met I remember telling you that I lost my romance for books. For so long it had been a steamy love affair. But the business end sometimes becomes "the business end." And that is not a good feeling. So says, too, Mr. Italo Calvino. And his romance is special. Special, indeed. I am glad that I never went into any great detail because that would have simply destroyed everything for you as a reader. I have always told you that I am an anomaly -- most people do not read as much as I do. You? You really love to read and you are highly selective. Part of me will just have to get over the fact that for whatever reason you had no real desire to read my developing work. Had you, though, you may have seen...you would have realized...that the romance was returning. Because there is something about the world of books that will not let you leave it. Once you're in it, you're in it for life. And, on the best of terms. There is something that I have always known that just got confirmed for me when we began to travel and I could see, first hand, in-hand, books and writers at work. And that is, the magnitude of what we do when we pick up the pencil and paper (or chisel and stone, as I like to call them). It is absolutely boundless. I am thinking of Mexico in this moment as I say this to you because what I am describing is more than just a feeling. It is the color of the sky that I see. Every time I would look up from whatever it was that I was reading so much started to feel clearer to me. Especially when we were near the mountains. There was quiet. There was warmth. There was clarity. There was understanding. I began to feel in my own written work a particular kind of surrender. But this is not something you talk about as it is happening to you. And when you don't, hindsight informs you of exactly the moment when you realized you were deeply immersed in the process of becoming. The commitment to the world of readers is the most important thing because you never know who may be reading your work. Or where. Or in what language. The possibilities for teaching and, most especially, for learning are always present. And so the writing experience must always be a pleasurable one. It helps when the learning experience, especially when learning how to write, is a pleasurable one, too. There are so many "how-to" books on writing. Some of them are called novels. Some of them are called plays. Some of them are called collections of poetry and essays. Some of them are called bio and autobiography. A personal favorite "how to" happens to be Love in the Time of Cholera. I'd asked you to read it before joining you for the first time in Thailand. I lent you my copy. I am convinced that every single word in that book is alchemy. Another favorite "how-to" is The Count of Monte Cristo, which I have finally begun reading again. Electronically. I fought it for so long but then I gave in. Because ultimately it is a love story. There is How to Be Alone because I find that despite the fact that I naturally gravitate toward the lyrically bewitching I am addicted, too, to the study of form. For good measure there is also The God of Small Things. I remember what it was like to be standing in Kerala and having an eerie feeling. The beauty was exactly as the author had described. Exactly. I wondered to myself what that might mean about the horror but we could not discuss it because the book had not been on your list at the time. Every finished work is its own "how-to" because it is a representation of the dedication to, the discipline for, and the love of – the reader. Every finished work is also somehow testimony. On the part of the writer. Not about every single thing that they have seen, but what moved them most to record in a voice that universally translates. At least, to the best of their ability. This fact is why so many of us read. This fact is also why Love in the Time of Cholera is such a weakness for me and why I consider The Count of Monte Cristo to be one of my bibles. There is the name of the author and their work that we remember most because they get left behind. But it is the writer's life that I have been touched by over time and space. I guess my frustration has always been, on both sides of the desk, that it always seems like there are too many lives forgotten. But I also know that you know, too, that there are so few lives truly lived. I could not actually say what I was doing for a very long time. Not even to you. Some things you just have to show and prove. If I had a nickel for every person who said that what they wanted to do is travel the world, study their craft, and then come back as a writer I suppose I would be...I would be...I would be my own publisher. How many people actually do it, though? I said yes when you asked, "Will you come with me?" because you looked at me first while I was surrounded by concrete and asphalt and said, "You do not belong here." What we are talking about now, really, is being committed to living out dreams and being in service to those with whom we share the world as a community. Whatever else is necessary eventually follows. But the fact of the matter is, most people do not mean they want to "be a writer" when they say they want to write. What they mean is that they want to be published. That is not hard to do at all anymore. Books are the distinction that must be made between those who would publish absolutely anything and those who value the written word and truly understand what is meant by the desire to earn a living as an artist who writes. Sometimes the cost is your teeth. But even that is relative when you think about the cost to the reader. We have been in far too many places together where the choice between buying a book and a day's meal really is not a choice for the locals. There are books as necessity, books as luxury, and there are books as sacrifice. The fact of the matter is that setting out to do this in earnest really does take you down a few notches. As it should. It also takes its toll. And, too, you understand the importance of not saying you want to jump out of an airplane so you can write a book about it, but jumping out of an airplane and seeing the world in a completely different light as a result. Humility does not just help. It is crucial when you begin to wrap your mind around the number of people around the world who do not have access to reading. Or learning. Or airplanes to jump out of. Parachutes should never go without saying. I don't know if it is despite myself or because of who I have always been, but all of this has been just some of what I have been thinking about as we have moved around the planet. It was especially weird and a bit difficult for me, as you know, because of the number of people who assumed, the farther out we went, that I could neither read nor write. I had a lot of quiet moments that I never told you about wherein I really had to make sure that the experience of being thought of in that way was not making me hostile. When you have an opportunity to look around as a fellow human being and not as a tourist, you begin to understand as you practice, first, patience, how some people may draw their conclusions. And you learn to forgive the generalization. You also say less and write more. Which is what started happening to me. "All she does is write," you would say whenever anyone asked. What you could not have possibly known unless you were reading my work on-line is that it was your answer to the question, "What does she write?" that was building my momentum. You would always say, "I don't know, but she has a website.” I took that very seriously because we were out in the world.  Together. We had been meeting people from everywhere. And some of the conversations we have had with folks together, about so many different things, has been amazing. This is one of the benefits of travel. But I also understood that the time was fast approaching when my work would have to speak for itself. And that I would be judged through it, by it, and for it. The writer's "trial by fire"? The ability to stand, no matter what, by the words that we author and then put out into the world. So much more about who we are becomes an open book than just our written text. And it really is hard, but you learn to face it. There is something very specific that I tried to explain to new writers when I was on the other side of the desk. You heard me explain it once to that young man from Germany we met, again, while traveling in Nepal. He was a new writer wondering why the words would not magically fill his laptop screen. But he'd told us an amazing story about Varanasi and the Ganges during rainy season. He talked about how high the water would rise, and that one must learn to expect the unexpected when it comes to whatever might be floating by. What I said to him, as I am sure you remember, as a word of advice with regard to his blank computer screen, is that there is no such thing as overnight success. This is something that requires work. No one is born writing beautiful sentences. But every human being is born with the capacity to see and recognize beauty. When we learn how to construct on the page for ourselves and each other what we actually see, we have the beginning of literary creation. By now you know that I am talking about more than the ability to describe a bus going down the street but that I am also talking about the ability to describe a bus going down the street. We were in Nepal -- do you remember what it is that we saw there? Think about our first night in Kathmandu. And then the following morning. Think about the ride out of Kathmandu. And then remember the day when we saw, for the first time up close and almost unobstructed, a particular Himalayan mountain. What was your reaction? What was mine? Think about how your heart felt. For me it kind of put the whole notion of man made structures in their proper perspective. There is nothing a human could ever build that could compare. In each place we've been I have seen examples of this without even trying to look. There's the Gulf of Siam. There's the River Xong. What isn't there in India? My head spins in this moment thinking about all the things, large and small, that could make me go off on a tangent. The key, most of all, is focus. It is how one finishes, to be sure. But it is also how one begins. There is so much more to any book - or to any story - than beginning, middle and end. It is the writing. The writing. Always. The story. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. What I began to discover through my own work is that there are definitive ways to show a true demonstration of progress that speak to the study of form and the development of a specific writing process that can be learned by anyone serious about making a commitment actively to the world of writing. And to the world of art. I guess you could say the roots of what I do now are based in Eastern philosophy. But there is so much more. Because this is not thousands of years ago, so many of us are now electronically connected, and so much is influenced by...well...so much more. Proof of this is the time we were standing at the World Peace Pagoda. That group of school children seemed to appear from nowhere and for a minute I felt like a rock star. You just stood, quietly taking pictures. I had not noticed when the children started throwing up gang signs. A friend would point that out to me later. What stood out for me at the time was the child who asked if I knew who Booker T. was. He did not mean Booker T. Washington. The little boy was talking about the professional wrestler that he had seen, not on television but on the Internet. The little boy's spoken English was incredible. Especially in comparison to that of his teachers. I'd made a similar observation when I went to visit a primary school there later and discovered the English teacher could not make out one word I was saying. He just sat quietly and smiled after a time. You were not with me that day. A mutual friend suggested we go but you gracefully declined. After the children left the Pagoda, and as we looked out at the mountains, I have to say that something shifted in my thinking. "We've got to do better by this planet," was the general thought. The 'we' keeps changing. And growing. Most people return from the places we've been with tons of pictures and trinkets. Some share horror stories about bad transportation, food poisoning, or hotel nightmares. Me? I came back with filled notebooks but said nothing because I had the weight of the world on my mind. Some people look out over mountains, the expanse of a desert, or watch the sun rise and fall over a distant sea and they think, "That's nice." Me? I fall to my knees and start to cry and I wonder, "How does literature get created?" Not literature versus anything, but literature as it has been understood throughout the ages in the world of culture, book lovers, and active readers. The answer is simple. Discipline. But it is also just as complex. Discipline. The level of discipline informs the reading experience and the writing experience. Which is why I suppose I have made the decision to simply sit down and begin talking to you while only stopping every once in a while to get something to eat instead of making a huge fuss over my teeth. At what point, though, do you tell people that you have not spoken to in ages that what you are doing with your time is using your passion for learning as a framework to demonstrate how discipline can be both learned and articulated through the use of written language (G clefs included) and current technology to help make a way for young artists? What person in their right mind even writes a sentence like that? You need the whole background because while there are bits and pieces, there comes a point when you start to wonder if the reason it feels as though no one is talking is because everyone is really listening for the key. And watching. And waiting. And hoping. Because there is always more to any given story than initially meets the eye. The fact of the matter is that I had been walking around with something in my bag for a few years and so much longer in my mind. It almost seems now that when I started writing it down for the first time that I was somehow in the middle of a dream. There was something too simple about it for way too long. Just a beginning, middle, and an end. I shared it a few times. Seven, to be exact. But the context in the way it was written was all wrong. What I was sharing was a demonstration of progress that took place before a specific learning process that also incorporated focus, discipline, honor and compassion. There needed to be more conversation. More of a "handle with care" on the page in the telling of the story. It needed to be shaped within the context of art. There is an incubation stage in this process, too. Because some things cannot be expressed until the writing is ready. But when it flows, it flows. And you know because you see it. You know because you feel it. You know because you hear it. There is a distinct rhythm. When it flows, it flows. Do you remember the train ride we took from Varanasi to Mumbai, and then from Mumbai South to Goa? All I kept wondering as the train moved along was, "Why hadn't anyone taught me in school that the world we live in now looks like this? And that maybe it is okay to think that there might not be anything especially inspiring to write about along I-95?" I thought about the world people have been telling me really exists since I was a child. I thought, too, about all of the things I had been taught that I am. Not simply told, but taught. In public school. Over and over again. I remember asking you one time if they ever taught to you in school the song that goes, "Gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bail o' cotton...." Your response was straight forward and to the point. "We didn't learn about slavery in private school." I'll never forget that moment. I suppose the only thing worse than not learning about slaves in private school is learning in public school that somehow you are supposed to be one. I remember telling you that I was in third grade when they taught our class the song in school so that we could perform it on stage in front of an assembly. You just sort of looked at me. And then I just sort of looked at myself, too. It was early afternoon. And quiet. We were in a small shack in Thailand. I think specifically about that conversation in this moment and again, I wonder: what do you suppose is the method to the madness of the shaping of myth? I refuse to let my point of entry into such a brilliant and magical discussion be one of slavery. Or of servitude. There is a huge difference between those and service. The train ride across India took my breath away — the one who falls on her knees and cries at the sights of beauty, wondering how literature gets created. There is an essay that I wrote called “The Hidden Secrets in the Writing of Words”. I do not know if you have had a chance to read it but it was a direct result of that ride. I was awestruck, sitting up for forty-eight hours straight just staring out the window. You had the presence of mind to go stand by an open door from time to time. I'd asked you if you'd seen those mountains. The ones that looked like sleeping giants. And you'd said yes, you'd seen them. I did not bother ask you if you thought they might be real — if you'd possibly seen the slight movement of a toe. There is the real and there is the imagined. But I ask you now first in my notebook, who are the makers of myth? There is another experience I always think about. We were in Hawaii when I first wrote it down and revised it. I called it "Re-Written in Pencil, Re-typed by Hand." It was short but I poured my soul into it. A few days earlier I'd received word that my mother died. Rather than allow myself to give in to the indescribable feelings that still followed nevertheless, I decided to focus. I gave myself a writing assignment to keep from crying. "Make something," I said to myself. "Write something. Do something to remain productive. In this very moment." This is what I shared: If there is no ink, pencil, paper or pen, pick one word and describe it: "Know your place." I will never forget when or where I first heard that phrase offered as advice. If as an apprentice you choose to master each station as you grow then you see it as valuable. If you receive it, though, as an admonition and somehow as a result become discouraged, what might you become?  There is no lesson without value. The best lessons, any student will tell you, are indeed priceless. We had already been on the move twenty-eight hours. And that was just by train. Before that, for at least another thirty-four. We had been on a tiny bus designed for people one third our size. Which is as it should have been. Also, there was a period of convalescence that must be mentioned because, sometimes, one drop of life's hidden mysteries can make you need a healing. We were on the train again, though, after having flown because a bus, in reverse, under the circumstances, would have meant madness. Some rides, on some trains, never cease to be mystical. When you have the opportunity to look out the window onto so much that is being cared for, literally by hand, your gaze necessarily becomes introspective. The idea of a place shifts into a meditation on existence. If by chance you are able, even for a moment, to grasp the slightest inkling of your place, for a moment you concentrate, possibly, on the very essence of being. Depending, though, on much. The group of people who appeared, and disappeared, during the middle of the night is what prevents this from being pure solipsism. Sometimes, when the conversation that can come from curiosity with grace is forgotten, we may find ourselves falling into the silence of "otherness" which, by its thickness, should never be mistake for quiet. The lights went out to signal sleep for those who might choose it. I stretched out on my bunk, my eyes forced open by the constant rocking back and forth of the train car. The ceiling, less than a yard from my face, faded away in my mind. I imagined light instead. And the warmth of the sun. Eventually though, and quite simply, I had to pee. Before stepping down onto the bunk below, or the bunk below that one, I looked out onto where I needed to walk. The floor was peopled. As in, there were people laying down, covered, all over the train car floor. At some point during the night they had boarded. Unnoticed in the silence. Wrapped in their shawls, what could be made out with certainty were the outlines of bodies. As well, a hand or two, sticking out from underneath the clothing. The facelessness was as crystal clear as the namelessness. Transportation, as a group, from one place to another. One does not philosophize about going to the bathroom. Either you go or you do not. In either case you pee. I swung myself around to the foot of the bunk tiers and I eased my way down in hopes of finding a solid perimeter area in which to inch my way along. The game of Twister is only a game when all of the players are at a party, awake, and, for the most part, laughing. The game Frogger is only Frogger when the logs are logs and not bodies. I wonder how I might have described that had I been born ten years earlier (or later) than I was. I managed to make my way to the doorway just before the bathroom when I felt a particular sensation. One that you cannot quite describe before you feel it but that once you feel you never forget. I had stepped on someone. With all of my weight. Instinctively I knew it was a wrist and part of a hand. I had felt it. My mind's eye saw it. And the person on whom I was standing did not move. It is the lack of movement from the living that one never forgets. "What just happened?" I thought to myself seconds later while balancing to pee. I decided not to let too much enter my mind in that particular moment, lest I spend the rest of the night in the bathroom. Something changed during that moment of contact — a shift of epic proportions when two specific and unique worlds somehow touch. I made my way back to my bunk with a speed that had been absent before. The tiniest, almost invisible spaces between sleeping bodies became, to my toe tips, wide open meadows. I sat up and looked out again, ostensibly relieved from...what? When there is a group of people who somehow discover that their place is to be tread upon, what does that say about the idea, not of chance but, of possibility? Everyone dreams. Philosophically, whether or not we find ourselves needing to pee, exactly how should we walk? Some say, "Deliberately," because that is the way things are. Others say, "With integrity," for the very same reason. May there always be compassion. We think we know until we find out. That should not make us loopy. Thinking about basic things can give you more of a sense of purpose. Depending, of course, on what you do with your thoughts. And, too, your approach to apprenticeship. To define the word "unflinching" is one thing. It is another thing, still, to think of synonyms. And then I wrote a poem: immersion in meditation is more effective  when there is also immersion  in culture. I had also been reading Thich Nhat Han's book on anger and I included a relevant quote: "Meditation is not a stupid act. Meditation is not just blindly following whatever the person next to you does. To meditate you have to be skillful and make good use of your intelligence." And then I wrote another poem: Just a thought, too, that,  if it were a poem,  might be called 'prisms':  If time were a chain  instead of a line  might the word 'independent' have more significance? I want to remind you of one of our last nights together by the Arabian Sea. It was magical. I first shared this story while we were living in Asbury Park. I sent it to you but somehow, based on much, I don't think you read it. I renamed it and moved it around a bit to reflect that the experience, in my mind, was sheer poetry. And I shared it again as the poem “Night’s Quiet Prose Poetry”. This was a visual that took our breath away and you never once talked about wishing that you'd pulled out your camera. I could not help but try to capture it in words. It was when I wrote this story that I knew that I was ready finally to sit down and write the story "Thumbs," and everything else that followed. You see, there is a method to all my madness. In the end it really is not madness at all. Some call it writing. And some call it work, to be sure. There are a couple of other things I would like to share with you now because they are relevant. The first is something I'd written and walked around with but never talked about. Because...well...I am not really sure what the ‘because’ actually is. It is a small sample that reflects how I was attempting to shape my narrative voice while we were on the move. It is called “Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?” and it is the first principle on which my absolute refusal to eat eggs is based: When I was a little girl my mother used to leave me with my aunt while she did the weekend shift as a nurse. She would be gone from Friday evening through till the following Monday. I want to say this went on for a long time, but in actuality the only thing that I am sure of is that it went on for at least one year. I started to hate the weekends because of it. It was not that I missed my mother terribly — it was that my aunt could not cook to save her life. I mean that as respectfully as possible. I was never a really big egg eater to begin with, and my mother never forced me to eat them in a way that I did not like because she never made them for me in a way that I did not like. Kids should eat them scrambled. And that's it. Sunny side up and over easy and all that other stuff needs to be saved for when the kid is old enough to make the decision for themselves to have something with that nasty of a consistency in their mouths. There is nothing good about a runny egg. Even the phrase "runny egg" sounds disgusting. I did not start off as a cereal-eating child. Especially not on the weekends. Froot Loops were a treat, not a staple. At least, not until I became an adult and decided for a while that I would have Froot Loops any time I wanted, day or night. In an attempt to let me feel a bit of independence -- like I was "cooking" for myself -- I was allowed to boil my own eggs. I would boil them until they were fossil-like. After peeling them I would put two shakes of salt on each time I took a bite. I was having eggs with my salt. Most of the time I managed to get half way through the yolk before my stomach said, "No more," and then I would just eat the rest of the whites and be done with it. One day, for dinner my mother made tuna salad, potato salad and deviled eggs. I was in heaven. Not because of the tuna, and not because of the potatoes, but because the deviled eggs were amazing. There was none of the egginess and a whole bunch of tangy mustard and paprika goodness. I took to making them for myself all the time, and would sometimes go through a carton of eggs in a couple of days. Because it was almost impossible to get me to eat anything for a time, my mother just let it go. My aunt, however, was having none of it. She did not want to risk me getting burned in her kitchen and I don't think she wanted me to go through all of her eggs in one shot. I think I remember my mother telling my aunt how I liked my eggs. But then again maybe not because my aunt never seemed like the type of person who would let things go in one ear and out the other. I also cannot see her wanting to goad me into the kinds of wars we had over her inability to boil a pot of water without scorching up a pan and setting off alarms. Things finally came to a head for us the day she made me runny eggs that were somehow also burnt. The more I think about this as an adult the more it makes me laugh. But I was vexed for a long time because my aunt should have known better. Not because she should have been able to pull off some culinary miracle that everyone knows she would have been incapable of, but because she had been all over the world, eaten in the finest restaurants, and she absolutely loved eggs. She knew better than anyone else that what she made for me was just terrible. I was sitting in the living room when she brought me my plate. On it were potatoes, bacon, and these two...things. The edges were burned to a crisp. Not slightly crunchy. Burned. And the middle was a consistency I have never seen before or since in an egg of any kind — lumpy and runny at the same time. They were also greasy. What in the hell had this woman done? And why did she expect that they could be eaten? By anyone? By anything? If my aunt were alive in this moment I would tell her that I loved her with all my heart, but that she owed me a serious apology for those eggs. My aunt did not eat that morning because she never ate in the morning. A cigarette in the bathroom, followed by a cup of coffee, was her breakfast. I was stuck with these eggs. I could not really protest because I was struck dumb by the sight. And then I committed the sin of fastidious children — I started with the stuff I liked and ate until all that was left on my plate were the objects of war. I don't know what I expected. What I knew was that there was going to be no way that she would let me get up from the living room table without finishing my food. It was one thing to boil a whole carton of eggs on the weekend. But it was quite another to waste two perfectly good ones by throwing them in the garbage. I told my aunt that I could not eat them. She heard "would not." I told her they were nasty. She heard, "You can't cook." She told me that she would give me a beating if I did not finish my food. I looked at the size of her hands and thought, "This is going to be a long Sunday. And, from the looks of these eggs, it is not going to end well." I had managed to push the food around enough on my plate to get through the first part of children's Sunday morning programming. But Wonderama was over and Kukla, Fran and Ollie was all that was left. I asked for a glass of water. My aunt looked at me, got up, and came back with a nice tall glass, filled to the top. She handed it to me and as I reached out for it she said, "And if you fill up on water instead of eating your food I am going to beat you." She may as well have taken it back, then. But I did not say anything. I stared at the television set, starting to despise Ollie more and more because he was the hand puppet without a mouth. And if you did not have a mouth, how were you supposed to talk? How were you supposed to eat? I could imagine Kukla eating my eggs. I could imagine Fran eating my eggs. But Ollie was useless to me. As the show started to roll credits I took the entire congealed mess that was on my plate and I shoved it into my mouth. From the feel of it I would say that one egg fit nicely into each cheek. There was enough wiggle room for me to still be able to enunciate quite well and so I said, "I have to go to the bathroom." My aunt was reading the paper at the time and without looking up she said, "Okay." I got up, and just as I was about to turn the corner I heard, "But if you come back with your mouth empty I am going to beat you." I would not have the language to describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach until much, much later but I can tell you now that it was that my heart had sunk right into it. I went to the bathroom, closed the door, and stared at the toilet for a few minutes. I flushed, washed my hands and turned off the light, and then I went back into the living room and took my seat. If you have ever held food in your mouth as a child you know that there comes a moment that I refer to as the moment of truth. It is that moment where your mouth has filled with so much saliva because of the food that something has got to give. Either you swallow it, spit it out, or swallow and then vomit. As I was nearing my particular moment of truth I had no idea what the outcome would be -- until my aunt said, without looking up from her paper, "If you throw up I am going to beat you." Where the tears started to fall it felt as though someone had taken tiny pins and started poking. The prickliness was a welcomed distraction. After about ten minutes I managed to get it all down. I went to my aunt with my plate and she looked at me. I opened my mouth and I raised my tongue to show that I had swallowed everything. She told me to put my plate in the sink and I did. I went back to the bathroom and I looked at the toilet in the dark. And then I spit and walked out. Hindsight lets me know that my aunt would have never lifted her hand to me. But, sometimes, people forget that the things they say to get kids to do what they want can be a bit harsh. And when I looked my aunt in the eye and showed her that I had eaten my food -- that I had swallowed every drop of what she knew I never should have eaten — I was letting her know that if we ever had this stand-off again the stakes would be higher. Dinner was take out. I had shared with you a number of stories about my aunt while we were on the move because it was her who had encouraged me to fly. When I was tiny I had been looking through her things and I found a picture of her and her husband standing in front one building that looked as though it were made out of ice cream. I asked her about it and when she told me, all I thought was that one day I would go there. You and I went there together. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My aunt made her living in New York as a seamstress during a much different time. She worked in a factory making clothing for a retail store but it was through her home sewing machine, a Singer, that she demonstrated not simply patience and craftsmanship, but the work of a true artist. While she could make anything, her specialty was curtains. Drapery. There was a time when it was safe to say that in any given upscale hotel lobby that it was her work that was clothing the windows. I was fortunate enough to be with her on a few occasions when she went to purchase cloth. You used to be able to do that throughout the city. My aunt would sit at her machine for hours. She kept it fine-tuned and well-oiled. It did not hum when she turned it on. It purred. She kept it immaculate and when she worked the pedal to make a seam you understood the name Singer as more than a brand name. My aunt also did sewing by hand. There were times when some work required that she use a needle to catch just one line of thread so that a line would seem to the untrained eye to be invisible. One time you had asked me when we were on the move and I was mending something where I had learned to use a needle and thread. My aunt taught me how. She also taught me how to tie a bow. And to properly read a weekend paper. She took great care, too, in teaching me from an analog clock how to tell time. There is so much that we talked about. What I guess it all amounts to is...what? Personal stories that some folks share when they are in the midst of living out their dreams. So much opened up for me beyond the simple telling of one story. And in the process I developed my own way to be able to finally concentrate. To focus. To shape the narrative that is my life. Not just on paper. Seeing the world does that. Being shaped by the world does that. Seeking and seeing kindness in the face of so much does something else, too. Everyone sees things and talks about things in their own way. I prefer, always, to stick to kindness. The world, national and local news have the corner on reporting all that is going haywire. There comes a point where you realize that maybe it might not be a bad idea to give the children who may be watching other options. There are ways to offset the messages of war. You just have to be willing to first offset those messages within yourself. Or reject them. Or whatever the proper phrasing is. I am beyond thinking about the "right" way to say that at this point. Any further attempt simply contributes more to the distraction. That is not what I want to be writing about. My aunt will forgive me for sharing the story about the eggs. But there are some things you include for the sake of balance. Such is life on the computer in the age of the Internet. That was before, though. And there is so much that came after. On the twenty-fifth of November of 2008, I'd both written and shared another poem. I really kinda sorta just put it out there: “With No Apologies to Quentus Ennius, Lucretius or Virgil, and with no Reference, Whatsoever, to Beowolf” I once read somewhere, in verse, that one must be an infinite poem if they are to be loved by a poet. For the poet, if the third act of love is the work, and the second act of love is picking up the pencil, then the first act of love is inspiration. Such is the earth. The signature on my e-mail at the time? "A principle is a principle, and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate, and hard." M. K. Gandhi. And now I think you hear me. This is what I have been doing. This is what I have been working on. And this is what I know: A Drop of Air </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There are stories that house within them certain universal truths. There are some in particular that do not speak of love's tears. Instead, they herald the passion of life's eternal breadth. By definition they are expressed as a single voice. And, too, by definition they are song -- the most pristine examples of meaning. These stories are the voice of reason. These stories are the essence of mystery. These stories are what is meant by patience. And they are always an interpretation of the most beautiful story ever told. On the page they are sheet music. In the air coming into and going out of existence they are...literature. Coco's Window</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How long have I been looking at the sky, you ask? For as long as I can remember. There is this one story in particular. It is not long. There is no beginning, middle, or end to it. It just sort of happened: I was sitting in the back seat of a car. It was early evening. The sun was going down. I was just sort of looking at what I saw. I knew it was beautiful. I knew it. I did not yet have the words to describe it. I did not have the language. At most I was three years-old. But what I saw was specific. And, hindsight being what it is, I suppose I just filed it away until now. What I remember most is the feeling. Because there was also the breeze. It kept me awake. You know how little kids just sort of nod in and out of sleep when they look really content? It is because they are content. They are happy. As adults we call it bliss. It is not so much that I watched the sun set in that moment as much as the fact that I could not get enough of the colors -- in the sky. From that day forward I have been looking for the exact moment, wrapped up in a feeling, to translate this into words. How long have I been looking at the sky? For as long as I can remember... it was late morning in the Gulf of Siam the color was periwinkle when office corridor walls are painted this color accidentally on purpose some will call it "light bluish, light purpleish...i don't know" which makes no sense as a description where do you see periwinkle? the walls, in some places in others, cloth and, too, flowers the sky, however, is really beyond description until it touches water in late morning at just the right time in just the right place and you are looking... a game of marble in some distant future there is a child searching for an image in stone in some distant future she has completed... </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~ somewhere on the planet there is a child trying to make a teleportation device in some distant future it has been accomplished because this child is someone's Da Vinci ~~~~ </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">i realize that morning doves are everywhere their presence is felt Because Everyone Has a John Malkovich Story </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When I was a kid I remember sitting in front of the television set when the face of a really creepy looking, really beautiful looking man came onto the screen. He was holding a match. I had no idea what the commercial was for the first or second time because I had not been expecting it but by the third time I knew to look for the face. And to pay attention. Because everything that preceded and everything that followed was just as intense. As it turns out, the commercial was for a play called “Burn This”. At the time I was a high school student. A young high school student. I wanted to see that play because of the language and because of the face that I knew instinctively was bringing it all to life. The one thing I was certain of, though? Wasn't nobody in my house gonna take me to see "Burn This". Going to a show was seeing Ice Capades. Or The Rockettes. A play was "The King and I". I focused on the commercial whenever it came on. On the face. On the narration. On the name of the playwright. I told myself...I resigned myself to the fact, actually… that I would never see the performance, but that I would read the play. Because plays eventually become books. Fast forward to not that long into the future: I was the tiny college freshman who stuck out like a sore thumb while thinking somehow I'd managed to blend in. The theater department had its own lending library, apart from the main ones. I did not know this because I went looking. I'd stumbled upon it by accident because a class I was taking was near it. All semester I waited. Was there some sort of permit you needed to check out or browse through the plays? Did you have to be a theater major? All you had to do was read. And return the books on time. Your i.d. was your library card. It took me a while to register that -- I was a young college freshman. And so it took me until the middle of the following semester to walk up to the window with a confidence I could present as a sense of purpose. "I am looking for a copy of ‘Burn This’ by _______________." The person behind the counter promptly got up, went into the stacks, and came back a few moments later with the book in hand. I signed it out. And then I sat in the courtyard of the Theater Arts building and I read it. The play is amazing. I cannot even begin to imagine what the performance must have been like, but it was John Malkovich who first introduced me to a man named Lanford Wilson. ~~~~ i never understood when i first came to New York why i did not see cardinals but i recognized their absence in brooklyn ~~~~ you keep waiting for the fire as i continue to write cloaked in the stillness of water ~~~~ Open Exchange = E-Commerce Oh, The Places... Think of all the ways so many of us are told to stay put and leave the discovery to the professionals. Think of all the ways so many of us are told what we cannot do, who we cannot be, and what we cannot become... There needed to be a better context for what follows. Because some things need a proper introduction. It would be easy to assume without proper context that it is about one group of people instead of one people. As a group. There is something to be said for standing by the principle that we are all human first. Take a moment to look around despite all of the manufactured documentation that tries to convince us to do otherwise. What is certain going forward is that our youth require movement. They also require focus and discipline. Not so they can do battle on soil that is ultimately all connected, but so they can come together from other cultures while meeting on common ground. We have so much to offer each other and the beauty in it all is that it already has a name...a title...and/or a description. It is called "The Exchange of Ideas." The Internet is a start. But what seeing people in and from different parts of the planet teaches is that bridges can be built when we meet and speak face to face. It does not always have to be a three hour discussion. Sometimes all it takes is a kind word or gesture. There are few things more touching (or more valuable) than discovering first-hand that there are myriads of ways to say 'thank you' and 'you are welcomed'. Within the context of The Exchange of Ideas? This discovery becomes priceless. ~~~~ The Colors of... </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">why are so many people who look like... still taken aback by a woman who sits quietly while writing in her notebook? Synonyms as Equations in Sentence Structure 1. Do not take anything personally = HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant. 2. Be impeccable with your word = HELPED are those who love the cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity. 3. Do not assume anything = HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long. 4. Always do your best = HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given the clarity of vision. How it Feels to Be...Me </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There is a woman who lives quietly by the Arabian Sea. While her age does not matter in the larger scheme of things, in this instance she is not more than twenty-four. Her job, primarily, is to clean toilets. She also changes sheets and cleans up. And, too, she sweeps. If you try to take her broom she will say, "Oh no, it is my duty!" But not in a way that would make you wonder if she were fretting about her employer "finding out." "Oh no...!" is said with a look of surprise and, "...it is my duty!" is said, always with a smile. This woman whose age does not matter in the larger scheme of things, but who is by now twenty-four, is happy to convey that she takes absolute pride in her work. She takes pride in cleaning toilets. She takes pride in washing linen. Her sense of duty? It is a call to service. The only way to feel humbled by this woman by the sea is if, somehow, you are in the habit of taking a shit without cleaning up after yourself. Which can also be read, simply, as not taking pride in your work. The woman by the sea who takes pride in her work speaks a language that is four thousand years old when written. She could also easily pass for my daughter. We have the same eyes. We have the same hands. We have the same physical build. If she were my daughter I would make sure that she were reading. And writing. And applying everything she has learned about people from all over while quietly cleaning, with a sense of duty, to changing...the world. Universal Language We can do this with guitars and drums and trumpets. But we can also do this inside our heads without all the noise. Something magical can be said for those who sit down to write sheet music. Because something magical is being said to them. Through them. Love's sweetest song? (Editing) for the Sake of Clarity in some distant land is where the tiniest birds bathe in water cupped in joined hands and flowers quench their thirst in teardrops that fall endlessly from laughter becomes... A Love Song for Those Who Smile with the Rising Sun tiny birds bathe in morning dew Says I </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Every single thing you talk about "needing to do" before you get where you are going will be the reason you don't show up. Stop coming and come. ~~~~ my word is my gift to you. ~~~~ </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">love : writing : monograph : prisms</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> a whole is equal to the sum of its parts what time is it? the time is now writers, find your rhythm With time and practice, the thoughts in any person's head can become ordered. And when they do they present themselves in a singular voice. Because, with time and with practice, the framework upon which the thoughts are shaped become the very idea of learning, and writing becomes the process of sharing -- literally -- through work. There is a massive editorial process that takes place long before one word ever reaches the page. And then there is the page. This happens with increasing clarity over time, with patience and practice. The process of writing professionally is about developing a level of restraint such that you are clearest about what you have. What you have is poetry. And music. What you have is water. And color. What you have is sculpture -- in sand and in stone. What you have is the demonstration of the power of language. All language. What you have is the power of love and song. Always. ~~~~ We are what we learn with love. ~~~~ "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test: recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to freedom for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away." --Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ~~~~~ Every particle of love, any sprig of an herb, speaks of water --Rumi ~~~~ If "tears are a river that takes you somewhere," may they always be tears of joy. if i were a painter i would use watercolor if i were a musician i would play piano if i were a sculptor my medium would be stone </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Only the most absolutely disciplined Reveal the art in marble Instead of madness Although, sometimes, They find madness, too </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">i only have words. and, right now this is what i have to say. i know it makes sense as a matter of fact, i am certain of it. because there is simply no room left for madness in my head. The Hidden Secrets in the Writing of Words : A Prism, To Be Sure "Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one." -- John Berger i. theory People are always looking for new works of fiction when there is no such thing. Not really. The most elaborate work of fiction will always be a kernel of truth somehow exaggerated to please a wider audience. Freedom, within the context of words, is each thinker having the flexibility to tell a story how they see fit. It is the work, by definition, that informs the marketplace. Parameters of genre, for some, may very well be limiting while the ability to simply talk on the page opens up a panoramic view of thought that shows so much more. These first few words are measured. What follows is the example. Riding across the subcontinent of India does something to you. It can never be said enough. By anyone. What makes any one individual different? If you happen to be on the right train, at the right time, going in the proper direction, on the perfect day, and you are sitting on the correct side, you may pass a group of mountains that will drag you out of a daydream. Because they are giants. Quite literally. A man and a woman. They are two giants, each laying on their back. The woman is more anatomically correct than the man in that her breasts are clearly breasts, while the man is clearly a man because of what is absent. You can see distinct noses and mouths, arms, legs and feet. These are giants sleeping, and they are mountains. It is difficult, when comprehending first through vision the absolute size of them, not to wonder with the mind’s eye what exactly might wake them up. It is difficult not to think about someone’s Adam and someone’s Eve. Any train ride through India that lasts more than hour will make you understand the whole planet, earth as a garden, and the power of mountains across the globe as her silent keepers of myth. As you look at this particular set of mountains – as you pass them and actually see the sleeping giants – the train will jerk in the way that only Indian trains do. And depending upon who you are you may wonder, “Did I just see the rise and fall of a chest? Are those clouds or are they somehow the exhalation of breath?” You may try to look a bit closer to see if you can detect the possible wiggle of a toe or the slight movement of a finger. And then to steady yourself you look closer into the actual landscape and the surrounding area. Your eyes—all of them— will become wider. Your sight—all of it—will become clearer. The people and the cows, if there are any around, will become more visible. Passing blurs on a moving train transform into completely distinct individuals, each an entity unto themselves, no different than singular blades of grass. The people will be wrapped in cloth and they will look like what you may have seen in your fourth grade textbook when you first learned the word ‘nomad.’ They will also look like what you may come to understand when you have a more global understanding of the word ‘pilgrim’. The cows will be more than cows forever to you after that. While ‘mountainous desert’ may functionally be the best way to describe what you see, for each person who takes it all in there will undoubtedly be a different story. Fiction. Myth. Truth in all of its glory. Those two sleeping giants...what might they be called besides someone’s Adam and someone’s Eve when the socialization of the eyes gazing upon them is different? When sleeping giants are not sleeping giants but what is left behind when angels leave their outer shells and go forth? There is myth where the beginnings are not falls from grace but ascension. This is not supposition as much as it is a starting point in an attempt for one mind to remove the parameters of fiction. The kernel of an idea, if you will. It is breathtaking to see and to wonder. Overstand. Those mountains are there. And they are beautiful. And there are stories that have been told, memorized, forgotten, and made up again to say how they got there. Does it make sense for every approach describing them to be within the realm of pure fiction when some of us are perfectly content to just talk about what we see the way we see it because we have never seen it before? </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ii. theory, applied Elijah slowly wrapped the strip of bicycle inner tubing around the y-shaped stick he’d found. Bleary-eyed from way too much of everything had him in more of a focused confusion and he thought he was being more careful than he actually was. Numb would have been the word to describe him if not for the crows. “Thieving bastards,” he mumbled. The weapon, no matter how Elijah tried to redirect his ire toward the menacing birds, was really more of a diversion. Because before Elijah directed his attention to the crows, and then the slingshot, he had been staring out at the ocean and cursing his father. Robert’s illness had been long and he was in and out of the hospital for months. “A cancer-ridden body for a cancer of a man,” is what he would say about himself in jest. Robert would never be one to say that life had somehow treated him unfairly. He was certain that it was not the forty-plus years of unfiltered cigarettes or thirty-nine-plus years of whiskey. He'd started both in his late twenties. “People get old. They get something that kills ‘em. What the hell do you expect?” Elijah expected something different. He wondered if what he’d hoped to see in his father’s final days was some semblance of a human being he could talk to. He wanted to be able to reach out to his father and touch him to let him know there was, in fact, more to life. And that he had seen it. Robert was not much of a communicator of warmth when it came to raising his son. When, as a little boy, Elijah either skinned a knee or bumped his head, Robert would just light a cigarette, inhale deeply and say, “Go talk to your mother....” The story started off strong. But writing the writing of it felt formulaic, which is why it began to read that way. And when it feels that way, no matter what, there is no story there. It becomes inaccessible as a medium by which to convey definitive thought. There has to be something more. An actively applied vivid hyper-reality that is more textured than mere exaggeration for the sake of telling a story. There was, in fact, a gentleman in India. And the only thing that was known about him was his name. Sometimes he smiled and once he asked a generic question about something random, but other than that he said nothing. He just woke up every day, sat out on his little shanty’s deck and stared out at the water. There was something about him that suggested he was a maker of something. When he walked he moved like a musician, though, as opposed to a woodworker or a painter. He never seemed bored as he sat for hours. He looked like he was working something out. He looked like he wanted more than anything else, not to be left alone with his thoughts but for a particular thought to leave him. Which is not the same as lacking focus or somehow being confused. Round trip tickets will mess with you. They put constraints on your ability properly manifest thought. Despite how fluid your thinking process, the return date lurks in the back of your mind. What you have to do when you get back and what you did not finish before you left take strangle holds on new ideas. Relaxing is not relaxing as much as it is waiting to be aggravated again in the way that you have grown accustomed to being aggravated and why you needed what essentially boils down to a vacation because of the constraint. It is impossible to know what the gentleman was actually thinking. Waving to someone and them waving back can very well be evidence of nothing, while taking in someone’s energy in the course walking past can be more revealing. But there was a longing in this man’s wave. It seemed to actively convey that he would much rather always be sitting where he was sitting instead of going back to sit wherever he knew he had to go back to. There are places where the crows are relentless and throwing stones at them only makes their antagonism worse. Their torture of a restless soul becomes an evil even the fables of Æsop could not adequately describe. Mostly, the gentleman was still whenever the crows were around. When he departed, though, he left behind a sturdy slingshot. At some point he had crafted it out of an excellent piece of thick branch and a strip of bicycle inner tube. It was the kind of slingshot that one does not just quickly put together. This slingshot was made. And, from the way the inner tubing was secured around the handle and the sides, it seemed as though the way it had been made had also been taught. And the way that it was taught was learned well. It was hindsight that took hold upon seeing the left-behind slingshot. There was a distinctly noticeable moment while the gentleman had been around when there were absolutely no crows. Not that they were keeping a distance. They were not around at all which, in this area, was like not having any pigeons in a park somewhere in New York City. If memory serves well, it was right around the time that the gentleman was preparing to leave that the crows became noticeably absent. Some people just disappear. Others are all about grand departures. This gentleman? He just wanted a bit of quiet. For about three or four days during his departure preparation he managed to get the crows to understand that. There was a stray beach dog that had taken to visiting the gentleman and the gentleman never fed him. Instead he found a comb and combed the animal's fur. The dog appeared to be most grateful for the contact. The day after the gentleman left, and a few more after that, the dog still came around. It was not looking for random affection. It was looking, specifically, for the gentleman. The crows started coming back around too, but they kept their distance. One day the dog stopped coming. iii. an example There is something that took place in Ghana. While there are infinite ways to talk about India there is at least more than one way, too, to talk about Cape Coast. Even a brief walk in some parts of Africa will solidify your understanding of the phrase “Africa hot”. While not as heat hot as Indian heat, at least not along the coast, it is definitely more intense. It was the middle of the day, closer to two in the afternoon. There was a group of very tall – very, very tall – and skinny palm trees. Circling them was a group of giant bats. They were not the kind of bats you think of when you think of bats. These ones were golden in color. Like lion’s fur. They were circling around the tops of the tall palm trees and there were two things that were distinctly noticeable about them. First, they were flying counterclockwise. Which is something you kind of notice viscerally. Second, it was around two o’clock in the afternoon. Who knew that bats were ever out at that time of day? It is nice to not refer to some science book and, instead, welcome the discovery in your own description of what you witness. On the surface there is not much more to it than that. Except that this was Ghana. Specifically Cape Coast. The number of people who were not looking up at what seemed to be a pretty special phenomenon was arresting. Inspiration may be demonstrated in the processing of words although it always appears, first, in earth’s natural wonders. While that is far from fiction it may lead some to it. Others? There is all kinds of discovery when exploring the self. In addition to grand myths there is also simple conversation. Or a kind word here and there. Even a smile and a tear or two. It all depends, really, on how you see things and then say them. When the life you live leads you to see the everyday in a completely different way you do not think first of fiction. You write what you see and you say it with the hope that more people take a moment simply. To look around. Looking into the Prism : A Note on the Process </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There comes a point where you realize that while it is not necessarily possible to deconstruct every single thing individually, it is possible to deconstruct absolutely everything using a few things as prisms. Some use the word ‘example’. An example undefined can give the implication of an unattainable archetype. Parameters that can easily be mistaken for boundaries might surface. While examples that become archetypes serve as models for what has been done, prisms open up new doors of possibility for the limitlessness of what might be. They allow for the discovery of universal truths, with emphasis on the universe, if you make the effort to look for them and look for yourself within them. There is no such thing as trying too hard. It all depends on what you are trying to do. And whether or not you are looking in the right places for support. Prisms are also like lenses. It is one thing to look through a prism at everything. You see all kinds of things differently. But you get the clearest understanding of what a prism can do when you point it toward light. The same holds true for a lens of a more traditional kind. What you have to be careful about is how you handle the lens. Fires can happen. The most insightful will realize that fire is not always a bad thing. While fire burns that does not always mean it is going to burn you. Sometimes it just kind of warms things up a bit. Every once in a while warmth is what is needed to be clearest about the proof of life. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“…a fire can be any shape it wants to be. It’s free. So it can look like anything at all depending on what’s inside the person looking at it. If you get this deep, quiet kind of feeling when you look at a fire, that’s because it’s showing you the deep quiet kind of feeling you have inside yourself.” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">--from After the Quake “Landscape with Flatiron” by Haruki Murakami The objective here is not to try to be philosophical. Sometimes though, observations about the way we live and who we really are just turn out to be that way. What if every person, instead of looking for a lens or a prism – an example – decided to be one all on their own, by themselves, while still living together with everyone else? The fact is that everyone already is. Passively. Imagine choosing to be an example actively. That would first involve recognizing the light that lies within you. And, one would hope, it would also involve each individual being prepared for all of the wonderful things they may very well discover about their own possibility instead of, by way of conditioning, bracing themselves to expect or anticipate the worst. The difference between low self-esteem and no self-esteem is not the ‘low’ or the ‘no’ but the ‘self’. There comes a point where, in order for a whole lot in life to get better, you kind of have to think about the self – your self – in a different way. This is common sense that should speak to you as an individual as well as your surrounding community, as small or as big as you make it. Everyone is given an opportunity to actively and actually make differences in themselves first. An opportunity is by no means a choice. If someone decides that they are not going to take that opportunity then that speaks volumes. This is an observation that is actively a prism on, among other things, friendship. It is really easy to sit back and line up the images of your friends and critique all of the ways they either have or have not been friends to you. The more harsh you are the more bitter you will become. And all the lonelier. One of the most difficult things to do is look inward and put the very same critique toward yourself in relationship to the people you know and love. The older you get the more of a responsibility you have, too, to do the same thing in relationship to the world around you. There might be a notion that the more harsh you are with yourself the worse off you will be afterward. However, the more honest you are, the more likely you are to realize that your critique is only harsh at first. Eventually things become better. You get the clearest sense of who you are and who you are in relationship to other people by accepting the difficulty in first being pelted by your own objective harshness. Because that is exactly what it feels like. Being pelted. If you are not willing to do that by yourself, and for yourself, then you run the risk of having others do it for you in ways that you do not expect. People will do it nonetheless but it will always be best to develop your own thick skin. It prevents the bitterness. It is what makes all the difference between feeling alone, lonely and being quite content being by yourself. The people who know and get this best generally tend to be little children on the playgrounds and the elderly. If every single human being were thinking about all of this in the exact same way life would be pretty intense. All the time. It would also be immaculately clean, sterile, and void of any…life…is probably the best word here. Prisms let you know, in a way the traditional lens cannot, that by definition there is supposed to be color. And there is supposed to be variation. And each one of us has the potential to add to it because we all necessarily have our own light. Morning is proof of that on the cloudiest day. The hope is that within the context of variation people don’t just decide to become idle, not paying attention to themselves at all as examples, as lenses, as prisms, as friends – especially as it relates to self-esteem. But that is where we have been, collectively, for quite some time. The ‘we’ is all-inclusive. There is almost no way to put a lot of this thought out there without somehow running the risk of appearing self-righteous. But if you take the time seriously to think about all of this then you put it out there anyway. Because what you hope is that eventually there is the understanding that what you yourself have gained is not self-righteousness but a particular kind of self-esteem. A self-esteem of the highest order. It is an affirmation of one’s own dignity. You also understand that eventually, in a way that sometimes feels like forever but that always manages to somehow come just in time, that it is okay for you to start pointing your own prism outward again. What you discover is exactly what colors there are in the world and you see them through the light in yours. That is a kind of special that cannot be measured. Or manufactured. Or captured in a bottle. The hope is that people realize that lightening does not strike in the same place twice but it certainly does strike. And it can strike anywhere. At any time. All the time. And we should be ready for it. Lightening, after all, is energy. So what’s the point? That’s for you to decide. When you look at yourself and you realize exactly who you are is when you discover your purest potential. But those, too, are really just words until you have actually done the work and reached the understanding. Yourself. Not only is no one going to do it for you, you are certainly not going to be able to do it for anyone else. That is sort of woven into the fabric of being a prism – an example – of the self. Because there really only is one self. Just from varying points of view. We are all light. Some of us figure that out and some of us don’t. Some of us will figure out what to do with that realization and some of won’t. Eventually there are some folks who do not figure it out who, for whatever reason, also do not care anymore. What you learn is that is okay, too. Because that is all part of it. There is something special that happens when you have these realizations before you are fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years old. You can look at life in a much different way. More than looking to the future, you can savor the present and each day being its own specific thing becomes special. Without all the doom and gloom that others would try to impose with their own manufactured, reconstituted, and re-packaged ideas of how they think things should be. This isn’t just a prism about friendship. It is a prism about life. After a while you wonder, “What isn’t?” And that is also the point. Life, by definition, is about possibility. This particular thought process, in ways that it makes no sense to try and illustrate in this particular sitting, leads directly to the sun. Knowing that means that the collective nature of life, all beings together, is the full illustration. Not just one and not just one segment. Animals already get it and they have been waiting since we started recording time for us to catch up. With all of our splendor and all of their infinite patience we fail them every day. Collectively. As individuals, though? That is where examples come in. The lenses. The prisms. The selves. The light. Steeple Chase : On Writing : On Living : Prism There are so many different kinds of races. There are so many different kinds of endurance tests. There are so many finish lines. And what is funny is that just when you come to the end of one race you barely get a chance to take a moment before looking up to see that there is a completely different kind of steeple chase in front of you. And you are not really given a choice. You have to run it. When you find that you are built a particular kind of way you just sort of take a deep breath. And then you continue. Eventually, when you are built a particular kind of way, you realize the power of rhythm. Your own. The magical force of the heartbeat. Going forward in any direction will always be a marathon. Knowing this, there is no point in being ill-equipped and there is no point in complaining. Literally, there is no point in complaining. Goals are not obtained that way. Marathon runners just go. They do not stop at every milestone. They do not even go to the bathroom. Whatever happens, happens. The strongest know how to manage their water intake and have developed a particular kind of intestinal fortitude. They understand that it is most important use each race as practice for the next. And they do not deconstruct where each finish line will be. This is why they are able to continue. At some point there is the appearance of effortlessness in those who have an understanding of endurance and rhythm. Trial and error may do that. Hard work certainly will. And so will pain. Failure, too, has a way of building up strength and endurance in those who understand that they were actually built to overcome it. But while you may put that out there for absolutely everyone, completely bare and exposed, not everyone is going to see it. Not everyone is going to understand. Not everyone is going to “get it”. And that is why in the 21st century there are portable bathrooms along every marathon route. It is also why some folks, collapse just after the finish line when they finish running. Everyone has his or her own personal best. In theory that should be beautiful. But some folks collapse after the very first milestone because, for them, that is far. Should they be faulted or somehow demonized? Not inasmuch as they stepped in to actually run. And there are so many more who do not even bother with that who remain on the sidelines. The marathoner makes it as far as the first mile too and so for a moment everyone is together. The ones who collapse at the end of the race make very specific statements as well. They have survived a particular kind of endurance test and in that they should find satisfaction. Marathoners are built differently. They do not collapse. They neither slow down nor stop at someone else’s constructed finish line. They have their sights set elsewhere because their paths are specific and unique to them. And so the marathoner just goes, occasionally pausing because a particular race is over. The endurance test for them is much more grand. One marathon. And then two. Three, and then four. The marathoners themselves eventually lose count. Counting is not what matters. All of the races together at an unknowable end are the marathoner’s entire run; the complete endurance test. A whole is equal the sum of its parts, to be sure. It is the whole that is also greater. The marathoner, upon finding a rhythm, neither slows down nor stops. A marathon runner simply gains momentum as they continue. The marathon runner always continues. Implement : Prism : Addendum focus on blue in the flame focus on blood in the ink focus on breath in the work How often do we ever remember that before electronics, or even electricity, it was the pen(cil) that told the story? How do we honor this realization? Reading is comprehension. It is also understanding. And, too, it is compromise. People who love to read -- who absolutely adore it -- do not have to be forced. And writing with pen(cil) is power of the ultimate order. Because it speaks, first, to the student in everyone. It is the pen(cil), coupled with the notebook, that is the key to the universe. Every single pen(cil) houses limitless potential. What book will each one write? What poem? What song? What grocery list? What idea will it design? What drawing? What musical note? What lyric? Of all the things that there are, have ever been, or what might be in the world, the pen(cil) and its friend the notebook are the two most unsung heroes. The notebook cannot stand by itself. Without its partner it is nothing. And it can be fickle as well as amorphous. In a notebook there can be ink. There can be paint. There can be blood. Each and every single pen(cil) has within it the potential for volumes. Reading is a gift. And sometimes we do each other a disservice when we spend too much energy trying to simplify instead of using our lives to teach. Learning is about practice. Learning is about grasping new concepts and getting stronger. And, too, it is about re-imagining old ones and applying our own interpretations. People throw books. All the time. Literally, too often and, figuratively. Wars of all kinds happen when throwing books - lobbing turns of phrase like hand grenades - becomes competition. For what, who knows? But it would be too easy to say, simply, for an audience. And so, pay homage to the pen(cil). And then, to the notebook. They are the keepers of the word and of worlds. Together they are, in fact, the key. Addendum i find that my hands are more telling than the increasing lines on my face my hands, they say that i take care and that i do always try they say that i am definitive they say that i am honest they say that i am not mean spirited they agree with the lines on my face there are no scars or calluses or bruises and yet you can also see and feel hard work the indentation from the from the pen and the pencil the sense of purpose in the joint of my thumb This Was Supposed to Be A Poem Some things simply cannot be taken away from a writer no matter how hard you try. If you take away a writer’s computer the writer will use a typewriter. If you take away the typewriter the writer will pick up pen and paper. If you take away the pen they will use a pencil. Or a crayon. And if you take away the paper the writer will use the walls. And their own blood if they must. Tie the writer’s hands behind their back and they will sing. Tear out their vocal chords and they will dance. Bind their feet and the writer will close their eyes and dream after becoming bored by watching you. Every culture has its own example of how they have managed, somehow, to kill their creative spirits. Some call them witch hunts. It would be too easy to go down the list of what the process is called in different places. Because it is what it is. At some point you realize, despite all that, how it has been is not how it has to be. And when you, yourself, no matter who you are, are able to figure that out, that is when real difference occurs. Because change happens no matter what. What does matter most is whom you decide to be when it happens. There is nowhere where writers are not. Look at griot culture. Globally. There should never be the assumption that there must always be a pen or pencil in every single instance. But there is always a dream. Sometimes all it takes is the kernel of an idea and a bit of energy for thought. Writers…whoever you are…wherever you are…whatever you do, “When in Rome,” write. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Seventh Wheel “You know he’s riding, don’t you?” said someone on the playground. “Yes,” she said. Flatly. “You know that boy is riding that thing,” said someone else, one day, as she and the boy-genius were on their way home. “Yes,” she replied. “You know….” “I KNOW, I KNOW!” “Well, what are you going to DO about it?” And, as a response to that question, the girl could only let out a sigh. The girl’s little brother, boy-genius that he was, would not give up his training wheels. At first it was funny. And then kind of cute. But only kind of. By mid summer it had become a source of…something. Embarrassment was not exactly the word because the girl was trying to figure something out and to do so she began by watching her little brother closely. The boy-genius did not start out on a little scooter or a tricycle like most other kids. The boy-genius started out driving. Not long after those little motorized jeeps that go five miles an hour first went on the market he was behind the wheel of one. The very first in his neighborhood to have one. And it would be years – years – before anyone else did. Some people felt that buying children cars at such a young age sent the wrong kind of message. About cars and about toys. Other people felt it was a waste of money. Others just watched. After the car came the motorized trike. The generation before grew up on the Big Wheel and a bunch of kids rumbled and bumbled down neighborhood sidewalks and, in the playgrounds, mastered the spin-out. The natural progression was from Big Wheel to dirt bike for little boys and Big Wheel to banana bike for girls. Because, let’s face it, the Big Wheel was really just a souped-up tricycle. The motorizing of things adds a whole new dimension. What would be the natural progression in this instance? As a family they had tried. And they had been successful up to a point because the boy-genius had gone through not one, but two pairs, of training wheels on his bike. The first ones he rode until they were not touching the ground. There was pomp and circumstance and celebration on the day they were removed. And then, when the boy-genius was taken to the park and told to ride, he put his feet on the pedals and promptly tipped over. He needed his training wheels, he said. He needed them. “Just try.” </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There were tears. And more tipping over. But there was no laughter because, too, there were skinned knees. No matter what, no matter how old you become, you always remember that skinned knees hurt and they are no laughing matter. And so there was a second set of training wheels. They met the same fate in one-third the time. It was almost as though they were somehow designed to disintegrate on playground asphalt. There would be no grand ceremony that preceded their removal. The approach was more matter-of-fact. “Can we take these things off?” was the question. The boy-genius nodded. That should have been picked up on as a clue that he was not going for it at all because the boy-genius always spoke. Always. Hence the name…. There was tipping over, and there were tears, but this time no skinned knees. There was, eventually, too, a bit of compromise. Just one training wheel. And only for a little while. This was a mistake. Not a giant step backward-type mistake. More like one to the side. As in, the boy-genius had taken to riding without realizing it only occasionally and, more often than not, leaning heavily to one side. It is why his sister, who herself had been taught on a ten-speed bike at the age of twelve on a block with a mild decline, insisted that she be the one to go out with her little brother. Eventually she figured something out. There was a conversation between the girl and the boy-genius. She explained to him as he watched her remove the training wheel, the principle behind the word ‘trust’. She asked him if he understood, and when he nodded she explained it to him again. The little boy listened. And then he asked a question. The girl answered. The little boy said okay. And then, as they were on their way out the front door, he looked at her and said, “You promised.” The girl smiled at her little brother as she wheeled the bike forward, and as they hit the fresh air she looked up into the sky. She inhaled deeply and thought to herself, “Yes I did. Yes, I did.” The girl took the boy-genius to the top of the block that held the memories of her first ten-speed bike. Thankfully the sidewalk never had the skin from her knees because at twelve years-old she had the presence of mind to wear jeans. It did, however, have a few of her tears. “Get on,” she said, trying to mask patience with something a bit more stern. The little boy got on. “Start riding,” she said. The little boy looked back. “Start riding,” she said again. The little boy looked back and down. Her hand on the seat of his bike was not good enough. She grabbed his pants then, by the waist. “Start riding,” she said. This time the little boy pedaled. The girl ran behind him all the way down the block. And then she pulled on his pant waist to slow him down. “Get off,” she said when they completely stopped, “and take the bike back to where we started. We’re going to do it again.” The little boy was quiet. His sister, because she had a sense of things, was excited although she was also mindful. The block was a city block and the boy-genius cranked the pedals with legs that seemed to be fueled by lightening. She used the walk back to catch her breath. When they were at the top of the block again the girl looked at the boy-genius. He was so serious. Too serious for a boy of only five. “Turn around,” she said, “and look at where I am placing my hand.” The boy-genius turned around and saw his sister’s hand on the bike seat. He started to protest and she said simply, “I promise.” The boy-genius said okay. And then he hesitated. As he began to pedal slowly he also started to tip over, first on one side and then the other. This was expected. Once, twice, and then three times down the block in the middle of the afternoon. And a fourth time, too. It was the fifth time that was the moment of absolute truth. The girl said nothing as she over exaggerated the gesture of grabbing hold of the bike seat. The boy-genius, feeling what he felt, did not look back. Neither child spoke as the boy began pedaling. They’d worked out exactly how to do this. The boy pedaled faster. And then faster. The girl ran faster, too. As the boy-genius pedaled as fast as he could, his sister ran even faster, right past him. The eyes of the boy-genius were the size of dinner plates as he took in the deepest breath before screaming, “I’m riding! I’m riding! I’m riding my bike!” The girl stopped running and she watched as the boy-genius kept going. She did not bend over to catch her breath because she had not lost it. When he got to the end, the boy-genius put on the brakes all by himself and ran, with his bike, back up the block. The promise? “I will not let you fall.” Ethiopia : To Have Been Seen, First, By A King There was a little boy in Africa. At most he was five years-old. He was seen first on the beach. With what seemed like hundreds of other people. To the unknowing eye the little boy might have given off the appearance of being unattended and all by himself. Alone. But this was Africa. On a beach. Peopled by at least hundreds. This child was nowhere near being alone or unattended. Everything about him was deliberate. Each and every step he made was packed with meaning. He did not toddle. He walked. Methodically. On the sand. The little boy was near some fishing boats that seemed as though they were resting in the sun. The boats were taken out, usually just before nightfall, and were brought back, hopefully and with grace, in the morning. Afternoons were their time to recuperate, distinctly as boats resting in the sand on a beach that was teeming with people. The boy’s hair was sun-bleached to an almost cinnamon red. The roots maintained their darkness. His skin was stained the color of a soul who accepts the kiss of the sun as an honor. This little boy, this child of no more than five, moved around the bare and the robed legs of people three times his size with an unmistakable clarity. As he looked around, for the briefest moment there was eye contact. And in that moment I was caught breathless with the clarity that this child of no more than five knew exactly who he was. There were no smiles or waves or any of those ridiculous things that people, often tourists, do when they come in contact with local children. In this case, in this very instance, something like that would have been disrespectful. In any case, in any instance, it is behavior that might be perceived that way. Children slightly older ran back and forth but the boy seemed content to be left to his thoughts. He was looking at all the goings on around him. More than anything else, that was most evident about him. Not long after making eye contact it was clear that the most important thing to do in the moment following was to look around and pay attention to the entire goings on as well. This was Africa, after all. On a beach. And there were hundreds of people. Most of them standing. Some of them walking. The ones who were sitting were specific. It is possible to become dizzy trying to take everything in on a clear day in the middle of the afternoon while standing on a beach among people and looking at an ocean whose color you never imagined could be so blue. Two, or maybe three, days later a different and more nuanced perspective could be found while standing on a rooftop. Looking out at the water and at all of the people in the distance made it possible, if such was the desire, to outstretch arms and place the whole scene inside one giant hug because that is what the objectivity of standing on a rooftop overlooking all of that will bring. At the very least. To hug and kiss the moment like one might imagine they would their grandmother after not laying eyes on her for thirty years. The whole atmosphere had an element of familial warmth that you will either feel or you won’t. And that has nothing to do with the rooftops. It has everything to do with the energy in the air. It has everything to do with the people. It has everything to do with the ocean and that coast. And it has everything to do with the sun. Looking over one edge of the rooftop, people could be observed kind of doing their thing. Over another, the same thing. Just watching people be themselves in their everyday day to day over time in different parts of the world will teach you that people, by and large, really are the same. It is variation that is real and difference that is imagined. Energy can be seen just as much as shifts in it can be felt. From an amorphous blob of people the little boy on the beach seemed to appear. He looked around. It was not almost as though he knew someone was watching. He could feel it. And then the boy looked up. Again there was eye contact. Before there was a second to wonder he demonstrated recognition. The little boy’s face became in countenance that of an older man. He was already standing straight and so, with a slight movement of his head he stood taller. There was a lifted brow with his chin in an upward motion, and his raised hand in the gesture of unity. Seen. Recognized. With all humility, honor, and nothing less than the same level of respect and recognition, the gesture was returned. To be welcomed, first by countless generations of ancestry, is indescribable. The mythology has not yet been written that comes close to capturing what it truly feels like. There is one word, though. That word is rebirth. Not in a place where the most recent manifestations of the slave trade across the Atlantic have been commodified and repackaged for tourism. Instead in a place where we can be, and be seen, for exactly who and what we are in the unbroken pride of even the youngest walking soul. It is this Africa that is our entire earth. And it is this Africa that is in whatever we do because this Africa is energy. This Africa is air. This Africa is water. It is this Africa that is our Ethiopia. The Handshake : Where East Meets West Part I – Stride There is a universal truth when it comes to cow shit. When you find that you have stepped ankle deep into a warm pile of it, the only reason that you do not plant your foot completely is because, viscerally, your body recognizes the feeling of having stepped, ankle deep, into shit. What is also true is that how you will respond has everything to do with your surroundings. The perpetrating cow, if it is in the area, just kind of looks at you. And it chews. It knows that it has taken a shit. And it knows that you have stepped in it. The cow has seen this before. In some places where there are people all around, the people all around kind of look at you. Because they have, at one time or another, also stepped in cow shit. There are times and places where it is inevitable. Their gaze may very well be not unlike that of the perpetrating cow. In other places, where the cows may be tied, the offending cow still just kind of looks at you. And it chews. But the