What’ll I Do?

I’m seated reclined in a faux leather recliner in a small room with a wood and glass door in a location 20 minutes from my home. The glass is treated to not let anyone to see in or out but to let the light in. I’m winding down from the latest Ketamine treatment, fully aware of my surroundings. I feel frail and old, just like I saw my Dad during the last medical appointments I accompanied him to. I’m in darkness except for the muted light coming in from the door and a lamp that is displaying different color dots of light moving around like the night stars on amphetamines. Ambient music is playing from an Alexa on a table near the chair. Like the most recent Ketamine treatments I never fully dissociated from the pain. And I was ruminating that this was the latest unsolvable problem. I agreed to these latest treatments just to get out of my head for a few moments. I didn’t really believe they’d cure me or even provide a route out of the unrelenting despair for just a few moments. 

The room is in a two story suburban mostly vacant office building that houses a title company a dermatologist office and a reality company. The visit began thankfully being driven to the building by first some friends but now by a Lyft driver. I’m not allowed to drive myself home. I check in with the front desk person after having filled out some online forms earlier in the day. Two of the three are standard psychological evaluation forms I’ve filled out many times during my past 28 years. Those two ask questions about my functionality. Am I having difficulty concentrating? With my sleep? With my appetite? Am I suicidal. My scores are maximum, confirming yes indeed day to day life has become unbearable. The third form confirms that if I try and drive myself home I will forgo any further treatments. Guessing that one is included for liability purposes. The front desk person asks if I’ve completed the forms and asks who is driving me home.

I take a seat in a small waiting area. Usually there are others there waiting as well. My friend who drove me to some appointments says there are a lot of people coming in for treatments. I share that is not a good sign. There are too many people still suffering in this post-apocalyptic world. Eventually I’m led to the room with the faux leather chair and Alexa and starlight lamp. The person leading me back to the room varies, but they are all very nice asking me about my day and week. They strap a device on my wrist with two finger attachments to monitor my blood pressure and heart rate. They leave the room and wish me a good infusion. Next a nurse enters along with usually another staff person. The nurse questions me about my how the previous treatments have gone and my current suicidal ideation level. Bad news with both. The nurse asks me about the dosage of my treatment. Do I want to increase or decrease? I don’t know. We agree to the Ketamine amount for this session. The nurse leaves as the other staff person inserts an IV into one of the veins in my arm. They turn off the lights and leave the room wishing me a good infusion. I tell Alexa to play some ambient music as I put a blanket I brought with me that has cartoon cats on it and cover my eyes with a blindfold. 

The Ketamine eventually kicks in, lessening the pain of my day to day existence, but I never fully disassociate from ‘reality.’ I always know that I’m sitting in a chair under a cat blanket listening to ambient music on an Alexa. Worrying about the Lyft ride home. I again recognize I feel as frail as Dad looked and wondered if he was cognizant enough to feel how alone he felt in his journey and knowing how minimally effective most medical treatments end up being. They can prolong life but is the quality of the remaining life worth even the effort it takes to get out of bed? Is there any hope left? Is it false hope?

One of the more insightful feelings from the treatments is there is a definite connection between my first serious breakdown in 1987 and this one. The connective tissue is my writing. In 1987 I suffered from my first writer’s block. I couldn’t write because it was too painful. This time around I wrote about my life of writing and depression in a result I’m very proud of that explains the connection between writing, feeling and thinking… I was able to write my novel with the first line of a writer finally figuring it out that the difference between fiction and non-fiction doesn’t exist, doesn’t in the end, matter. It was a freeing revelation insight that led to a 300 page unpublished novel, until now, my greatest accomplishment by far ever. All writing is fiction obviously told from a singular point of view. Many wounds and up and downs later, a dozen year puzzle of a memoir was written during this most recent devastingly sad time when there are political and day to day (I see constantly riding our light rail) differing versions of reality that have grown since 2020. 

Different realities, desperately clinging on to the familiar. Ketamine and writing. The core of my memoir is about being as authentic as I can be. Telling my life story in the most authentic way. I’m reminded of the Imgmar Bergman film ‘Persona” where halfway through the movie there is an apparent technical break in the film and when it resumes, reality is different. 

