Between Blog Posts: Part 3

Over the past month I have been able to find a few second and even a few minutes here and there that have allowed me to let my mind meander about and pull together different images and glimpses into the lives of fictional characters. Even while trying to catch up on the blog, there were still a few much needed moments when I needed to take a momentarily creative leave from reality. It is still unclear as to what will be done with all of these little pieces and whether they tie together somehow or if they are completely separate stories. So, following my notes from New Jersey Transit uncovered in the beginning of August, part 1 recorded in the middle of the month, and part 2 published a couple of weeks ago, I bring you another installment in this sporadic series.

6AM

The neighborhood kids called him Mr. Brown but he had many different monikers throughout his life. Whenever they would call his name in the morning he would turn his head and give him them a slight smile. No one said anything else to him. They let him be and simply watched in silence as he went about his morning routine.

He peered out the window each morning at 6am looking up at the sky. When the sun shone on the horizon he would put on his slippers, a coat when the weather turned bitter, and opened the front door with a slow and deliberate precision that baffled those watching.

His purposeful steps didn’t take him far. They carried him to the corner of his walkway and into a gravel bed surrounding his flag pole. Her he would take the flag tucked under his arm, unfold it, and raise the stars and stripes in a way that is familiar to few but respected by all who witness the ceremony.

Every morning he would pause at half-mast with a kind sadness in his eyes that revealed much more about his routine. In a moment of stillness he seemed to mutter almost apologetically before hoisting the flag to the top of the pole. Securing the rope with a figure eight and solitary knot, he would then turn and return to the front door stiffly closing it behind him as if trying to keep out the memories.

When the sky prepares to succumb to the night everyone watches as he emerges from behind his seclusion almost with a sense of relief that the evening will soon descend and another day will end in silence. He returns the flag to the earth folding into a precise triangle, tucked it under his arm, and carried it with reverence back into his home.

As the amber deepens into red and before the purple hue of dusk, a small glimmer of yellow can be seen waiving lightly from the trunk of his oak tree seemingly giving farewell. The same bitter parting he was offered when his son was deployed.

And now the tattered ribbon tethers the memories of a neighborhood as they all remember the jovial laugh that would fill the small street every time Mr. Brown came home from work. A laugh that only lives in distance echoes. But now there is only night. Now there is only silence. For one more day.

Between Blog Posts: Part 2

Earlier in the month I shared some story notes that I uncovered during a bout of digital archaeology and last week I posted another piece that I jotted down between a couple of blog posts and projects. Well, it happened again. While doing some work and personal research this past week, a small light began flickering in my mind like a projector and played a small scene for me. All that was shone is what is recorded below. This, like the other ideas recorded on this blog, might be interesting to pursue when I have a little more time to commit to this type of writing. But, for now, here is what was played for me…

5AM

Jim was never a morning person and never pretended to be one unless he was applying for a job. This was the conflict that stirred in his mind as the alarm echoed off the empty apartment walls.

He kicked the soiled sheets to the other side of the bed and placed his hand in the cold empty hollow in the mattress next to him. It almost didn’t feel like it was worth it to try and get up but he could stand the thought of lying there alone.

As he staggered to his feet the faux floor whined between his toes. In the bathroom he plunged his worn face in the stagnant sink filled with the same water that had been lingering for days.

The spotted mirror told him all he needed to know reflecting his shadow riddled eyes buried behind his beard.

He rustled through his clothes looking for something that could pass as presentable, something that may have appeared on a store shelf in the last twenty years.

Cleaned and dressed to the standard that had haunted him for the past three years, he opened his bedroom door and walked down the short moonlit hallway to the stack of disposable bowls awaiting him in the kitchen. Like the hundreds of days before, he opened the only stocked cabinet, pulled out a box, and watched the sweet processed puffs as they piled into the paper vessel.

Some people take great care with their diet, Jim was not one of those people.

By the time the sun had begun to inch over the horizon, he was already walking deliberately down the stairs, step by step, counting each one as if the total would be different than all the other days.

