The Things (and People) I Love

Tonight I'm listening to a cd a friend of mine has given me and compiling some of the blogs I've written over the last two years (85 pages). The site I used to write for will soon be no more, but in it are a lot of memories and a reflection of the journey I made, and we made, together. I guess that's fitting toward the end of another year.

Next to my computer is a picture of this girl--the one who made the cd for me--and it's one of her from around the first time that I got to know her almost three years ago. The picture, the music, and the blogs remind me of another time, when all these things were new and I was nervous, and not sure about falling in love.

Sometimes we forget what made us fall in love in the first place: with a person, a place, a song, an idea. To let you know where I was three years ago, I had just moved to Michigan after living in Illinois for ten years. I didn't know anyone, and I was stepping out on a great adventure I thought. Life would never be the same, and the words I had been waiting for had finally come: "It's time to go."

With fear and excitement I went, not knowing what the next day would bring as I met new people and learned more about myself. I had found my desert, but I was more emotionally raw and dependant on God than I had ever been in my life. My writing reflected it. My thoughts about relationships reflected it.

But then we get used to things. We grow comfortable with ritual over the first moments that drew us to realize our need for God. We begin to accept the other person in our life as a certainty, and forget what it was like to have not had them in our lives or what it would be like to lose them. The new places we stop seeing, and the new streets and routes become familiar, well worn, even contemptible ruts. Tonight, with new music and rereading some of the thoughts when things were new, it's becoming fresh again, only more than I even realized then.

Tomorrow I leave on another journey, to pursue seeing again through fresh eyes and remembering some of the things I have forgotten. I hope I find it; I hope we can take the journey together and share what we find along the way.

The Desert

The desert. A harsh, barren landscape that strips everything down to its bare essentials. There's beauty here--tall mesas, rolling hills, red and brown clay--but it's a beauty that's been hammered, beaten down, refined, and is unforgiving of any false steps. Roses and willow trees do not live here, nor the blossoming reds, yellows, pinks and oranges of tulips, roses, or pansies. Instead, there's a dull gray to the sage, scrub brush and cacti as they cling tenaciously to the rocks and thin soil. You could drive for hours without seeing another living thing. If you were on foot, it could take days. The silence could be maddening, and the days and hours blur into each other until all that seems to be or to have ever been is the desert. Defenses are ripped away, and the possessions and relationships and comforts--resources that made life easy--are no longer available.

Deserts are dead places, and deserts are places where people are sometimes tested and reborn.

Joseph, sold by his brothers into Egypt then falsely accused of hitting on his master's wife, spends over two years in prison. Abandoned to his own desert and forgotten, he continues to dream of someday feeding a nation.

Moses, educated by the greatest civilization of his time, privy to the comforts of the palace, kills a man and flees into the desert for forty years, only to return to lead a nation of slaves to a land of freedom.

The Israelites, former slaves who prefer the security of slavery to the risk of freedom and something more, are tested, broken down, and reshaped in the desert.

John, sensing the winds of change and a new order, goes into the desert to prepare the way.

Jesus, before his ministry begins, goes into the desert for forty days where he's tempted, but doesn't give in.

There are also the Egyptian monastics, the Irish monastics, and others who go, willingly or unwillingly, into the desert. Sometimes it's to escape, sometimes it's to die, sometimes we're prodded and goaded into these uninhabited wastelands.

* * *

It's a literal landscape, and yet it can also be an apt metaphor for the journeys we find ourselves on. Last summer I spent a couple days in southern and eastern Oregon, driving up and down mountains until I lost sense of direction, then I crossed over into the desert and drove around mesas and through valleys for hours. The lakes, the sand, the landscape was breathtaking, but after a while I became uncomfortable with the silence. I began to wonder if I'd ever get out. I began wondering about whether I had enough gas, or what would happen if the car broke down. My cell phone didn't work here, and I began to wonder what trying to survive out here would feel like.

Deserts are spiritual places. It takes bringing us to uninhabited wastelands, away from the noise and comfort to strip us down and make us realize our dependence, our animalness of being human. We sense something bigger when we're not constantly distracted by ourselves. Rock stars, entertainers, politicians tell us how great they are, and commercials tell us how great we will be if we use their products. In crowds, we tell ourselves we're better than that fat slob, or that greasy haired girl, or could be as good as that prima donna if we practice, or that model if we lose another ten pounds, or that guy if we have this girl. We have none of that to rely on in the desert. Instead, we ask "Where will I find water, where will I find food? How can I get away from this pounding sun? God, help me!"

Sometimes our desert is a broken marriage, losing a job or moving to a place that is strange and foreign to us. Whatever the circumstance, we find ourselves at the end of our strength and resources, ready to die and not sure how to live.

And something changes. A part of us dies. A part of us is reawakened.

We have a need to live differently, to realize that there is someone bigger than ourselves and that the universe moves on without us pulling the strings. In fact, most of the time the natural world could care less whether we won a trophy, a beauty pageant, or a promotion, but notices when we abuse the resources we're given. Solitude and silence have been timeless spiritual disciplines because that's what it takes to see the ways peace has been broken in the world, in our lives, in our relationships with each other and with God. Deserts provide both. But then deserts also require that we leave them and reenter the places where flowers grow, water flows, and laughter fills up the silence.

Home for the holidays

I'm home for the holidays this year, and yet it's been a painful, lonely time. It always is for me when I'm with family, but this year especially. These are people I'm related to, yet they're complete strangers. We spend time in front of a TV to avoid talking.

My parents moved to Florida after my freshman year of college, and then moved again from central Florida to Jacksonville, where they now live. When I come "home," I have no ties to the people or the place, and wouldn't come to Jacksonville, or Florida at all, if it weren't for my family.

I didn't get along well with my stepmom when I was growing up. I still struggle with anger, frustration, and the loss of a relationship I often wish we could have had. My stepmom (called Mom from here on out) had five miscarriages, and didn't have kids until I was ten. As a result, she overcompensated and smothered one of my brothers, and there has always been a rift between he and I. We've been pitted against each other and there's a wall between us that I have no idea how to cross, even though I sense there are times when we'd both like to find common ground. Instead, a heavy silence and awkwardness rests between us. My youngest brother and I get along well in person, though even between us I've felt tension this trip. I won't lie, some of it's been me. I'm wound tight these days and have anger toward something, I don't know what.

I'm 31, my brothers are 21 and 18, and yet we slip into the same roles we did as kids. I hear this is true of most families, whether the siblings are kids, teens, or are in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. How do we redefine roles, begin to see each other again through fresh eyes?

Yet I also know there are millions of people who would love to be with their families this year and can't. A blogging friend of mine writes posts about the war in Iraq. A girl I went out with once sent me an email to write our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether we're for the war or against it, we all agree that being miles away from home at Christmastime can be lonely and hard, let alone when we find ourselves in another country, and one where people are shooting at us.

Another friend talked to me about Advent, about how Christmas should remind us of an absence, yet this runs counter to our cultural impulses. This year more than others, I've gotten stressed buying gifts for family and friends, have hated the traffic in the city, and have wondered what Christmas is about.

And yet there remains a deep longing for peace, peace in the sense of Shalom, peace between each other (my family), peace within ourselves (freedom from tension, anxiety, anger, despair), peace in our communities (no more flipping the bird), and peace with God and the sense that God is present and that things really were meant for good.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I've wished that Christmas would come crashing down, that we'd have to start over, more simply yet more peacefully. I've found myself sitting in church lately longing and hoping that Jesus is someone who lived in history, that he was who he said he was, and that this truth has power in my life and in every life on this planet. I would love to forego the giving and receiving of gifts if it meant that I could find what I was looking for (and feeling like I was still missing) when I opened presents under the tree. I would love to forego a Christmas meal if it meant feeling full of hope, joy, and peaceful relationships. I would love to forego a holiday from work if it meant that the rest of the year I was part of something revolutionary and satisfying. And I would forego another Christmas pageant, musical, Santa Claus suit, or Salvation army can if I could see God walking among us.

More than anything else, this is what I want for Christmas.