The staff have advised me to think about positive affirmations during the Ketamine journey. And I try my best. The most effective are reminding myself my heart and my ability to love remains because of living with the three latest great cats who mean the world to me. What will happen if I’m no longer around and they hopefully have a dozen or more years to live? I don’t want them separated but who is going to take in three cats? These thoughts are included in my memoir from a previous time and specific encounter with cat lover who tragically did take her life and leave her cats behind after sharing with me how much they meant to her.

The nurse after learning I write after the Ketamine sessions urged me to focus on writing about what life looks like without depression. This had been suggested by other healthcare practitioners during the past four years of trying to figure things out. Trouble is, and has been, I can’t picture that life. Publishing my memoir, having others read and like it, promoting it and being given speaking opportunities about its message are part of that vision. But the dark side of the vision is no one cares or reads the memoir or those that do don’t like it. I don’t exactly come off as the most likable person ever. I expose my many flaws hoping readers will respect the ‘courage’ and the overarching essential message about living in this world is to realize all of us are flawed and that is the essential lesson in understanding the most human being lesson we can learn. 

What else? I’m living with two four year old cats from the same litter that bonded from the start and a two year old soft and cuddly guy who has aggressively found his way with the other two and me, in an inspirational way. I desperately want to see their lifelong journeys together. Maybe I get hired as a Walmart greeter to support my debt and expenses and live a much less stressful existence. Maybe that lessons the pain and insanity of the past four years (and beyond)? I don’t know if that is a vision that works. 

Depression has always been my Achilles heel, my biggest weak spot that has always strategically known the precise way to shred me to unsolvable jigsaw pieces, destroying any sustainable livable years. The fear with agreeing to another round of Ketamine treatments and taking time off from work was what if it didn’t work? What if I didn’t feel just a little bit better figure out a way to think more positively? Well here I am. What is next?

Declaration of Distress

Last winter, I was standing on the platform waiting for the light rail to arrive. There were only a handful of us waiting for the train on either side of the tracks. A woman at the far end of the side I was on began walking toward me. I was standing about in the middle of the platform. When she got close, I knew she was going to ask one of two questions: “can you spare some change?” Or “do you have a cigarette?” She was in her mid-30’s wearing a ragged winter coat and sweatpants. “Do you have a dollar or two to spare?” She asked me. I told her I no longer carried any cash on me. I didn’t want to offer I have a Venmo account. She thanked me and instead of walking up the tracks to the next person, she stopped and stood right next to me. “You have a nice face,” she said to me. I thanked her for her kind words. We stood in silence for a few minutes and then she asked, “Are you OK?” I don’t think anyone had asked me that since the pandemic. “Been a rough few years,” I offered up. She agreed. I thanked her for her kindness not remembering the last time I shared such a true human moment. Eventually she made her way to the other side of the tracks and engaged with another weary looking soul. 

Months later I was in the darkest place ever. Most days, most moments I was in absolute unrelenting emotional anguish unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, gasping for some relief. I understood the individual responsibility of showing up at work everyday. Work was the only thing giving my life structure. Had it not been for my job and knowing I owed it to my cats to feed them, clean their litter boxes and snuggle when offered, there was nothing else getting me out of bed other than somehow forcing myself to leave the house and ride the light rail to Twins and Timberwolves games. The unanswered question was how I could continue in a job that was killing me and any hope of ever getting better?

I started suffering from my latest bout of depression around a dozen years ago. It was major, making day to day life difficult. I found a therapist who finally diagnosed me with something that made sense, “existential angst.” I’m obsessed with finding the meaning of everything and when I discover most things don’t have much meaning, I suffer angst. This got exponentially worse during and since the pandemic. The passion I felt from my career work evaporated quickly as my skills noticeably declined to the point of attending most meetings and feeling like my soul was leaving my body. How did things get so dire so quickly(?). 

I read about the ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Willie Mays still one of the greatest baseball players ever before I ever saw him play. The first time I saw him was during my first season as a baseball fan (thanks Mom!) when during the post-season he played centerfield for the Mets despite his inability to throw the ball. So every fly ball out, or hit to centerfield meant one of the corner outfielders racing over to get a short flip from Willie to return the ball back to the infield. His place in the lineup was more ceremonial and honoring than actually who might be on the bench and a better option for success. 

