Vin

People have always told me the same things, all my life. And I mean ALL people, or at least anyone I respect enough to have ever listened to, be they family member or great friends or musicians or strangers who made big sense in the seconds I knew them.

Their subjects, or at least the subjects I wondered about, all centered on love. The deliveries varied immensely but somehow through it all I kinda believed the big "you just have to wait; gotta let it find you; it'll getcha when you don't expect it" rap they shoved in my face.

They were right, and so was I.

I met someone a while ago, at a time when I SWORE to myself (really, I did) that I would NOT ever love anyone again.. the reasons for my decision in that matter are difficult to get into and seem silly now anyway, but suffice it to say I'd had enough of trying to look and trying to find and trying to be good enough and.. trying in general. You can't try at this stuff, but I never knew that.

Anyway, this wonderful person showed up and we talked and we talked some more and she was cool and she seemed to like me too so we kept talking and laughing (lots of laughing) and cried a little and felt good and bad and somehow without either of us ever expecting it to happen, we fell in love.

I feel safe in saying the other person in question would admit to surprise here, as well. I also think she'd agree that it was a great surprise, a mind-blowingly cool surprise that keeps on going, kicking doors open by the minute and making each of those minutes better by the light that shines through the openings.

I know that sounds poetic and I don't mean it to; I just have no idea how to say what I feel any better. I suppose the right thing to do would be to shut up and enjoy it, and if things work out the way they seem to be heading I expect I will shut up about it soon-I have my limits regarding talk of very personal things and I stick to them pretty closely- but I just needed to say this because I am forty-one years old and still young enough to appreciate it as something new. I have never ever been happier, and it's because of something I never saw coming.

Call her Vin.

If you have a Vin of your own, love the stuffing out of her or him.

If you don't have a Vin of your own, please don't give up hope. Give up searching or trying as soon as possible, but never give up hope.

Not that my advice matters; she or he will find you anyway.

Just saying.

You

I feel the need to try to explain myself to someone I love when I KNOW she knows better. To even attempt is selfish as hell, so fuck it; there's better ways to deal with momentary confusion than to explain oneself.

Here goes...


YOU

You know who you are.
Unless you are you you will read this and wonder, or not,
Maybe care a little, maybe think you see something here.
Unless you are you you will not.

(That's a shitty start to a poem but it's all I have and it's true... roll with it, my mind screams.)

In the dark I can sleep; in the light I can still almost sleep
Not from weariness (at least not always) but from smiles and laughs
Gathered as everything so far has been, at odd yet perfect times.
I know that sounds crazy or at least very me.
I promise to explain it the second I know how.
I feel that second gathering courage and muscle.

(Cool... on the right track here, maybe... always with the "maybe" but it feels like something. FEELS is a good verb; active and all that shit. Keep going, man.)

I know this: if I were a coal miner or a fisherman, or even sold
Siding or ductwork or accoutrements, whatever they are,
And I was trapped by my silliness or that or those of others,
I would trust you implicitly; from a sense of love
And from plain survival; it makes sense to go with what has
Never done a wrong.

(...)

(this sucks, I say to me... finish strong)

I love you.
Not only you but ONLY YOU,
Laughter and kisses and thumbtacks and confusion,
Warm tears and ass-kickings threatened,
Beauty joining forces to grow,
Kindness and heart and understanding and
Soul draped flowingly within
A strong shot of "That's OK; I get it".

And everything else I might add,
Everything else.

I love you.

It's a start.

<3

More Than A Woman

I'm a smart man. I could be cool and say that that fact matters, that it's really helped me a whole lot as I've gone through life. It wouldn't be a lie, really; it might've helped a lot. The problem is: it's impossible to measure the important things while you're in the middle of shit.

All I do know is that right now I am in love, and that I seem to be noticing or otherwise having things enter my vision or hearing or knowledge or SOMETHING which probably happen every day to most people but seem to have, until now, missed my knowing. And I gotta say: it's cool.

I write all this because ten minutes ago- about an hour before sunset- I happened to be staring blankly out the window, toward the sidewalk near my place. It's been a beautiful, mostly-clear day here and people are outside. Kids are riding bikes and young girls are every once in a while squealing in voices octaves higher than I can imagine any human obtaining, and the grass is losing it's muddy hopelessness and there are shadows (SHADOWS!) and it's warming up and godDAMN! it's still light out at 7-whatever... I love it. In three months I'll be ready to kill for 65 degrees and some rain every day, but right now I love it.

Anyway, I was sitting pointlessly (seemingly) looking out the window and what should appear from mid-frame but a woman pushing a baby in a stroller. In itself, that's a scene that I always dig. Just always seems like it must be a very good thing, unless the pusher is hooked into pointless blather on a phone, or reading the NY Times while walking, or otherwise doing her best to miss the point of the walk altogether. It happens a lot; I'm not really blaming anyone for doing things their own way, as long as it is their own way. It just seems wrong when I see that, as most things seem wrong when I see them. Like I've said, I miss a lot and know very little.