The Riders: Part I

There were five of them: four men, one woman. From a distance, there were similarities. Three of the men looked nearly identical, though one was clearly older than the others, his moustache mixed a reddish white, and lines creased around his eyes and forehead. He also fidgeted in his saddle, and his horse shied behind the others, then went galloping ahead. The tallest of the younger three was lean, had a long nose and small mouth, and his hair spiked up in several different directions. He looked the least like the others. He sat easily in the saddle of his red roan and alternated between telling stories that had the others laughing and then brooding in silence. Another sat a black thoroughbred, his upper body like a barrel. He rarely spoke, but often scowled. Though when the sun broke through the clouds, he would hum a tune, or sing a verse from a song until once again he lapsed into silence. Riding beside him was the woman, on a black mare, and her long hair was raven black, or had been until it became streaked with lightning patterns of white. Her back was hunched, and she sat low in the saddle, sagging, weighed down by some unseen burden. The last man rode a dapple gray, shorter than the others but with a sturdy frame. Its rider nearly matched. He was the shortest of the five, and yet held himself straight, his shoulders thick as if accustomed to carrying heavy loads. His piercing eyes were studying, inscrutable from behind angled brows, as if he were measuring the world around him.

Five riders. Blood related. Yet, behind this loose connection were gaps and voids wrapped in silence. It was a family divided.

Dreamers and Soul Makers

It was the world of dreamers and soul makers. Buddy Carson sat in the back pew on the hot July morning as one after another, people filed past, filling in the spaces in the building as sun filtered through rose and emerald and periwinkle glass, and motes of dust hung languidly in the air, creating beams that rested like halos on gray heads, white bonnets and greasy bald spots.

The room itself smelled like old leather, and like dust that has been pushed and swept from one side of a room to another, and back again, never discarded but left to choke in one's nostrils. Soon old sweat and cheap perfume mingled in with the dust and leather smells, and tiny droplets began to form on Buddy's forehead and under his arms. He'd never felt too secure in crowds, or around people in general, and he stared at the grains of wood on the back of the pew ahead of him as a few looked his way. Some shot him a brief smile, others glared reprovingly, sizing him up from head to toe. For those people, Buddy bit back the urge to stick out his tongue at them or, worse, flip them the bird.

He was from the other side of the tracks, some said. He had holes in his jeans and little grease splotches on the front of his shirt that the washing machine at the laundromat hadn't gotten out, and since it was the second day straight that he'd worn the shirt and had slept in it the night before, it settled on his slightly undernourished body in a rumpled heap. No one knew he'd spent the night under the bridge the night before, near the park where underneath the slide the words "Bill L/S Tammy 4ever" were scrawled in deep by a rock. The stones were smooth under the bridge, and the soft sound of water spilling over the rocks played like a lullaby in the humid July air, and Buddy could almost forget the beating his dad had given him earlier that evening.

But here he sat, on a Sunday morning, and the harshness of life was beginning to beat its way not just onto his chest, back and shoulders, but into his eyes, the way he hung his head, and the dead coldness he felt deep in his chest. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he often saw deep black pools staring back at him, icy depths that had no bottom, and he'd attempt a smile but it often twisted into a half crooked grimace. Rather than risk the people seeing those bottomless wells or that twisted grimace and have them throw him out immediately, Buddy kept his eyes down, pretending to study the piece of paper he'd been given called a bulletin, or bore ever more deeply into those woodgrains on the back of the pew.

He didn't think he believed it anymore. It wasn't possible. He was crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood at a mature ten years of age, and Buddy was smart enough to realize that you couldn't take what an adult said at face value, that they often lied to you, or told you they cared about you right before they smacked you across the head. He wondered if God was the same. Some said God was dead, others said we created him, others said they loved him, but then they loved the girl in his second grade class in ways that made her shake with fear and cry whenever they entered the room. No, he didn't believe in God.

But what made him miss him so much then? What made him hope against hope that he did exist, and that he wasn't like his dad? He didn't know if Jesus ever lived, but if he did, he wanted him to be someone special, and he wanted to go sit on his lap. Maybe he would understand.

But if he didn't? If he was like all the rest, what then? Where could he go? Who could he turn to? Was there anyone he could trust? He'd decided that if there wasn't, that by the time he was thirteen, he'd hang from the tree nearest the bridge, overlooking the riverbank, the rounded stones in the creekbed, and the gently flowing water that made soft lullaby sounds. He'd give it some time, he thought, these kinds of things needed to be thought through.

The music began from the front corner of the room, an old upright piano that, even to Buddy's untrained ear, was badly out of tune. It matched the sound of the singing perfectly. For twenty minutes on the hot July day, ladies waved fans before their faces, and men wiped their foreheads with handkerchiefs as they sang about bringing in sheep, or ships, or sieves, or something like that, and about glorious days, and called each other brother and sister. Buddy sat in the back, unnoticed and uncaring, drifting between sleep and nonsleep to the buzzing of the sound and the heat.

Then the music ended, and a man with gray hair and a sharp, hooklike nose stood behind a block of wood and spoke gently, softly at first, then with building passion. He talked about caring for each other and forgiving our brothers and sisters, and from the smooth, unlined forehead and ear-to-ear smile on his face, Buddy felt like the man had no idea what he was talking about. He moved closer to the end of the pew, preparing his escape, but his hands felt hot and something was burning his eyes and a tightness constricted the back of his throat. He was hurting, he was in pain, and without waiting another moment for his escape, Buddy ran out the back door and into the side yard, a sob breaking from his throat. He picked up a rock and threw it, as hard as he could, and heard it bounce off a tree and ricochet off the hood of a car. He didn't care. He needed to walk.

The Real, the Fake, the Virtual, the Remembered and the Imagined

When I was a kid I lived in imaginary places.

My parents built me a rocketship out of a cardboard box from a refrigerator they'd had shipped to their house. They even made me a spaceman helmet out of a paper bag, and a spacesuit vest out of another paper bag. I played in my imaginary spaceship until the next hard rain hit that turned my spaceship into a soggy mess.

My next imaginary place was the world of books: Narnia, Middle-earth, Camelot, the Four Lands (Terry Brooks, in case you don't know). My mom, concerned I'd get lost in this new world, had me read history books and NON-fiction books so I could also be grounded in reality. My dreams were often vivid, and seemed sometimes more real than my life during the day, and I often imagined when I was living in a small town of 800 that someday I'd leave that town and go someplace else and the adventures would begin.

Eventually, I did leave.

Now I teach literature, and give an occasional history lecture, and have been introduced to Umberto Eco and Jean Beaudrillard, the Matrix, eastern and Greek philosophy (and philosophy in general) in addition to being Christian, and most of these areas ask, "What is real, and how can we know what is real? How do we know the difference?"

I went to a lecture once on movies and culture and the lecturer talked about how people reacted to the early silent films. The technology was such a shock that often people who went to see the early films would get so mad at the people on screen that they would stand up and get ready to fight them, or would peer around the screen to see where the people went. Later films took this idea and used it to critique and make fun of itself (in postmodern lit. we'd probably call this self-reflexivity (a work of art being self aware and turning back on itself), or metanarrative, telling stories about stories).

Now we have more than just early film, but high definition film, larger than life IMAX film, "realistic" theme parks thanks to Disney (nods to Eco's Travels in Hyperreality), internet chatrooms and blog spaces where we communicate with people we have to accept on faith exist. We have emotional affairs with people we've never seen, never met, never touched, never smelled, never tasted. The world of writing and blogging, television and film seems more real and authentic than our REAL lives because they include all the best aspects of a relationship or a person's body or a situation. They are things as they "should be" and not as they are, and so the reality seems mundane. We enjoy the play acting of saving the world to the reality of trying to balance our checkbooks and not despair that our life may not be in constant crisis or in need of megamicromanaging or be as sexually ideal as we envisioned it. I'm often less in awe when I read about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea or Jesus coming to life after being dead because the stories in DC or Marvel are more sensational. Can Jesus leap tall buildings with a single bound? Can Moses stop bullets dead in their tracks, stop a train, and rescue a girl all at the same time?

I'm not being flippant or sacriligious here, I'm simply wrestling with the feeling that the world has been through a technological (and therefore social) time warp and I'm still hung over from severe jet lag, trying to hang on to the jet stream by my fingernails.

It's not the first time that change has come hard.

My great grandma was born the year the Wright Brothers had discovered flight and died after the first satelitte had left our solar system. In the Industrial Revolution people's lives changed dramatically. In Britain, the Industrial Revolution took place over 100 years; in the US, around 30, and it transformed our view of ourselves (cultural identity), how we communicated and traveled, it made us wrestle with factories and unions and new forms of social injustice, and made us deeply question our place in the world as a society and as individuals. Some felt irretrievably lost. Others felt it was the best time to be alive.