During this same time, my favorite Viking of all time, Fran Tarkenton was leading the Vikings to three Super Bowls (all lost) in route to a hall of fame career. The only QB that had better statistics was Johnny Unitas, who Mom pointed out was another who hung on too long, hurting his team and his legacy. And that’s exactly how I’m feeling now. Absolute anguish every day almost every moment I don’t have something, anything, to distract my mind.

I do wonder how I would feel about all this if given another terminal diagnosis with a disease like cancer or Alzheimer’s? Would others understand this challenge differently? They give us drugs and therapy and experimental treatments for depression. Is it any less a disease than something physical? Mind over matter? Just suck it up? Stop dwelling, stop indulgently feeling sorry for myself. I lived a privileged life. I really don’t know. Depression for me is about feeling sorry for myself, listening too much to my negative voice/thoughts. But I’ve suffered from vastly different depression in my life. 

My existential angst picked therapist told me he didn’t believe in a broken human being. Didn’t believe someone, anyone, couldn’t heal. And here I am years later. I point to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Cracked Up’ essays.’  Depression is like a cracked vase, put together again yet the cracks remain, or suffering from a skin wound where the remaining skin struggles to heal the wound. 

I’m taking the most substantial time off from work since I was hospitalized in the spring of 1988. It’s an act of desperation. . Self sufficiency has long been my mode. What happens when you discover only much too late, that’s an arrogant and selfish point of view? What do you do when your last ditch effort to merely find a way to exist miserably fails? Ketamine? An escape from reality or the reality you believe in even when others’ don’t. 

It’s definitely pride versus reality.

The one clear thing that emerged during the five Ketamine treatments is I need to publish my memoir. It’s killing me to have it done, being ready for over a year to share my story into the universe, only to have someone else tell me I can’t publish it. That decision sent me into a tailspin that gets worse every day. I’m very proud of what I’ve written. it took me over a dozen years to write, but in the end it accurately captures my lifelong struggle with depression, and tells that struggle in a very human way. To turn the pain into something expressed in an artistic manner is my proudest achievement. 

I haven’t written anything since completing the memoir over a year ago. And most of the year before that was spent re-writing bits of the story. Writing is core to my emotional well being and who I am and I didn’t realize until far too late how much I’ve suffered without it. I was hospitalized years ago because for the first time in my life, I couldn’t find a way to write. After being treated medically for depression I eventually found my way out by writing an unpublished  novel. I rediscovered my voice. The irony of this even darker depression isn’t lost on me. I’ve written the closest thing to my masterpiece that I ever will, it’s ready to be published, and now it’s drifting down the river away from me. 

I don’t at all understand why someone I never met decided my memoir violates the state’s code of ethics because I’m gaining personally from my professional position. I started writing my memoir in 2012 long before I was appointed the State’s Director of Elections. One out of the six chapters is about elections and that chapter almost entirely is about my career in elections before my current position. I never expected to make money off writing a memoir. Indeed it’s quite possible I will lose money since I hired a company to edit, help publish and market my book. This was never about money. It was trying to write the story of my life in an entertaining and artful way. Finally finding a way to tell my story.  It’s always been most important to me to write a publishable book. it’s never been remotely important to me to profit off it in any way other than making the universe just a little more kind. The people who made the devastating decision haven’t even read the book. I shared the elections chapter with a couple of them. The only person I’ve shared all this with doesn’t understand why I’m such a rule follower. Why don’t I just stop abiding by the rules that are ridiculous and make no sense in the larger scheme of things? Something about trying to remain obedient to the rule of law… Something that is in my genetic code.

I’ve never defined my life by my professional career. Certainly my career is part of who I grew up to be, but it’s a small part of who I am. I’m proud of the success I’ve had in my career but it’s far from what I’m most proud of in my life. The memoir at its core is about surviving depression and learning or not learning how to live the most human being way I can even if much of my life has failed at doing so. If there’s a universal message, if anything I’ve written resonates with others, it will be that part of the story. It was telling that when I attended a college reunion a few years ago, most people had no idea this was an actual job, nor what it was responsible for doing. Several thought being an election director meant running a campaign. It clearly would have violated the code of ethics if a company paid me to write a memoir because I’m the Director of Elections. I don’t see people lining up to read about election administration. 

