Me 'n' Huck

"Reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated," said Huck Finn (or something like it) as he watched his own funeral from the rafters of the church. Well, all week long the neurologist repeated I'd had a stroke, a "hemorrhagic event" she called it (nothing at all like an academy award or a Bar Mitzvah), so all week long I dreaded the idea that Depends were in my near future. However, when the hospital finally did a blood work up (a little thing they'd neglected) it turned out that I had an unchecked urinary tract infection that seeped into my bloodstream and caused septicemia, blood poisoning. This displays the same symptoms as a stroke but a stroke it ain't. Keep your Depends. I'm outta here. And one day later I was.

I'm home now in the place I love most in this world, getting stronger every day and feeling like my old self. Something I learned this week: one can become old very quickly, overnight, my friends.One way to stave this off is to drink tons of water. Must stay hydrated. For years my kids have been telling me to drink more water, that coffee and beer wouldn't cut it. OK., kids, so now I'm a believer. Here comes the corny part: I feel like I've been given a gift. I could have died but I didn't. Instead, I learned that toughing it out in the old ways worked well enough when I was younger, but if I'm going to live long and heartily as the tough, old bastard I'd like to think I am, I'm going to have to change my ways. Suddenly, staying alive and healthy has become more important to me than another cinnamon roll. Discipline, a concept that had become quaint, is required. There's nothing cute about a crotchety old man. Come on, ref, lemme go another round and let's see what I can do! What's more important about another Baby Ruth bar that eclipses the love I have for family and friends? Yes. There. I said it. Love. I didn't mind being irresponsible when I could get away with it. Can't no more. Whenever I do shuck this mortal coil, I want it to be after a long, loving run. Nothing is more important than the people in my life. This week has shown me that. Nothing.

So now it's August, and I'm thrilled to be here. 'Til mid-October there's no place on earth more beautiful. Still warm and temperate, but now you see the occasional maple leaf turned copper-red in the grass, and there is a crispness in the air, a hint of Fall. Jamie and I picked wild blueberries yesterday. The trees are chock full of apples, a boon year for them. A large bough from our crab apple tree in the back came down in a wind storm. I never like to lose part of a tree, but this branch is filled with apples. Every evening a young buck in velvet comes to feed from it. My kids are fine. Dear friends have come through. Jamie is seeing to it that I drink more water.

Hang in there, buddy, I got a bet on ya! Here's the clincher: other people do, too.

I'm Still Alive, & I'm Not a Vegetable

Was working in my garden last week on my knees tying up tomato plants when I keeled over and could not get up. I felt no pain but I remember feeling really curious as to how I got there, and since my closest neighbor is a good quarter mile away, I was going to have to stay there unless I could get up. Which I could not. So I rested and rearranged myself, shifted my weight, and, at some point, got myself back to my knees. Getting to my feet was the harder part, like being buffeted by waves at the beach. I don't remember how long it took to get there but finally I did. I knew my feet were under me because. I could see them there but I felt so off-balance like a sapling waving to and fro in the wind. I kept thinking if I can only get to the house, drink water, and lie down. Chan, our close friend later called me a semper fi curmudgeon. I say, "Whatever it takes." I don't remember getting there but I remember being there, lying down, and answering the phone because I could see it was Jamie checking in like she usually does. Right away she knew something was wrong. "J," I said, "I'm just too tired to talk," whereupon she promptly called our neighbor down the road, Mike, who got to me pronto and phoned the local paramedics. Good thing, too. One hour later an ambulance got me to the emergency ward in Kingston. "When was the last time you ate?" I couldn't remember. "How do you feel?" I was asked. "Fine. Just tired." However, my vital signs did not say fine: blood pressure way up; pulse way down. I wasn't fine, not at all, but the fact that I was sick would not sink in. Huh? Sick? Me? I'm just really tired. Need sleep. Want to go home. "Sorry, buddy, you've had a stroke. Oh, shit. "Why don't I feel anything?" I asked myself. "Because you're out of it," came an answer, although I can't remember where the answer came from. But I couldn't handle simple questions, like what's your phone number? And I kept falling asleep before the person asking ever finished the question. Oh, holy shit, I allowed. I guess I've really come down with something. "Can I go home tonight?" I asked. It was about 10 pm. I think. Not sure. What I am sure about is someone said, no, we're waiting for a bed to open. The thought occurred to me that the housekeepers were waiting for someone to die and free up a room. At some point orderlies with a stretcher appeared, but I couldn't manage to get on it. They lifted me on and took me upstairs. I think it was about 3 in the morning. Can't remember.

Stay tuned.