I had a hard time talking to my parents when I was in high school because they sat glued in front of a TV for 3-4 hours a night. Since college, I have had the same problem with roommates because they do the same thing with Xboxes. Personally, I've developed a jealous hatred of TVs because they seem to disconnect more often than they connect us to each other. We're forced to watch others live imagined lives than be creative with our own. We sit in silence next to friends and family rather than face to face. Yet, on the other side, advocates for TV say that it is the new shared culture and gives us connecting points to talk about (I agree. I like talking Smallville or Seinfeld or the Office or Survivor), and brings people together socially as much as it tears them apart. I don't know which is true, what's real.

I'm teaching next semester on the history of film and the history of TV, but only a couple lectures, so for now I'm thinking out loud. No answers yet, mostly questions, and I'm wondering how I'm going to tell stories to my students across a ten year generation gap that will connect, and I'm wondering how often in my lifetime we'll have to reinvent our stories and reinvent our lives so we don't get lost in change, and what things will stay the same and be timeless. How will we know how to talk about and distinguish from the world of the real and the virtual, pseudo, mirror worlds we create around us? Is it a question worth asking? Does the real world have priority over these other worlds, or are all of them--imaginary, dreamlike, virtual, fictional--permutations of the same thing?

Friendship vs. Romance

She stands at the bar in a crowded, dimly lit room. Music plays and the smell of smoke, perfume, and a hint of sweat fills the air. He enters, sees her at the bar, she hasn't noticed him yet, but a couple seconds later senses his eyes on her. She looks up, smiles, looks away, then looks back and smiles again, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly.

He buries his fear deep inside himself and covers it over with the armor of confidence, smiles back, and closes the distance between them. He sees her face, her smile, her clothes, and the body underneath, and swears he's in love. He buys her a drink, they talk for a few minutes, trying to hear each other over the sound of the local band playing cover songs, and he asks her to dance. They move out onto the dance floor, leaving their drinks behind, and stand close to each other, moving, smelling each other's cologne, feeling the heat from each others' body. No words are needed, no words are possible. Their bodies speak a language all its own and they listen. A couple more rounds of drinks, more music, more dancing, and then a walk out into the fresh, cool air of the night.

The stars are out, there's a warm glow from the drinks and the dancing, and he pulls her close. They kiss, soft at first, and then deeper, longer, more passionately. The heat turns into fire, and it's a brief negotiation, his house or hers. Hers is closer, so they climb the stairs before slamming the door behind them and undressing each other in the dark. Three hours ago they didn't know each other existed, let alone saw each other's bodies in intimate detail, but they're following what comes naturally.

Tomorrow they may be strangers again, or if they're lucky they'll have breakfast, and coffee, and lunch, and then another night, and he'll bring her into his world and she'll bring him to meet her friends. One month later they're doing laundry together. Six months later they're buying fine china. Two years later they wonder what they ever had in common, but for now, this is love. This is what it looks like, what it feels like. This is how relationships go.


Another man, another woman. They talk on the phone, make dinner together, play basketball, send each other birthday gifts. They're friends, and have been for years. He cares about her. She cares about him. They spend hours talking, hours and hours. He knows her family's names, she knows the name of every pet he's ever owned. The night she came home stunned after the death of her friend he was there, holding her. The day his dad died and he felt numb she listened, understanding.

She says it doesn't feel right. It isn't love, because it doesn't look like love should look. It's not perfume and dancing and drinks and smoky bars, and instant, uncontrollable heat. The fire burns, but burns low, a steady flame but not consuming. He tells her there's plenty of kindling he's been saving up that she doesn't know about. He's been storing it away, waiting for the day when the flint strikes and the fire of straw, newspaper and twigs becomes a roaring flame of trees and houses and countrysides. But she warms her hands instead, and throws on another piece of kindling.

Sunday afternoon

It was Sunday afternoon and not too cold for late November. The sun had been out earlier in the day, but now the clouds masked the world over in a thin gray. The wind blew through the naked fingers of the trees, swaying the smallest of the branches and the last of the leaves still clinging tenaciously to their umbilical cord that connected them to summer and the last nutrients of the earth before the winds would finally sever them, and they too would go back into the ground to enrich new generations of spring leaves.

Wearing her oversized green sweatshirt and a stocking cap, Billie Holliday carried the red plastic rake she'd bought from Wal-mart for $5 across the yard, swinging it like a baton, the first song by a band named Flyleaf gearing up on her iPod. She'd gone to church earlier that day, then left after a few songs, unable to continue. She needed to get away and think, she told herself, and so she'd sped out of the parking lot, stopped at Wal-mart, picked up $5 of cheap therapy (aka the rake), and had driven the ten minutes across town for home.

Fall afternoons. Raking leaves. The music had an edgy, gritty feel to it and Billie cranked it up, coccooning herself in a world of noise and the rhythmic scraping of the rake across the grass and dead brown leaves. One foot, and then another, until soon the yard was littered with small mounds of yellow leaves, like dead carcasses piled up after the kill. The grass underneath was still green, still tender and alive, and still very much in need of a last mowing.

Her body began to feel warm and the first trickle of sweat ran its way down her back. Her breathing became uneven, and she had to remind herself to take deep breaths as she raked. In spite of the cold, a glowing warmth began to spread its way into her arms, her legs, and feet. She began to remember how much she enjoyed this, being outside, working in the yard, feeling like she was taking care of a piece of her world, taming it, nurturing it, making it beautiful. She didn't care that this wasn't her yard, that she was renting it. For now, it made her feel like she was part of something.

Feeling part of something hadn't come easily. The last two years she'd been a leaf, blowing on the wind. She'd started out at the bottom, a sales rep for a computer firm, and when she'd agreed to commute six hours to Cleveland 2-3 days a week to close a $5 million deal with a potential client, she told herself the fast-track promotion would make it worth it. But then Carlye got another deal for $6 million, out of Grand Rapids, in less time and became Billie's supervisor.

It hadn't helped that her dad had died in the midst of this. He lived in Tennessee, but she'd called him at least twice a week. Now she was alone, with no one to talk to, her life heading quickly into a tailspin. She submitted her resignation and transferred to a company in Illinois. It would be a new start, she said, a redo and a chance to meet new people. Maybe feel connected again.

She continued to rake the piles together, combining them, pushing them toward the edge of the yard until a small mounded wall had grown up about two feet high around the perimeter, a boundary between green grass and the gray, lifeless concrete road. The dead leaves and gravel underneath served as a "no man's land" between them.

The phone was set to silent in her pocket. No one usually called, but today she wouldn't have talked with them if they had. Today she felt lonely, alone. She didn't know why she did this, but on days like this she turned the phone off, a conscious choice, a cutting free of the tether. She was a leaf blowing on the wind, cut off from her lifeline and rootedness, but at the same time no longer bound to the pressures of fitting in, of worrying about whether someone would call, or feeling the silent disapproval of not being enough. Knowing no one would call and choosing to not answer were differences by degree, she knew, but it was that space of her choosing that made a difference. Somehow she had control, she could wrap the aloneness around herself like a blanket and find solitude within it. Tomorrow she'd call someone. Tomorrow. But for right now, it was time to swim in silence. The last song ended, and she could once again hear the wind blowing past her ears, feel it through her hair.

There had been other days like this: going on hayrides on farm tractors and back country roads, trying to stay warm and not fall off the wagon, trying to stuff her friends as scarecrows without getting hay stuffed in undesirable places between her own clothes. When the hayride was over there'd be a roaring fire, hot chocolate, chili, and after that marshmallows that would blacken at the edges and burn her fingers as she'd try to pull the sticky mass off the stick before popping its warmth into her mouth.

There was pulling up cornstalks and tomato and pepper vines and rotten zucchini and squash into a mound in the center of the garden where her dad would stuff gaps at the bottom with newspaper and light a match as they stood there watching the flames for over an hour, the dying embers of the summer produce.

She fumbled in her pocket for a lighter. She squatted down near the edge of the pile she'd brushed into her makeshift wall, heard her knees pop, placed her thumb on the cold metal wheel of the lighter, then flicked it hard. A small flame shot up, orange and yellow with a faint hint of blue at the center, and she passed it close to the dead leaves, back and forth, until they began to smoke, blacken, and then catch with yellow flame. She stood up, stepped back and watched as the flames licked slowly at first, then hungrily, then combined together and took hold. The leaves were ablaze, sending out enough heat that she had to take a step back. She turned and walked toward the house, hearing the wind blow and the crackle of flame ending the silence.