I took a two and a half week medical leave. I hoped to get at least three things done: fix my toilet (broken handle), fix my scooter (stalled every time I stopped) and feel a little better. I surprised myself by figuring out the first two; hardly having any success as a handy man in my past but YouTube videos were helpful in both repairs. The third? Was it even a realistic possibility? What does feeling better feel like?  Four therapists ago I talked about feeling broken and diminished. My therapist pushed back against that notion saying humans can’t be broken or diminished, it was a false notion. The toilet flushed a bit differently and the scooter didn’t sound the same as it did before the stalling began. But both worked in their new versions. So can I?

The Long and Winding Road

I don’t have very many happy memories from junior and senior high school.  I’m not sure how I would have survived had I not discovered this little group called the Beatles. My obsession with their music was one of the few things my classmates really knew about me. We were on a high school band trip to Hibbing High School (Taj Mahal) years before that high school’s most famous alumni forever changed my life. We were doing a shared concert with the Hibbing High School band and were in the ornate cavernous auditorium waiting for the home band members to join us. There was a piano at the edge of the stage so I meandered over, sat down and began to play the chords of ‘Let it Be.’ I found myself leading my band mates in an impromptu version of the song. Afterward a couple of my friends said that was one of the most amazing things they’d experienced. 

What my classmates didn’t know was almost every morning as I prepared to go to school during my final year of public education, I listened to a tape recording of the movie ‘Let it Be’ on my Sony Walkman that I hand recorded from the VHS copy I made from a Betamax rental of the movie. It’s such a sad movie, documenting the breakup of the group. Paul was the only one showing any enthusiasm or desire to be in the band anymore. John mostly looked sad with Yoko by his side. And George and Ringo barely said a word, seemingly only there because they were supposed to be there, not because they wanted to be. And that summed up how I felt about my last year in high school. I just wanted it over with so I could get on with whatever was next, the rest of my life.

The movie begins with Paul playing piano, Ringo by his side. He’s playing a classical sounding piece that may or may not be a McCartney original. I loved the melody, so melancholy and longing. There’s an abrupt cut to John howling the vocals to ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ so raw and powerfully, My favorite moment in the movie, aside from the joyous closing roof top concert that the London cops shut down for creating a public disturbance, was right before the concert, with the band still in the studio and Paul sings “The Long and Winding Road.” It’s a different version from the released version, minus the Phil Spector over the top strings and angelic choir. And there’s a single word change that stands one of my favorite Paul songs on its head… the movie version changes the released version from “anyway you’ve never known the many ways I’ve tried” to “anyway you’ve always known the many ways I’ve tried.” This subtle change makes the song less sad. If the person the singer is singing to has ‘always’ known the many ways he’s tried and still has abandoned him it means she’s less likely to take him back than if she’s ‘never’ known and can be better made to understand the singer’s efforts. I’m not surprised Paul ultimately made the choice he made but I wish John would have talked him out of it.

The high school me read in one of the many Beatles books I read that during the ‘Let it Be’ sessions they sang over a hundred songs, some originals, some covers. The author of the book joked if only K-tel could have gotten the rights to the songs, a joke that only those of us very old will laugh at.  I bought some bootlegs from the sessions when I was in college and the Beatles’ released outtakes over the years. But high school me could have never imagined that a new movie, Peter Jackson’s ‘Get Back’ would one day be made, eight hours out of sixty plus hours of what was recorded but mostly not included in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 film. The one I listened over and over to and still love. And imagine if high school me would be told he’d watch the new movie streamed online on his iPad after plopping $7.00 down for a Disney+ subscription. How is any of this possible?

The purpose of the new movie seems to be to show the original was a bit misleading. Yes, the band was clearly breaking up but what had made them so special in the first place was the whole worked because the pieces fit so well together bringing out the best in each other. The best part of seeing the ‘new’ footage is to be reminded how frickin witty and funny John Lennon was. He seems much more alive in ‘Get Back’ than ‘Let it Be.’  My other favorite part is hearing early versions of songs that ultimately appeared on solo records, John’s ‘Gimme Some Truth,’ ‘Jealous Guy,” Paul’s ‘Teddy Boy’ and in particular, George’s ‘All Things Must Pass” a song contradicting the message of Paul’s ‘Get Back.’

