Who I Am

The Poet: Emotions. Tears and smiles. The love of music and words. The guy who likes the sunrises and romance. He hopes for the best.The Poet's other side is depression and anguish. He is the writer, he is vain and tormented. He must have an audience. He has a deep dark side but struggles to see the good. He is faith and patience. He is torn. He is the guy that hurts when there is a broken heart. He believes in forever. He believes in the soul mate. He is also loneliness.

The Sage: Reason, knowledge, wisdom and intelligence. The realist. He is also the spiritual side of me. The Sage feeds the Poet's faith, but he's also the one that tells the Poet, "I told you so." The Sage isn't always fun. He can be dry and sarcastic. He is not the seat of my arrogance but he is often mistaken for it. The Sage is the professor...and the student. He is curious and has the thirst for knowledge.

The Tyger: As all the personalities, the Tyger has more than one side. The Poet insist I spell Tyger with a "y" like Blake did. The Tyger is of course the ferocious side. If you make me angry enough you will see the Tyger. He cares not about damage done. He lives for today only. He also defends my friends, the Tyger is the warrior, he is anger, and honor. He is my ego. The Tyger can do anything. He is the steel. He is determination. He is also, of course, the lover.

The Fool: Impulse. Mischievous. Lost causes. The Fool isn't just the stupid things I do, those can be attributed to all five, but he does lack reason. Don't underestimate him though. He howls at the moon, but not alone, he howls with the Poet and the Tyger and sometimes the Thief. He is wit and humor. He balances the Sage. He's the drunkard, the clown, the entertainer. He is fun. He is trouble but also relief. He is play and also he is sometimes stupid. He is blind. He is also faith, hard to explain but true. If you have followed me this far then you may know what I mean.

The Thief: Finally, the Thief. There are many sides to this guy. He's the guy who steals my confidence. He is doubt. He is the coward. He is the opposite of faith. They all have a dark side, but he is the dark side. He is mean. He is greed. He is the liar. He is the player. He is lazy. He is jealousy, and petty. He is death.

They are all me. They are all one. They mix and mold and change and are individuals. They are all one person and one personality. They are one character.

This is me. There is more to me but it all fits here somewhere. To know this, to understand it is to know me. If you do know this and understand it then please, please, explain more of it to me because this is the best I can do.

Rules to Live By

I wrote these rules for my daughter India as she prepares to go off to college. They are of course, for all my children as they continue to grow into their own lives. I think that some or all of these are principles my father tried to instill in his kids as well.

1. Be good to people. If someone is not good to you simply remove them from your life.

2. Trust your instincts. You have every reason to be confident.

3. Awkward is funny. Learn to laugh things away.

4. As long as I live you are not alone. Ever.

5. Develop faith so that when you are hurt you must know it is temporary pain and you will get better.

6. Never stop looking at the sunset.

7. Always listen to music. Good music is medicine for your soul.

8. Welcome the tough times and the tough jobs. They will build your character. Success comes from failure. One must suffer to develop soul. Don't go looking for those tough times though, they will find you on their own.

9. Be patient. You will always get what you want, in time.

10. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Credit cards are NOT your friend.

11. Learn why you must look at sunsets and listen to good music. Learn about yourself.

12. Finally, you will become, you HAVE become, what you are as a result of the decisions you have made, both good and bad. Make good choices India.

I love you.

I almost forgot:

13. It's better to be smart than pretty. You are both.

Knowledge is the answers you give but intelligence is the questions you ask.






This was not easy to write because it taste like goodbye.

India likes to sneak out by herself for a few minutes in the evening and it took a couple of days before I realized that she was stepping outside alone to watch the sunset. She never said anything to anyone about it. One day, when she came back in, I asked how it looked and she just said "beautiful".

I am so proud of her. So proud.