33 Years -- August 12, 2013

The CIA calls it "tacit reasoning": the almost magical way of intuiting where things are going or what something means, the ability to sense hidden agendas and actually draw accurate conclusions. How do we know what we know? We've never been in this situation before nor have we met the other person before just now, yet our brains quickly make a series of tentative judgments in order to reach a conclusion. Tacit reasoning.

Love at first sight. Tacit reasoning. The door opened, and there she was -- Jamie -- the woman who would become my wife. We had yet to exchange word one. A second ago I had never known she existed, but I felt a jolt to my system that told me something important had just happened. It was a July 4th party, thirty-five years ago, at a friend's apartment to watch the fireworks over Santa Monica  Bay. I was sitting on the floor leaning back against a sofa with a brandy in my hand when my friend opened the door and let her in. I remember her smile. That was the first thing. She was an actress and projected one so large it could be seen from the last row of the balcony. I was paralyzed, literally afraid to move and probably wouldn't have had my friend not brought her over to introduce us. In my mind she looks now as she did then. She sat down on the floor opposite me and thus began a conversation that has continued for decades.We married two years after that and began a life that has lasted all this time, created a family, struggled with our careers, sometimes it seemed struggled with everything, and yet here we are, the two of us, still holding hands while we sleep. Each of us now has white hair but a little less of it. We're not as impetuous as we once were. We often veer away from the fall line that once seemed so attractive. There is no longer a rush to get down hill. There are other ways to get around.

So what's next? I don't know. I never did. I truly never fathomed just how good life could be. I know it now, and some part of me knew it then. What I know now is I am still excited at the prospect of Jamie coming through the door. But it is a quiet excitement, nothing raucous. We no longer tear each other's clothes off, but we have found peace in each other's presence.

Thanks, J. I love ya.

Catch & Release

Some of my best friends are fly fisherman (Two happen to be Jewish, but that's inconsequential). One, dead for decades now, was an ungainly guy -- big bellied with gangly arms and legs, and eyes that fixed you sure but seemed to come from two different directions. However, put a fly rod in his hand and he became pure grace. The line he looped backwards and then slipped forward was balletic, elegant, breathtaking, even gentle. His ability to place the fly exactly where the fish would take it was a joy to watch. I say "watch" because I am not a fisherman. I don't like fish so see no point in catching them. My friends practice "catch and release" -- catch them; let them go -- but again I see no point in causing a creature panic just for the fun of it. It doesn't know it's going to be let go. It thinks it's going to die. However, as I was staring into the creek that flows in front of my house it occurred to me that I do practice catch and release, only in my own way.

Robert Frost said that a poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of anger, a homesickness, a love sickness. It is never a thought to begin with. When I walk my woods and stare at rushing water I have no words either. I listen to all the birds singing with no goal to capture them on a list. I don't care what they're called. I just want to listen. I have no thoughts but I do have a lump in my throat. I do have yearnings. My job (if one can call what I do a job) is to capture these feelings by putting words to them, to craft them and allow them to float free of me, to bring them to the attention of someone else, to share them. In this way I keep my thoughts from dying with me. I don't believe in any mystical after life experience. I believe the here and now is all I've got. Except for the words I choose. If I choose them properly they will live on beyond me. I catch my feelings, distill them, and craft a spell that sends them on their way, to you, I hope. When I write a book or a screenplay external factors, lots of them, are involved. But these blogs are written for the pure pleasure of writing them, for the freedom I felt as a little boy rolling down a grassy hill and smelling spring onions as I mashed them on the way. Of course, having spent my life as a professional writer I do believe in an audience out there somewhere. I don't believe writers who profess not to care what other people think of their work. Of course, I care, but these blogs are not written for the same reason as the work for which I sometimes get paid. They begin as a lump in the throat, not a pitch, not a log line, not a query letter. For me they begin as something deep and mysterious. They come from somewhere and must mean something, but I don't know what until I catch them, process them, and let them go. The mystery, however, never goes. I continue to believe in the deep and mysterious, but only in all too rare moments do I catch a whiff of what it is. Only then.