The orange and red of the sky surprised him and a smile nearly curled the corners of his mouth when it was quickly slapped from his face by the noise of the city. His simple routine had taken him nearly two hours and now the remaining minutes of the early morning were few and precious.

While little had changed that morning maybe the day would be different. Maybe this would be the day when the burdens of the past would be lifted. Maybe the events of the day would allow him to forget. Maybe this job would be different than the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that…

Between Blog Posts: Part 1

Recently, while going from one topic to the next whether that be at work or while writing about different topics for the blog I find my mind wandering a little bit into the other side of my brain. It’s almost as if it fell off that fine line that I am constantly walking between the two hemispheres and all of the sudden the ideas for stories begin flowing through my fingers. They are only glimpses but, like the rough ideas that I shared before which I uncovered in my computer, I wanted to share them here. After all, you never know what I might do with them…

4AM

Ben had been up all night with the only light shining on the dark country road being the one piercing through his kitchen window. The highway asphalt in the distance had been quite for hours and the autumnal wind carried with it the scent of the approaching season. His work was done, for now, but his labor was just beginning.

The hinges screamed as he pulled the front door toward him. A sound that had become all too familiar in recent weeks. But in that moment, in the darkness of morning, he was the only one who could hear the house shrieking.

His legs were heavy from the rigor of the night and while a fog filled his eyes his mind continued to meander through memories. It took an unexpected effort to traverse the walkway but he endured the haunting thoughts and failing limbs finally slumping over on the rusted trunk of his car. 

He swung open his creaking door and collapsed into the tattered driver’s seat. Turning the key he hoped that the engine would start just one more time. He had a lot of things to do that day but his only desire was to stay home. As the exhaust plumed in the rear view mirror he swallowed the last remanence of cold coffee, rubbed his eyes with his red hands, and slowly skidded down the leaf strewn driveway.

The winding road coddled his eyes while the pings of loose pavement kept his lids from closing. It wasn’t long before he could see the lights from the gas station emerge from the crest of the hill, people walking back to their cars with steaming cups, and the traffic light blinking yellow and red like a beacon on a desolate shore.

As he turned the corner he could hear a rumble cascading across the road. By the time he turned his head the truck had already breached the passenger door. His body was thrown across the intersection until finally resting face down in front of the weathered array of lingering campaign signs.

When the police arrived, they found nothing to identify him, a car which had disintegrated into an unrecognizable heap of scrap, and a heart that had long since stopped pumping. The only thing that they knew about him is what witnesses heard him gargle from between the blades of grass…    

“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.”

Book Update: Finally, Some Progress!

One of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year was to pull together many of the collections of poems and essays that I have compiled over the years and publish them. I have considered this endeavor in the past but was never able to see it to the end. Well, over the past couple of months, I was finally able to see many of those projects come to fruition. It took some time, a considerable amount of energy, and a few dollars but I was finally able to get four books published through Author House.

The first book that I worked on was a collection of poems that I wrote as an undergraduate student at Endicott College. All of the poems in the collection were written at that time, many of them published both in literary journals and in a limited run I pulled together with a local print shop at the time titled Teaching A Stone To Talk: Nature Poems. I am still grateful for the help that I received from Carol Raiche for the formatting the modest book and putting me in touch with the printer.

Now, accompanied with photos taken over the past decade, these poems are once again available in the collection Paintings In Under A Thousand Words: Nature Poems.

Many of the poems found in these pages are all but memories of experiences that have colored my early life. Some see these moments as glimpses of a time past but I see them as paintings formed in slow deliberate strokes that highlight the details of life that instill the feeling of accomplishment when looking at your past. These images don't need the long drawn out descriptions laden with unnecessary letters, they are flashes quick to flood the mind and equally fast in fading back deep into the gray matter. This is why I see these poems, these memories of my encounters with nature, as paintings in under a thousand words.