Dreams

It's late at night and I'm looking for a hotel. In this dream I'm married, and have a family. My wife's Latina--short, petite, with dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin: beautiful--and we have two children, a girl and a boy, 6 and 2. We stop at a hotel run by a Hispanic man I seem to know well. He has a room for us waiting, a suite with glass doors leading to a balcony and soft queen-sized beds, but we're standing outside in the parking lot, struck by how dark it is. There's an outdoor pool, and I'm afraid my daughter will fall in and I won't be able to find her. In fact, at some point in the dream she dives in and starts swimming and I have to jump in, clothes and all, to pull her out.

She's fine, she's a good swimmer, but my heart is pounding in my chest and I then remember that my cell phone is in my pocket. I check it to see if it's gotten soaked, but somehow my pocket seems to be almost waterproof and my cell phone only has some condensation on it. It still works. I exhale a sigh of relief. I feel like I may need it later.

The hotel manager looks around nervously, fidgeting while he talks in broken English. We shouldn't be out here. It's not safe after dark. I have a bicycle and hide it in the branches of a tree, and park my car under a bush so it won't be easily seen, and we take our suitcases in to the hotel. We came here to vacation during holiday between teaching semesters. I've brought a book and have been looking forward to some much needed rest and unscheduled time with my family, but realize now it won't be as peaceful as I'd hoped.

We've just gotten settled into our room, the kids are sleeping on a bed and I hear broken glass coming from down the hall, in the direction of the main lobby. "I'll go check it out," I say, though the look in my wife's eyes is one of terror, and I wonder if it'd be better if I stay here with her and our kids in case someone else comes, or if I should go out to meet whatever is out there. I decide to leave.

Outside our room, there's a large indoor swimming pool and fountain. Although you could swim in it, it's mostly used for decoration. The fountain has been turned off for the night, and the jacuzzi/hot tub at one end has shut down, but there are bushes and small trees around the edge of the pool, to give it the look of an outdoor paradise. Unfortunately, it also provides excellent cover for anyone who might be hiding.

I hear a splash in the water and see a deer bounding out of the pool. It had come inside for a drink, but had gotten spooked by the presence of a human. I almost laughed with relief as I saw it find the exit and make its way through an open door outside. Maybe that was the noise.

But I didn't think so. There was something else. A warning sense keeps my adrenaline pumping and all my reflexes and senses on high alert. There had been patrols of gangs outside, shootings, the once safe neighborhood was now a place of terror and I grieved the loss of another safe haven. The hotel had been our getaway, and we had stayed here whenever we were in the area. My wife and I had honeymooned here. We had struck up a friendship with the hotel manager we'd been here so often. And now, I was wondering if we'd get out.

I walk silently down one of the hallways toward the lobby to find the hotel manager crouched down behind the desk, pistol in hand. He doesn't say anything but motions me to stay low and not make any noise. I drop and run low to settle down on the floor next to him. I hear voices outside and they are coming nearer. . .

The next thing I'm outside, my wife and kids are back in the car, and I'm telling them to keep the doors locked. It's pitch black except for a solitary street lamp, but I know we have to get out of here. I run to the car door, lock the door behind me, and start the engine. The radio turns on, and startles me. The car's running, but it's idling rough, and I'm wondering if it has enough juice to get us going. There's a hill we have to climb to get out of the neighborhood, and the way the car's running, I'm not sure we can make it.

We pull out of the hotel parking lot and onto a side street when the car dies. I set the parking brake, but it doesn't hold and the car begins to slide backward. I apply the brakes, and they don't work either, so I jump out of the car and try to push it from behind. The hotel manager joins me and we keep pushing the car, trying to slow it down and get it moving in the opposite direction, but we know we're vulnerable from this position and can get picked off from the shadows. I'm terrified, and my only thought is to get out of this place with my family, all of us still alive. At this point I'm also begging the hotel manager to come with us, because it's no longer safe for him either, but he shakes his head violently and refuses. "It's my home," he says. Everything he owns is here, but I'm afraid he's a captain stubbornly going down with a sinking ship.

We finally get the car running again, drive slowly up the hill (the whole time I'm wondering if we're going to get shot, we're moving too slow), and out of the neighborhood as the dream shifts sequence and my wife, two small children, old jalopy of a car and the hotel manager fade away and I find myself in Rapid Eye Movement to somewhere else.

Quick Update

The Travelin' Man series will continue. I have some ideas I'd like to work out in my head first, but thanks for your encouragement and for reading on.

For now, a quick break. My parents came into town for a couple days and I'm trying to juggle spending time with them and teaching class. A much needed break from school is coming up (giving thanks for that), so I'm trying to get caught up and limp along mentally until then, between giving lectures on Romantic lit, Hellenistic Art, and getting ready to talk about 19th century realism in Dickens and the gang. Oh yeah, also trying to think up what I'm going to teach for a culture class in ESL (English as a Second Language) tomorrow night. I'm thinking showing clips from Over the Hedge, Memoirs of a Geisha, Respiro, Life is Beautiful, The Last Samurai, and Babette's Feast. Any other ideas? I'd welcome them.

I'll post soon on Go master Chris (the game of Go), and the Zen of shooting hoops (I'm shooting around 78% right now in free throws). All for now. Be back soon.

The Madman

Shannon

"Do you ever wonder," Shannon began, "why the moon looks like a face, or why people named the stars what they did? What if there are people out there and they don't like the names we gave them?"

"Huh?" Jonathan groaned, exhaling loudly and trying to roll over away from her. It was summer then, and the crickets were chirping a mating cadence outside their window. The thin blanket on the bed was bunched at the foot of the bed, its sticky closeness too much for a warm July night like this one. It was too hot to sleep, and Shannon started in on what Jonathan liked to call her "what ifs."

"Don't you ever wonder about those things?" Although she knew it annoyed him, she wanted to press him into a conversation. Why did she do this? She didn't know. Maybe she just wanted to feel him close to her, wanted to know he wanted her for more than the athletic event they'd just shared together. Maybe it was more subtly devious than that, wanting him to experience sleeplessness if she had to. You know, sympathy pains.

"Baby, it's 2 in the morning. Don't you ever stop thinking?"

"Not if I can help it," she grinned into the darkness. She rolled over next to him, tracing her finger along his spine. He farted in response, then started snoring. Sometimes she hated him, she thought, the idea coming unbidden to the forefront of her mind before she shook it away, an unpleasantness she told herself she shouldn't be thinking.

Yet outside the crickets chirped, above the sound of the rotating fan that brought some semblance of relief to the hot apartment and pulled in some of the outside air. She tried to sleep, but sleep ran like a sprinter far from her. Tomorrow she'd hate this, she'd have to go to work, but before then she'd toss and turn until capturing the final couple hours of sleep when the world rests and the crickets quiet, exhausted or satisfied, and a peace settles before the sun rises. Those two hours wouldn't be enough.

He'd always been tall, and she loved the sculpted, lean features of his body, his angled face, his strong hands. He reminded her of a movie star. She'd feel a pang of jealousy and pride when other women did a double take as he'd pass by (He's with me! Back off!). When they'd first met he'd smiled a lot. He still smiled, at work, when they were out, but behind closed doors the frame holding that bridge had sagged, if not cracked. They were losing it; she was falling apart from the inside, and she didn't know how to stop it.

And there it was, the thought that came as she lay next to this tall, lean lover she no longer knew, maybe no longer loved, just waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the night to end. It wasn't bad, there weren't storms in the sky, but somehow, it just wasn't enough. And that knowledge was eating her from the inside, clawing its way out. She rolled over, trying not to look at the numbers on the clock and squeezed her eyes closed, so tightly she saw flashes of light behind her eyelids. She was just tired, she told herself. Tomorrow it'd look different. . .

Train Station (Tales from the Travelin' Man)

Freehaven. Salem. Maple Grove. Rock Island. Rochester. The names read like a train schedule, and that's mainly what they were, but not a direct, purposeful line that would run from point A to point B on a map, but a random, meandering criss crossing of places and days that had turned into two weeks. In fact, if it had appeared on a map, the journey would have seemed pointless, directionless. It was a good thing journeys couldn't be measured sometimes by how far you traveled, David thought.

It had been two weeks since Logansport, David mused. Two weeks, fourteen days, three hundred thirty-six hours . . .

He could break it down further, into minutes, and seconds, and even measurably smaller pieces, but that wasn't the point. His whole way of life had changed, his way of thinking. The people he'd met, the things he'd seen, and none of that could be measured in the time it took. He felt somehow closer to something that had seemed miles apart before. A weary sigh escaped him and sagged his shoulders; the things he'd left behind, the people he'd been so intimately connected to: Sarah, Robert, Cameron, Miles. He was walking away from them; he couldn't help feeling a little guilty.