An Egotist's Immortality

I was talking to India two nights ago after she had a really hard day. She is a senior and going off to college before too long and she needed to cry on Dad's shoulder. She doesn't do that too much anymore and though I hate that she needs to cry, I do enjoy when she needs to put her nearly six foot frame on my lap and needs to be held while she just cries. Her leaving will be difficult to bear.

After she drained her emotions and reaffirmed that I would be there for her always I knew I was supposed to talk to her for awhile. I'm supposed to kinda ramble about things and change the subject a bit. She seems to like, on occasion, to just listen to me talk. After awhile I read her one of the posts here on this site. Then I asked her if she knew why I posted some of the things I write. (I write pretty much every day, I don't post everything or even most) She said no, I told her that the obvious was of course that I like an audience. I like to know that at least a few people read it. I told her that was ego and if I had something to say I would rather say it to someone instead of yelling off a mountain top. You know? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it then who cares? I need something a little more. Then I told her another reason. I had not thought of this before and realized how true it was as the words were leaving my mouth. I told her that I hoped one day her grandchildren would sit on her lap and she may read to them the stories of her dad's life, and imagination.

Immortality. I want something a little more than a headstone to mark my presence on this earth.

So now I know, really, why I write and I also feel that I have a mission. I am going to be write more. Record more. I have a job to do and it is totally narcissistic but hell, you know? Whatever.

A Toast!

I was a guest at a wedding recently and during the reception there were, of course, the toasts. Before it was over the mic was offered up to anyone else who wanted to toast as well. I was not a member of the wedding party but I have yet to learn how to pass on an active mic at a party.

I stammered something I don't think was too bad, but I wasn't really prepared either. I said something about tigers and wished them the best. Now I want to offer a proper toast and explain the tiger metaphor a little bit better. So here's my toast to Kim and Ed.

To Kim: Our main job as men is to provide for and protect our family. We must go into the bush and kill the tiger. The simple days of actually going out and killing a real, live, breathing, angry tiger with a stick are over. Yet that is what we are here to do. So we try to do just that every day. I respect Ed, he is not perfect but he works hard, he is improving his lot, and he loves you. We are all flawed but we are men and we can, and have, changed the world many times. Men have built civilizations and destroyed them. We have built industries, and out grown them. We have been to the moon. We have over come obstacle after obstacle. We will not sit down, we will not stop. We will not show fear. We will give, and often have given, our lives for our loved ones. In the present day being a man is frowned on a bit and often ridiculed. Be proud of Ed. He is yours by his own hand. He has given his life over to you. He is a good man.

To Ed: Though our job is to slay the tiger our women are the ones who make sure we know we can. Our women are the ones who tell us we can do it. They are the ones who instill in us the belief that we can not only kill the tiger but that we can dam the river, sail the oceans, climb the mountains. With the word of a good woman we can and have done anything. They are a gift to us and provide faith in ourselves. They have the power to make us great or something far less. They make us whole. We must love them for that. We are strong but our women control us. With one look they can make us feel like a superman or crush us. They can make our day or ruin it before they are even out of bed.

If you attempt to slay the tiger and not KNOW you will succeed then the tiger will surely devour you. You need her. Women have always been next to us whispering, while we built cities, and while we destroyed them. They were there when we returned home from a voyage and have often been the reason why we returned. They birthed us, nursed us, and taught us to be men, and then wept when we left them. They speak the softer things that allow us to be more than animals. They are our humanity. We will do anything for them and they will do the same. She is a good woman, always love her.

To both of you: To be a mother, father, husband and wife is a daunting, difficult, and very rewarding job. Forgive each other often. Remember not the times when the other does something foolish or painful but remember when they protected you, or reassured you, or kissed a child's scrape. Remember the good times and forget the bad for there will be plenty of both. Build one another up constantly for there are plenty of people out there who will keep your egos in check. It is not your job to keep your spouse grounded. It is your job to give them flight.

Also I would like to add that a person who will take another person's child as their own is nothing less than a hero. To take personal responsibility and love a child from another is selfless and should be honored. There are not words to express the respect I have for those who have made that earnest commitment.