people around you may laugh. Because they too, at one time or another, may have stepped in cow shit. The most important thing to remember if you find yourself ankle deep in cow shit, no matter the look on the cow’s face or the response of the people around, is that at least you only stepped in cow shit and you did not bust your ass. Part II – Lady Bugs The boy watched as the Jamerican cutie pulled her sneaker slowly out of shit. He could see that she was not really upset. She was just embarrassed. He wanted to tell her that it was okay because he, too, had stepped in cow shit, and that she should consider her good fortune inasmuch as he had, himself, been barefoot at the time. But the boy said nothing. Because his brothers had laughed. The one everyone called ‘mule,’ because he was as big as one, almost fell over. He was sitting on an old crate underneath a shade tree and had watched the whole thing unfold. While the other brothers laughed one of them also pointed. The Jamerican cutie may have, indeed, been a cutie but to them she was also still just a stranger. The boy remained quiet. He was, after all, the youngest. At sixteen he would have only had his manhood mocked for defending a woman twice his age. That he remained quiet did not go unnoticed. His Jamerican cutie cursed the brothers as she wiped off her shoe in some tall and uncut grass. When she was done she looked in the boy’s direction. Casting a smile, she knew, somehow would have made him a target. A group of boys left to themselves while caring for a farm inevitably set up a pecking order. The oldest is often off somewhere while the youngest is not made to suffer too badly so long as he does most of the work. While ‘mule’ was sitting on his crate shading himself and flexing his biceps, the boy disappeared into the chicken coop. It was his job to make dinner. There was a pot set to boil over an open fire behind a large tree stump. The fire was strong and the pot was large but it was specifically the sound of the rolling water that was the best indicator of the heat. The boy’s Jamerican cutie walked past ‘mule’, who then stopped laughing. There was a brother resting on a lower branch of the same tree where ‘mule’ was sitting. He began to speak but quickly changed his mind. The brothers seeking cool in the car that was parked not far from the tree, too, fell silent. The boy’s Jamerican cutie walked up to him and she did not ask what he was doing. She simply watched as he went into the chicken coop and came out a couple of times with a pair of chickens in each hand that he held by their feet, their wings flapping, though not as furiously as one might think under the circumstances. The chickens were not so resigned to their fate as much as they were somehow only expressing mild discomfort. The boy had an apparatus set up that looked like a small gallows. There were chords hanging down from the crosspiece with loops at the ends just big enough to hang chickens. By their feet. He was systematic in his work. Not because he knew that he was being watched but because in this line of work he had much experience. After all of the chickens were securely tied the boy reached down and pulled out from in between the tree stump and the pot of boiling water a not so small, and clearly very sharp, kitchen knife. It was upon seeing this that the chickens began to make the sound that chickens make when chickens are alarmed. But they were chickens. And they were upside down. And they were tied by their feet. The boy walked up to what was, essentially, the first chicken to be slaughtered. With an almost imperceptible motion he lopped off the first chicken’s head. He did the same thing with the second. The wings of the headless chickens began to flap in earnest. The other chickens began flapping their wings harder too. But the sound seemed more quiet. The brothers in the car and the brother who’d been in the tree, by this time, had quietly moved closer. ‘Mule’ stayed put on his crate. At first they were watching the boy’s Jamerican cutie watch the boy, but then they, too, began watching their youngest brother. Beads of sweat had formed on the boy’s brow but he did not wipe them away. They rolled down his face, slid down his neck, and then disappeared into and underneath the cloth that was his tank-top. When he was past the halfway point of the chicken row with his knife, the boy looked up and saw his Jamerican cutie. It was only then that he realized that she had been watching. He knew that she saw everything. “Do you want to try?” he said more than asked. She shook her head, no. “Really. Try,” he said again, properly handing her the knife. The boy’s Jamerican cutie took it from him and walked around to where he stood. She asked him what she was supposed to do. The boy held the next upside down chicken by the neck and showed her exactly where to cut. He described the motion and he demonstrated, too, with his empty hand. The boy’s Jamerican cutie listened. And she’s watched the motion he made. She held the chicken and she held the knife. And she thought more than she concentrated. The brothers were not giving her encouragement as much as they were goading her. The boy’s Jamerican cutie did not look up. She looked around instead. She noticed all the green surrounding the coop. She saw the brilliance of it in the grass and in the small bushes. Droplets of chicken blood on broad plant leaves only needed specks of black to be mistaken for ladybugs. The flapping wings of the chicken that she held by the neck in her hand, in that moment, allowed her to feel how everything was otherwise quiet. It would have been completely still if not for the rolling pot of water. Even the sound of the fire seemed to be cloaked in velvet silence. The boy’s Jamerican cutie would not do it. Not because she could not, but because she did not want to. Something about it all was just too beautiful for her. And she hoped he overstood. It was in the way the boy’s Jamerican cutie handed him back the knife and the way that his hand accepted it that let them both know, if nothing else, one thing was clear. The brothers definitely understood. The boy’s Jamerican cutie remained standing next to him as he continued with his work, and she looked up to get a clearer sight of his vantage point. The brother who had come out of the tree began to climb back up. One of the brothers who was laying in the parked car before had already made his way back there while another announced that he needed to pee as he walked off into a bunch of enclosed trees. Another brother was just not there anymore. ‘mule’ was still sitting on his crate. Shirtless. Giving only the appearance of boredom to mask absence of something. The boy lopped off another chicken’s head. He tossed it into the grass. His Jamerican cutie had missed that movement before. She looked away for a moment and looked back when she heard a crunching. One of the farm dogs was chewing on the chicken’s head as a snack. The cow? The cow was tied to a stake not far off, standing there as it had always been. Looking. And chewing. Thumbs While the man was posing as a teacher, the gaze of the little ones should not have caused him to be awash with such contempt because they really had no idea. The man-child was, in fact, just a little boy. And it was, simply, a little girl that sat next to him. Because it was the man-child that the man posing as a teacher saw, while the woman-child remained invisible, the man posing as a teacher read incorrectly what would be the final act of defiance. The man posing as a teacher would, to humiliate what he thought he saw, command the man-child into the staircase that was universally referred to by all the children as “the back”. It was there that the little boy was beaten. The marks would not show up and there was no outward appearance of fragility. And because the little boy was, too, a man-child, he would never, ever tell. It was the beginning of the fraying of a life around the edges. While a death would come years later there would be a different inevitable ending. The most acute and memorable description of the man posing as a teacher could be found in neither his height nor his weight, nor the texture of his hair, but the little white spit things that would form in the corners of his mouth and on the edge of his lips as he spoke every day, teaching his lessons. Small bits would rest there until enough built up to form blobular projectiles that would shoot into the atmosphere, usually with the utterance of the phrase, “You people.” Shots were fired often. The man posing as a teacher rarely walked around the room as he spoke and so the children seated at the front of the room were more adept at using subtle movements to avoid being hit while the ones in the middle learned the importance of knowing what to listen for. The children in the back learned by watching. The description of the little boy would be most memorable because of his distinction. No one ever forgets. A man-child. For his nine or ten years he had solid muscles already. Onyx is way too fragile as either material or metaphor for his beauty. The man-child appeared to be carved out of a rare and flawless marble; forever the little boy, captured in stone. It was his bashfulness, displayed in brief moments of childhood tenderness, that prevented him from being labeled a joker. He would not be the class clown because the class clown, a little boy too, was much smaller. The man-child, in his own way, was a leader. By example. It is what the man posing as a teacher recognized. It is what the man posing as a teacher recoiled from. What, exactly, had the little boy learned at home? The man-child, who was first a little boy, had been bathed in the waters of respect. In the community of his neighborhood building he had been known for the eloquence of his “Yes ma’am,” and his “No sir,” and always, too, his smile. The smile, though, disappeared every day between the hours of 8:40 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., trapped in the fists of the man posing as a teacher. Not in a word, but in a turn of phrase, the man-child 'took no shit'. It was because the only one who ever tried to hand it to him was the man posing as a teacher that there was a serious problem. The man-child refused to wrap his mind around the concept of being called out of his name. He refused to allow himself to be berated. The little boy knew his place and so he never cursed or threatened. He managed to demonstrate in his little boy/man-child hybrid way that his voice had, in fact, belonged to him and he would not back down. The man posing as a teacher would yell, “GET UP!” whenever the imagined smell of his own stinking fear began to overwhelm him during unsuccessful, unnecessary and never random confrontations with the man-child. The little boy would obey. The man posing as a teacher would escort the man-child out of the classroom and, gently, the classroom door would close behind them. There would be silence in the room while the man posing as a teacher and the little boy/man-child were in “the back.” When the door re-opened the little boy would always re-enter the room first while the man posing as a teacher would prance in behind him. The man-child was nowhere to be found because a little boy had just been beaten. There was never anyone else in “the back”. Whenever the man posing as a teacher gave in to the imagined smell of his own stinking fear it seemed as though there was almost never anything left. Not in “the back.” Not in the man posing as a teacher. And not in the sculpture that was, most clearly in those moments, just a little boy. The woman, still a child, was invisible as she whispered her question. “You okay?” The little boy nodded. It was because the little girl felt there was nothing she could do that the woman said, “I’ve got you both.” The movement of her pencil across the page was an act of mercy toward the man posing as a teacher. The little girl understood what the man-child could not hear due to the distraction of what was on his mind. And so, in the meantime, over the course of one school year, the little boy and the little girl would thumb wrestle. The man-child would look up and smile whenever he let the little girl win. Her stifled giggles were a salve to him and she would read in his eyes the words that did not need to be spoken. Formica The characters of this story have no background. It is the backdrop, or setting, that is most important. Because it is possible to stand in the kitchen of a tiny studio apartment and think, “One day I am going to write something about this.” But the kitchen has to have a certain charm. The linoleum tiles have to be a certain uneven color of cream, not yellowed, from age. The Formica of the counter tops must be slightly chipped around the edges in a particular kind of way while being otherwise pristine. The lime in the green of the kitchen chairs has to suggest a certain kind of anonymity to them, for lack of a better word, instead of alluding to the ghosts of whomever may have warmed them seven, twelve, or possibly even twenty years before you saw them for the first time. The sunlight coming through the kitchen window in the morning has to fill the room just so. There must be brightness, and yet, no warmth. The refrigerator has to, in some way, add character. Because if it even remotely implies sterility or non-description then the kitchen itself is not a kitchen but just any old room and that will not do. The overall and general feel must also be that anything could have happened in the tiny little studio apartment and, too, anything could still happen there if the house in which it exists as a memory still stands. ANJUM (yelling): I’m so sick and tired of you talking about me behind my back! (CHANDANI sits, smiling. And then, slightly, she tilts her head to one side.) ANJUM (still yelling): You think I’m playing!? You’ll see! (CHANDANI raises a brow, slightly. ANJUM starts to pace.) CHANDANI (just above a whisper): I don’t think you get it. (CHANDANI slowly rises and reaches in her pocket. She pulls out a quarter. With her palm open she holds it above her own head.) CHANDANI: This is all I am thinking about. (She lowers her hand to her waiste.) This is all I am thinking about when I just have time to think in peace. (CHANDANI walks across the room to open the front door.) ANJUM: Enough! (Without looking back, CHANDANI tosses the quarter back over her shoulder.) Literally : The Written Word : Prism I would write this by hand a hundred times. Well, I’d copy it ninety-nine, actually. The first time will always remain in my notebook. There are these moments I have where I simply cannot stop writing. It isn’t about weaving thoughts. Literally, it is about the action. It is about the motion. It is about the act of writing. Every once in a while I practice my penmanship. But that is more about getting the fundamentals down. Because penmanship is just as much of an indicator of the mind as it is the work the mind produces. I suppose if I have an expectation of anyone I meet in the future that tells me they are a writer, it is that their penmanship must be immaculate. It must also be a demonstration of their personality. I have grown weary of people who call themselves masters of textbook penmanship. All that means is that they are just as capable of giving orders as they are receiving them. What comes to mind, really, is middle management. I want to see creativity, literally, in the written word. And I want to see concentration. While there are such things as verbal ticks I do not want to see them at all on the page. Already there is no room for “ums” and “uhs” and I certainly don’t want to see the equivalent in the actual lettering. Be consistent with the dotting of i’s. No hearts, please. When I saw a photostatic copy of a letter that Malcolm X had written while still in prison, and while still Malcolm Little, I was mortified to see that instead of dotting his i’s he drew circles. Given all that I know about Malcolm X, I suppose I have nothing to say about that aside from the fact that he was Malcolm Little at the time and I will leave it at that. However, he is the only one – the only one – who can get a pass on that sort of thing. Don’t put circles over your i’s. And there are other things, too. Over exaggeration in the signature. There are times when I suppose I can be accused of that. In my own defense, though, I have reined it in. And my signature is not boastfully all over the page. I always manage, wherever it is required, to fit it in the allotted space. There is something to be said for writing your name and then adding just a touch more. I underline my name to be clear. I am whatever I say I am. And the underline makes it final. My name and my signature meet my own personal expectation. Hence my handwriting as well. Not long ago, a friend of mine suggested that I sit down and write lists. There are things, here and there, that need to be done and I suppose she thought that would help in establishing order. Organization, as it were. That was an excellent suggestion. Lists to me, however, signify allocation. And that is not necessarily my style. While I am fully capable of allocating I have my own way of doing it. Because if I know that I have been explicitly clear to the best of my ability, and something still does not get done, there won’t be a question of ambiguity. I did, however, sit down and write a few lists. Because the process helped. Immeasurably. It helped me to trust another part of my brain when thinking about the creative process. The lists, however, were in print, not cursive, and that speaks volumes. When one feels comfortable with their own handwriting they are demonstrating that they welcome a certain fluidity of thought. And, depending on their focus, they are also demonstrating their approach to writing as a form of deep and intense meditation instead of simply as a means of churning out propaganda for mass consumption. Writing – deep writing as meditation – is serious business. Please forgive my use of the word “deep" here. But while it is egregiously overused to suggest substance (and often only serving to demonstrate that the use of the word has little – depth or substance) it is exactly the word that I mean to use. It is the writing. Literally, it is the writing that tells you exactly who the spirit is. It is the purest indicator of the soul. Keyboard text, as far as I am concerned, will always be a mask. A young lady recently asked me, after seeing a sample of my written work in the form of handwriting and sharing a bit of time in discussion, if I would be interested in having my handwriting changed into a font that could somehow be posted on a website. I tried my best to be careful in my response to her as I did not want to wear on my sleeve the fact that I regarded that as more of an insult. As a writer I received it as a potential mortal blow. As a thinker the best way to demonstrate that what was suggested made absolutely no sense whatsoever was to simply say, “No.” I also said that I thought it was, or could be perceived as, hubris. But I suppose I do not believe that as much as I know that changing one’s handwriting into a font is just downright laziness. My hands were designed to hold a pen. They were designed to do very specific things with letters, with words, with thought and with language. The evidence is in this essay. The beauty is in the liberation I feel being able to sit down and discuss this. It is fluid. It is not text. It is writing. And, because it is in its purest form, no matter whatever form it may shift into in print, in whatever medium, it is an absolute exact representation of who I am from absolute start to absolute finish. And so, when one thinks of this as an original manuscript, the word that comes to mind is ‘priceless’ for what I think by now has become way more than obvious. Scout's Honor and Currency Exchange : Another Pecola Breedlove Moment Brooklyn neighborhoods are no different. They shift and change like any other. People come and go, some get left behind, and others disappear. “Whatever happened to…?” can just as easily be met with, “Who knows?” or, “Who knows…?” That’s the thing about ‘neighborhood’. The word, that is. What might you remember about yours thirty years from now? The little girl grew up in a tiny neighborhood, hindsight would tell her, of two city blocks. It was tiny lengthwise, that is. Vertically? It was huge. While city blocks dwarf the blocks across the street from them, the blocks across the street tend to be commercial. This is not a scientific observation. It just looks that way sometimes. Surrounding the little girl’s neighborhood, on the blocks that were commercial, were a lot of candy stores that had one or two video games in them which hearkens back to a much different time. There was one store in particular, about two and a half city blocks away in distance if you were across the street and looking in the distance instead of up, that not only had the little girl’s favorite video game but a clerk, too, that operated in currency exchange. He would take all different denominations of money and exchange them so the game could be played. The clerk was aware of the fact that some kids, for whatever reason, would have coins from other countries. His exchange was always face value. One deutsche mark got you one coin from the United States that fit into the video game. Coins from the Far East. Coins from the Mediterranean. Fifty-cent pieces got you two. They were worth fifty-cents, after all. A lot of kids had relatives who were in the military. The little girl had at least one who, instead, traveled. The clerk behind the counter was nice enough for a man who often said nothing. He would look at the coins, look at the child, and then hand over quarters. He reserved the vibration of his vocal chords for anyone who actually came in and bought something too. Aside from orange, and sometimes cherry Now and Laters and an occasional Jolly Rancher stick, the little girl did not care much for candy. And even when she did, Now & Laters and Jolly Rancher sticks were only a dime. One day the little girl went to the store that had her favorite game to meet up with a friend from her neighborhood. The friend had called to say that she had gotten hold of a fifty-cent piece! The little girl had just recently spent some time with some relatives who’d recently gone to an amusement park of some kind in the distant and unfathomable land called “out-of-state.” She had been given one of the amusement park’s game tokens as a souvenir. She knew it would not work in her favorite game. She had been to amusement parks herself and the principle of tokens had not been lost on her. She just thought the coin was pretty. She liked the color. She liked the weight of it. And the image on one of its sides made her think of the word “doubloon,” which is a word all little kids from a certain time, of a certain age who love to read enjoy. The other side of the coin was absolutely clear. The thing about video game culture, back when video games were video games instead of “the gaming industry”, is that kids could have a good time, most times, just watching their friends play. There was so much more to the experience. First there was the phone call, “I got a fifty-cent piece…you wanna meet me at the game room?” And then there was the plea. “Can I go outside to meet my friend?…Not far…to the game room…not long…,” would lead to the freedom of leaving the block. Leaving the block when you are under a certain age and under a certain size is not always just crossing the street. Depending on the block and the varying ideas about neighborhood, sometimes it is “leaving your way” and “going around someone else’s way” when any given building is big enough to house an entire neighborhood. Sometimes you hear, “What are you doing around my way?” Sometimes you hear, “Let’s go around your way.” Sometimes you say, “Come around my way,” and it is always nice to hear it. Back when video games were video games instead of “the gaming industry,” there was a certain etiquette if you were just watching: don’t lean over your friend’s shoulder too much; don’t be a backseat rocket launcher; never ask for the free space ship if your friend gets over twenty-thousand; don’t lean in and watch from the side unless you’ve got next and have put up your quarter; never, ever criticize if your friend’s ship somehow gets blown up even before they were able to fire a single shot. Things happen. There would always be a tingly feeling when the glowing red “1 player” button was pressed. You would root quietly for your friend as little enemy space ships appeared on the screen raining hellfire, hoping that you might actually be witnessing a bit of history. Every quarter held within it the possibility of the perfect procurement of the coveted high score. If the guy who owned the candy store was kind enough, or absent minded enough, to not turn off the game at night, we’re talking two or three – possibly even four– weeks before the three letters, whatever it was that was your friend’s moniker, were completely removed from the top-ten list. While a line of quarters on the bottom of the game screen meant having to wait your turn, it also meant having to posture, demonstrating ownership of your quarter and your next. Something at which the two little girls were not very adept. Thankfully, though, both children had managed to be granted permission to go outside early enough and there was no one on the game at the time. The little girl met her friend and her friend was definitely ready. Her friend was relaxed. Her friend was full of concentration. Her friend needed no pep talk as she made her currency exchange. The little girl’s friend placed one quarter up on the screen to reserve her next. She then dropped a quarter in to the video game’s coin slot. It was then that a child came waltzing in with another one behind. They looked exactly alike. It seemed that the only way to tell them apart was that one had very long pigtails and the other was perfectly dressed in a crisply ironed Boy Scout’s uniform. They had come into the store all loud and blustery. And between them they had a handful of change. The one with the pigtails got a bag stuffed with candy. The one in the Boy Scout’s uniform bought an ice cream cone. He got it from the freezer in front of the counter, paid for it, and began peeling off the wrapper. The first space ship blew up. Something about the visual was not right. The Boy Scout’s hands were small but, somehow, the cone seemed too small to be a real ice cream cone. It looked more like a toy. And there was too much frost all over the whole thing, as though it had been in the freezer for ages. Had the cold made it shrink? A lollipop probably would have served him a little bit better. As the two children moved toward the game her friend’s second space ship blew up. The one in the Boy Scout’s uniform started talking loudly about how much better he was at playing. Not long after, the third space ship of the little girl’s friend suffered its own mortally explosive termination. But there was the other quarter reserving her next. She dropped it in and continued play. The little girl cast a dirty look to the one in the Boy Scout’s uniform and then turned to look on as her friend played the game in earnest. The little girl’s friend must have been nervous. Or maybe it was just that she lost her concentration. The first ship blew up. And then the second. And then the third. The one with the bag of candy looked simple and obnoxiously smug but she remained silent. The little girl felt a rush of energy. She wanted to impart a crisp smack that would, at the very least, if only for a second, demonstrate that the implied perfection by whoever had twisted the pigtails had been an outright lie. The one in the Boy Scout’s uniform would not shut up. “Why don’t you play, then?” Childhood defense in unison. He didn’t have any more money. The little girl needed something more to assuage her guilt for only wanting to impart smacks while not having it within her to actually do it. She felt she needed to take some kind of action to prove that her friend’s invitation to “come around my way” was about camaraderie in the way that she did not yet have the words for but that she would learn in her own time. Stepping up…doing something…saying something…anything….instead of attempting to win the losing battle of children being children while being obnoxious and smug, at the very least. Although she knew that it would not work in the machine, the little girl reached into her pocket and pulled out the doubloon. She figured she would try anyway because she had seen stranger things happen. The face of the one in the Boy Scout’s uniform lit up upon seeing the coin. Why? Who knows? The little girl put doubloon into the video game’s coin slot and, promptly, nothing happened. And then there was a –clink- against the back of the coin return door. The little girl started to reach down to get the coin and try again but the Boy Scout gave her a shove. And then he took the doubloon from the coin return space with his free hand while tightly clenching his still freezer burned, undersized ice cream cone in the other. There was a tussling, of sorts, up to the counter in the front of the store. The little girl knew that the rules of engagement with the one in the Boy Scout uniform would change if she knocked away the cone. The little girl tried to tell the store clerk that the Boy Scout had taken her doubloon but the store clerk did not even look at her. The Boy Scout slapped the coin down on the counter and demanded more than asked, “How much for that!” There was triumph in his voice. The little girl, though, did not feel anything close to defeat. All four children waited as the clerk picked up the doubloon and eyed it carefully while making his assessment. The seconds it took for the man to say nothing felt like forever. And so little girl, as hard as she could, pushed the Boy Scout out of the way while shouting, “Turn it OVER!” The store clerk looked at the little girl then. He continued to examine the coin and, slowly, he turned over. The words were clearly stamped. “No Cash Value.” The store clerk sucked his teeth and held the coin out for the Boy Scout to read. The Boy Scout pointed at the little girl and said, “It’s hers,” and walked out of the store. His pigtailed duplicate followed behind. The little girl picked up her doubloon. She said goodbye to her friend and then she went home. The two friends went to the “game room” a couple of times after that. Always with quarters. The little girl would eventually stop going to play video games because she had made her way to the playground. Cafe con Leche : A Pecola Breedlove Moment While Billie Sings the Blues What of this withholding or changing of names? It only serves to make the unknown universal in the best of circumstances and completely denied in the absolute worst. A young group of friends used to get together every so often to order take-out, play cards, and socialize. There were other games, too, the names of which do not really matter. Some were word games with hourglass timers and others were picture games with wind up timers that had buzzers. There were also word games with cards and timers and buzzers and, if the card disappeared into a slot when the timer ran out, you would lose your turn. The buzzer, in this instance, was superfluous. There were times when instead of all that the group of friends just went to an aunt’s house. It was the particular aunt of a particular friend who loved a house full of lively, youthful conversation. The group of friends loved the masterfully home-cooked meals she provided. The aunt’s husband was a bit of a grump. He never said more than a few words whenever the group of friends were around. At most it was, “Hello,” and then “Goodbye.” His love for his wife, though, was most apparent in the way he would wear his hat. They were, most assuredly, an outstanding couple. At one point or another, for each one in the group, theirs would be the very first time going to the aunt’s house. One time in particular, during someone’s very first time, they were all piled into someone’s borrowed car. The feeling of all of the friends piled in together the way that they were gave clarity to all of the reasons why vehicles are called vehicles when used in conjunction with the word ‘transport.’ Some of the people in the car knew each other longer than others, while at least one would be new to the aunt, and there was always her nephew. As is sometimes the case when new friends mix with old family, stories about people from the past get told. “You never met so and so? You really should.” Or, “We’ve got to introduce you to so and so. They’re crazy but we’re sure they’d love you.” “We never told you about so and so’s last girlfriend?” is how this one began. It turns out that So and So’s ex-girlfriend was the sweetest thing, or so everyone thought, until she came to dinner. She was extremely polite at the table. She helped herself and passed the platters, and she passed the patters and helped herself. Masterfully home-cooked food has an added value when you are invited to eat family-style. The ex, however, made a faux pas of what turned out to be epic proportions though, nobody bothered to tell her. When asked if she would like something to drink she replied, “Milk, please,” along with, “Thank you.” The ex drank her milk and ate her food and everyone around her looked on. When the aunt asked her if she would like another glass of milk she said, “Yes, please,” and, again, “Thank you.” Dinner eventually transitioned to dessert and then it was time to leave. The ex, who was not the ex at that moment, soon became one. The story, after it was told, hung heavy in the air. It was as though at least one more person than there should have been was jammed into the car. The unspoken does not always speak volumes because, sometimes, the unspoken says nothing at all. Platonic Metaphysics : Cube : Poetry : Learning Prism when you sit at your desk during homeroom and make a cube, three dimensionally, from notebook paper using a ruler and a pen to draw and then score it, first everyone will think you are making a cross until you make the final fold. and then, when you finish, and you are teased for being off in your own world because it is just something else to be teased for, find solace in the knowledge that what you are doing, off in your own world, is not a study in math, per se, but a study of universal form. Definitely Not A Prism : Well, Maybe i. the warming of the palate when you are four years old and you discover that someone in your family makes the oatmeal too sweet and someone else does not make it sweet enough and someone else makes it salty (!) you realize at four years-old that some things are best left to fix when you grow up and can make your own oatmeal as you please with just enough nectar and just enough clove and just enough cinnamon a dash of nutmeg and just enough of whatever kind of milk if any to suit you </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ii. a writing exercise This is a writing exercise. Nothing more. I am trying very hard, as I smell it, not to eat the paper. But I have failed. Because, at the end of the day, what it all boils down to is that I like the taste of paper. Only a particular kind, though. Thankfully. One has to wonder if that is why they stopped adding acid. I do not eat reams of it like one man disclosed he did on-line. A half a sheet here or there. Every once in a while. And only when the craving is absolute. At first I thought it was about hunger. But it is, in fact, more about the taste. There is something indescribable, yet distinct, about a nice sheet of paper. I do not feel this way about cloth. Or plastic. Or wood – as in, pencils. I admit I do enjoy the smell of pencil shavings as an aroma and there is, indeed, something to fresh ballpoint ink. India ink smells too much like runny liquid which means, to me, it smells too much like a mess. Crayons smell sticky and magic markers smell like poison. Chalk smells exactly how it tastes and, for the record, so does chalkboard. And, since this seems to be a bit of full disclosure about discovery, rug does, in fact, taste like rug and carpet just like carpet. I know these things because I was once two, I was once three, and I was also, once, four. Some of us ask what is the point of tasting if you do not, also, remember? I cannot tell you about the taste of typewriter keys or typewriter ribbon. But there’s a long and, possibly, odd story about the distinct taste of the hammers. And yes, too, hammers in the traditional sense. I’ve only smelled piano hammers and, because they smelled like medicine, refrained from further exploration. Mine was not a child’s life unchecked. There were parameters, to be sure, just not restraints. The point is that I have decided that so long as I do not get carried away and keep it to a bare minimum it will just have to be all right that I love the taste of paper. Today's Mathematics Pt. II Synonyms Equal to Equations i. originally written in a date book and then transcribed, Let A = humanity n – 1 : variations of brown 2 : divine  Let B = the universe Let C = A + B If A + B = C, and a whole is equal to the sum of its parts, then…. ii. along with words that are what they are without any intention of being “touching” because a blessing an apartment on an eight degree night ---- one does not make an apology for a blessing one gives thanks ---- the expression of humility is in the deed iii. while overwhelming news about the loss of a loved one brings A Thought On Infinity what if the earth is actually a molecule in a teardrop of someone’s baby jesus? how big is the universe then? iv. originally in a notebook, for the planet repeat after me, “I am a product of the neighborhood that raised me. and I am not done growing.” v. and, if sound is the breaking up of silence may it always be music in harmony and rhythm vi. there is also El Duro i once saw a man hit a ball so hard during the course of a handball tournament that by the time he was done the wall was wincing in pain. vii. because even in the saddest story there will always be the poetic Queen Midas everything she touches turns to joy viii. and the poetic? somehow a prism sleeping giants awaken sitting giants stand standing giants walk walking giants behold. ix. there are times when prisms are also directives</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> 1. You are what you teach by example 2. You are what you experience and learn from x. and of this i am certain: n + one knows me better than I know myself where n = infinity and a single tear of joy On the Cloudiest Morning the moon, she weeps for her sister the earth because she has seen all that has happened there. comes the sun. ~~~~ It is a good thing to be drawn out of bed because of the desire to write something down. Most people have no idea how much of a lifesaver that desire is. Some call it passion. The funny thing is it always feels different. An expectation for it to be one kind of way brings out one kind of emotion. And a lack of expectation brings on something else entirely. The expectation, though, is a real feeling. One should never forget what it is like being drunk off of possibility, especially when realization is so profoundly sobering. Some call that love. ~~~~ blood, ink, pen(cil)... ...and paper. “look forward,” they tell me. by design</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">i do so while unpacking memories it is how i use my hands my hands, by design, caress by design, they touch my hands, by design, they feel by design, my hands, they hold and exist to be held, with love. My hands, they write. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Compliment Someone walks into a room feeling hopeful. The day and the weather are not accommodating. It is dark and cool and drizzly outside, and it is a Friday afternoon. An excuse for the word ‘loneliness’. There is nothing cryptic about the scene. It is Manhattan. On the Lower East side. The room is, in fact, a café. Someone else walks in to wait. Because the café is accommodating. And the energy, despite the day and the weather, is as quiet as it is pure. The one feeling unbelievably depressed looks up from time to time. Her tea does nothing to keep her company. Looking up becomes watching and would have turned, unconsciously, to staring if it were not for the other people in the room. When a café, on a dark and cool and rainy day, is busy that is always a good sign. The one who walked in to wait tries not to look up or even give the appearance of waiting because waiting too often leads to disappointment. Finally, but specifically not eventually, someone walks into the room and experiences, for the first time, what it is like to blush when someone’s smile lights up an entire room. Second Spring i. morning sounds fade into early afternoon afternoon slips into silence ii morning awakens with birdsong even if the bird is a rooster iii. it is wonderful to recognize the call of the cardinal </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and to see the blue jay iv. No other spring will be like last spring, just as no other spring will be like this one. Last spring, people were gearing up for discussion, dialog, and debate that would lead to new beginnings, the likes of which have never been seen before. More often than anyone could have imagined, the result of these engagements were tears. There was a definite fear of the unknown. By the end of fall, though, there was a distinct difference in the actual chemical makeup of the tears that flowed that could only happen with a basic understanding of the simple, but not oversimplified, proof that ‘unknown’ is not synonymous with ‘void’. And ‘unknown’, too, is not – does not have to be – synonymous with ‘bad’. Or ‘terror’. Or ‘evil-doers’. Or ‘fear’. Frankly, someone has to say it. This spring is something different because people, despite themselves, have been moved en masse to re-define the word ‘expectation’. It is impossible to expect a world of difference from one person, somewhere out there, without having some sort of expectation of yourself. Accountability from without leads to pointing the finger. Accountability from within leads to responsibility. It does not matter whether things go right or wrong. Right or wrong is not the point. Not even close. Not even slightly. What matters is a particular kind of self-esteem. What matters is a particular kind of pride. What matters most of all is something we call dignity. It is not just invaluable. It is priceless. Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, even if someone tries their best to take it away from you they will always fail because dignity, above all else, is the universal birthright. And anyone who would try to strip you of your own dignity is, in fact, disregarding their own. They are demonstrating that they have no self-worth. And that is the biggest shame. While freedom and justice walk hand in hand it is dignity that will always lead the way. The individual that builds their framework around a foundation of dignity teaches values of a higher understanding of self-esteem just by walking down the street. People of all shapes and sizes can be jettisoned with lightening-fast speed toward a future of new understanding and the discovery of a potential without limitations when the choice is made to walk with dignity. We do not need to walk hand in hand to walk together. We do not have to know each other personally. Each of us, by definition, is part of the world community already. To be part of it with dignity is to command respect across all lines – racial, economic, religious…walking with dignity does not break down barriers. It erases them completely. There are some things you simply cannot forget when you take a moment to look around. Some of the poorest people, in some of the poorest nations, somehow, always manage to stand up tall. Some of the poorest people in some of the wealthiest nations, all too often, remain invisible. They go unseen, unheard from and, too often, gravitate toward being broken. There comes a point. Because there are things that some of the poorest people should not have to prove. Above all else, they should not have to prove that they are worthy of respect when, after losing everything, they have maintained their dignity. As a universal birthright, dignity is also about getting better. It is about defining yourself and applying positive value to your own self-worth. The dignified cannot be broken. Can the dignified become sanctified? Answer that question yourself. In word. In deed. An action. Spring, summer, and autumn, in so many ways, are about getting what you have always hoped for. Winter is for reflection. Literally in some cases and, in others, metaphorically. Let’s stick with the metaphor. When you finally get what you want, and you also find that it is exactly what you need, what do you do with what you’ve got? Magnify the answer through your own personal lens of dignity. Stand up and be an example. There are new beginnings happening every day. Everywhere. Not just where you, yourself, stand. If the whole world were watching, could yours be an example of encouragement? Would yours be an example to continue? Remember accountability and responsibility. This is about each one of us looking at ourselves as individuals first. Not pointing fingers. Because we will all fall short. That is the very reason, by linguistic design, for the words ‘try’ and ‘persistence’. While it is far from easy to eradicate the word ‘failure’ it becomes less difficult over time. When you try. Even a little bit. If the spring before was full of stress it does not follow that the next one will then be stress-free. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Hopefully it will feel more like life is more a puzzle to be figured out than life as a battle to be fought. Puzzles welcome open discussion, open dialog, and healthy debate. Battles inevitably lead to violence. Puzzles lead to resolutions and resolutions are examples of success. Battles have winners and losers. Whenever discussion, dialog and debate are perceived as battleground then what you are ultimately left with are casualties. And where there is violence there is no need for metaphor. Even the cloudiest spring is wonderful. There is renewal all around and so much just feels better in the purest and most universal sense. That does not negate the fact that there are still rivers of pain in so many places and for so many reasons. There are people, individually, hurting for so many reasons that often go unsaid. And there are times when that must be acknowledged. There is a collective energy in the air, though, with the coming of spring. One that suggests that hope, as an idea, is more powerful than any slogan that can too easily be forgotten with yesterday’s news. The energy suggests that each one of us, each in our own personal, distinct and fantastically unique ways, actually can…still. Can what? That is up to each and every one of us to decide. And that is the most beautiful possibility of all when those decisions come from those who walk, first, with dignity. ~~~~ and if i were to write a letter today, what would it be about? trust, i suppose. ~~~~ look upon this body awake and alive. this body of One. Pronounced 'Song' When your dreams come true, what will they look like? Will you know them when you see them? What will they taste like? More than anything, when your dreams come true, will you be ready? The first evening in Varanasi was surreal. It felt as though we were walking on a timeless cloud as we made our way to a giant patchy and uneven field that multiple groups of young boys were using as a pitch to play games of cricket. At the time we did not know that the surrounding temples were at least hundreds of years old, or that they were temples at all. To us they were just remnants of old buildings. An era passed. Overgrown with weeds because of the distance of time. And then there was the summoning. From beyond the crumbling outer wall. It was The Ganges that had spoken. It is hard to explain what seeing a river for the first time is like. Especially during low season and, when despite all you have ever read or heard tell, you still have no expectation. To learn to have no expectation in all things is to welcome sublime beauty however it may come to you. At first you think, "There's a river." Not as arresting as a mountain or the sea. Rounding a bend and seeing a mountain for the first time is pretty much like getting punched squarely in the jaw. And seeing a particular ocean or sea is like getting all of the breath in your lungs squeezed out by the hand of God so that they may then be filled with the gentle mist floating above. The first time I saw the Mekong it was eerily quiet. Low season, too. No hint of a monsoon. The surface was soft. Liquid. Glass is too cliché a description. It was not quite the same with the Mississippi. The potential for brute strength was evident but it was during a hot, thick stillness in summer. And then there is the mystical beauty of the tiny river Xong. It is easy to fall in love with life by its side because the natural wonders along its path do not cease. During a quiet time you can take a swim, drink from it, or discreetly watch monk children cloaked in saffron robes splash and play. Cows cross. People cross. People bathe and wash clothes in its eddies. So much life happening in the little river Xong. None of it above the volume of a whisper. The East and the Hudson are no longer rivers as far as I am concerned. At least, not where I have been able to see them. They are part of the backdrop to an intensely urban existence that has everything to do with the flow of people and very little to do with the flow of life and water. They serve more as landmarks now, helping people to figure out left from right in a maze of ordered confusion. There are still moments, though, when I still cannot help but wonder, "Before 'time', what did the quiet of these waters sound like?" context for the Ganges is different. beyond it is a chunk of earth so large that to the naked eye, it would be completely dizzying to look at</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">if not for the line that is the river which must be there to temper it, or if there were not splashes of birds the color of green highlighter pens, every once in a while, darting across the sky. when the sun begins to set, heaven and earth and infinity touch in the water's reflection. how land, in places, manages to command all things is only possible for me to comprehend after having first had my breath taken away by seeing, for the first time a year before, a wide open and completely unobstructed desert. at sunrise, and at sunset, heaven and earth were one. you learn there is something specific that the earth actually does by just existing, untouched. she waits. Pendulum : Prism : Renaissance I sat by the water’s edge with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was not lost. I could have been anyone. In any country. At any time. And so this was the beginning of time – my time – which is a lot to think about. What is certain is that old myths no longer matter. We are living in a brand new one right now. And it is an honor to realize that what we are doing is, collectively, looking for, and finding, new ways to begin. That really does lead to so much more. Sometimes folks may speak about being tired. But being tired does not mean being done. And it certainly does not mean being finished. It does not mean losing a war or a battle. Being tired can very well mean being exhausted from having won the battle. And the war. This, too, is the meaning of springtime. And this is the meaning of having a clear understanding of what it means to never walk alone. There is metaphor. And then there is life. Real life. When you have the ability to point to any number of examples over the course of history – over the course of time – then you have a better idea of the word ‘myriads’. And, too, you have an acute understanding of the word ‘countless’. And all of it is positive when deconstructing what some of us mean when we say we never, ever walk alone. From whom do you draw your strength? What does art mean to you? How does the artist value springtime? That is, literally, asking how one feels about creation. Think about that last sentence. As an artist. In the midst of every single thing that you do. In theory there are philosophical questions. In fact? Every painting has a first stroke. Every song has a first note. Every ocean – every sea, every river, every spring – has its very first drop of dew. A river overflowing can be a beautiful notion when measured against the backdrop of time. Look upon the Ganges at a distance, and, up close. If the very sight of that river can cause a change in the flow of thought, then imagine the experience on a river boat. And be sure to look forward. Whose Mississippi might you see? Whose river Jordan? Many things return in springtime. For a long time that has been the focus. And so we wait. So much, though, begins. Simply. And quietly. In ways that we fail to notice. We see the geese come back. And then, one day, goslings just appear. But when the geese come back some are always a bit heavier in ways that we do not always look for. Goslings do not "just" appear. Little green sprouty things seem to just pop up through the ground. They don’t actually pop up from nothing without something having been there all along. Those of us who do not particularly care for a certain temperature that often gets defined as cold can still appreciate the reason for it as part of the growth process. It is with the understanding that nature produces everything, everywhere. Nature produces. And this is not metaphor. It is one thing to feel springtime creatively as an artist. It is quite another to see what springtime can mean all over the world from one year to the next if you take a moment to look and then somehow think about it. A whole, and completely different story altogether is, as an artist, bearing witness to the springtime of a whole and new era. Free time allows for that. Free thinking allows for that. Freedom, in time, thinking, allows for that. None of the sentences in this paragraph should be taken lightly. Time is relative. In relation to the earth? That adds a whole different dimension to the idea of honoring one’s mother and father. This is not as complicated as it could be. Thankfully. Because there is a great deal, too, to the reality of picking and choosing. As an editor – and as a writer first – you learn that your choices are about so much more than battles. In a new era it is also about understanding the power in choosing not to concern yourself with folks who may have, for whatever reason, not come to their own realizations in time. And, too, some folks just love winter. Life is way too complex as it is. Distractions, you learn, are woven into the fabric of the design for a reason. The true artist will concern themselves first with beauty. And with love. Doing so means the work will always be a demonstration of growth. And of springtime. This is not a renaissance where the pendulum is swinging in one direction or another. This is a new age. And so, for a change, the pendulum has been removed. Time has been set free. ~~~~ "We think of our age as the age of all ages when Man has grown modern at last. But what other page among History's pages was so overburdened with past?" -- Piet Hein ~~~~ Starfish You know those lazy Sunday mornings when you are resting in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, not really awake or asleep? This was one of those mornings. Wha-PAP!…one…two…three…four…Wha-PAP!…one…two…three…four… Wha-PAP!…one…two…three…four…Wha-PAP! was what first stirred me into a more active frame of mind. And then my mother, calling out to my stepfather, “Call an ambulance, I chopped off a piece of my finger!” What? “I said, call an ambulance! I chopped off a piece of my finger!” I am not exactly sure what my stepfather did, but I recognized the confused panic in the sound of his movement from behind my closed bedroom door. I also recognized in my mother’s voice, over what was clearly shock, a focused and centered calm. My first instinct, based on all that I’d heard, was to slide on my jeans and a sweater. And then I ran to the kitchen. My mother had been using a cleaver to chop still partially frozen goat meat. She was standing by the sink with a towel wrapped around her hand. And, from the look on her face, she was vexed. “Call an ambulance, please,” she said to me. And then she told me what happened. When the Emergency Operator answered I gave our address. And then I gave her the story. My mother had been using a cleaver and somehow her hand had slipped. She said she chopped off the top of her left middle finger. No, I did not see it. Her hand was wrapped in a towel. She was applying pressure. I also gave them a list of her medications. “We’ll send someone right away.” The woman’s voice was comforting. After hanging up and waiting for what felt to me in that moment like the longest moment, I became acutely aware of the fact that the ambulance had not yet come. I left our apartment and ran downstairs to wait in front of our building. There was a gentle flurry of snow. Finally I heard the siren. It was not exactly the eternity that it had felt like to me – the response time was really just under five minutes. I introduced myself to the E. M. T.’s who could tell, immediately, that I was somehow related to the call and began telling them exactly what had happened. I listed for them my mother’s medications and they just sort of looked at me as we walked together into the building and onto the elevator. And then one E. M. T. then asked, “She chopped off the whole top of her finger?” “I am not exactly sure,” I said. “I didn’t see it.” Both gentlemen exchanged a look as the doors to the elevator door opened onto our floor. When the gentlemen and I got to our apartment my mother was standing at the door to greet them. My mother and one E. M T. sat at the dining room table while the other and I stood. She explained to both men exactly what had happened. The gentleman sitting asked where the piece of her finger was that was chopped off and she said she’d quickly put it back on. He paused slightly, and then asked her what she meant. My mother said that as soon as it happened she placed the piece of finger back on her hand. Both men looked at each other, and then at me, and then back at my mother. It was then that she told them her background as a registered nurse. The look of both men suddenly became more knowing. The gentleman speaking to my mother said that he still needed to take a look. Carefully, he helped my mother remove the towel. The cut was clean. But at an angle. Immediately, he re-wrapped her hand and asked if she were ready. My mother said yes, called for her coat, and my stepfather came out of the back and handed it to her. As she prepared to leave my mother said to me, “I’m going to need you to finish cooking dinner.” What!? “I am going to need you to finish cooking dinner. I have no idea how long we are going to be at the hospital and when we come back I am going to be hungry.” She had no intention of enduring hospital food. She said, “Take the pieces of meat that have my blood on them and throw them in the garbage. Finish cooking the rest.” The rice and peas had already been prepared. All I had to do was work with the curry. I didn’t say anything, really. I just listened and nodded. The E. M. T.’s looked at me and shrugged as everyone left. And then I took a moment. It was the first time that I was able to actively direct my attention to where what happened…happened. I did as my mother said. And I finished cooking dinner. According to the passing of time and what my mother later told me, the wait in the emergency room had been typical. That is, until my stepfather helped speed things up a bit. Eventually my mother was released. The doctors told her that there was not really much they could do but wait to see if the piece of finger that she placed back on would find a way to reattach itself. Stitches, under the circumstances, were not an option. Not long after, my mother was sitting in her regular doctor’s office. He told her that it did not look good. Eventually the piece would just “slosh” off. “It won’t be that bad,” he said. Because she had managed to miss touching bone. “Minor disfigurement, at best.” My mother, based on how she felt, told him, “It will be just fine.” She believed the piece of finger would grow back. The doctor looked at her and sighed. And then there was a little back and forth. More of a firm exchange. And then my mother became quiet. But she was, indeed, smiling. After scheduling another appointment in a couple of weeks, she thanked the doctor and left. Just like the doctors said, the piece of finger that my mother chopped off and then put back on did not last much longer. Instead of sloshing off, though, it just sort of became hard and withered like newborn belly button chord. Eventually it just dropped. A few weeks passed. And then a few more. We had all watched my mother’s hand on a daily basis. And then she went to see her doctor. There are times when you wish you could be a fly on the wall in a room. And others when you wish you were actually standing there. The doctor had been a bit smug the last time my mother saw him, which was after she first showed him her hand. My mother always remained “matter-of-fact.” When she came home from seeing him – the doctor – she said the examination went well. He was amazed at how her finger, and even the nail, had grown completely back. Whenever I tell people this story they focus, mainly, on the cleaver. And then on what everything must have looked like. In the kitchen. That day. What I noticed, in looking at my mother’s hand, is that the only way you could tell anything happened at all was that on the pad, diagonally, on the re-grown piece, there was no print. Her whole fingernail, though, was quite smooth. for you She could not hold the finished pages in her hands...they were virtual, but she was proud of them, nonetheless. And she still had her notebooks. Her reward would be shooting stars. All of them -- each and every one -- for love in the night's sky. Always. ~~~~ If reading is meditation, and writing is prayer, then what is language? Xong. ~~~~ Night’s Quiet Prose Poetry - Formerly Titled 'Liquid Silver' “Honey,” she said. “Come look at this.” I opened my eyes to a strange and glowing stillness that can only happen when the sky is clear, the night is quiet, and the moon is full a couple of hours past midnight. I got up and went to the window. The reflection cast upon the surface of the water was clearly the reason why mercury</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">is described as liquid. “Wow,” I said. One can still say that and mean it. She knew that I had not yet seen what she had and so she asked, “Why do you suppose they’re doing that?” I looked into the absence of light on the shore along the water’s edge and saw the silhouettes of cows. At least twenty-four. And, with the exception of a few flanking the outer edges facing away from the group, they were all laying down. Not like you might think when you hear the phrase, ‘cows laying down,’ but in that way that cows, and sometimes horses, do when they are completely relaxed and can find comfort in taking a load off – reclined on their sides with their forelegs tucked beneath them, their heads waist-high to a person. They looked more like a pride of lions basking in the sun. Only they were cows. And it was moonlight. “I have no idea what they’re doing,” I said. "I can’t tell whether or not it’s creepy.” We opened the front door of the hut and stood outside. The warmth of the water’s breeze opened us up. We stood there. The feeling of not being alone did not come from the cows but from the couple staying next door. Recognizing the moment for what it was one of them whispered, “They’ve been like that for the longest time.” And then, without the expectation of an answer, “Why do you think they are doing that?” The gentle movement of the water’s surface was the only indicator of the passage of time. After a while we went back inside, looking a few more times from the window before drifting off to sleep. If cows walking on sand by the sea has a distinct sound, what exactly do you listen for? When we woke up in the morning</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">it was almost as though they were never there. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But cows, being cows,</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">always manage to leave proof. From This Planet We Call Home : Truth Prism </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wherever you are when you read this, take a moment to look outside and imagine what it must have been like five hundred years ago. Now imagine what it might be like five hundred years into the future. That is what it is like to be inside my head. Always. My name is Deborah Cowell. I am someone’s child. I am someone’s friend. I am someone’s cousin. I am someone’s niece. I am someone’s sister. For someone, somewhere, anywhere, I am also an example. I call home a place where I am a member of an ever increasing group of family and friends, all of whom, without a shadow of a doubt, are moving toward a deeper understanding of the word love. I believe that another world – a brighter, more peaceful world – is possible. Right now. In this very moment. We all have a role in making it happen. Not in words, but in action. It isn’t always easy to know where to begin, but once you do, failure is not an option. I used to have a note on the bulletin board above my office desk that read, "Art never comes from happiness," and rarely did anyone comment. One person, though, did say they thought it was depressing. I think about that note every once in a while. And I have to say that, to be sure, I stand by it. Art never does come from happiness. I don't believe it. And I won’t believe it. It may bring happiness. And all kinds of joy. But art, in its purest and most unadulterated form comes from a much deeper, much more sublime place. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you are a musician and you sit down to write a song. Or you are a poet, and you sit down to write a poem. Same thing, actually. Well, what if you are a painter and you set up your easel? Hmm...same thing. Let's just say you are a craftsperson of some sort and you sit down to do your thing. Some days there will be a rhythm and everything will just flow. The days where things flow are too easy to talk about. Any artist will tell you those days are not only wonderful, those are the days they long for because, often, they seem so few and far between. Think about the days when things don't flow. The days when you just get stuck. What happens? To your song? To your poem? To your painting? To your craft? Do you get up in the middle and go do something else or do you just kind of sit there? What do you do? What if you get up and go to the kitchen and pull out some pots and pans and then you go to the cupboard and get a little of whatever you can find and you start making your music, first, there? What if, when you sit down to write your symphony, or song, or poem, instead you sketch a picture? What if, instead of painting that masterpiece in your mind you decide to write a rhyme or a verse? What if you pick up a needle and thread? What if, instead, you work with soil? And, what if, after doing all that, you then sit down again to look at your song? You sit down to re-write your paragraph? What if you sit down after you've redirected your energy for just a little while to do something that, in the end, is about more than just cultivating focus? Does art come from happiness then? Does it still sound depressing? That all depends – do you hook up those rice and beans? Do you doodle more than a few stick figures? Does your rhyme become a bit of science to be dropped? Does your needlework become an elaborate quilt? Do you amaze yourself with what happens when you touch your hand to a bit of earth? I am not speaking metaphorically. Spring always turns to summer, and summer to fall. Winter, no matter where you are, will always be when the fruits of labor taste sweetest. If it is belaboring the point one more time to say that art, at least as I see it, will never come from happiness, then I will belabor the point one more time because art, as I see it, really does come from love. If someone thinks that's somehow depressing then I guess I have to say I feel sorry for them because I think art coming from love is such a beautiful thing. Who we are, as a people – as people – is the most amazing and unique notion. We now live in a time where it feels more possible than ever to see the all of the unique differences between us as something more profound if we try, and we don’t even have to look any further than our own belly buttons to begin. Fingerprints, shoe size, height, smiles; are not difference but variation on the exact same design. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but try. As long as you’ve got a belly button. It is a whole lot easier to be around a billion people who try than one who feels they do not have to, especially if that one person is you. Just try. Let today be the day that we, not as a people, but as a race, with a myriad of unfathomable variations, believe with all our hearts that things can get better, that things will get better. You cannot – you must not – infer from this that there is no happiness. Because, in our own unique and varied ways, we are all artists of some kind and we have reached the moment where it is time for us to try, however we can, to live up to our potential instead of being dreams deferred. It is no secret that there are some really bad things happening in so many places. More than you think, actually. More than we all could ever realize. How many bad things, exactly, though, do you have to gather in your personal information bank before you check yourself and say, "Wait a minute, though, I am all right"? The context for this is simple. I was watching a friend of mine read one of her poems, because the Internet can be dope like that, and the chords she hit also touched me. She wasn't talking about birds and bees and flowers and trees -- she was talking about the world in which we live. She expressed pain. She expressed sorrow. She expressed a great deal of anger. But never, not once, regret. She talked about looking forward. She talked about what you must be doing if you were listening to her. In that moment. Which could be any moment. And that is what is most amazing. Especially given the world she has seen already. At some point we all have the opportunity to ask ourselves, "Is something special happening?" The hope is that we have the courage to say, "Yes." Especially in the face of a lot that is unfortunate. I think something very special is happening, but it won't happen overnight. "There is no bad patience." In some parts of the world media has shrunken the planet to about the size of a dime. Information overload is the order of the day and it just becomes too much. In other parts of the world media hasn't done a thing but make all kinds of matters worse. And, in some parts of the world it doesn't really matter because even if there were media that folks had access to, there are more pressing things on their minds. It is best to have the presence of mind to understand that "some parts of the world" can be anywhere at any time. Maybe I am saying some things that you feel you have heard before and you are like, "Whatever." For me the thing is that I have not heard for such a long time that things can actually get better. And, especially based on the way that I see the world, outside, at home, and in my wildest dreams, I think that things will be okay. What I don't understand, and what I don't want anyone to attempt to explain to me is why that has to be a "unique" perspective. Being certain that things can get better is far from madness. When I was in school a man came to speak to a group of us. Hindsight tells me that he was a motivational speaker of some sort. He said, "No matter what you do the world will still continue to revolve. You can go out and do something or you can sit crumpled up in a corner. The world will still continue to revolve." He didn't tell us what to do, or what not to do. He was just being clear about what happens. I, as it turned out, happened to be sitting on the floor at the time because there were no more seats. I thought he was speaking directly to me and it is my hope that everyone else in that room felt the same way. Now, why did I remember what this man said so vividly? Probably because, in the back of my mind, I knew that there might be a minute somewhere in my future where I might just sit down in a corner for a minute. The fact is, we all do. And you know what? The world does continue to revolve. And that is a good thing. It is not the sitting down, but the getting up that matters. When you find the strength to get up, it will always be in time. I like to think I remember what that man said for the same reason that I remember, and sometimes share, a quote that I came across one afternoon. It was written on a chalkboard, just there by itself, like a bit of permanent protest. "If my desires were as strong as my fears I would have more of what I want." I wrote it down that day so as not to forget but, in the back of my mind, unbeknownst to me until not that long ago, it became a bit of a mantra. Every once in a while, despite myself, I would like to think I went one step further. Not in some outrageous superhero way. Just good enough to help me get through each day. Because sometimes that's what you need. And, sometimes it needs to be bigger. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"If my desires were as strong as my fears I would have more of what I want." The question becomes, what do folks want? For me it is pretty simple. Seeing what it is that I see? My strongest desire is for folks, no matter who they are, no matter where they are, to try to be a little bit kinder. Really. That's it. It doesn't get any deeper than that. Kindness does not have to be a mission, but it can be a directive. I don't wish for absolute silence – crickets, the ocean and hearty laughter really are beautiful and inspiring. But when folks are making an effort to be a little bit more kind, wherever they are, you may very well find that the outside noise just isn't as harsh and as grating. As people who understand themselves to be artists, there is no point in listing all of the things that you don't want as opposed to what you do because genuine art is not esoteric. Being just a little bit nicer and little more kind is a start. It is a baby step. It is the beginning of the notion of lending a helping hand. It also helps open the door to reason. I'm not talking about going so far outside of yourself that it becomes bizarre and unrealistic. The point is that while optimism fades it never really goes out. And I am both honored by that realization and humbled by the fact that I have absolutely no problem saying it. There is no wrong time to say to someone, "You know what? It will get better." And there is no real need to wear it on your sleeve if it really is in your heart. Some folks see it, and some folks don't. And if we at times pause ourselves that, too, is okay. Desire being stronger than fear, for me, isn't about one doing battle with the other. It is about the very real fact that there can be no room for both. There still has to be discretion, though. Just because you lose your fear of the biggest dog doesn't mean you go to the zoo and climb into the lion's den. You learn to navigate your space with reason while realizing that while we are all human, some, for whatever reason, cannot initially hear, see, or speak kindly because where they are is where they are and that is all. And so we hope. If we are able, in some way, to recognize the art within ourselves then we are in the best possible position to look both to our left and our right, wherever we are on the planet, and recognize the art in absolutely everything – divine variation. </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> ~~~~</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"First, love! Love and enjoy everything! If you're waiting to be happy before you start being loving, then you'll find that you're in for a very long wait. Similarly, if you're waiting to be successful before you're truly loving and generous, then you'll be greatly disappointed and frustrated. There's no such thing as happiness without love first, health without love first, peace of mind without love first or freedom without love first. First, love!" -- Robert Holden "Gratitude is an angel that blesses both giver and receiver." -- universal proverb </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~ </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A Sociology Project/Language Exercise : Prism Look up, and read everything being said about your demographic, the year you were born and then when you were five. then, again, when you were fifteen. and then, twenty-one. And now? That's the question. How do you compare? Exactly how do you measure, statistically? Exactly. And, By the way You will be graded. Zen Master Art : The Written Word : Handball As a Prism </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To win with humility. To lose with grace. This is what handball teaches those who play for the love of the game. 1. The Game Handball will tell you a great deal about a person if you pay close enough attention to how they play. As with most things studied at the highest level, and as quiet as it is kept, the game of inner city "Big Blue" is, in fact, a Martial Art. To play all you need is a ball and a wall. To become a strong player takes focus, time, and practice. To become a Master? Focus, time, and discipline. The greatest players of the game of Big Blue will not tell you that it takes heart to be a winner because for them winning is not necessarily the objective. The greatest players will not tell you how to attack the ball and kill every shot because they understand that the essence of the game--respect--can only be learned through the dialog of an honest volley. The greatest players will not tell you that handball is a game of anticipation and preparedness while always being on your toes and ready for infinite possibility because they know that the game teaches this over time to all who come to the game with an open heart. They will not tell you by how many points they have either won or lost, and they will neither brag nor make excuses. The great Masters will not tell you anything at all. They just come to the courts to study themselves and one day, without saying a word, simply disappear. If you are unfamiliar with inner city Big Blue, pass by a playground court and stop for a moment to watch a few players. You may find that you are fascinated by the game at first through spectacle without understanding how to spot the true greats. They do not move around the court with cat-like reflexes trying to pick up every single shot. They do not display dominating strength by powering the ball, trying to destroy with every swing. The ball is made of rubber after all and, no matter what, it comes back from the wall with as much or as little force as it was sent. A comparison for the game at its purest is Jujitsu. When you study the angles think of Billiards. With regard to movement? Think Chess. You may realize that you are watching one of the greats if you know what to look for. You will find that they tend to stay in one place on the court, serving more as puppet masters while the top players garner all the attention. The great Big Blue players are not on the courts every day, and they do not take kindly to the phrase "weekend warrior." They are warriors always. Watching the top players compete against each other teaches you that there is very little to be learned from watching them. Outside of tournament play their games rarely finish. First come the accusations of skimmed points or mystery calls. And then come the arguments. “You didn’t get that!” followed by, “Yes I did pick that one up!” and, “That was only after two bounces!” inevitably leads to someone storming off in a huff. When watching the top players play against the greats you learn that the better a top player becomes at putting the ball away, focusing solely on what is otherwise known as the “kill shot”, the more likely it is that they are becoming skilled at winning games and missing the point. The great ones do not run or jump and they certainly do not dive, although they do welcome the opportunity to move around from time to time because when they do they know that they are learning. In the game of Big Blue there is very little that the top players have not done. In addition to winning every conceivable kind of tournament, they have also beaten opponents while wearing house slippers. They have beaten opponents while eating bags of potato chips, pretzels, or popcorn. They have beaten opponents while reclining in lawn chairs and sitting on crates. There are more stories of the top player winning in all kinds of ways because the top player of Big Blue always changes. Lots of people have the story about witnessing the game with the crate because top players cannot resist doing it. Same with the slippers. Same with the lawn chair. Different top players may feign different reasons but, in the end, the top players are always, first, hustlers. The greatest player, ever, of inner city Big Blue will only ever be one specific person. He never tried to make a name for himself while sitting on a crate or reclining in a lawn chair, and he never disrespected either his opponents or the game by stepping onto the court in house shoes. The greatest player ever to play the game of Big Blue understood handball as an Art through which he could develop the discipline he would need to get through life. And it was in this game that from so much he found solace. 2. The Greatest Player There is a rumor that the greatest player of inner city Big Blue might actually be left-handed. If you have ever seen him play, at best you can say that he is ambidextrous. The same holds true if you are one of the rare few that has been at the right place at the right time and had the presence of mind to pay attention when he's picked up a pen to sign his name. If you have ever played against him, even once, then you know it really does not matter. Because he is lanky at over six feet tall and he has incredible reach—-physically, he was designed for the game. And, because he came out of small ball first, both hands have that “whip”. In just the right place. At just the right time. Players will tell you that this does not refer to his actual hands but, instead, to his wrists. They give him the ability to do whatever he wants with the ball, at will. Absolutely anything. From anywhere on the court. At will. The game, at it purest, teaches control. Thankfully handball, over time, also teaches discretion. The greatest player of inner city Big Blue was very young when he played in his very first street tournament although by then he’d taken the city championship at the high school level. That was a small ball tournament, though, and Big Blue, as small players will most assuredly tell you, is not the same thing. The greatest player lost this street tournament. Miserably. It was a game of doubles and, frankly, he just wasn’t mentally prepared. His partner, a top player, was arguably one of the strongest human beings ever. Say that dude’s name to anyone who has ever seen him and the look in their eyes will change. They will pause, and then they will say, “Yeah, that dude is strong.” Expectations were high for the greatest player because he’d been mopping folks off the court in playground games. His tournament collapse, then, was the most bizarre thing to witness. One-wall Big Blue is pretty straight forward. As in, when you hit the ball it is supposed to go forward. The degree to which the greatest player miss-hit the ball, along with the absolute and complete raw force as a result of his “whip,” made his every shot a danger to the people on the sidelines. There is nothing funny about this. It was exactly like watching a prodigy pianist forget how to read music while playing a sonatina. There was, it seemed, instead of skill, madness. The opposing team, favored to lose, recognized the weakness and showed no mercy. One of the strongest human beings never touched the ball in that game. But it gets worse. The courts were set up like Greek theater. You had to step down to get to them and the crowd was seated around the perimeter. After the match point was played and lost the chorus was unforgiving and relentless: “Do you know how much I lost?” “How could you!?” “What happened?” “He choked!” Almost all in unison. Even his partner cursed him and walked away. Not one voice of consolation for the greatest player except the one in his head. “They’re not going to care about you when you go out into the world. Do this because you love it and learn all it has to teach you.” His handball coach’s words. She was a solid player in her own right who most people that day probably never heard of because she came up through the ranks of small ball and she found her way teaching in high school. She understood and taught the game as an Art. It was because of the care she took in encouraging her students to focus first on life that one of the most intense collapses in tournament play was not the end of a player. It also wasn’t the beginning because this isn’t opera. What happened that day is what happens sometimes when the only ones betting are hustlers. The development of the greatest player of inner city Big Blue was fascinating to watch over time. Many people took him under their respective wings and tried to help him grow. Their objective, however, was to get him to win street tournaments. It was not long before the stories started to circulate. About the different opponents he would beat for fun on the playground in games that went straight to twenty-one. And then the two opponents he would beat—by himself. Also for fun. And then the two opponents he would beat by himself with one hand. This, at first, was a challenge. And the two that he would beat by himself with either hand, but never both, because if he used both it wasn't. Then came the opponents who were beaten with one hand while having been spotted ten points. For fun, to be sure, but also as a test. The stories were all true. But never once in a tournament. While bad news can travel just as fast as good news, truth on a court—any court—always becomes legend. 