Two days out of Logansport he'd realized he'd left the charger to his cell phone behind. He could pick up another, but thought maybe he was better off without it. No one had called, and he supposed he should get used to the silence. Hmm, silence. That was definitely something to get used to. It wasn't the silence around him, there was plenty of noise, between cars roaring by on the highway and horns honking in gridlock traffic in the bigger cities and airline jets roaring overhead. Even the smaller towns had their noise: children waiting for the bus on cold November mornings, the train passing through the middle of town at night, music pouring out of the bars and bells tolling from churches. No, the silence was coming from somewhere else, inside. His thoughts, his head, a large gaping emptiness where schedules and conversation had been, or the distraction of a TV running in the next room or a phone call to break up an hour's drive home. And if all that failed, music--cds or radio.

He couldn't rely on those distractions anymore, and as the miles passed underneath him, it became his constant companion. At first there was a loud ringing in his ears and a pounding headache, as if his ears and brain were going through detox, getting used to less stimulation. It threatened to tear him apart at first, demons breaking through the gap, threataning to run him into madness, over the bridge, off the cliff, restless and screaming. And then, just as it had built to an unbearable crescendo . . .

Nothing.

Peace. Stillness. The sound of his own breathing and a clarity. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of the sea at dawn, his feet firmly planted in wet sand, hearing the gulls, smelling the cool salty air in his lungs and on his lips, feeling the water pour like ice over his feet, around his ankles, and then back out again. And what surfaced to his consciousness, like the flotsam and jetsam from the sea, were fragments, bits of memory: pieces of conversation, a song, holding hands, the smell of perfume, an argument, reading a book, sitting on deadwood as the sun beat down and the wind blew through Shannon's hair. They were fragments, nothing more, but maybe if he picked up enough of the shards and bits there would be something whole emerge, something complete. Some kind of recognition or pattern would emerge, and the things he'd forgotten would be brought back, only sharper and with more clarity than he'd remembered. The pieces would be made whole, and maybe (he hoped) a part of himself would be made whole as well.

The stories also emerged. There was Rose, a 300 pound black woman in her forties, sitting across the table, dabbing her eyes with a tissue as she related a time when she was in high school that four girls had called her over to their van, then pulled her inside and repeatedly raped her. She hadn't told her mom; she probably wouldn't have believed it. And Linda, working dispatch, the night the call came into central over the radio. At the stakeout shots had been fired. The man and his wife had stayed inside, and met the knocking on the door with a shotgun. Her husband was in that stakeout. Someone had been hit, someone had shot someone else. A man was dead. No other details were in yet, but they'd let her know as soon as they had something. She twists the wedding band on her finger. Someone dead last month, another down tonight. How long could she keep doing this?

Enough.

David scratched the two week stubble that had nearly become a beard. Shaving was out, but he still grabbed a shower when he could at a truck stop, or a Motel 6, just to feel human again and get the grit of the road off him and sleeping on benches and in coach and cheap hotels. He checked his pockets. He still had plenty of money and even more to draw on from an online bank if he needed it. No, money wasn't an issue, he could live like this for year without running dry. He felt like a leaf blowing on the wind, a hollowness whistling through his insides.

There was something out there, elusive yes, but he was on its trail, a pattern he hoped, between the man behind Krogers asking for money, the grim tension behind the eyes of the newscasters on the tvs broadcast at the truckstops, the vendors shaking their heads at the gas station, the subdued voices of children in restaurants, the changing weather patterns and the flights of birds. Something was different. He didn't know what but he had to know.

At the same time, there was the growing sense that he was being hunted. He caught himself looking over his shoulder more this last week, almost habitual, and he couldn't remember when it had begun. It was catching up, the secret thing he feared, and he wondered in silent resignation when (not if) it would find him.

He pictured how it would happen. He'd be too slow, spend too muc time in one place and let the dust settle, lured into a false sense of security and with the belief that maybe what had been after him would have given up the pursuit. He'd be walking down the middle of Main Street in some sleepy town when he'd round a corner and there it'd be, staring him dead in the face, hackles raised, claws ready, looming large. And it'd have him. There'd be nothing he could do, nowhere he could run that it wouldn't have already anticipated, and he'd be left, shaken like a ragdoll before it was all over.

In the distance the sound of the approaching train could be heard, still far off. Most stations were automated these days. This one was not. He liked the way it felt, the way it smelled, like rubber and old leather. He stepped up to the counter and met the gaze of a middle aged, graying man looking out from behind a glass window.
"How far does this line go?" David asked.
"Depends. Where you coming from? Where you wanna go?"
David reached down into his left pocket and pulled out a $20 and some change and slid it on the counter between himself and the ticketmaster.
"Today," David said with a wry grin, "we'll let fate decide."

Travelin' Man: Part Two

At 6am he boarded the train for Logansport. The cup of coffee in his hand steamed into the chill October air. It had a crisp feel this morning, the air, and smelled faintly of dead leaves and coming frost. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his free hand, gripped the steaming cup with the other and cinched up the strap to his attache so it hung snugly against his body. A change of clothes, his laptop, a journal and a couple pens, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of rootbeer, bottled water, and a couple breakfast bars were stowed away in separate compartments inside the bag. David breathed in and let the air bite into his lungs like small pinpricks, and exhaled with a cough. In a few minutes the train left the station.

The earth is a woman, the earth is a woman, the earth is a woman. The clicking of wheels on tracks beat out a rhythmic cadence, and since he was a boy he'd hear these phrases over and over in his head, whether when he was jogging, driving, walking, or listening to music. They didn't always make sense; he didn't know how they'd come into his head, but they would pound incessantly, insistently into the nether reaches of his subconscious. The earth is a woman.

If it was a woman, then she must have many faces, he thought. Something about it seemed sensuous; he'd come to know her well, had seen her soft rolling curves, the jagged cold heights, the deep, wet rivers and soft valleys that contoured her landscape. He'd traced and retraced her body, and the more he saw of her, the more mysterious she seemed. And elegant. Lithe and graceful as a dancer she was, sophisticated as a high class lady, worn and knowing at times as an elderly matron, and wild and passionate as a young lover. He stared out the window as the sun turned harvested fields to golden brown, and the woman underneath him danced and swayed under the train's caress.

* * *

Shannon's back had been killing her. The digging of Jonathan's fists into the knotted, twisting hard boulders of her back yielded temporary release, but then would close ranks again with reinforcements. She was breaking apart; she could feel it. Her spine ran like a twisted river, grating and grinding against the rocks, chewing dirt from the banks only to dam it up further downstream and shut off the flow. Then came the headaches, the blinding, searing light in the back of the skull or just behind the eyes that exploded like a shower of sand in the desert, and walking, moving became like shards of glass, grinding and biting into the nerves and synapses, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, leaving her screaming in the darkness. She wanted it to end, wanted to find relief in the comforting arms of sleep, but it evaded her, leaving a restless torment in its place.

Jonathan didn't understand. She knew, by the sometimes helpless, sometimes cynical look in his eyes when she said she was tired and had a headache that it was wearing on him. How can you love someone who's splitting apart, shattering like glass before your eyes? For now, he had been patient, but was becoming more insistent, more demanding. The probing of his hands was more hungry than therapeutic. Was he enjoying when he caused her pain? Why hadn't she just stuck with a dog, they were less complicated, more accepting without conditions. Oh God, make this pain go away.

* * *

Millie sat across from him, talking about death again. Had he read the obits? Had he read about the nuclear tests on the other side of the world, the beating two blocks away? He grunted noncommitally, turning the page on the History of the Greeks. The lecture was coming up, and then the conference, and he wanted to know more about the Minoans before then. He'd been to Knossos, had visited Thera, had gotten lost in the labyrinthine palace or in the illustrated texts he'd studied before going. Susan was starting college, Millie had her scrapbook club. It always seemed simpler to study history than to walk out his door down the street to the sidewalk. He'd read some of the police reports. He knew of the woman who'd been run down as she was getting her newspaper at the side of the road. It had been early. The driver hadn't seen her and the sun was just coming up. He'd rounded the corner, coming home for some sleep after working third shift at the plant. Her pink pajamas had camouflaged her, blending in with the rose colored horizon. Trees had cast a shadow. When he saw her it was too late and she went flying, a marionette lying grotesquely across the road, twisted perpindicular like no human body should look, the pink nightshirt soaked through red. He could see her then, but it was too late.

Harold wasn't interested in the obits. The snake cult and bull dancing would have to take his attention for now.