I am proud to know you. I am happy for you. I wish you happiness and good fortune and peace and prosperity. May your days be long and pleasant.

Desire

These narcotic dreams of bliss, tempered with the realities of strife and struggle are a reminder of what we are.

I can see a future of happiness and comfort because a woman allows me such things. I know though that there is no such thing as it stands right now, though not because of any fault of her's. We are destined to struggle because of our desires. If we do away with our desires then we can put away our struggles and all suffering.

My desires though. Oh, my desires. To control them is to control the Original Sin, to put down the curse of Adam.

These desires are but amplified. She amplifies them. I do desire her and I want to desire her. A life without suffering is a wonderful thought when looked though the haze of Vicodin, but a life sans desires? Is that a life at all?

Perhaps I should suffer. Maybe that's the price I pay for the longing I feel when I look at her. To lose that desire would also be to suffer I fear.

I will suffer. I will wear it like a badge of humanity. To desire another is to begin to love. To love is human.

Bring the suffering. I can take it.

(I wrote this a few days ago with a pen on a pad. This was done just after a had an accident with a band saw and it required several, about twenty, stitches. I barely remember writing it. It HAD to hurt though.

I could go on about the duality of the human condition...but actually, I think the short little essay says much more than it says.)

Momma

I finished my high school career, for those of you who don't know, a little earlier than usually required. I spent a year at a private school and when it closed the public school system said it wouldn't count. I chose then to just speed the process up. I had some living to do after all, so I went to the University of Texas, in Austin, and took a GED test. I passed and just like that I didn't need high school anymore. If anyone asks me where I graduated, I can tell them U.T. with a straight face.

Not long enough after that I went down to the local National Guard camp there in Austin and joined up. After spending a weekend with a bunch of college girls who were earning their way though Texas, more or less the honest way, I decided I had to be a medic. That's another story and a really good one.

The summer after that I went to basic training. A couple of months after that I was a soldier. A few months after that I was a soldier medic. 91A, combat medic. During that time of training my mother decided to move from Austin and head out to east Texas. I still have not forgiven that. She moved to Atlanta Texas. Heard of it? Nope, nobody has. What it meant was no more college girls. It fact, as far as my young part time military career was concerned, no more girls at all. The unit out there was a TOW guided missile combat unit. Tank killers. Men. Old men.

After a couple of months there my father called and asked if I would be willing to go to work for him, in Florida. Jobs in east Texas at the time were a little hard to get for an eighteen year old boy. I was supposed to have a job lined up in a logging outfit. I just had to wait on an unnamed man to retire. Ever wait for someone to retire? I have. I told my father that I would come to work for him. I asked when I was to start. Monday. It was Thursday. I was seeing a girl. Nothing too serious but serious enough to me anyway. I did not get a chance to talk to her. It was a little before cell phones and texting or even e-mail. In fact, at the time she was a senior at the local high school. It was a one building school, the whole school. K through 12. Later when I wrote her I would address the letter to general delivery. The postmaster knew everyone. Literally everyone. This was the late eighties. My mom moved us to the mid fifties. I was able to talk to the girl Monday afternoon. Long distance (it was how you had to call back in the old fashion days) from Florida. I saw her once more after that. The second to last time I was in east Texas.

I started working construction for dad. I still miss it. Now a few things: My mother moved around pretty much constantly. I can remember about twenty schools, seriously, there has to be one or two I can't remember. I lived with her for a couple of years and lived with dad for a couple of years, back and forth. I would also spend a summer or two working for my dad. I missed my dad when I lived with mom and missed my mom when I lived with dad. Texas and Florida. Not exactly bi-coastal but I always had two homes. Dad was pretty much stable and mom just, wasn't. I have lived in Houston, all over that big city, Austin, Round Rock (still one of my favorite places), San Antonio, East Texas as you already know, Louisiana, and then in many places in Florida. My mom often moved twice a year. Six month leases. Dad pretty much stayed in one place after a short while. He then moved into Mount Dora and stayed there for years.