3. The Lesson Learned The greatest player of inner city Big Blue did play in a few more tournaments. Both single and doubles. The results were not so much collapses as they were close losses. One day the greatest player made it clear that he did not want to play in tournaments anymore. He said they were not fun and they took away from his ability to just enjoy the game. What you don’t know? How young he was when he said that, and all of the other things that were on his mind at the time. He was under the age of twenty-one and he was also, at the time, homeless. As fate would have it, the greatest player of inner city Big Blue had a face-off with Big Blue’s undisputed top player. Oddly enough it happened at a tournament although not actually in one. It was a women’s double’s competition. They, too, have their own story. The top player challenged the greatest player and took him to an empty court on the other side of the wall to quietly play the game. A lot of people didn’t see a single shot because when they finally heard the game was being played it was almost over and they had been slow in making their way because at first they did not believe. When most finally realized that the rumor was true many were upset because it was the game they would have paid to see. The top player really was trying his best to win. This is undisputed. He was all over the court. The greatest player of inner city Big Blue had absolutely nothing to prove and so he played like a dream. He placed each shot. Every shot. Anywhere. Everywhere. Effortlessly. At will. To see an athlete in any sport as relaxed as he was that day is to witness the human form as it was meant to be, by design, when every single movement is perfection. The athlete’s eyes are not wild with excitement, anger, or frustration. They are still. They see. What, in comparison, does this particular game justice? Using the discourse of the handball player it is best to think of the day when you had your absolute personal best. The day when you were feeling “hot,” you were on your toes, and the handball, to you, was more like a beach ball coming in slow motion that you sent back to the wall in a blur. If you were playing doubles the only thing your partner was doing was keeping score and watching. If you were playing singles the score did not matter. In either case you just played until someone said, “Nice game.” Whatever day it was, it was your personal best. Handball players remember. The greatest player of inner city Big Blue did not become great that day. As is the case with most things, it was a process, but he most certainly won that game. He was not smug and he did not brag. And he remained a pillar of calm while the top player insisted over and over again, louder and louder, that there be a rematch. The greatest player refused. It was in the weeks, months, and years after that in which the character of the greatest player to ever play Big Blue was revealed. Bushido. Zen. Master. There will always only ever be one. The top player always changes. Every once in a while the undisputed top player would call the greatest player ever to play the game of Big Blue out by challenging him to play in a tournament. And everyone around the game of handball wanted to see it. The greatest player had always been rather soft-spoken and a little distant but never aloof when he said no. Even in the face of what seemed like random hostility from friends whenever the subject came up. Often, he would offer a question that was simple, honest, and never answered—what did he have to prove? Epilogue One day, while sitting on the sidelines of his home court, a person who was older than him came up and started a conversation for some laughs. About tournaments. About rematches. About heart. The questions were loud. The questions were intentional. And the questions were unquestionably mean-spirited. There was also, “But everyone wants to see you play,” and, “That’s why everyone thinks you’re scared." Finally there was, “What if eighty-thousand people think that you should play (the undisputed top player) in a tournament?” The response could not have been better if it were scripted. “Just because eighty-thousand people agree, that doesn’t make me wrong.” What you don’t know? How young he was when he said this. Or what else was on his mind. The moral of the story is simple: Any dragon need only be slayed once. The lesson for handball players everywhere? You have not played handball for real until you’ve played it in Brooklyn! </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~ </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"We have to use our skills and imagination and our art, to recreate the rhythms of the endless crisis of normality, and in doing so, expose the policies and processes that make ordinary things -- food, water, shelter, and dignity -- such a distant dream for ordinary people." -- Arundhati Roy</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">~~~~ </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Canvas : Discipline : Prism Victor St. Marco Calderon was a man of few words and many friends, all of whom he chose wisely. Juan Pablo was new to the job. The two men were together that day because it was Juan Pablo’s first day and he needed training. Victor St. Marco Calderon had an air of ease about him as he had been clear about how best to proceed with the training while Juan Pablo, himself, was nervous. The buses were pulling in and out of the station on schedule, which, while not especially usual, was welcomed for a change. Juan Pablo found that he needed to shout in order to hear himself while Victor St. Marco Calderon spoke very little and demonstrated the proper way to squeegee the windows because, given all of the background noise, he knew it was better that Juan Pablo understand rather than that he, himself, be heard. The lesson was clear – start with fresh, soapy water and always a clean, soft cloth. Too much water on the windows to start will just leave a mess on the floor. Not enough and you are not really cleaning at all. After the windows have been properly soaped, place the squeegee at the top and be sure to pay attention. Your lines should be horizontal, smooth and connected. Stop only to wipe your squeegee and, when you have finally gotten the hang of it, that might very well only be after you have completed a window. When they first started, Juan Pablo said that he understood, but Victor St. Marco Calderon demonstrated his explanation anyway. He did the first window. He did the second. And then he did a third. While Juan Pablo watched he told Victor St. Marco Calderon about his wife and two small daughters. Or, rather, he shouted above the mashed up sound of arriving and idling buses. The sound of buses departing, in this instance, was a loud absence of noise rather than quiet. Victor St. Marco Calderon, after the third window, handed Juan Pablo the squeegee. And then he knelt down over the pail to tend properly to the cloth. Juan Pablo spoke of his childhood. He shared the story of how he had come to learn the game of football, as well as his moderate success during his school years, at the position of striker. Victor St. Marco Calderon, from his crouched position, handed Juan Pablo the cloth. In his first attempt, Juan Pablo used way too much water and, in his second, a little less, slightly. Victor St. Marco did not have to go far for the mop but he saw no use in re-doing a window. The bus station was not the largest. At the same time, it was by no means small. Juan Pablo was full of warmth and laughter and a bunch of stories as he learned his job. Victor St. Marco Calderon just listened. Every third, and sometimes fourth, window the squeegee exchanged hands. While all of this continued until the end of the day, neither man was exhausted. As evening set in the two men walked to the cleaning area, which was a small, freestanding building apart from the station that also served as a bathroom. Victor St. Marco Calderon had, in one hand, the squeegee and, in the other, the pail with the now soiled water and cloth. Juan Pablo pushed, noisily across the uneven pavement, the mop with its bucket on wheels. After cleaning up, the two men waited, quietly, outside of the manager’s office as Cuñado Lento remained consistent in demonstrating how he’d earned his nickname for paying wages. When the door opened, music from what could only have been a tiny transistor radio made its way into the air. An ink-stained, yet otherwise immaculately kept hand held out two envelopes. Victor St. Marco Calderon took them both. And then with no click, no squeak, and no slam for effect, the door simply closed. Juan Pablo received his envelope and thanked Victor St. Marco Calderon for his training. “All in a day’s work,” he said with a smile while holding up his envelope. Victor St. Marco Calderon carefully folded his before placing it in his back pocket and said, “Not for the day, my friend. For one station.” Translation "Why do we have to study languages? Why do we have to force ourselves to communicate with people? Why is this process of communication so troubled and so painful?" from A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo Moment of Realization There is an intensity to life. This goes for beauty as well as horror. Something happens when you concentrate mostly on beauty. Once, while in India, I caught an ant that was about a half inch long and placed it under a lupe. The time was early evening. I bent down and placed my eye over the lens and, wouldn't you know, the ant turned its head and looked up! There was in fact, a definitive turning of the head and, indeed, looking. And then it adjusted its little body. It is one thing to be in a stare down with a dog or a cat, and quite another to be in one with an ant. It gives you perspective. After a moment, I lifted the lupe. The ant did not take off. The steps it took were slow and deliberate. It walked. The ant stopped and turned for a moment, too, before continuing. Not from the way that it was still, but from the way that it shook its head, I am sure that it was taking a moment to give me the business before leaving. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Reality.Check  The meaning of things does not come from buildings but from mountains, oceans, grains of sand and little drops of water. In A Digital Age As a writer you come to realize there are a few who will look at you as though you are crazy. But there are also those who will tell you that you are brave. For every one who denounces your reality and dares you to take them on as they challenge your very existence, there will be more who encourage you to hold firm in your conviction. You learn that you will have the luxury of finding solace in your written word as well as first-hand knowledge through your work that it is indeed possible to bear down and face your insecurities through the creative spirit. Each stroke of your pen is proof that you are doing this for love. And that what you have, and hold most dear, is your life as an example of that fact. This is what some of us mean by the word 'legacy'. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Live passionately. Exorcise your demons. Define tears. Each and every one that has ever fallen. The dust from the madness of doubt is just an illusion to scare away the fearful and, nonetheless, it will settle. When it does, if you find that you feel as though you are standing alone, know that you have demonstrated the resolve to define inner strength. And, too, know that alone does not have to mean lonely when you are truly among friends. Make no apology for living a life full of discovery. Make no apology for dreaming. This is, after all, truly what we are here for. Let the movement of your pen across the page define you. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When Tomorrow Becomes Today History is not repeating itself verbatim. It is being rewritten in an entirely new way, the likes of which have never been seen before. The variable is the power of documentation. We all have it now. The other world that is possible is here. What time is it? The time is now. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Word From An Editor's Notebook Writing chooses us. We think that there are a whole bunch of things that we can do to manufacture it but we cannot. Either you write or you don’t and that is all. Writing chooses us and the writing life is testament to that fact. There is no getting around it or walking away from it. That comes as a death sentence to those who do not take care. But there is something special that washes over you when you realize it is actually a life sentence. There is infinite possibility in all that can mean and so, when we come of age, those of us who take the greatest care have the highest responsibility. To write with dignity. To write with honor. To write with care and love. That is what is meant by never putting down the pencil once you pick it up. You learn to understand that in order to be successful as an example you must be a student of life. You learn that the pen may be mightier than the sword but that ink can grow to be hubris if left unchecked. The pencil is the equalizer. Because even in mastery there can be error. Acknowledging that from the outset is what makes us humble. The goal should never be not to ever use the eraser, but to have one on hand with the ability to if necessary. There is no crime in errors made and corrected in time with humility. There is something more grand to be said about the strike-through when writing in pencil. It speaks of honesty and full disclosure. Especially when there is an eraser present. It is an act of good faith. There can be no hubris in faith. Ever. Love is a beautiful thing. And I have all my faith in it. Always. And that is why this is written, first, in pencil. More Than A Thousand Words : Prism </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I do not step outside myself when I take a moment to say grace. I look deeper within. I give thanks for my food and all the love it took to prepare it. For the longest time my main staple had been rice. And I have had the fortunate honor to be in a number of places where I could actually see it grow. All the love it takes to prepare a meal, indeed. As children, whoever wakes up in the morning and says, "I think I want to make my living growing rice"? Do they hear from adult council, "Why would you want to go and do that?" or "There's no money in it"? Rice growing -- from sow to reap and caring for the fields year round -- is back breaking work. How easy it is to be mindless and take for granted a simple bowl of rice. I think of lesson plans in this moment. I think of composition books and poetry. I make connections and I wonder. Back breaking work is never figurative. Q&A Q: If New York City were a person, and you could say one thing, what would you say? A: Thank you for having me. A Snippet From A Chapter Opening Discarded I'm on the Lower East Side having a cup of tea and lamenting Brooklyn losses. A young guy and his two British friends come in, sit down, and start talking about Coney Island -- about how gritty and artsy and non-glossy it is. I find myself feeling territorial. These are the people for whom developers must be going rabid preparing to tear down history for commerce. I find myself wanting to toss hard glances at them, representing for hardcore, old-school Brooklyn. But then I catch myself. I cannot represent for Brooklyn. I'm not hardcore. I spent most of my childhood on my block. Despite having grown up there, losing my virginity there, and damned near my mind and everything else, what do I know about Brooklyn? Coney Island was a treat once or twice a year in the summertime and my most vivid memory of it is when I saw a man walking in front of us on the boardwalk pull a pamper loaded with orange, foul smelling shit out of his pants and toss it into a nearby garbage can. It happened so fast and my mother, whose hand I was holding, was looking in another direction while carried away in conversation. I decided not to say anything but the visual stuck with me: A Ferris wheel in the distance; a man sticking his hand down checkered, olive green pants; the shit a brilliant burnt orange on the white pamper and in between his fingers. And then there was the smell -- of the ocean and hot dogs, french fries and hamburgers. And shit. You can't have a more gritty Coney Island though, in some respects, the one this kid sees over thirty years later has its own tales. I suppose that's why developers have decided they've had enough. My Brooklyn is on the other side of town. Fort Greene pre-gentrified! I can't get especially territorial about that, I finally have to admit, because I didn't grow up in my neighborhood. I grew up on my block. I wasn't allowed to roam the streets. I didn't even have to cross the street to go to elementary school so, unless we were going somewhere on the weekend, I could conceivably go weeks without ever leaving the confines of one city block. To say I grew up in Brooklyn is a bit of an overstatement. A Thought "Do you know what my mother said to me in a dream?...She said there is a reason why the world is round. Beauty will rule the world. Justice will rule the world. That's what she said." -- from The Famished Road by Ben Okri Written Word Nonetheless </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Practice I have decided to do something that I have not done in a long time. I have decided to sit down at a computer and type while writing. I want to see how it feels to use my brain in this way again. After so long with either a pen or a pencil. The weird thing is that, as I do this, I find myself paying attention to absolutely everything. The sound of my fingers hitting the keys. The sound of the keys pressing into the key pad – those are actually two distinctly different sounds, separate and unto themselves. The level of disconnect I feel every time I have to look for a letter because I have memorized the general area of them but I am not a touch typist. I realize how much I am trying to pay attention to spelling, and how my thought process gets jacked up as soon as I realize that I have misspelled a word and then go back to correct/re-type it. I find myself thinking about two things in this moment. First, should I have started a new paragraph now? Does that matter? And, second, that I am being more mindful of typos in a way that is impossible for me to do when I am transcribing written text. There is something about this that feels…what word could I use to describe it?…awkward. I am looking at what I am doing. I am examining what I am doing. And I am treating this as a writing exercise. And what I can see, more than anything else, is that I am not in the page. I can see the difference between my typed and written text. I am not romanticizing the pencil and the page, mind you. I am simply being honest. All the technology has taken away from my ability to feel this as an enjoyable experience. And the thing that is really wild about it all is how fluid it all is, nonetheless, because I have been practicing writing by hand for long periods of time. At the keyboard I am thinking words now, instead of letters. This is something that you see when you watch television commercials where the person’s text comes up on the screen as they type. You see it happening, but do you deconstruct it? I think that the writing experience has to be enjoyable in order to tell a good story. There has to be an organic fluidity there. I know that there are those who would disagree with me, saying that it is easier to type. But they do not mean easier. They mean faster. And faster ain’t always easier. It just looks easy. And feels easy. But that does not mean that it is writing. And what I am most certain of as I type this is that faster has a way of negatively affecting the work if you are not being absolutely careful. Because this, ultimately, is about the crafting of language. The shaping of words as we tell stories. The objective cannot be about getting it done quickly over getting it done beautifully. And the reason for that is simple. Do you see on a daily basis how much information is out there in the world and in cyberspace? How in the world is anyone supposed to sift through all of that? This was not an issue even ten years ago. And because there is so much...stuff…content, as we know it, is being redefined. Writers, find your rhythm. I am happy to say as I do this that I believe we are approaching the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the technological age is concerned. Because there is so much…stuff…out there, the litmus test for content has once again become quality. Stuff needs to be good again. Really good. The Internet is no longer shiny and new. What is going to make someone not click away from your page? The same thing that is going to keep them from putting down your book once they pick it up. I have to say, that is good writing. Always. The older I get, the more I take pride in being old fashioned. That seems to always win out. This is not the same as being conservative. Old fashioned means taking care in the kind of paper you choose, whereas being conservative means choosing a standard composition book. Old fashioned means taking the time to choose the proper words in each instance whereas conservative means checking spelling, running spell check, and being done. Old fashioned means writing for perfection in ideas expressed on the page and conservative means getting to the point without illustrating it. I’ll put it to you this way. When I think of what I am doing right now, the kinds of foods that come to mind to describe it are processed and prepackaged. Everything is heated up for you and ready to go. When I think about the writing experience I have in the morning with actual paper I think of slow cooked stew. I think of flavor. I think of time shared, not spent. There is a difference. Going to the keyboard to get thoughts out of my head feels odd to me. And I like that. Because going to the keyboard to transcribe opens up something different. The words are already there and it frees me up to edit. It frees me up to refine. It frees me up to be assured about what I have already done. And, if we have written for perfection but somehow missed something, this is where we find and correct it. I am looking at what I have just done. And I wonder if other people do this ever. Anymore. Do they take the time, with all of the information being tossed about, to really pay attention to what they are doing? How they are doing it? The process. Because that is what makes writing so special. Books. Essays. Articles. It is not about the typing. It is about the writing. It all takes practice. </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> ~~~~</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Simply... We are what we learn with love. </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> ~~~~ </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Color Line : Prism : No Trick Questions... ...When Teaching The Form of Anecdote and Color I know that when I tell folks about what it is that I do they are either confused, or their approach to understanding is informed more by other examples that may or may not be accurate depictions/descriptions of a writer at work. Especially one who approaches it, actively, from an editorial perspective. As a result, I find that I say less about what I do and simply write more. The best (and only) way for a writer to say what they do is to write which is why so few who really do talk about it. As writers and as teachers, how best do we describe an anecdote? One of the things that some editors do is point writers in various directions by suggesting reading material that best helps to illustrate what they mean. Every once in a while, one hopes, an editor will demonstrate with an example of their own. The reasons for this are always obvious to the writer. What follows are what stand as perfect examples of what I mean by using anecdotes to teach how to write one. The best ones leave just enough to the imagination so that the reader is actively participating in the experience and bringing something of their own to the story. What I would like you to keep in mind while reading is that, depending upon who the reader may be, color could be absolutely anything. That is what is most important. What color do I mean? As a writer I say to you, variation, from reading to reading and reader to reader is the point. .... Illustration A while ago, a friend and I were at the house of another friend who needed her laundry room painted. The room, when you look at it, gives the appearance of being small. Until you take down the shelves. And move the machines. And look at the spaces above, beside and beneath the cabinets. And then there is the area around the floorboards. Painting walls is hard work that can easily be much more complicated than you think. Our friend left in the morning but her partner and child were home. Which was nice because the day turned into a bit of a party. A painting party, I guess. We had music playing. The dog was running around. There was nice conversation. And the kid was having a ball walking underneath and around the shelving that we had in the hallway while we were painting. She would come in, watch, ask questions, walk out, and come back again. There came a point in the middle of the day when we looked around and saw that the whole area around the laundry room was absolutely upside down. It appeared to be absolute madness. But clearly, and necessarily, there was a method to it. We continued our work. Systematically. Toward the end of the day we began cleaning up and by the time we were done everything was back in its place and the walls looked even more incredible than we had expected them to. The paint was a deep, rich color in the can but on the walls it was something else again. So much more. Easily, you could fall through them into another dimension. Sometimes a fresh coat of well blended paint can do that. When our friend came home she was amazed by what she saw. We were all kind of amazed too. We knew what the room, and part of the house, looked like at mid-day. If she would have come by then she would have passed out from what looked like chaos. To know her, though, is to know that she is a manager of a particular kind in the business that she runs. She gives folks a directive and then lets them go with it. She is an excellent troubleshooter when necessary. Mostly, though, she works with the philosophy, "Make it happen." She doesn't need to know the details as long as you pay attention to each and every one of them as you do your work. I like that. A lot. At the end of the day we were all happy. And the little girl has one hell of a story, should she ever choose to tell it, about how the laundry room in her house was, for a while, an impromptu Discovery Zone. Recently, too, I received a letter from a friend of mine in Australia who has jumped back into the trenches as a writer as she raises her little girl. She picked up where she left off before she started traveling. We'd met in Nepal and had long discussions about the trials and tribulations of the writing experience. In her letter she spoke to me about the completion of a first draft of a novel that she churned out. She then said that she could not help but think of the quote from either Hemingway, or someone of his stature during his lifetime that he corresponded with. It said, "The fact of the matter is that all first drafts are shit." What was most important about the way that she shared that quote with me was the fact that she was well into her second draft and quite happy with both her development and what she was finding out about herself in the process. My friend's third draft, given what I know about her work, and her discipline, is where her book is within her. And, yes, she is taking the time to do the re-writing, and the writing of many things, by hand. There are a couple of things I would like for you to think about. First, from an editorial perspective, the stories mentioned above are what are known as anecdotes. They are, on the surface, stories to spark reader interest. But when you look deeper, you see that they serve to illustrate much more complex points that if I, as the writer of this correspondence just delved right into, might be missed. The story about the painting of the room is also a story about the writing process. The quote about first drafts is also a commentary on workmanship. By either one of the best at his craft or one of his contemporaries. There comes a point when writers, readers and their audience all become one and so it is less about who said what than the fact that it was said. And understood. And incorporated into the craftsmanship of the readers and writers that follow. The best advice that I have ever received as a writer is that once you have completed your first draft you should definitely give yourself a pat on the back, take a brief moment to reflect, and then begin again. Ninety-five percent of the people who want to write do not heed this advice. You must. .... And so there you have it. Writing happens in so many ways and in so many different capacities. It is all around us and manifests itself in all kinds of ways. It is pervasive. Fundamentally, though, it is the creative spirit. Some of us just use words that are written down. The writing process is, at its core, the communication process. The more we write, the more non-verbal we become, but that does not necessarily mean that we become less communicative. I look at what I do and see it as quite the opposite. And I always try to take into consideration, to some degree, the frame of mind of the reader. There are some things that are specific, and there are some things that are universal. I gravitate more toward the universal, hence the specific word choice in the structure and articulation of the anecdotes here. And now the million dollar question: What color are the walls painted? Because There Is a Moment... I listened to a woman tell me what it was like to take a train ride from New York down to Washington DC. She described what it felt like to see “For Coloreds” signs on water fountains and over bathroom doors. I listened to her talk about Brooklyn. I listened to this woman’s mother tell me what it was like to work from “can’t see in the morning until can’t see at night,” working in a hair salon doing her best to make ends meet. Four kids to feed. Hers was a similar Brooklyn to mine – it is humbling to listen to an octogenarian tell you about their heyday on the handball court. Both women shared their stories while the patriarch of the family was off somewhere in Ireland doing research on their family history. In his Brooklyn he was a teacher. And he’d also known the courts. All that history. So much history. To be sure. August 28, 2008 was, in so many ways, historic in that way that is somehow transcendental when people say ‘historic’ and mean it. ‘Mysticism’ comes to mind when I think of that evening. Not the word – the feeling. There was an intensity about it that stays with me…that I can only begin to think about describing in this moment because moments like that need a bit of time to be reflected on properly. The room in which I sat was not crowded. The lights were low. Upstairs a child was sleeping. There was…I want to be able to convey this…with the same pointed clarity in which I felt it…there was a profound universal feeling of being home. A divine moment of collective consciousness, perhaps? I certainly think so. There are all kinds of ways to talk about it. There are all kinds of ways to remember it. We often get stuck with the memory of where we were when something happened or when we got some sort of news. Once, or maybe twice, in a lifetime we may very well have the opportunity to talk about where we chose to be when a sound that will be heard throughout the ages first rang. These are broad and sweeping strokes to attempt to capture with words for the first time what it was like – what it felt like – to simply be in that moment. The first word that comes to mind is ‘honor’. And then so many more feelings and emotions and thoughts that make me think of the course of history like the gentle waves of the ocean on a slightly overcast evening. There is just so much but it is all good, you know? And the last word is Amen. Because that moment – any way you look at it – was prayer. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Inner Voice "There come to use moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, 'You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.'  There are moments in your life when you must act, even though you cannot carry your best friends with you. The 'still small voice' within you must always be the final arbiter where there is conflict of duty.  Having made a ceaseless effort to attaining self-purification, I have developed some little capacity to hear correctly and clearly the 'still small voice within.'  I shall lose my usefulness the moment I stifle the still small voice within.  