Scuffing

At a coffee shop waiting to meet a person, I heard someone else say my name. It was a guy I worked with when I was in college and he was in high school. We always got along, helped by a shared fondness for Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love and singing while we were supposed to be stocking shelves, filling propane tanks, cleaning, or helping customers with plumbing questions. I felt myself open into a smile and reached to shake his hand.

We talked like semi-old men. I asked about his girls, and he said that he had just been telling one of them about our old boss. I said, I've seen him around town a couple times. I didn't mention his red baseball hat that marks him as exactly the kind of man he was and always will be. I just said I'd seen him.

"He's still alive?" my friend asked, feigning shock. I nodded and admitted that I had avoided conversation. I hadn't even waved. He hadn't seem to recognize me or chose to act as though he hadn't.

My friend said he had told his girl about maybe the one bit of wisdom our boss had ever knowingly imparted to anyone.

It was back when my friend was walking around the store in untied work boots, clunking and scuffing along as was the style then (and maybe now too). Our boss called from his office, come in here. My friend went, expecting to be told to clean out the shed, vacuum the housewares section, or restock the pesticides, but no, our boss said, _don't let me hear you scuffing your boots like that. You sound lazy."

Our old boss had been wrong about many things, but both my friend and I agreed if you sound lazy, you might as well be lazy, and then forget about you.

When I taught kids who were all but labeled stupid, I told them to try and sound smart. If you sound smart, people may think you're smart, and that's almost as good because it gets you in with smart people which makes you smarter. On the flip-side, if your go-to words are fuck, nigga, and bitch, you sound anything but smart and the world will gladly treat you as such.

I heard arguments for the culture of those words, but they're the same arguments for scuffing boots. No matter what, these things project our identity and are how others project identities onto us.

My friend and I smiled at the story. The person I was meeting arrived. I shook my friend's hand again and he went on his way. The person I met had the feeling I was more capable than I really am. I've projected confidence. After our meeting, I walked out of the shop and across the street, my shoes tight against my feet, not scuffing even a little.

A Visit & Morning Pages

My friend is here. I picked him up at the airport yesterday. We stayed up last night talking until almost two which made getting up at six a challenge but well worth it to spend time with a friend I haven't seen in a year and a half. The lack of sleep is nothing. I want to soak up every moment.

Last night, just the two of us in the living room, he said, "I love your house. It's so cozy." He's not the first to say so and each time I take it two ways. One, we make a comfortable home. Two, it's a simple kind of place. I don't mean that we have a shabby house, but no one will mistake it for fancy. It has no pretensions and feels simply like home. That's how it felt to my friend and how it feels to me.

Some of this is the effect of the furniture and decorations, but it's more that my daughters chose to sit out in the living room with their mother and me and my old college roommate. They talked and listened, joked and told stories. The comfort of this home comes from the four of us and it's palpable. Even after my wife and the girls had gone up to bed, there was the feeling of comfort and ease that comes only with a long-term friendship and a place in which two old friends can sink back into things as though no time at all has passed. No wonder we stayed up almost to two.

Four hours of sleep and off my schedule I got up, emptied the dishwasher, got laundry out of the dryer for my older daughter to have the right clothes for school, opened the blinds, turned off the furnace, and sat down to write three Morning Pages. There's a comfort there as well, though I wanted to go back to sleep or make a cup of coffee. The comfort is in doing what I do, what I have done. I sat down, uncapped the pen, and figured myself out with blue ink over three pages. I think about the blog post for the day, an idea I mapped out a couple days ago, and a note I want to write to a friend.

Less than half a page in, I'm in the groove. I have momentum and energy like rolling downhill into the sunrise.

The writing sets the table for the meal of my morning, afternoon, and evening. It creates a mood, a way of being. The results of this aren't anything I can measure or set down in exact figures try as I might. It is instead a feeling, one about which I'm as sure as of anything. The pages open me for the day, put me in a space and mode. From there the day flows.

There are things about Morning Pages which go beyond the boundaries of the written word, the ineffable effects that, like friendship, comfort, warmth, and love, must be felt perhaps without any logical understanding. Why do I do Morning Pages? Why should you? I can only begin to tell you. The rest you need to feel.

My friend said, "we have to find ways to see each other more than once a year." Why do we need to see each other? Who bother when we live so far apart? To push this defies logic. Of course it does. There is no logic in friendship, in love, in the simple need to fill three pages by hand this morning after staying up until two with my friend and then waking at six with the family. It all defies logic and works at some other level.

I'm willing to call that level what it is: magic.

An Amazing Gift

"...the universe has sent me some amazing gifts just when I thought it had forgotten me."
— Carol Mikoda

I have good friends who write well.