Did we really need ‘new’ Beatles material in 2021 fifty one years after the footage was recorded? Probably not. Is eight hours of seeing rehearsals and incomplete conversations meant for anyone who isn’t a Beatles’s fan? Nope. But the power of ‘Get Back’ is an illuminating look into the creative process. Seeing a great band, four friends who went on a magical mystery tour together, develop germs of song ideas into something wonderful and meaningful is absolutely mesmerizing.

Some of the scenes in ‘Get Back’ appeared in ‘Let it Be’ but in a much different context. The conversations are longer and given broader meaning. This slight change was meaningful to me. Looking back at junior and senior high school and how miserable I was given a lifetime of other experience that gives better understanding and meaning to all that came before, I can now say it wasn’t as bad as I remember. I had good friendships and I was able at times to be myself with others accepting and wanting more of that. I wouldn’t be where I am today had everything that happened then hadn’t happened. Kind of like an earlier John song which apparently they sang during the ‘Let it Be’ sessions that sadly isn’t included in ‘Get Back.’

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

In my life I love you more

 

Kung Flu

Before we get to our agenda, I’m going to do something I’ve never done as the chair of this board. I’m going to use a point of personal privilege to make a few comments about the events that happened in Georgia this week. Because the events were the culmination of the growing violence against members of our communities. I attended an event hosted by CAAL last week about the fear that growing violence has created throughout the communities we are tasked with speaking for. The fear that exists thoroughly depressed me.

I grew up in Roseville, MN, at the time, a very white Twin Cities suburb. There was one other student of color in my kindergarten class, Sally Murakami, also Japanese American. Growing up through the years, all of our classmates assumed Sally and I would become girlfriend/boyfriend and get married. I liked Sally but had no interest as a kid, in marrying her and resented how our classmates assumed the two of us had a mutual connection just because we looked similar and different at the same time. I’m sure Sally felt the same.

The first time I realized I was a different race from my classmates came when Tommy Hanson teased me about my yellow face. I thought he was referring to how earlier, my brother and I were messing around with my sisters’ makeup, and I must have not washed some of it off my face. I didn’t know what Tommy was teasing me about until he kept teasing me and my Mom gave me my first lesson about racism and a common slur against Asians is having yellow skin.

Over the years through my K-12 experience there were a few other slurs directed at me and some painful micro aggressions directed my way but most have fallen out of my memory, whether deeply suppressed or because they didn’t register enough in my mind to remember. I do remember in college working my part time job at Kmart during a time when the American auto industry was struggling given the growing popularity of Japanese cars when a middle age white woman walked by holding up a package of men’s underwear and said to me, “American made.” Her choosing to use underwear to demonstrate her point made me chuckle, but the hatred in the tone of her voice pierced me to my soul. This was probably the most defining moment of my understanding the extent of how hatred is embedded in racism. There is no separation between the two, they are intricately intertwined in an insidious way.

We all have just endured an existentially life altering year. The turn of the page to 2021 hasn’t exactly gone much better starting with the racially charged January 6 insurrection against our democracy, to what happened this week in Georgia. I’m sure our council will step into a necessary leadership role. Sia helped us take a baby step forward with her statement yesterday. All of us community board members have been appointed because we are seen as leaders within the communities we represent. I would love to talk with each of you individually about your thoughts about how we as the council can best lead those we speak for in state government, out of the fear of violence, physical, verbal, emotional... Because I personally am really struggling with knowing what to do next. It’s exhausting to live in this space.

2020 Hindsight

“They tell me everything’s gonna be alright, but I don’t know what alright even means...”

For 11 years I scooted every scootable day from April through October from my house to the Minnetonka City Hall, a 42 mile round trip. Near the Lake Street Bridge where Marshall Avenue in St. Paul becomes Lake Street in Minneapolis, there’s a building that houses an eye clinic and a psychology clinic. Every time I scooted by the building I thought to myself there’s a joke in there somewhere- how it was a one stop shop for those with a variety of vision problems (eyes and long and short term). 

At the beginning, perhaps the thing I missed most when I switched jobs was that long daily scoot. The scoot to my new job is less than five miles. Now I’m missing a world where I could safely leave my house, where everyday didn’t feel like the world is coming apart at the seams and the dread that seems around every corner.