The next book to be edited was a project that I started while at Endicott and which later served as my Master’s thesis at Rosemont College. The first sequence of poems was published previously both as individual poems in various literary journals and in my first official chapbook, Kaddish Diary, which was published in 2005 by Pudding House Publications. This small collection has long since been out of print and even one of the anthologies that included a couple of the poems has since gone out of print as well. In the years following the publication of the chapbook, I created two additional sequences based on two other works of holocaust literature. However, this collection also remained nearly forgotten on a flash drive for nearly a decade. Now, I have finally brought this project of passion to light in What Was Not Said: Echoes From The Holocaust.

The Holocaust is a subject all of us are aware of but there are countless accounts that are seldom heard. Based on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of Hertha Feiner, Janusz Korczak, and Filip Müller, these poems describe the life surrounding these writings. Every memoir has something missing. This is not a conscious decision by the author; it is the perspective of the writer filtered through the impermanence of memory. Sometimes it is a forgotten foreshadowing phrase said in passing or what is happening outside when their focus is on the room in which they are sitting. These are the aspects painted in this collection.

The next two collections will be quite familiar to many of you as they are collections of posts from this blog. The first of these books consolidated all of the genealogy posts and is really only the first of many that I expect on this topic. It highlights both the process and the discoveries that I have made over the years and includes many family photos and documents that many in the family may have not seen before. I am glad to finally be able to share many of these colorful leaves with the rest of the family in Out On The Limbs: Searching For Answers In The Family Tree.

This is collection which illustrates how one family tree can give shade to the entirety of American history. Each leaf has a little more to add to my family history just as each piece of fall foliage adds to an autumnal landscape. All different trees offering a different variety of colors but working in unison to tell the same story. These essays offer a cross section of topics which includes recent additions to my family tree, interesting resources or programs, and discoveries that have given greater depth to the lives of my ancestors.

The final project in this initial push is the one that means the most to me. Again, these are posts from the blog which spans the past year and a half. This time around, I collected all the posts about the pregnancy and my first year of fatherhood into a single volume. You could even say that this is a baby book taken to the next level. For me this book is a gift to my son and hopefully something that first time parents, especially fathers, will enjoy. After all, it does tell the reader about The Good, The Bad, And The Adorable: My First Year As A Father.

After my son was born I found myself having conversations with other parents about some of the interesting things that I should anticipate happening during the first year. I had not heard about any of these antidotes before and so I wanted to start writing more regularly about these usually humorous occurrences. Arranged chronologically, this book is a collection of both those early posts of doctor appointments and preparations for arrival as well as the more interesting moments that I experienced during my first year as a father.

Well, that is what has been keeping me busy over the last couple of months and partly why there have been times when I have fallen behind on these daily posts. There are other books that I am currently working on but that is a completely different post for another day. In the meantime, if you happen to read any of these books I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and, hopefully, they proved to be worth the purchase price. Four down and countless volumes to go!

Another Half Year Down

You don’t have to look at the calendar to realize that it’s July. For the first time this year the sweat was flowing freely down the faces of anyone who stepped outside for more than a couple of minutes. The immediate chill and relaxation upon opening the door to the office building is something that is unique to summer and if often the highlight of the morning commute. And, for the first time in three years, I have been able to enjoy the heat of the day and sleep wrapped in the cool of the night.

It seems that it was a mere few weeks since I last wrote about the resolutions and the recap of the previous things checked off the list. That is not what this blog is about, not today, not this summer. There are too many great things that have happened so far this year some that I previously listed as goals and resolutions while others just happened, surfacing in the flow of life. I have been too focused on lists at times to truly embrace the greatness of this world and the gift of life that we have all been given.

This year has been one of tremendous personal satisfaction and, thankfully, stability. While it has been far from perfect, there are few things that I would go back and change. I couldn’t tell you any particular instance that comes to mind as I can’t recall the moments to which I reference. I have made a point to forget that which prevents me from keeping my eyes looking forward. While I am not always successful in this endeavor, I am making the effort and I am definitely better off for doing so.

And one of the tools that has allowed me to do this is this blog. This is why you will occasionally read the rants or the recounting of days that may have been led astray. Writing these things down allows me to forget. Words and photos are things that live in the past. Once a picture is taken or a word is written it is immediately thrown into the past. It was captured. It was written. Only the sentence that I construct at this very moment is a piece of the present. All other thoughts and actions have already happened and been recorded.