The message above came to me this morning and has stuck with me all through a tough day. I've been feeling very much at the end of my rope for the last few months. There are times when I appreciate the goodness around and within me. Then there is all that dark time when I spiral. I've been so tired all day and while those sixteen words haven't been quite enough to fill me with energy, renew all my hopes, and get me over all my troubles, they have certainly buoyed me and allowed me to float a little better than otherwise.

What amazing gifts has the universe sent to you?

Gift Giving

Probably the toughest thing about running a blog and any writing is wondering, as Roger Waters did, "is there anybody out there?" You post things and then post some more things. You tweet links, share on Facebook, post to Instagram. Maybe you even publish a newsletter. And still you wonder, "is there anybody out there?" It's the sort of thing that can feel discouraging pretty fast.

But only if you let it.

Here's the thing about running a blog: every post should be a gift. If you think that sounds hokey, wait until I get started on Rachel from Friends.

There's an episode in which Rachel receives a present and right away is set to return it for something she actually wants. The giver is offended and Rachel seems petty and self-centered. I've had this experience from both sides. You too.

Be the giver. You've thought about the present you're giving, made some logical assumptions, tried to figure out just what would have the right effect on the person and get the right reaction. You give the thing and they aren't thrilled. Damn it all. The experience doesn't crush you exactly but you come out of it dented, offended, disappointed. Well, of course you did! But don't get too attached to your righteous indignation. Let's flip this thing around.

There was this time a friend's mom got me a sweatshirt for Christmas. It was a brown, polyester-blend sweatshirt with tight, four-inch cuffs and a crew neck. The best part? The front of it sported an eight-inch tall band of faux-leather into which was carved the brand name of the sweatshirt. This was the nineties and my friend's Mom may have thought I was making MTV videos. Whatever she thought, I thanked her and that day took it back to the mall. I got a Fossil watch instead. I had to return it, right? Well, of course I did!

I'll get back to blogging and writing at some point. Hopefully soon. Of course it may not matter if or when I get back to it because I'm still wondering is there anybody out there? Even if there isn't, this gift stuff still applies.

When you give Rachel or anybody else a gift, you have to give the whole thing. You have to give it all the way which means you have to let go of the expectations of how it will be received. Remember what I said about picking out the gift? You tried to figure out just what would have the right effect on the person and get the right reaction. You know what the right effect and reaction are in this case? They are the ones that makes you feel better. Maybe now you're seeing the problem.

A gift well given doesn't depend on the person keeping or returning it. A real gift is given with thought and feeling for the person to whom it is given but no expectation of return on investment for the giver. It's pretty Zen stuff and I don't want to give the idea that I'm a Zen master. I'm not even sure Zen should be capitalized.

My friend's mom meant well giving me that gift. One thing of which I'm proud is that I received it politely and gave an earnest and real thank you. I could have really flubbed that one had I not Mom trained me to do these things right. There's no gift so terrible I would ever want to offend or disrespect my friend's mom. I love her too much. Even now I feel grateful she gave me that terrible sweatshirt. It was so awful I didn't even put it on, but that doesn't mean it was a bad gift. It just wasn't one I kept.

Consider this: she didn't get me a cheesy, horrible sweatshirt; she gave me a Fossil watch I wanted. How kind was that?

Okay, okay, back to blogging and writing now, but you've already figured it out, right? There are two levels on which is there anybody out there? doesn't matter.

First, I give these posts as gifts to whomever does or doesn't read them. To expect people to shower me with praise, send hundreds of dollars, and hook my up with a publishing deal is to expect too much and forget what I'm doing. That people comment and thank me as often as they do is an embarrassment of riches and has to be at least a little bit beside the point. If I aim to get just the right effect and reaction, I've gone down the wrong road.

Second, each one of these has to be a gift to myself. I'm blogging to learn and explore the craft of writing. It's slow going but the trees outside my window eventually grew to twice the height of the houses. The writing of each post is a gift to my present self and the me waiting far down the line. I'm the type of writer who can't get enough of pounding the keys and pushing the pen. This is all I want to be doing. What other gift do I need?

None of this means you can get away with giving just anything. My wife doesn't want a new vinyl record, an old typewriter, or a Tesla Model 3. Those are what I want. A true gift given to her will be filled with my thinking of what she wants and needs and how much we love one another. The gift well given must be well considered.

If she loves the gift, that's wonderful, but if she doesn't, then I've learned something and we get her something she will love. The gift is to make her happy. When I have helped to make her happy, my work is done.

I wrote this post to stop myself from falling into disappointment. This despite having more interaction with readers than I expected. I'm reminding myself what I'm really doing, what I've done, what I might do. None of that is discouraging. Just the thought of it gave me the idea to write this and I offer it as a gift for anyone who cares to receive it. Feel free to exchange it for whatever helps you feel better. Tomorrow I'll post another. For you and for me.