* * *

Logansport wasn't his destination. He'd stop there, get off the train, stretch his legs for a while. He might even find a nice diner to grab some lunch, a burger or a turkey sandwhich maybe, and figure things out from there. He had a map, had an idea he'd head west, past the river, but wasn't sure after that. David wasn't even sure why, it was more of a compulsion, heading somewhere, looking for something, being drawn. He'd know it when he got there, but for now he'd be content to be on the road. Away from where he'd been. Away from the Uhaul truck and the departed and the memories he'd left behind or that had left him behind. For now, he'd keep travelin'.

Saturday, October 21

It's unusually warm and sunny today for late October, and it's hard to think anything bad about the day, so I won't. In response to the last blog, the early Monday went well. I ended up working 15 hours that day, but gave a lecture on 18th century art: Rococo and Neoclassical, and then wrote a lecture on 18th century lit for the next day.

The weeks fly by. We're halfway through the semester. I did the math this morning and realized I moved to Illinois four months ago. I've been to Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky, started a new teaching job, had friends divorce and had one of them end a 13 year friendship with me. At the same time ended a friendship with a girl I'd dated and talked about marriage with. She moved to Chicago. We haven't spoken since. Have stepped back from other relationships, stepped into others, and some days feel like I don't know how I got here, wonder when I'll feel like I've found home, and other days feel like there's no place in the world I'd rather be than at this place, this time, in this way. Pretty crazy, huh?

Last night I saw a football game with my good friend J.Rob. Actually, we go to the game to watch the halftime show, and mostly just use the game as an excuse to catch up and chat. It's cool to watch the ball move up and down the field, but that's just a side benefit. High school football tickets: $4. Conversation: priceless.

There's a smalltown diner called the Arcade where I sometimes go on Saturday mornings. I'm a person of habit, so I usually order a cup of coffee, and a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel. It's a busy place on Saturday mornings, but it reconnects me to the realization that I'm living in a small town, with farmers and bankers and old state senators and college professors, most of whom today are wearing flannel.

The other day, in the midst of talking about Plato's philosophy, I told a group of my students that I'd gone rock climbing last Saturday. They thought it was great and wanted to go too, so now we're trying to get a group together to go rock climbing. I also found out they like to play Settlers, a game I was introduced to in Michigan, and we'll probably get together to play that too. I've come to think that some of the most valuable interactions that take place between teacher and students don't happen in the classroom, but outside it. It was this way when I was in college and grad school, sitting with a cup of coffee or tea with one of the profs, sometimes a beer, talking about writing and school and Ph.D. programs and life and health, world events and relationships.

Now I'm one of them. Some days it scares the crap out of me.

I think there are two major ideas when it comes to teaching. One is an Industrial Age idea, where students are the product and teachers are disseminating information (the "Sage on a stage" idea). Read the book. Absorb the information. Take the test. Write the paper. Rinse. Repeat. I always wondered why I'd lose passion for reading when I was in class, but pick it up again over summer break when I could read what I wanted to read. There's something to be said for discipline. There's also something to be said for something different too.

So the second model, the one that seems more organic, is a discipleship, mentoring idea. When the students and I have lunch together, it's still a classroom, but in these cases they're often teaching me as much or more as I'm teaching them. They're also asking the questions they want to ask. What about relationships? What about loneliness? What about this job I'm looking into? Jesus, Aristotle, Socrates and some of the Eastern teachers followed these models. It was definitely more organic, fused together the realization that learning and knowledge isn't just what happens in a classroom in a lab under sterile conditions, but has to connect to life, has to be lived out, has to actually on some level work and affect the ways we think, act, and live, and the ways we relate to each other, live in families and live in community. This is a different kind of knowledge; it's intimate; it gets down deep into our bones and changes the fabric of who we are. Experiences change us for this reason, practical application, hard knocks, reflection. For some reason this model excites me, makes me feel more alive and enjoy teaching more than the other.

Early Mornings

I woke up at 3:45 this morning.

3:45! Yeah, that's early.

So I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I've figured out that it's best not to fight it, so I got up, and was at the office at 5am. I've had a cold for the last week--first in my lungs, now in my sinuses--so I think it's on the way out, but it's made for some miserable days and nights. Did I mention I don't do "sick" well?

So it's 5 in the morning and I'm driving through Lincoln. It's obviously still dark but warm, and there's a musty smell in the air, like the leaves are turning to dirt while they're still on the branches, or like a 50 lb. cat decided to roll around all night on the back porch. One of my fears when I leave this early in the morning is being greeted by a possum or a skunk. I hate both, especially if they're mean or have rabies.

I wasn't expecting to see anyone out, but I saw two people out separately, walking their dogs. "What are they doing up this early?" I thought. "Oh yeah, I'm up too."

It's quiet this early in the morning, quiet and peaceful, and even though I have a long day ahead of me I felt like today was going to be a good day. In a few hours people will start arriving to work. A couple hours later students will start waking up, and in about eight hours from now I'll be lecturing on 18th century art. Not bad for a Monday.

Going home

He'd left home when he was 17, maybe before. It hadn't been his home, but someone else's, so at 17 he began a new home. Most of the time he was never there, he was busy wandering the neighborhood, or knocking on other people's homes, or sitting with them in their living room.

Over the years he had knocked on a number of doors, and a few had let him in. Most told him to go away. He would look in through the windows at night, when the lights were on inside, watching families sit down to eat, watching couples snuggling on the couch, wishing that he had a home like that to go to.

One day he found a home he really liked. The woman who lived there was working in her garden, and he stopped to chat, at first over the fence, and not quite sure he wanted to go in through the gate, but she invited him in and before he knew it he was in her yard.

They continued to talk and he would often stop by to see if she was home. They'd stand in the doorway and talk, and sometimes she'd invite him into the living room where it was nice and warm. Some days he'd be present, engaged, listening and talking and things would be comfortable. On other days he'd seem distracted. They'd stand in the doorway and he'd look over her shoulder into the living room, or they'd sit in the living room and he'd find his eyes wandering to her bedroom door, which was always closed, except for one time when it was cracked just a bit.

On those days she would become frustrated. "What do you want? Are you listening?" she'd say. "Are you here to visit or to scope out the place to break in when I'm gone or asleep?" He'd apologize, say that wasn't the intent, and things would go back to normal. "I'll concentrate more," he thought "I'll be engaged. I'll be present." But then he'd find himself longing to see other rooms in the house, the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. Almost always on days like this his eyes led to the bedroom.

On these days she'd push him back outside, and on one particularly cold day he found himself on the other side of the door, digging his hands in deep, walking down the sidewalk, through the gate, past the fence, and down the road.

He walked a long way that day, and the next, and the day after that. It was all confusing. Every step took him further from the house. He began to forget what it looked like; he wondered if he'd ever go back. He wondered if he ever wanted to. He tried a few other doors at a few other houses, but it was fall when the sky is gray and the wind is cold and his attempts at the doors were lackluster and haphazard. He didn't want inside anymore, didn't know if he could. Dinners, fireplaces, couches and TVs belonged to other people, but it was much like watching a movie of other people's lives. The screen always separated the two worlds.

He began to miss his own house. The grass had grown, the weeds had sprung up, windows had broken in the house and a couple storms had ripped through the neighborhood. He was carrying in his bag a few gifts from other houses--freely given, not stolen--and he decided to begin decorating his house with some of those. A chasm had widened between his house and others, and some of the bridges had broken, but one or two were still usable, and he crossed over on one of those, back down a road that had become cracked and uneven, to the gate of his own house. He pushed it open (it creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges). He walked up to the door, noticing the loose bannister and the peeling paint, the draft of the broken windows, and went inside to get to work.

Definitions of Love

A woman wants a man with washboard abs, who dresses well, who smells good, who tells her she's beautiful, who makes her laugh, who fixes the cars and the lawns and always knows the right thing to say.

A woman wants a man who's strong, who's sensitive, who earns money but is often home to take care of her, to take care of the kids. A woman wants a man who takes her places, who has sex when she wants it and not when she doesn't. A woman wants a man to tell her it'll be okay, to put the seat down, to leave his shoes at the door, to play with the kids, to ride a motorcycle and look good in a leather jacket, to paint the living room and expand the kitchen.