Tonight though (been probably twenty minutes, now) the mother pushing the baby noticed the sun in her child's eyes and... tried to pull down that awning/cover thing some strollers have. It didn't do the job; didn't block the child's eyes.

Now... in the past... before my own eyes were filled with love or insanity or both, I would've turned away, or the woman wouldn't have continued and would have pressed on, her uncomplaining baby squinting all the way.

No more.

The woman pushing the baby swung the stroller around slowly and pulled it backwards, facing the sun herself.

It probably happens all the time; everybody but me probably knew this was the right thing to do. I just wanted to scream, "YOU ROCK, LADY!"

I didn't; that would've been weird.

I feel less alone when I see things like this, and I've seen a few things like this lately.

It must be love talking.

Don't worry too much, though... I'm still the same guy, listening to the Bee Gees and writing the silly stuff that hits my heart. Some things never change.

The Cat of Faas Road

It's been a long while, hasn't it?

An extremely dear friend of mine (can a friend be "extremely dear?" Yes.) in her own kind way jumped my shit for not putting anything up on here in so long a time. She's right; I should. This is a big part of my creative self; I write things on here that I write nowhere else. Not that I write much else in other places right now; call it other interests combined with laziness and forgetfulness. Still wrong not to say something once in a while, so I will try my best.

And as it just occurs to me that this might be a good place to tell VERY few people something about me, I will tell you about the Cat of Faas Road. This story might end up happy in its way, but it sure sucked to go through and I'm sure that will come through. Please don't feel bad for bailing now.

OK.. you're asking for it:

Sorry, but I had to break there and put on the Cure's "Just Like Heaven"... I was playing Death Cab For Cutie and if it kept up the tears would wash all of this away. Which might be for the best, but I'm taking my chances. :)

OK... a deep breath, and another, and GO:

November of 2002 was the last time I spoke to my sister in person. I had no idea it would be that way this far along. As far as I knew we were cool right up until I found out we weren't; God or Goddess or at least she and I know that we were up until then about as close as two adult siblings could be. We hung out a lot, joked a lot, talked about serious shit a lot, drank a few beers a lot, just... were cool. I would have killed for her. We were that close.

Thanksgiving 2002... Sis arrives at my parents's house and she and I and Mom and Dad and Grandpa all seem to be happy and enjoying each other's company.

Two days later: Sis (her name's Kris; I'm sorry to get personal but I never called her Sis before and I hate doing it now. She's Kris) decides that she wants my parents and most of her other relatives out of her life. And I know it's something she decided long before, because no one who does things like this on the spur of the moment can possibly mean it as much as Kris does. If her relationship with my family were a suicide, it'd be self-immolation or a leap from a 90-story building. She meant it SO much.

I was fucking dumbstruck. So were my parents and the rest of my family except for a few but that's a huge other story I don't feel like trying to explain right now. And trust me: when and if I do get to that story, there will be f-bombs.

Anyway, onto the story:

That two-day-later night I went to Mom and Dad's and we just sat there and talked and tried to figure out why the hell she hated us so much. We came up with no answers (I sure never do in the middle of shit; maybe no one does) and eventually I went home...

But to know me is to know that when shit is on my mind, I often drive. So at 1:30 on a Sunday morning on Faas Road in Palmyra, New York, thinking and driving, I ran over the Cat of Faas Road.

I only saw him at the last tenth of a second... the road was covered with snow and though I wasn't driving anywhere near the limit I couldn't miss him.

Thump.

I felt terrible.

And it was 1:30 AM in a rural area and I was stuck being me, which is to say that there was NO WAY I could leave him (or her, or anybody) laying there dying in the road. I turned around (driveways are far apart on Faas Road, so it took awhile) but I returned and... I couldn't tell if it was a cat or a raccoon, not that one was better than the other. I love them all, but I figured... nothing. I just felt like shit for having killed someone. Cat, raccoon, whatever. But I had to know. And I found out. And I picked him off the road, still warm, and set him on a snowbank near the driveway of the nearest house. And I pulled into the driveway and kept my headlights on (thinking that might help things) and walked to the door of the house and knocked. 1 fucking 30 AM.

A man answered and I asked him if he had a cat; he told me he had many, that it was a farm and there were a lot of them. I tried like hell not to cry but I did a little and said I was so sorry and that I'd gotten the dead boy out of the road. He said it was OK. That man is my hero, if only because he tried to understand how sad I was. He answered his door at 1:30 AM, after all.

After that moment, though I hate having to have gone through it, I have known I was a decent person. If I am someone who deserves shunning or censorship, then fuck it. I'd rather be alone.

I miss my sister a lot, but I still feel like shit about hitting that cat.

That's all.