My Bucket List

Ah, me! Can't ignore those tell-tale signs one minute longer. My meal invariably winds up on my shirt. Whoops, my fly is open. I'm driving down the road when I suddenly realize I don't remember where I'm going or even where I am. My handwriting has gotten so scribbly that if I handed it to the clerk at a Chinese laundry she'd give me three shirts with starch. I say "Huh?" a lot. Fine. I get it. I've already lived longer than I'm going to live. What is there left to do that I haven't yet done? Well, I'd like to eat an entire lemon meringue pie without having to chase it with a dozen Tums. I'd like to see the Yankees play the Red Sox at Fenway Park. I'd like to win a Tony. I'd like to see old friends. Other than that there's not too much left that I want to do. It's been a great life, and I've packed a whole lot into it. So, that leaves me with the Phucket List -- those things I don't give a good goddamn about no more no how. The guy behind me thinks I'm driving too slowly? Kiss it, buster. Safe sex? I guarantee you it could not be safer. Standing in lines? No way, not even for the hottest ticket in town, especially for the hottest ticket in town. You think I'm not hip? I'm not. So what? I will never ever own a smart phone, I-phone, android, whatever. It's taken me a lifetime to get over feeling dumb, and I'm not going to go back to feeling stupid now. What else? I refuse to multi-task. For millenia religions have preached the mystical state of union, of one-ness, of being present in the moment. Be Here Now. So, at this stage of the game I'm going to trust a corporate shill who preaches doing at least three things at once, preferably, seven or five or six or ten? That's actually the first thing on my list. No way will I talk on the phone at the same time I'm checking my bank balance, texting, streaming a video, and making a list for the market. Come to think of it, I'm not going to text at all. That leaves me with the concept of Authority although authority figures have been a problem for me ever since. I've tried to cover it up.You're an authority? Prove it. Or lose it. This inability to hide my disdain has plagued me for a lifetime. There have been isolated situations in which I tried, but the sneer which appears on my face is a dead giveaway. I think I'm smiling and giving rapt attention. But, completely on its own, my upper lip curls. My eyes narrow. Contempt is the operative word, and now, finally, at this stage of the game, I no longer care to be polite at all.

Last year a huge buck collided with my front end and turned my car into an accordion. It was mating season, and he'd been so focused on chasing a doe he forgot to look both ways, or any way. The insurance company classified my car as a "rolling total" which meant it still went forward if you gave it gas. It took me two weeks to get another vehicle. In the meantime, I wasn't about to drive my junker any where except I ran out of food and was forced to motor to the market. I bought supplies and headed home at thirty miles per hour with my blinker lights flashing. A state policeman pulled me over. I was pissed. Who needed this? You know that maddeningly slow, cocky walk they do from police cruiser to your driver's side window? By the time he got there I was not one bit happy. "License and registration," he said.
                        "What'd I do?" I wanted to know.
                        "License and registration," he repeated with an edge to his voice. Hey, if you're asking for my credentials I have the right to know what I did. Besides, he was so young he looked like he was still in high school. So,
                        "What'd I do?" I repeated. He pushed his face closer to mine and asked,
                        "Do you have an attitude?"
                        "No," I said with a half grin, "I'm too old to have an attitude."
But, the bald truth is, I still do.

Politics and Hurricanes/Halloween, 2012

            Yep, Sandy raised a little hell on our mountaintop: winds howled around the house, rain fell, trees went down, power went out. It was quite a spectacle, as any great storm is in the mountains, but nowhere close to Irene. Less damage but still damage.  People lost their homes. People died. But the river didn’t jump its banks, and the bridge over it remained intact. It wasn’t Irene, but the response of the people who live here was much the same. Once the rain and wind stopped folks came out of their houses looking to see what they could do to help. Repair trucks from the phone company and the electric company arrived almost immediately. Highway crews had been out there throughout the storm. Clear, calm voices manned help lines. The 17^th century divine and poet, John Dunne, wrote, “No man is an island. No man stands alone.” As I watched the mountaintop begin to recover those words came to mind. We were all in this together. Every man and woman out there – union people, most of them – exemplified what I was taught as a boy: Americans get the job done. The fallacy of the self-made billionaire lies in the illusion that he is an enlightened individual who goes it alone, some kind of wizard worthy of our reverence. He’s in his house now while thousands of skilled workers hustle to get his power back on. Police keep order on his street. During Irene, the National Guard and state police were out as well. Crews clear obstacles from his roads. Paramedics pick up the sick and elderly. Hospitals take them in. Nobody does it on their own, not the Koch brothers, not Sheldon Adelson, not Mitt Romney. I trace the cult of the American CEO back to when Lee Iacocca first appeared in a television ad commanding us to, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Talk about swagger. “Follow me and don’t ask questions. Follow me because I have all the answers, and you don’t have even one.” As the years went on one CEO after another began starring in their own commercials, adding to their personal myths as super mensch. Even as disreputable and biased an organization as Fox News can’t give us a single picture of one billionaire packing sandbags. There’s been no news of either of the Koch brothers bringing needed supplies for the epicenter. No help from Sheldon Adelson, either, whose face could be mistaken for a ghoul’s mask on Halloween. The strength of our nation is its middle class that fights our wars, puts the wounded back together, fixes our highways, works in hospitals, teaches our children, cleans up after natural disasters. The middle class made us the strongest nation in the world after they won WW2, and I will bellow and scream against the plutocracy for as long as I’m on this earth. I’m not discounting the singular skill of being able to amass huge amounts of money. Certainly, it is not a skill I have, but just because an individual amasses wealth does not qualify that individual to govern. Business/Government – two different ball games. Wealth does not automatically make one a patriot, either. Patriots don’t send jobs to other countries. Patriot’s would not do business with enemy countries. Patriot’s don’t regard rapes as divine justice. Patriots don’t lie us into wars and send our young men to fight and die in them without proper equipment. Patriots fight for the rights of us all. Patriots don’t turn dogs on citizens or keep them from voting. Patriots support free thought and equal opportunity, and I’ll be damned if I’ll willingly let casino owners determine what I can do and the direction my country takes. Even though I was in the Marine Corps as a kid (not a hero just a glorified grunt), I never thought of myself as a patriot. I never thought I wasn’t. I simply didn’t think of it at all. Now, I do. After years of hearing that word bandied about by people who wouldn’t know the Constitution from a Cabela’s catalogue, maybe I am one of those things: a patriot after all. It’s not for me to say. But, I tell you this: I hold dearly having been raised as an American kid. For that reason maybe I have become a patriot. I want my grandchildren to experience the majesty of this nation as I have.