2020 was always going to be difficult because for the first time in my time in elections there was going to be three statewide elections with the addition of the Presidential Nomination Primary (PNP) in March. I know there was a lot of angst amongst election officials throughout the state about running another election during a presidential election year, one which for the first time, the voter would need to disclose their political party in order to get a ballot. I spent much of the fall of 2019 traveling to all corners of the state speaking with county, city and township election administrators. 

The PNP went surprisingly smoothly statewide. Internally we made a horrible mistake directing voters for a short period of time to a partisan website when our poll finder application was having issues. Perhaps that was a harbinger for what was to follow. The state canvassing board certified the PNP results in mid-March. A few weeks later the pandemic caused everyone who could to work from home. There were horrible scenes of emergency rooms overflowing from people dying, trying to gasp for their last breath. The numbers were staggering. A friend joked that I should be good to go because I’d been practicing social distancing and isolation my entire life.

Then the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. This led to protests which led to riots and looting as parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul burned down. My scooter route down Lake Street was the epicenter of the worst damage. I sat there watching the news coverage as our city burned with anger and fire. 

A small group of us returned back to the office wearing face masks during the two week candidate filing period for the fall’s elections. One day, we were told by Capitol Security to evacuate the building and go home because a mob of looters was in the area and our safety was potentially in harms way. When the filing period was over we all returned to working from home. 

Over time Diego-San, Theo and I figured out a workable rhythm to this new normal of me being home all the time. Diego-San was particularly skilled at doing everything he could to get me away from working on my laptop so he could sit on my lap. He’d sit on my computer’s mouse, or my hand trying to use the mouse or sit right in front of my laptop. He made appearance in most of my online meetings and made himself heard during phone calls.

And then he died. Just when it seemed 2020 couldn’t get any worse, it did. The days after I fell into a catatonic state. It was all too much. The only thing I could to do to distract my mind and my heart was try to remember all the baseball players I’ve seen play. Who was on the 1973 St. Louis Cardinals? Who was in the 1984 Detroit Tigers bullpen? Who was the third baseman for the 1995 Minnesota Twin? That and imagining the comfort of Marisa’s touch. And there have been days since where I returned to that overwhelming state. The world also became a profoundly sadder place losing two giants of the civil rights movement, John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsberg not to mention the over 200,000 Americans who have died from COVID19. The anger in the country and the divide seem insurmountable at this point. What’s next?

I’ve made it a point the past month to take a ride on my scooter to get out of the house. The rides usually take me back to the neighborhood I grew up in, the streets I used to ride my bike during summer days growing up. This wasn’t a conscious decision, I just needed to ride my scooter somewhere. But I can’t help but wonder somewhere in my subconscious I wasn’t looking for a way to get back home again, back to a time when the primary thing on my mind was love and how my whole life and the whole wide world seemed in front of me.

“Once there was a way to get back home again. Once there was a way to get back home, sleep pretty darling do not cry. And I’ll sing you a lullaby...”

Theo misses his feline housemate(s). He cries out a meow every time I pass nearby. We both wonder what’s next and where we go from here.

 

Still Have Our Chopin

There was a time, in a shared dream both of us knew, nothing was as it seemed

Telling good from bad, By wearing a mask Blowing up buildings, Built in the past

Dystopian curfew, Stay home in bed Her ambient music, Stuck in my head

Prisoner Evey, In a museum room Cry me a river, The jukebox tune

She reappeared, from out of the blue asking for money, so nothing that new

Black cats and music, apocalypse edge paid day at the beach, life on a ledge

Trying to live without a muse 

Feelings are gone even the blues

Wondering how when became then

Still we’ll always have our Chopin

I don’t know her, Doesn’t know me social distancing, None of us free

Conspiracy babe, Guy Fawkes day A shaved head, heart turned to clay

It’s a film noir, Bogie and Astor All things wrong, shadows hit the floor

The tube train car, Explosives loaded tearing down statues, history exploded

Masks separate, True self from the rest Taking it off, Inspired and blessed

Mob in the street, do the right thing Her extremist rant, Isn’t how she sings

Poetic in a non lyrical way

just hoping for another day

Wondering how when became then

still we’ll always have our Chopin

Trying to kill us fauchi and gates fascist interference with our fate

Invisible killer, Life came to a halt Ignoring science, Who is at fault

Playing the right notes, At the right time Learning silence, Can sound sublime

Burned down my route, memory refined Chaos ensued, Two of a kind

V for vendetta, Natalie revealed Society crumbles, Our fate is sealed

A movie date, Losing connection Sitting in my room, Worthy of a mention

This is the age of social media, 

Not like reading an encyclopedia 

Wondering how when became then

Still we’ll always have our Chopin 

Three steps forward four steps back, looking for peaceful not crazy and what I lack