I was working for dad full time. It wasn't too bad after I turned eighteen. I paid rent, went to work, and that was the end of the early Saturday morning yard work days. Life was actually pretty good, though because youth is wasted on the young, I didn't know it. Oh yeah I may add that just before that time, before my brother went off to the Navy, there were up to seven teenagers living in my dad's house. It would take a chapter or two to explain the whole thing but when my father decided to marry again, he married a woman with four children. I'm sure you can do the math but he had three boys. I guess he wanted girls because she had three of them. What I'm trying to say is that things around that house could get...stressed. I really don't know how they survived it. I don't know how we survived it.

I should mention that I also have a half-brother from mom. Mike. He would sometimes spend a few weeks there too.

The very first Saturday morning after I was eighteen and payed the rent was a little strange for me. See, most Saturday morning began with being woke up and sent outside to work, then in the house to clean. Every Saturday. All day. Except on that day I was not woke up. I slept in a little. When I woke up, eventually, I was a little confused. I looked out the window and saw everyone else out there doing yard work. I heard the complaints "Why isn't TC out here working too?" I then heard my father say, "TC is eighteen, he has a job and he pays rent. He can do what ever he wants now." Really? Turns out he was right, so I went back to sleep. About the time the yard was done and the house cleaning began I was showered and fed and so the crap talking began. They started it.

I spoke with my mother pretty often, again the old timey way, long distance phone calls. They used to have telephones that were stuck to the wall by a kinda coiled up cord. It was pretty expensive so the conversations were usually brief.

She called one day to let me know she had to go to the hospital and in the morning they were going to give her a heart cath. That's when the inject a dye into your veins and look for clogged vessels and other potential problems. It's a very common procedure. She told me she was scared and wanted me to fly to Texas to be with her. I reminded her that it was a simple process and there was nothing to be afraid of. I said I couldn't go to Texas, you know, THAT night. She said she knew that and it was ok. We agreed to talk the next day after she knew more.

Dad woke me up very early the next morning and told me she passed away during the night. Had to be the hardest thing he ever told me. Had to be.

Later that day Dad and I left to go bury my Momma. It was a twenty hour drive back in the 55 mph days. We talked the whole time. I learned more about life during that road trip than any other twenty hours ever.

She died on February 12. We arrived at her apartment and began dealing with family and such. I had to call my older brother Tony who was a sailor on the USS Carl Vinson. That's an aircraft carrier. It is not easy getting a hold of a guy on an aircraft carrier even when it's in port. On the west coast. San Diego, if I remember right. Telling him was one of the hardest things I have ever done. That's how I know how hard it had to be for Dad to tell me. I was just a boy. I also spoke with my two younger brothers, Mike and Trace, both at my grandmother's house and alone. I was asked not to tell them because there was nobody there for them right now. I don't know who was on the way to my grandmother's home, that task fell on them. They asked what was wrong but I could not tell them. It was a difficult day.

I had already cried for my momma. I probably wept until I was dry. Things settled down a bit as they do after awhile and we looked around momma's apartment trying to settle affairs and prepare for more people. I found her mail box key and went to check her mail. It was now the thirteenth of February. I opened the mailbox and found the valentine's day card I sent my momma. Sitting in the mail box. Turns out I wasn't dry. I sat on the curb in broad day light and sobbed for the loss of my momma.

She was buried on the fourteenth. Valentine's Day. I was eighteen. Tony was twenty three, Trace was sixteen, I think Mike was only twelve. Tony wore his Navy Dress uniform. I wore my Army dress uniform. Mike wailed the whole time.

I saw the girl there. I saw everyone there. It was a good turn out. I was proud that so many people knew my momma.

I have never returned to the grave site. There is no need. She's not there.