Stuff Always Happens

Okay... if you're reading this, I am... stunned, because unless you're me it seems odd you'd have even stumbled upon this page, much less sought it out. Either way, welcome! Hope I don't bore the bejeezus outta you. (And yes, I say that to myself as well, for who knows where this one's going?)

It's been a long time since I posted so much as a syllable on here, which is kinda sad. Not that I've been bored in the interim; gone through the living and laughter and sadness and confusion we all do, some of it in greater amounts and intensity than I ever thought possible. Still, this place was (maybe is still) a haven for me to say whatever needs to be said. It'd be wise not to neglect it as I have.

Out in the so-called real world, things are currently... how do I put this?... in recovery mode. Not "recovery" as in "Shit! He's been underwater a LONG time.. we better RECOVER his body." No, more like I'm-getting-better recovery. Not that I was sick... more like some things seemed to have immense importance to me then quickly went to nothing. They left, and they left a void. Not a complaint; a whole lot of people have it worse. Still, it takes some serious getting used to when it happens. But everyone knows that.

I have a friend (met her not too long ago; she's cool as hell) who has a blog on here. I've read and re-read her posts (not many up yet; she seems to be threatening to add more soon and I hope she does) and I'm struck by a couple of things she says in the few I've seen. One would be the "oddball" thing, which I get entirely... so well that it doesn't interest me to elaborate too much other than to say she NAILS the feeling. But what I do want to say something about is the quiet. She mentions the quiet; how she can be in a crowd and somehow... if I'm understanding this right... also NOT be there, really. She put it much better than I just did, but suffice it to say I GET the feeling she talks about. It's a great sensation, and I'd never trade it to be "normal", but it also makes you different. That I get, too. The difference. It's the same difference I feel in myself when I tell every stalking cat I see to be careful as I drive by them, the same difference that makes me go into a woods and stand silently and just watch what happens. Stuff always happens. :)

Anyway, she's cool and her blog is organic-musings.blogspot.com and if you ever feel like I do you'd be well-advised to check it out; never hurts to know you're not alone however much solitude appeals to you.

This one rambled but them's the breaks. I'm rusty. But I'm back. :)

Timing Is Everything

I'd guess the title of this thing pretty much says it all.

It's going to have to, since I can think of no other reason to explain ANYTHING, much less why I've chosen, after about 200 dormant days and a like number of empty nights, to cobble something together for this blog page. So it all must come down to timing, if only for our purposes here.

Last night at some ungodly hour, a great friend of mine once again accomplished something she has developed quite a knack for: she introduced me to someone I already knew. Or rather she reminded me that I knew him, and gave me a few fine reasons to walk up to him and stick my hand out and shake his gratefully.

The man in question is Django Reinhardt, a jazz guitarist from the, I guess, mid-20th century. I'd heard his name for years- for decades, I'm sure. I knew he was a huge influence on people I greatly admire, and I also knew somehow that I would like his music very much if I gave it a chance. Despite all this, I'd spent my entire life until last evening never having heard this man's music. Some people would call that avoidance, some others would call it insanity. Either description is okay with me; I have no clue what to call my waiting on the subject except what it was: just waiting.

Last night the waiting stopped. My friend came along (here's the timing thing rearing its head) and pointed Django Reinhardt out to me and this time- maybe the 500th time his name had risen to consciousness in me, maybe more than that- was the time.

And so today, on an overcast day in western New York with the sun fighting the clouds and the approaching horizon, I sit here and type this and occasionally hit the forward and back arrows so as to hear "I'll See You In My Dreams" one more time. The cats walk in every once in a while and jump on me or just wander and stare; somehow among all the people I know I'm sure they are the ones who understand the situation best. We don't discuss it, though, and soon they're off to do whatever they do when I'm not there to see them. I meanwhile remain, typing and listening and falling completely and utterly in love with something I knew next to nothing about so recently that you could easily measure the time in seconds...

Not that that matters. I know now.

Evidence

Well, I have wound up my whirlwind trip to the Adirondacks where in between hiking and listening to birds and other music and reading a Eudora Welty story or two I managed to take a few pictures. Just as evidence, I guess.

The waterfalls are Ager's Falls, about ten miles from camp. They are beautiful and loud and on the day I took these pictures all the rocks had a bronzy shine to them. I've been there a bunch of times and hadn't noticed that before; it was most cool.

The strange stone-block structure is what is left of four locks on the Black River Canal, a waterway which intended to ease travel and shipping in the area and act as a feeder for the Erie Canal. It hasn't been active for over a hundred years; there are parts of it between Rome, NY and Boonville, NY, which are cut into the side of hills and will both impress you and cause you to question the sanity of anyone involved in the thing. The section in the photo stands in the median of Route 12 just north of Boonville. It holds no water, but the goldenrod thrive there.

The other 2 pictures are of tiny mushrooms I happened upon in the woods near camp. I include them for no other reason than I like them.