It has been a great year so far and one that I am happy to forget. All those moments are within me, stored in my mind and influencing my current direction, but they are not cognizant thoughts that dominate my every moment. Each of us have in our own mind the greatest story ever told which only ends when we can no longer remember who we are and what we have done. This year has been great thus far and I look forward to continuing to write the story of my life in the following days, months, years, and for the rest of my life. And the best part of this story is that no matter how much I try to plan or anticipate I have no idea what is going to be on the next page.

Milestones

Produced in 1934, the $10,000 bill was primarily used for bank transfers.

This week I marked a couple of rather satisfying milestones. One of them I had a finger, or ten, in achieving while the other I cannot take any credit for because you are the ones that pushed this blog to a mark that wasn’t even considered when I began this project back in May. Frankly, I am both surprise and not surprised by the fact that daily posts have appeared on this page for much of the year.

The first milestone is that of passing 150 posts. I am not surprised that I have been able to talk/write so much but I am a little surprised that I have been able to find at least some kernels of non bovine fertilizer during that time. While many of the topics make regular appearances (travel, freemasonry, rotary, genealogy, and work just to name a few) there have also been a number of one off rants (see my last post). Regardless of subject, it has been an interesting journey finding new things to write about and different ways to look at things, places, and subjects.

Based on the views I have received I am guessing it has piqued some interest among you at least from time to time. If it didn’t there would have been no way that I could have reached my other milestone this week of 10,000 views. That number may be large to some and small to others but for me it is a significant achievement both in just getting my opinions out there and knowing that I am, at least some of the time, on the right track in producing content.

What does all of this mean? For me it means that I owe a humbling thanks to everyone who has read a post (or scanned one, or read part of one). It also means that I can set a goal for myself moving forward. While I started with the simple idea of posting everyday it is time to take it a small step further. So, as of today, I am setting the goal of putting out a blog every day for a full year. Yes, it is a repetition of my previous motivator it also gives me a hard number to shoot for. The other goal, and here is where I am going to need your help, is to reach 25,000 views by that one year anniversary.

I will, of course, report back on the final figures at that time but, until then, I ask that you keep pushing me to post content that you want to read. So if there is something that you want to read about I encourage you to leave a comment below and I will do my best to accommodate all requests made. In the meantime, I have some interesting posts simmering in my mind that I am looking forward to writing in the near future. 

Just A Couple Minutes

Have you ever had one of those days when you are two minutes behind everything. Literally, two minutes behind schedule all day. That is the kind of day that I had today. Don’t misunderstand me, it was an excellent day. But no matter what I did I couldn’t make up those two minutes that escaped my grasp at 7:47 this morning. And that is especially bad when you day is full of meetings as mine was today.

Things could have been worse and I did make it to all my meetings within a reasonable margin. Two minutes is like the five second rule of scheduling. You can quickly drop the ball and fall a little behind but at some point you are going to pass the point of no return and you will get a look of disgust if you try and act like it’s no big deal.

At the end of the day I could have easily gotten back on schedule and home for the night but that is the most difficult time to stay on track and the reason is simple. We have way too much fun at the office. Nothing crazy we just all get along and share a similar sense of humor. Plus many of us, including me, can go off on a tangent like few others can. Get more than one of us in a room and you better buckle up. I’m like Robin Williams but not nearly as funny, with a little more sanity, and frequently boring.

Honestly, if you think I ramble on and on in writing you should meet me in person. I can usually keep myself in check (especially when I’m tired and/or have a really back headache) but when I get going it is really hard to stop me. Just ask some of the people I’ve gotten to know over the years. I am sure they will give and exhausted sounding sigh and confirm.

But I managed to get out of the office close to schedule today… only two minutes behind. And now I am sitting on the computer trying to make up for lost time by finishing up two Phillies blogs while keeping two eyes open and finishing my second beer in an office that is hotter than the second ring of hell. Don’t the old people in the building realize that cold preserves longer than heat. Just look at Ted Williams. Have you ever gotten an ice splinter? Those things hurt more than they should for something that size.