With me or against me, forever don’t know for that reason, I know i must go

Burning down my house, In a toaster fire Not knowing what to think, Nothings required

Baldy and pee boy, Extending their claws A brand new world, With much different laws

Licking a lollipop, Sharing ice cream Too much of nothing, Nightmare dreams

In isolation the poet appears Bringing meaning to meaningless fears 

burning books, memories rearranged

what we knew now is forever changed

Wondering how when became then

Still we’ll always have Chopin

Taking it all in pieces rearranged

What happened somehow changed 

What i will forever feel about then

Still we’ll always have our Chopin

Intriguing Maladies and Mysterious Afflictions

I never started off trying to write a novel. Instead I felt I might be at the end of my rope and I knew I had never come close to writing my masterpiece. Still, in my 25 years I had written some things I thought were good. Good not in they were masterful words magically arranged on a page that would change the world. Good for me at the time was having been able to write something that accurately captured the mixture of feelings and thoughts that something, somebody somewhere had inspired me to feel the need to figure things out on paper.

Once I began compiling my favorite examples of my writing I noted there was a pattern to what I considered samples of my best: that all the writing was about how hope was the sum between love and inspiration. And that elusive combination was the most powerful elixir. Finding the moments, memories and dreams that were powerful and unique that I bothered enough and inspired enough to come home and write about. I didn’t understand the inspiration, why a particular person or event was so meaningful not only to figure out what it meant, but to express how it changed me. The common connection was feeling love. I was falling in love with someone; I loved a song, a movie, a book... And what did this connection between inspiration and love leave me feeling? Hope. Hope that I was headed to something better. Hope that someone would be there with me. A shared experience that I felt compelled to share.

In collecting my writing together in one place I noticed recurring themes of inspiration, love and hope that ran throughout my favorite pieces. I wanted to write the connection between them and it occurred to me I could tie them all together in a novel. That revelation was huge, More enlightening than the most powerful anti-depressants. Realizing the line that separated reality and embellishment was razor thin. By turning nonfiction into fiction, I had the right to express other people’s feelings and thoughts about particular events about me (the protagonist). I could take whatever creative license I wanted to tell the story I wanted to tell.

What story did I choose to tell? How one character (me, on my better days) was watching another character (me in my reality) disintegrate and it equally horrified the witness and disgusted him. He chronicled the wasting of one more talented into a cesspool of self pity and depression. It kinda was like a poor second cousin rewrite of ‘Amadeus.’

For the past several years I’ve been writing a shared memoir with Marisa. The idea was to write about events that made us who we are individually, how we met, and how we’ve connected despite two completely different life stories. The challenge has always been feeling adequate telling her story because I can imagine but I can’t know how a particular event left her feeling. And her life story towers over mine in the drama and pain.

I’ve thought about overcoming these obstacles by turning to the tried and true- turning it into a novel. A piece of fiction. I’ve also thought about turning it into a self help book: here’s what we did, you want to avoid doing the same things at all costs. Lately, I’ve noticed a connecting theme in our shared story is that life doesn’t have a master plan no matter what we were told as kids. Life is a series of forks in the road and you make the best decision you can based on past experience, best guess, best intuition, and how much you trust your decision making at the moment.

It’s not exactly a tale full of love and inspiration. There is a scent of hope that what we’ve shared the past seven years has been life changing for both of us because we were able to share it together. It’s our cubby hole moment.

“Sometimes it's not enough to know the meaning of things, sometimes we have to know what things don't mean as well.”

Mr. Cameron, my high school creative writing class teacher, once asked how I was doing. I said I was doing OK. He said that was too bad because great writing comes from times in our lives when we are struggling.