Penances with me are no mechanical acts. They are done in obedience to the inner voice." -- M. K. Gandhi life as poetry a. Love has taught me two things: 1. always see beauty 2. always look for beauty b. the prefix of the first telephone number i remembered was Sterling 3 which speaks volumes about memory and how i was raised and who raised me in brooklyn Freedom Metaphor It is amazing to me how we have managed in so little time to forget how special the gift of flight is. People can actually fly. It makes you wonder how long people had actually been dreaming of it, really. I don’t mean the scientists and the inventors. I mean the dreamers. The ones who came before the flight of Icarus. What did they imagine flight would be like? Did they see giant machines? What did they think it would feel like? What, to them, was distance? I say in advance that there is no pun intended by the fact that I am moved by mankind’s ability to fly. It makes me think about the possibility of my own dreams in a whole new way. Because when I think of flight I think of water. I imagine the flight of sea turtles and whales. There is freedom in floating. The ocean is how one flies caressed. And while people with S. C. U. B. A. gear have a story to tell, I would rather translate for the turtle. Because they do something in the water and on the earth – with movement they have joined the two. The possibility I see is amphibious, I guess. The joining of air and water in flight. Not rain, though. That is water falling. I know what I mean when I say this – Oh how words fail me when I am in the middle of trying to describe the center of a feeling in my dreams. Seen. I first encountered the beauty of Haiti as a child while in my Brooklyn neighborhood. On the playground. Next to the handball court. It was summertime and we were all still young enough to know the freedom of being lazy from the heat without being persecuted for also dreaming. Some days we were on the courts all day and some days there was neighborhood tag. Occasionally there were pick-up games of softball. As you get older you realize there is much more to a pick-up game of softball when there are always nine gloves, one ball, and more than enough bats. Nine gloves as opposed to eighteen, in a pick-up game of softball will always be the difference between a league and a community. Pick-up games of softball teach you to share and, at the very least, have some respect for your position on the opposing team. Before you reach a certain age, summers have a way of blending into each other in a way that you forget until they have a way of blending into each other again. The difference back then was the playground when someone new walked onto it. In this instance, someone new rode in on a bicycle. The man was older. Not old enough to be an old man but certainly old enough to be someone’s father. His bicycle was nice. It was souped, too. There were ribbons on the handlebars and all kinds of colorful things woven into the spokes. There were also beads. From the way he pedaled – effortlessly – you could tell the man’s ride was smooth. There was also a radio mounted on the handlebars. Somehow, in some way, this bicycle was also solace. The man rode onto the playground one day in wide, and then smaller, concentric circles. He came to a complete stop and then rode over to the benches by the courts. He said nothing. He did not introduce himself. He did not look at anyone. He just got off his bicycle and sat down. The bicycle, resting on its kickstand, got its lean on. This would become the standard entrance. The older kids were scared. The man was on the smaller side as far as men go, but he was muscular in a way that made it clear he had already been tested. “Go talk to him.” “Why me?” Because it is always me. And so I went up to him. “Who are you?” I asked. My tone wasn’t especially un-kind, but it was not welcoming either. What I am certain of, though, is that because of the level of my own curiosity there was not the least amount of fear. The man looked at me and told me his name, just like that. His smile was beaming. I asked him if he “lived around here” and he said yes. I could not think of anything mean to say to chase him away and suddenly I did not want to. There was no reason to fear. I went back to my friends and they asked me what happened. I told them the man was cool. He “lived around here” and that was pretty much it. But that wasn’t pretty much it. Day after day. Like clockwork. Concentric circles and then the end of the bench by the courts while the bicycle got its lean on. I would always say hello. And the man would always say hello, too. One day, closer to evening, I struck up conversation. As the man began to speak I could hear an island in his voice. “Where are you from?” Haiti, he said. The answer blew me away. He was not the first person I’d met from Haiti but he was the first person I met who said it with pride. And warmth. And kindness. I asked the man about Haiti. And why he was on the playground instead. The look on his face said, “Child, I ask myself the same thing every day…” as he told me his story. I was too young to understand then that his was like so many others. He’d come to America to find work. He was sending money home in an envelope and he was doing his best to hold onto his love. The man missed his wife. The man missed his children. The sadness in his voice was unmistakable. There was a longing, too, as he described the place where he grew up, which is not the same as becoming a man. It was the eloquence of his description that defined his smile. The English wasn’t “broken”. It was immaculate. It was the accent that was hard. And so to understand I had to listen carefully while learning the specificity of grace notes that can be found in French when filtered this way. The man, over the course of an entire summer, and the one after that, never took off his sunglasses. The following summer he was gone. He had not spoken of beaches or of sunrises the way that he spoke of his wife and his family and of living day to day. He never, not once, spoke of what he did not have. And so it was clear what he longed for and exactly why he’d gone. transcribed verse for the artist (edit) Each time You will be a demonstration --the personification-- of the difference between fate and destiny</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">observation from outer space what is earth is illuminated what is not, light passes through from earth, what is space? space is darkness. at night. in daytime? indigo. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">third person she’d made up her mind again before changing it. the power remained in the telling. the telling. and so the beginning is not where the start would be. same. same. but different. the tiny hole in the wall will forever be thought of as a keyhole. because the tiny hole in the wall was a new and mostly used bookstore that was found on a walk. well…more like…stumbled upon, which is nice. the young lady was hesitant. i insisted. it is impossible for me to pass up books. we went inside and it was cramped and musty with the odor of old paper, cardboard and book glue. woven thread in places absorbs these, too, and more must take place for it to be seen. aging wood? flooring. not smelled but felt. there is a certain way that it can give that speaks of comfort and not falling apart. the presence of books and how they are shelved lets you be sure of the difference. clouds. parquet floors can be clouds wherever the timing and the care is right. a multitude of hands are ordered chaos. a free-form stream of consciousness. “This was here.” And, “It belongs here.” “This One shall be mine.” i held the collection of sonia sanchez poems in my hand. i could not believe it. the little african girl in her frock, holding a spear. “do you know who the writer is?” i asked the young lady, a student who wanted company for a walk. she said no and i let her read a few lines i’d been thrilled to recognize. and then i went up to the counter to engage a filmy pair of bifocals. Lord only knows what he thought. the glasses were ornamental at best. it was the lighting that told the truth of sight. everything? everything. seen and somehow understood. colors build. soft, not dim, is the color of strength when strength is light in a new and often used bookstore. the bifocals quoted the face value of the book. “you sure?” i asked. "that’s what it says, don’t it?” that’s exactly what it said. the power of this memory surrounding sonia sanchez’ Homecoming is what i will hold most dear. not because i want to but because i have to and that is a beautiful thing. Movement Transcription of Poetry to a Blank Page i. truth if you would be my love song i would dance a ballet for you ii. epiphany the heat opens heartbreak up to song iii. hand teachers stress penmanship but they don't tell you what they're looking for iv. color</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> the water from where i sit in this moment is not blue and neither is the sky the gray, however, does have the color of water in it and that is sweet v. time : food : prism not enough money or too much will never be a good enough reason for not teaching your child their a, b, c's vi. money : prism when your body chiseled living sculpture is shaped from playing a game it is best to keep your shirt on out of respect for those in the trenches. they will always be harder vii. homage to michelangelo and the senegalese poet phyllis wheatley the pencil is as nifty a tool as the chisel me thinks Balance. Simply. His one true love was the woman he married, followed by the family he’d help to raise. However, there was never any question – none at all – that his very first love was the sea. He was, in fact, a merchant marine but he always regarded himself a seaman. The best way to understand his effect on the littlest ones around him would be through an admonition. “Never leave home without a pen in your pocket,” he’d say. “You never know when you will need to write something.” It was in this regard, among many others, that he was very, very serious. Emmanuel left home when he was seventeen and while he would always speak fondly of his tiny island home he would make no apology for following the love that called him. While he started off mopping floors it was a different time and so his place, to be sure, was in the kitchen. He worked his way up over the course of his travels and with time, patience and the discipline of student he became a master, earning the position of head cook. Emmanuel’s One True Love was a registered nurse – a master in her own right. She’d gone to school at night after having spent days decades before giving care to many. There were stints in factories and restaurants as well as construction and private contracting. And, because this was a different time, there was also time spent as a domestic. Her approach to taking care of other people’s children in their own homes was showing them how best to do it. The parents learned, and the children understood, the proper way to do things. Because of differing backgrounds during the same different times Emmanuel and his One True Love approached things differently in the kitchen. He had grown accustomed to having a full staff and she preferred doing things alone. As the littlest ones who watched both of them will tell you, his knife work was outstanding while she was gifted with the use of fire. However, because he had grown accustomed to a staff when he was away at sea, ‘upside down for a moment’ would be the best way to describe the kitchen whenever he was at home. His One True Love quietly, when she was by herself, always kept things immaculate. “Clean as you go,” was not an admonition. It was a rule. It was a joy and a source of entertainment for the littlest ones to watch both of them as they worked. Emmanuel always managed to turn his ‘upside down for a moment’ into a form of comedy at first, mostly through empty pots falling. It was never, “Where is this?” or “Where is that?” but more the “Blang-blang Whok!” and the final sound of a spinning lid before a moment of silence that was the indicator he’d found something. His One True Love would let out a sigh and, sometimes too, with one of the littlest ones she would make eye contact. They would smile because despite all the “Blang-blang Whok!” they were glad he was home. There was also understanding. While there was always a rumble and a bumble to begin with the rhyme soon followed. CHOP! and sizzle and running water most certainly do have rhythm. The way to find it is to know it, first, when you hear it. Emmanuel always made music in the kitchen. They were fascinating solos. It was clear to the littlest ones who listened closely that whenever he was away at sea he both composed and conducted nothing short of symphony. Emmanuel’s One True Love never had an ‘upside down for a moment.’ There would be no “Blang-blang Whok!” and the final sound of a spinning lid because she started first in silence. There was also the rhythm of prep time. Instead of a cutting board and a knife there was a bowl with a round blade that had a handle on the top. There was a tiny "tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok,” that was more measured and systematic before water boiling made itself present the background. Her combination of sound was always reminiscent of warmth and of a particular kind of care because it was after the boiling that came her demonstration of mastery. Blue is the hottest part of the flame. As an aside that is not really an aside but just feels like one, Emmanuel, for all of his “Blang-blang Whok!” and CHOP and sizzle never once cut himself although sometimes something would burn. His One True Love had a mishap with a cleaver once but it only sounds bad because of the word ‘cleaver’. For some reason, despite her use of the lowest fire, she always managed, at some point, to set an oven mitt or potholder or towel aflame. The fact is, though, that Emmanuel’s One True Love understood the properties of fire. She never ever panicked. A flaming mitt or towel or potholder would be placed in the sink, and with a bit of water all was well. To their credit Emmanuel and his One True Love always explained to the littlest ones what do in case of a grease fire. And, thankfully, neither of them ever had the experience of having to put one out. In the kitchen Emmanuel’s One True Love taught by patient explanation and Emmanuel, himself, rarely said much unless asked. On occasion, though, he would notice that one of the littlest ones was paying close attention and then he would talk at length about exactly what he was doing. The importance of taking a moment to teach was never lost on him. It was Emmanuel’s love of the sea and his One True Love’s love of home that helped open up the palates of the littlest ones in their family. Neither commanded, “Taste this!” or “Try that!” The offering was always placed with care. Vegetables. Always vegetables. With a touch of Caribbean spice sometimes and a taste of the world. Always. When Emmanuel was not at sea it was understood that there would always be a bit of “Blang-blang Whok!” It was an unspoken understanding. The best times, though, were when, in addition to the “Blang-blang Whok!” there was also the tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok. Emmanuel would get something going and ask his One True Love to finish it. And, sometimes, too, it was the other way around. The food was always the best then because of the conversation and the laughter that took place along side the music. The bubble and the sizzle and the running of the water and the “Where?” and the “Here you go” and the “Hand me the…” and the “Thank you” followed by “You can also…” and “Really?" and “Try this,” and “Nice,” and “I like it.” Emmanuel and his One True Love loved each other a whole lot more than they drove each other crazy and that fact is what the littlest ones who watched them will always remember. It is one thing to understand the effect of Emmanuel on the littlest ones around him through his admonition, and quite another to understand the effect that he and his One True Love had on them as they worked in the kitchen. However, they are best understood as a couple, and as friends, in their approach to the crossword puzzle -- an activity to which they were both equally committed. The more difficult the better. Evidence that Emmanuel and his One True Love often shared in equal measure was in the presence of the pen and the pencil on the page. There were neither cross-outs nor erasures and never any blank spaces. A puzzle started was always finished. Always. Because it is everywhere. "I always tell young people who are just starting out, even if you don't have the desire to</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">practice a long time, be sure to practice at least a little every day. Work on the things you really have difficulty executing, instead of playing what you know." -- Wynton Marsalis Really, it is. "How you played was more of a factor than how long. One of Wynton's old teachers, Bill Fielder, said it was all breathing. If you were not breathing relaxed, you were going to miss the note. If you were relaxed, your tone would stay steady." -- from Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life by Wynton Marsalis and Carl Vigeland A Musical Note - One Drop the power of flavor imagined is the perfect blend of chocolate, almonds milk, and honey When the Ship's Captain is a Lady she looked across the open water while holding a cup of something warm to drink "where the ocean touches the sky," she thought, "never changes." A Short Rumination on A Rule, A Song and the Misinterpretation of a Tear That Could Have Fallen A few years ago someone walked into a bar -- ba-dum BAH! Seriously, though, a few years ago someone walked into a bar to meet a friend. It was more of a bar that was trying to be a lounge instead of just being the bar that it used to be. The point is that someone was there to meet a friend for a bit of conversation. The friend was in a space where they really just needed to talk. Or so it seemed. And so, woven into the fabric of it all was, in fact, the spirit of listening. There was not conversation as much as there was...well...chatting. Which can be nice to start if friends have not seen each other in a while. And then music from an artist whose voice resonates like a newborn angel through the ages filled the room through the stereo speakers on a beat that neither of the two sitting there had ever heard before. Some call that a remix but there will always be more than one way to pay respect to the DJ. Because the sound produced speechlessness -- chatter, in that moment, had actively been rendered idle. Having recognized the sound for exactly what it was, the one who'd walked in to do some listening immediately got up and moved across the room to the bar. The bartender said hello. And when asked if it were possible to procure a copy of what was playing, said, "The dee jay is from the west coast," which was a direct response. However the objective in the query was not about striking up small talk but, in fact, the procurement of something divine. The bartender thought about it and then said, after a moment, that it would be possible oblige. In a week. To the day. The demonstration of appreciation may have seemed a bit overenthusiastic for the setting. Being demure really would have been the wrong approach. A week passed. And, on the day, someone, again, walked into the very same bar with two bottles of wine. For the bartender. As a thank you. Because the sound that came through the speakers the week before was, in a word, inspiration. The friend was there, too. Because idle chatter among friends has a way of shifting to lovely conversation over time and both were looking forward to a little bit more. They sat down and talked. The bartender was late and, upon arrival, clearly needed time to settle in and set up. There is nothing worse than confusion and disorganization in sparsely occupied bar. After a while, there were strides across the room. Long, slow and, definitively demure. "How are you?" "Fine," was the reply. And then came the question. About the music. Somehow it felt as though it was a request, instead, for contraband. Because something about the energy of the bartender had shifted. And the bar felt...more like a lounge. That was not a good thing. The bartender said something about a burner being busted and a friend of a friend blah, blah, blah...whatever. The bottom line? No music. The response could have easily been, "Well, can I just borrow the disk and bring it back in a little while because my burner works just fine and I don't live to far from here?" Instead it was, simply, "All right...blah, blah, blah." And then, "Thanks anyway." Deliberately, as opposed to specifically as an afterthought, there was the placement of a single bottle of wine on the bar. The bartender looked surprised and tried to refuse. "No, keep it." The tone was clear -- disappointment passing for insistence. And then, "It's good wine. Really. Keep it." The bartender understood. The lounge, after all, used to be a bar. A walk was taken back across the room. Something random, passing for music, came over the loud speakers. "What happened?" asked the friend, who then listened to the story about blah, blah, blah and how, ultimately that meant no music. "Damn." "Yeah. Damn." And then, "You want a bottle of wine?" "You sure?" "Yep." "Thank you. Seriously." Afterward there was a bit of silence while whatever was playing just kind of played because both friends shared the same taste in music. The Presence of Angels and the Natural World When Earth is Understood As A Heavenly Body the human, conscious, walks on earth and is never, ever alone. If You Know, Love </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There is a distinct feeling one has when floating to earth. There is shift in the energy that flows through you. Biology fails when describing it as adrenaline because it is the essence of something greater. Sometimes art comes from the limited human linguistic attempt to put parameters around the limitless feelings in the power of potential actualized. Sometimes art comes from living your dreams. There really is no difference if you take a moment, complexly defined, to really think about it. "What next?" was the question. We went back and described for my mother, first, what it was like to jump out of an airplane. While she was happy to hear what we had to say, her immediate relief was in the fact that we both walked through the door completely in tact after having jumped out of an airplane. And then she listened and we shared a perspective that she had not seen -- earth's beauty from the sky. Unobstructed. What was next was the answer. I still needed to keep going. When you are in a bus, a car or even on the train, destinations can give the appearance of being much farther depending upon how you look at things. Walking with a sense of purpose has a way of shortening distance and lengthening time. Dramatically. What was next was a moment that needed to be savored. On my walk I was able to hear dogs barking in the distance. Somewhere, someone was using a circular saw. The breeze felt wonderful but it also sounded sweet as it whipped around boughs and passed through leaves. Lizards darted in and out of cracks and holes in fences. The warmth of the sun felt delicious and the lack of clouds in the sky gave specific meaning to its brightness. Sooner than expected, rather than eventually, I arrived at the "park entrance". It was not so much a park in whatever the traditional sense that 'park' has come to mean. It was more that it was clear from the difference between what was on one side of the sign, as opposed to the other, that folks should try to be more mindful of nature. There were little finch-like things darting around in the air in bunches, landing for brief moments in the welcoming spaces for tiny birds on shrubs. Here and there, coming out of dry patches of pulverized new earth, were little purpley pinkish starbursts of flowers and, occasionally, yellow ones too that were more deliberately flowery than bursty, making them seem a bit more demure. Open space eventually narrowed to paths that would have been a maze had it not been for the volcano marking the spot. Eventually, instead of sooner than I thought, I made my way to its base. Climbing a volcano is not exactly climbing a volcano when there are guardrails and beaten path. But getting to the top of a volcano, especially after going inside it and sqwunching beneath two slabs of rock that only allow for a few feet of space, is certainly, still, getting to the top of a volcano. And when you get there, and when you look out, you understand that being at the top of a dormant volcano is neither the top nor the point. If you have ever seen lava flow, you know for sure. I made my way back down and, again, shared the experience with family. A few days later, because it just seemed right, I went to the volcano again. I ran up the side and I ran back down because there were guardrails and a well-defined path. I stayed longer at the top this time, to sort of take everything -- absolutely everything -- in. With my eyes. With my breath. With my skin as it absorbed sunlight's touch. Because it is never about what you see as much as what you feel when you see it and then decide to share. Pele's Healing Grace and the Sky never, ever take clouds for granted Seven Lessons in Movement, Drawn to Scale 1. The master of Zen gives the illusion of movement and the suggestion of effortlessness where this is hard work, practice, concentration and understanding. The statuesque? Art 2. when a woman stands on the edge of a cliff, her whole life depending on the beginning and the end of time, what color is the river below? ask the creative spirit. 3. One, to the other: Is the person with the stuff on the bed a writer, or are they crazy? Other, to the one: Only if the stuff is books. 4. The master of Zen is able to levitate, when? Ask the statue. 5. mountain is to earthberg what sleeping is to... 6. When a master of Zen finds peace in a Japanese room how many cultures come together? And, how many languages? The Seventh Lesson true art can be found. Love. sentence as a noun because the earth begins as liquid n - lava Class One evening, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper and still in diapers, I weeble-wobbled my way over to a sorta broken/sorta working manual typewriter sitting in the corner of the living room of a friend of my mother's. To the best of my ability, I typed out what I thought were the words, "I love you." Because the ribbon that sorta worked was red. I associate the color red, first, with love. In hindsight, I remember being watched but not interrupted, and I appreciate that now. This is one of my earlier memories of childhood. If I shared it on a regular basis would I somehow be bragging? If my mother did, would she? The fact is, we all do fascinating things as we learn. Those of us who are fortunate remember. Something really special happens, though, if we never forget. From either the bottom of the lowest valley or the top of the highest mountain I will always say that one of the things I am proudest of is the fact that I was reading by the age of three. Which is a testament to my mother, more than anything else. When I tell people that I think they get a little confused. Something I have never really done is talk about my first day of school, which properly adds more context. One day, when I was a little girl, my mother got me dressed and we went for a walk. Which was not unusual. We were always going for walks. This day in particular, though, we did not go very far. We did not even leave the block. We walked into a large building, and up a few stairs. We were greeted by a woman who I can only describe as intense. Really intense. My mother, in relation to her, was, thankfully, unyielding. My mother and the woman began having a conversation while I just kind of looked around and sat quietly. As I think of it now the smell of paper was distinct to me. Rexograph paper. There were books, too. And plants. And pencils. And a very big desk from which the woman who spoke to my mother sat behind. It did not even remotely register that I was the subject of the conversation, but when my mother spoke to me I answered. And then she placed before me the latest book that I had been reading from. She pointed to a paragraph and told me to read it out loud. And so I did. But my mother was specific. She told me to read a paragraph. Apparently that was a problem. I do not remember how long or how short the paragraph was, but I remember the woman saying to my mother that I could have easily been taught to memorize it. And I remember my mother's reaction. It was cool. In that colloquial sense. Where cool is...well...cool. My mother assured the woman that I had not memorized anything. And then she smiled after the woman spoke again. I watched as my mother met the woman's request by carefully handing her the book. There was a particular kind of grace in the exchange. I was told to go around the desk. And as I did I watched as the woman examined the book's pink cover. She thumbed through the pages which were pulp, although the content was much deeper. And then she held the book down to me and asked me to read. But she was not clear. From which part? I looked at my mother; my mother looked at the woman; and the woman looked at me, and then the woman did the oddest thing. She placed the book flat on her desk and then placed her hands over the parts above and below what she wanted me to read. Two things struck me. First, I was amazed at how dark her hands were and that somehow, viscerally, while I thought the manicure was nice that the nail polish should have been a different color. And, second, if she really wanted me to read from a particular spot it would have been easier if her hands were not partially obstructing my view. I read. Out loud. From the place where the woman had chosen. Which was not exactly where we were up to in the book. By then, though, I realized something else was going on that I was not quite clear about and that just was not the time to ask. I realized in hindsight that this was really my first day of school. And that I had passed some sort of test. My official first day of school is still a bit of a blur. I know it happened more because I remember the regularity of leaving home every morning rather than a particular day itself as an event. Most vividly, I remember one winter's day when, as a class, we were asked to write down our ABCs. I got to the "l, m, n, o, p" part and could not help but think that I just did not really like the 'm' before the 'n'. Aesthetically it just did not click for me. I thought about changing it but something told me, in my little first-grader mind, "Not now." And so I thought, "I will just change it when I grow up." ~~~~ so through the eyes of love attains the heart So through the eyes of love attains the heart: For the eyes are the scouts of the heart, And the eyes go reconnoitering For what it would please the heart to possess. And when they are in full accord And firm, all three, in the one resolve, At that time, perfect love is born From what the eyes have made welcome to the heart. Not otherwise can love either be born or have commencement Than by this birth and commencement moved by inclination. By the grace and by command Of these three, and from their pleasure. Love is born, who its fair hope Goes comforting her friends. For as all true lovers Know, love is perfect kindness, Which is born -- there is no doubt -- from the heart