Semper Fi.

October 19, 2012 Spruceton

      

          This time of year things, creatures, have a way of coming inside. Our friend up the valley, Emmy Fiesinger, had a weasel in her living room. The Butlers across the creek had a bear stick its nose through the kitchen door (literally through the door). My friend, Maureen from Woodstock, found a fisher in her trailer. I actually had a mouse in my office that would climb on my desk, sit on a paperweight, and watch me work at my computer. It was quite cute, round and tiny as a ping-pong ball with a shiny black nose like a little bean. It came to visit a few days running, but it disappeared the instant my new daughter-in-law brought her cat to the house. We’ve also from time to time been invaded  (or “visited” if you share PETA’S point of view) by bats, raccoons, skunks, red squirrels, and snakes. The only solution for an invasion of  red squirrels comes in twelve gauge. The little bastards get shot on sight. They are tiny, wily, and fast, very hard to hit, and, I’m sorry, folks, very satisfying when you do. This takes place outside, of course. If you had them in your house you’d know why: they eat everything in sight – plants, chopsticks, plastic picnic forks, bars of soap, bags of noodles, incense sticks, toilet paper, the rubber lining of the refrigerator et al – and they defecate every fifth step so dots of crap are all over the place like tiny, vile ball bearings. Bats, however, are treated with care, caught with a fishing net and released outside; raccoons get shooed away; and snakes in the basement are left there to eat the mice. I must admit I mourned the loss of my little friend, but not for long. I’m not that far gone. Still, if you live in the country, as far as critters are concerned, it’s “Mi casa, su casa”, and there’s no getting upset about it. If you can’t get used to it, get a condo in town.

            Mostly, of course, this kind of stuff only happens occasionally. Mostly, the creatures stay outside where they’re supposed to stay. We have a huge back window that looks north up Evergreen Mountain. We see lots of life out there that has no idea it’s being watched. I’ve seen a deer on its hind legs trying to climb an apple tree to get at fruit on a limb above its head. I’ve seen our bear on a casual stroll. I’ve seen a coyote stalk and rush a gray squirrel, and I’ve seen the squirrel get away. I don’t think its feet touched the ground for ten yards. The squirrel leaped. The coyote jumped. His jaws clacked down on empty. The squirrel commenced to scream furiously at him from the top of a maple tree. I applauded. One winter a covey of grouse camped out under a spruce tree in the back. It was the same winter I saw the wolf. Damn straight. A wolf! I gaped with astonishment as it crossed towards a stand of Norwegian spruce, passed through, and sat howling on the other side. Big-headed, gray, long, with a thick, bushy tail. A wolf! It had snowed earlier and the fallen snow preserved his prints for days. The forest service said it probably came down from Canada. Mink, fox, lynx and bobcats are out there, too, if you’re lucky enough to see them. It’s opportunistic. If you’re out there and happen to glance in the right direction at the exact right time you might spot a piece of something. When I’m out there my head and eyes are on automatic pilot, side to side, up and down. Don’t think bobble head doll. These movements are subtle. Still, there are no guarantees. Maybe you’ll see something. Maybe you won’t, but what you know for certain is that they are out there, and they are watching you.