In the early days of Cheapo, in the wake of the free fall, there was a day I was taking my lunch in the cubby hole built to show kids videos while the parents shopped and dropped their hard earned cash. I was joined by the newest employee, the girl with a limp from a skiing accident who I already had a huge crush on. Stephanie Jane was hired during my hospitalization. She technically might have replaced me during my indefinite leave. I knew she knew I was sad. So as I ate my PBJ and she ate a salad she probed a little, not too far, not too personal. I revealed I was haunted. That my memories turned to demons. I didn’t tell her the doctors suggested treatment was electroshock that they said would probably help with the only side effect being short term memory loss. That tempted me if only for a few moments.

Stephanie Jane then said the thing that will resonate more than anything else anyone else in my entire life has ever said to me: “Then we’ll just have to make new ones to replace the old.” And we eventually did leading to a cross country trip that was the basis for being able to write a novel.  But maybe the cure ended up being worse than the disease, winning the battle only to lose the war.

All this led to my first paid writing gig, the Cheapo Newsletter’s editor. The opportunity was a gift given to me toward the beginning of Bob Dylan’s self denied ‘Never Ending Tour.’ But the spirit of that tour inspired me. Bob was playing gigs nearly every night in smallish venues throughout the world. The setlist changed every night, the arrangements of the songs were fluid. And that was what inspired my Cheapo newsletter columns. If I wanted to be a writer I needed to put my depression, my past, my angst, my baggage behind me. I just needed to take advantage of this incredible oppportunity to do the thing I love doing best, create and express myself and then share it through my writing. Just write no matter how wrong.

The new memories Stephanie Jane promised were meant to inspire me to reconnect with my muse, the thing that balanced me: my writing. I suffered long and hard once that muse disappeared. Hope, the bridge between love and inspiration burned down. Eventually I gave up believing in the myth Mr. Cameron’s lesson. Being a writer didn’t mean being tortured. Being a writer simply meant writing, being willing to share my writing warts and all, and being strong enough to accept the consequences.

They always say fill a room full of monkeys at typewriters and they could produce something Shakespearean. Give me a weekly writing gig for 14 years and once in a blue moon the self conscious filters let my muse express something true, authentic, that somehow manage to straddle the line between intimately personal and universally relatable.

The raw intensity of love inspires me to write something that came out of nowhere, that almost felt like it wrote itself and I just needed to get out of my way. Rereading my Cheapo newsletter columns the best are the ones that were inspired by things like Mr. Max enjoying green beans fresh out of the garden, attending Bob Dylan concerts and Sandra Bullock movies.

The lesson I’ve learned in trying to write a memoir is that the older you get you learn new memories don’t replace the old ones. They can add to them or enhance them or make you feel said because they don’t have the same meaning and power. Memories are like waves; they move forward and splash back and in the middle they intertwine. Watching my Dad die from Alzheimer’s/Dementia, it was heartbreaking and illuminating that in the end he could remember things that happened 50 years ago better than he could something that happened five minutes before. It was like the moments that were worth remembering, that initially ingrained themselves so powerfully retained their power or at least because he had remembered them so strongly for 50 years he remembered them until the very end.

Recently, I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and couldn’t fall back to sleep, a lifelong affliction. So I went down to the living room to try and fall asleep on the couch. It dawned on me how many years of accumulated stuff I have. The love seat is Katie’s, her first splurge purchase after finding a new life. The couch is from Niki, Jenny Engh’s former administrative assistant. The piano is from my sister Donna. The coffee table was a gift from us kids to mom and dad on a wedding anniversary. The rug was a housewarming gift from mom and dad. The drapes are from Amy. The TV was the one Pistol Pete and I bought (Stephanie helped move it from Linwood to Raymond). The receiver attached to the TV is the first stereo I got, the one I got in junior high and used to do my imaginary WQSR programming on. I’m made of the memories that the stuff represents.

But what the wave has taught me as I bob back and forth from that day in the cubby hole with Stephanie is a lesson that’s taken me 30 years to learn: that creating new memories and moving forward and not being haunted is a definite must. But it’s that shared singular moment, a true moment of kindness and hope, and sharing it with someone living in the moment, that’s equally important. Be here now.