A woman wants a man who won't complain when she spends too much, who won't be upset when she's out with the girls, flirting with other guys (he's secure after all), who doesn't flirt with other women. A woman wants a man who lives close by, who lives far away, who won't hit her, and if he does, apologizes and says he'll never do it again (and she'll believe him). A woman wants a man who will cheat on her (if he's sexy enough for others, he's sexy enough for me), at least she'll stay with him. A woman wants a man who will stay with her if she cheats on him. A woman wants a man who will never cheat on her. A woman wants a man who's stronger, kinder, harder, softer, nicer, more decisive, less authoritative, less stubborn, more like a dog, less like a dog, who likes to kiss but always has good breath. A woman wants a man to tell her what he's thinking. A woman wants a man to not talk so much.

Random

Recent events:

1. Got flipped off on a web site that once hosted a business co-owned with former friend. (Wow, how does that happen? Someone devotes an entire website just to flippin' him off!"

2. Nearly got into a slugfest with same former friend. Former friend emails next day to officially announce he is retiring from the friendship, will not contact, no, nada, never. One day later former friend text messages to tell him his favorite cat has come home.

3. Tired of talking about former friend with friends, strangers, mutants, or guests, or professional online personalities.

4. Ponders why, if so many people hate marriage why so many people try it anyway.

5. Wonders if he'll work another 12-15 hours today.

6. Realizes what itunes is and what it does (a bit behind in the technology end). This comes following the purchase of an ipod (wow, another novelty).

7. Has 90% attendance in 8am class. This is a first since, well, the first day of class!

8. Has dreams about French bathrooms and how the French don't give you any privacy in the toilet, even though he hasn't been in many French bathrooms to speak of.

9. Gets an email from girl saying he should not care about her. He doesn't respond. She writes back to ask what he things about her saying he should not care about her. He responds saying he needs space. She responds later in the day saying she'll respect that and give him space. She writes again the next day saying that this is the two year anniversary of a best friend's death. She thinks she's okay, just thought he should know. He doesn't respond.

10. Shoots more baskets at the gym. One of the only things that makes sense. Feels like basketball is becoming an extension of his hand. Wonders if he could date said basketball. Hates playing, but likes shooting free throws and layups and going jogging, but not all at the same time. Realizes career as basketball superstar will most likely never be realized (*wicked laugh* No, it could be! It could!). Decides to take up rock climbing again.

Travelin' Man

And he said death come quickly, I'm takin' the next train outta town. There ain't nothin' for me here, ain't no reason to stay.

So he hoisted his pack on his shoulder, the only belongings he had left--a change of clothes, a loaf of bread, a wallet full of faded bills and a blanket--and he made his way, he made his way off today.

Cuz there wasn't no reason for where he was goin', and there wasn't no reason to stay.

Day turns to night, and night turns to day, and the travelin' man, that travelin' man made his way,

and that's the last we seen him, and we sure don't know where he's gone, cuz he kicked off the dust from his dusty shoes, and he said "I'm gonna go find my fate today."

Certainty

Have you ever had a feeling about something so deeply it was a certainty? Maybe it was about a person, or a place, or a destination, or you knew that something was around the next corner. You couldn't put your finger on it yet, but all you could do was feel like the observer in your own life as events played out.

One of the times when I experienced this was when I went to Boise, Idaho for six months. I had been working at a trucking company, going to college, living with a couple guys in an apartment. They were both dating people (who would later be their wives), and I was just out there, dangling somewhere. Between work and school, I felt disconnected, alone. I knew something had to change. I didn't know how to get there.

Then came the night around Thanksgiving when all the college guys were pulled off the dock and called into the office. Tonight was our last night (they told us this AFTER a 12-hour shift), we wouldn't need to come in next weekend, and they'd let us know if they needed us?

A tall guy named Scott who had just bought a truck said, "So does that mean a month, a couple weeks?"
"No, Scott," I said, "they're letting us go." Scott looked at the supervisor; the supervisor looked at the floor.
"Is that what you mean?" Scott persisted. The supervisor nodded. Several of the guys were devastated. They had bought color TVs, made down payments on trucks or sports cars they could no longer afford. I went home and made a snow angel. I was free!

My friend Rod saw me when I came home. "What are you going to do?"

I hadn't thought about it until that moment, and an idea popped in my head that was more certain than anything I'd ever felt. "I'm going to Boise."

I had just been in Boise that August, and it was now December, for my cousin's wedding. My aunt said, "If you ever need someplace to come to, you're always welcome here." The thought had stayed in the back of my mind and rose again to the surface when I needed it. I made a phone call the night I was let go, and in 24 hours had made plans to go to Boise. The next six months changed my life and I found a lot of healing out there with extended family, the mountains of the Idaho desert, and getting caught in a snowstorm somewhere in Iowa.

I've felt that certainty with relationships, too. Usually it's been an invisible door closing, or maybe I've been knocking on the door for some time, not wanting to believe it was actually closed or locked, hoping against hope that maybe I could find a crack in the door, or if I knocked long enough, they'd let me in. During the knocking, the hoping and the wishing my knuckles become pretty bloody, there's a lot of frustration, and then finally, either worn out or realizing that the door really is locked, I step back and start to accept that this is a door I can't open. Sometimes it's a mixture of hopelessness, despair, and acceptance, but there's peace in it too. I've stopped knocking, I know there's a change coming.

It happened like that at the end of college with a girl I had been pretty into for about three years. Unfortunately it has taken me a lot longer to realize something that other learn pretty quickly, but there I was, knowing without having to talk about it that things were over. We went ahead and had that final conversation anyway, and the next week she was dating the guy she would later marry. In the meantime I began jogging 6-10 miles several times a week and working 70 hours.

Recently I've seen a friend knocking on doors of her own, with work, with school, with relationships. She's smart, talented, educated, and yet every door she knocked on was locked. She couldn't figure it out, and watching it from the outside felt like watching someone being corralled into a very small space where there is only one place left to go, the bottleneck, before opening up into wide open spaces. I saw her go through the bottleneck, which meant she moved several hours away, and now things she'd been wishing for, hoping for, and dreaming about our finally happening. I'm happy for her, and at the same time am left wondering if there are wide open spaces for me as well. There's a dream I keep carefully hidden, and most don't know how much I struggle with it because I've learned to hide it well, but the longing is still there, and for now so is the bottleneck. The last couple months I've lost some things that meant a lot to me, and am seeing doors close left and right. Something's about to change. That's the only certainty I have right now.

Fire

There’s something about fire that mesmerizes us, attracts us, draws us in. Its raw power and energy has amazing potential to be used for good—to heat our homes, to give us light, to cook our food, create spaces where we tell stories and connect with each other—and also to destroy as it consumes whatever we throw into it. It’s untamed, we can’t understand it, and it carries the potential to break out into something so totally beyond us. It’s a thing of awe, a thing of terror, a thing of beauty and a thing that has often inspired worship.

Tonight I followed a group of men as we made our way out past the east side of campus, to some trucks and dumpsters. At the time I was walking, I didn’t know where we were going or what we would find. As I got there, I saw guys pulling wood pallets out of the dumpsters, peeling off the plastic and bindings and tossing them to the ground where they were then loaded on trucks. Cardboard boxes soon followed, and clothes, and stuffed animals. “Will it burn?” We loaded the trucks, threw pallets on top, carried the trash by the armfuls to a fire that was already started.

Pallets were added to the fire, then cardboard boxes, then clothes, then more pallets, and the bonfire was banked higher and higher, the heat emanating from it tremendous as we stood twenty feet away, then thirty, then forty.

“We’re in Lincoln,” somebody said. “A little dot on the map. We want the planes to see this.” Raw power. Pure energy. Powerful, untamed, visible, with the potential to break out uncontrolled. But what I think this guy was saying was, “I want to leave a mark. I want to make a difference. I want to do something big, even if it’s in Lincoln, Illinois.”

As I looked into the flames, and saw dancing orange and yellow flames, felt the heat singe my face and hands, and then looked around the fire at the scared, excited, invincible faces, I tried to figure out what was going on. Here was energy and power in the fire. Here was energy and power and the spirit of invincibility and something reckless in the faces of the men around me. Part of me was afraid of the potential force for destruction. Part of me wanted to listen for something bigger.

In ancient cultures fire was used for cooking, for light, for religious ceremonies and sacrifices. People passed through the fire, whether it was walking on hot coals like some cultures still practice, or a metaphor for human sacrifice. There was something destructive, primal, and representative of worship and spiritual practice in the fire.

Maybe it’s no surprise that God first appeared to Moses as a fire that could not be consumed on the mountain. It grabbed his attention, drew him in. I don’t know how long it took him to realize that the bush wasn’t burning, but he was captivated. God had mesmerized him, lured him in to show him what He was up to.