Trace stayed with a family there. Then, strangely, after dropping out for awhile he graduated high school from Atlanta high. I think he was twenty one when he graduated. Dad, Lynda, and I were there to see it. That was the last time I was in east Texas. It is nice country. Sometimes I think about it. Farms and pine trees. There was a state road sign there that said,"This is not Hwy 59". I wasn't there long but sometimes I miss it. Small town Texas. When you meet some one they ask what church do you go to.

They say time heals all wounds and they are right. Time does heal. We can and do move on. Scars remain and though I don't think of my momma very often anymore, I still on occasion miss her. Sometimes I need her too.

She passed away when she was forty-two. I am now forty-three and my kids are about the same age as we were when we had to bury our momma. I look at them and see children. Young children. How could they possibly get through such a thing? How did we? Maybe we never really did. I went to a therapist once or twice to try to help with my marriage. Turns out I was a bit angry with her for leaving us. I know it wasn't up to her but still. I have since forgiven her.

My oldest daughter is a senior now. She had a rough day today at a swim meet when she realized she just wasn't getting better at the sport and she's been giving it everything she has. I told her she swam because she loved to and that was good enough. That life was full of ways to be disappointed if you let it. I told her she was lucky to find something she loved and that is good enough. I would like to know what momma would think of that. But she's not here anymore.

None of my children ever met her. She died too young. We talk about her sometimes though. I'm sure momma would be proud of her grandchildren. I know I am. They don't know it but I sometimes see momma in them, in small ways nobody else would see.

They won't remember her. Who will after I'm gone? Who will after her children are gone? Who will remember us after one or two generations pass? We are here temporarily. Then we are gone. Never leaving a mark. Not a real mark. A piece of granite in east Texas does not tell us about a life. A piece of granite in east Texas doesn't even really tell us about a death. It tells us simply someone used to exist. That is all. That's is all we have. Is that all the living need? The dead need nothing at all. Those markers are there for the living. Write about those that have passed. Write about them. Tell us about their lives and their deaths. Tell me about them. I will read it.

Perhaps soon I will tell you about my brother Sean. He's not here anymore either. He too died young.

Pawns

It's late. Another sleepless night. I walk around the neighborhood reread texts and listen to music and stare at the moon. I like the moon. I could be a dharma bum. I could leave.

I had it once. I had what we are told we are supposed to have. I had a house, two cars, a wife with several kids, a career I was proud of. A little money in the bank. I paid for tv, telephone, internet, water, power, insurance, all kinds of insurance. I lost some of it, gave up on some of it, and still have a little bit of it. I now am happy to know that I need none of it. Neither do you. We are slaves to consumerism.

I'm not yet ready to go off the grid and leave everything to be a wandering sage. Not yet. I, we are also slaves to our responsibilities. My job is not yet complete. I have about four and a half years left. Of course by then my mind could change. I change and so do you. I am learning to be happy about change. May as well, not going to stop it.

I view the moon as the earth's still born child. Forever to follow her mother around. Dead. I like the way I see it. It's romantic. Sad. She, Luna, is beautiful. As long as she's there, turning, I know all is well.

I work for a government that does not work for me. Yet I still go and try to do my part, in spite of them. That is faith isn't it? I hope so. I do. I hope things will get better for all of us, but I don't think it will until we make it better. How? How do we, how can we make it better? I think about that constantly. I don't know. Maybe I will figure it out. Maybe you can figure it out and tell me. I know this though, it sure seems like we are being divided left and right and it seems like they want us further divided. I think we need to not be so split. If the people are split then the people are weak. That is evident and we forget that.

We can stop believing them, if we want to. We can read and learn for ourselves. The media is dead. They work for them. We have the same internet they have. We can decide things for ourselves. We have that power and they are trying to take it away. Of course they don't need to. Most of us do nothing about it and never will. We are happy to be fed the bullshit they give us. Make opinions off of nothing and still fight for your side...who IS lying to you. You know it too.

I could be a dharma bum. It may be the only and best way to win. I could do without them. All of them.

But I could not do without you. Any of you.