At times God used fire to light the way for the Hebrews as they were wandering in the desert places or running from the Egyptians. God’s fire consumed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nadab and Abihu, and consumed Elijah’s offering as he was competing against the prophets of Baal. Fire is a powerful, dangerous, and awe-inspiring thing. The same words could be used to describe God.

In Matthew, John talks about Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In Acts, the Holy Spirit came on Jesus’ followers as tongues of fire, the writer of Hebrews says that God is a consuming fire, and Paul says not to quench the fire of the Spirit.

In us is potential for great fire. I saw it tonight, and wondered which way the fires would burn. Would we destroy, or is there something in us that wants to be part of something big, powerful, unpredictable, a fire that cannot be quenched, a following the ways of God in such a way that will leave a mark, that will burn into our hearts and minds and hands and feet, that will be permanent. Fire can be quenched, it can destroy, it can do terrible things, but my prayer is that this year will ignite a God fire in us, that will leave its mark on us, consume us, mesmerize us. And we will never be the same.

Spider-man and Venom

Spider-man. Venom. One is mild mannered, has a nerdy alter ego, is seen as the struggling, insecure teenager in all of us. He has family ties, though most of them are broken, but before they break they instill something deep within him, grounding who he is and who he will become: with great power comes great responsibility. Thanks, Uncle Ben. Why did you have to die?

The other is more powerful, dangerous, violently angry, out of control. Carrying Venom on his back is like carrying an addiction, you never know who’s got whom or when it’s going to take over. Sometimes he doesn’t want to fight to try to regain control. The rush, the power, the freedom from restraint and the ability to destroy is too great of a high. But the fear, the loss of control, the potential to hurt the very ones he cares most about (Aunt Mae, Mary Jane, himself), keeps bringing him back.

Last night I dreamed I was both.

Spider-man and Venom. Venom and Spider-man. Two sides, one person, probably the sides of all of us. But wait, this goes beyond the double personality, the alter ego, but splits even further into multiple personalities. There’s the ego (Peter), the superego (Spidey, living for the people, larger than life, the responsible if sarcastic moral superhero), and the id (Venom, the growing, uncontrollable demon). Take Venom a step further and you have Carnage, total destructive force, total chaos, a killing machine without a conscience. It’s Venom taken to the extreme, Venom without the balancing impulses of Peter and Spidey, so dangerous that Spider-man and Venom put their differences aside long enough to take on a greater evil. Venom is bad, Carnage is horrific.

On the Lighter Side: Breakfast with Landon

About two months ago I moved in with some friends who have three kids: a six-year old, a three-year old, and and eight month old. The first month I spent mostly traveling around out in Oregon and Idaho, and they spent a week in Ohio. The last month though I've been settling into the new routine of a new job, and what it's like to go from living by myself (for the last five years, minus six months hanging out with my buddy Tom) to being part of an instant family of five (six counting me; nine if you count the cats. Oh yeah, and there's the lizard in the basement).

I've been pretty close to this family since I was in college. I stood as best man in the wedding, was roommates with the dad in college, was friends with the mom, was sleeping at their house the night their oldest son was born, and was able to stay a few extra months in Illinois as their second son was born before I headed off to Michigan. I've been getting to know the newest member of the family, a girl with really beautiful blue eyes and a melt-your-heart smile, and I'd count myself really blessed. I've been dubbed the unofficial "uncle," though the three-year-old, Landon, is still trying to figure that one out.

I get up early to try to have breakfast and be out of the house and on my way to work before the rest of the family gets up. Sometimes that works. Usually it doesn't. Landon's an early riser too, and often will come downstairs as early as 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, shuffling across the floor to grab a package of cheese and crackers out of the pantry before shuffling back up to bed where he eats quietly and waits for his brother and the rest of the family to wake up.

A couple weeks ago I got up at 6:30, thinking I'd eat breakfast and do some reading while it was still quiet, but right as I turned the corner I heard small feet right behind me. I stumbled around looking for the coffee filter, still feeling fuzzy, which Landon saw as a moment to begin our early morning conversation. Here's how it went:

Landon: Do you have a house?
Me: No.
Landon: Do you have a woman?
Me: Um, no. Do you want some cereal?
Landon: Yeah.

I was laughing, but wanted to give him something else to do because I didn't know where the conversation was heading.

Even though he's three, his parents like to nickname him the "Old Man," because you never know what's going to come out next from Landon's mouth. Sometimes it's sage wisdom several times beyond his years, sometimes just really quirky, and sometimes so hilarious that he makes us hurt we're laughing so hard. One day he fell and hurt his leg and told his mom he had to go to church.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I need to ask God something."
"You can do it here," she said. "You don't have to go to church every time you want to talk to God."

This morning I was in the kitchen again by 6:30, had just started the coffee and was getting ready to pour myself a bowl of Healthy Hearty Crunchy cereal of some kind; basically, colon blow twigs and flakes. I heard the song of feet on wooden floor and Landon rounded the corner, wearing a diaper.
"Are you my uncle?" he asked.
"Yep. Do you want some cereal?"
"Yeah, I want that kind," he said, pointing to the Healthy Hearty cereal you only eat after you're thirty.
"I don't think you'll like it."
"Uh huh."
"Okay, you can try it." So I poured him enough cereal to cover the bottom of his Spider-man bowl, added a few cranberries so it would match what I was eating, and added milk. Then I waited for the taste test.
*Crunch crunch crunch* went Landon. "I like it, I like it!" Give it to Landon, he'll eat . . . very little except the stuff you least expect.

So we sat down together, Landon and I, at the breakfast table at 6:30 in the morning, me with my bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, he with his Spider-man bowl of old man cereal that matched the old man cereal being eaten by Uncle Cliff. And then the questions started.

"Is this church?"
"The house?"
"Yeah, is the house church?"
"Sometimes. I guess it could be. Does God live here?"
"No."
"Sure he does. He lives here."
"Jesus lives here."
"Okay. Yeah, Jesus lives here."
"But Ike's not Jesus."
"No, your brother's not Jesus."

I never know what's going to come out of that boy's mouth, or where our conversations are going to go over breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, but I've begun to really value the time we have together, talking, over a bowl of cereal while the rest of the house, and the world for that matter, is still sleeping in silence. It seems to be our time, with no distractions, no need to share time and attention with a brother and sister or things that have to be done. It's nice.

And I'm learning some things from my time with him, and laughing a whole lot. Someday we won't have conversations quite like this, but I hope we still talk, and I'm trying to start early at building that relationship so when he's older and Uncle Cliff is no longer cool and there are girls in his life and sports, and friends who are grabbing for his attention, that he'll still want to come sometimes to talk over a bowl of cereal, or maybe someday a cup of coffee (not now. "Coffee is for grown ups, not little boys").

His mom came downstairs this morning and said, "You've heard of the book Tuesdays with Morrie. Well, I guess this is Breakfast with Landon." Yeah, I thought, I like that.

The Religion of Movies

Theater had its origins in religious ceremonies. Even before the Greek Dionysian wine and sex parties to celebrate fertility, older cultures combined music and theatricality with religion. It may have involved music or chanting, choreographed dancing, even masks and costumes to personify the gods or the symbolism of something bigger.

In early Greek drama, the chorus started out being the main players and mouthpieces of worship, morality lessons, and the audience watched (and sometimes participated in) the liturgy. Over time individuals began to step forward, with the masks and costumes, monologues and dialogues, and the chorus retreated, at first still advancing the story, and then taking the role of a single narrator.

However, in Greek culture theater continued to keep its religious roots. Whether it was Sophocles reinforcing the theme that humans should not overreach themselves and tempt the gods to anger through their hubris (pride), or Aristophanes protesting the war between Athens and Sparta (the 60s and Vietnam had nothing on Aristophanes. He was perhaps one of the first war protesters who followed the theme “make love not war,” especially through the comedy Lysistrata), theater continued to be the forum for discussing theology, morality, the problems of good and evil and human behavior.

Ironically, then, some of the biggest protestors of theater in Shakespeare’s day came from the religious sector, the Puritans (yes, the hard working folks who helped found and establish some of the American colonies). Perhaps as a response, Shakespeare sometimes poked fun at them for their strict adherence to discipline and contempt for the theater (Malvolio in Twelfth Night, who is played to look like a hypocritical fool, may be one of Shakespeare’s straw men to criticize the puritans). Due to protests stating the theater created tendencies for laziness and vice, the Globe Theatre was shut down and moved across the River Thames in London. Yet Shakespeare’s plays are still studied and mined for their wealth of understanding about human nature, comedy, tragedy, and morality.

Though early film seems to have been a combination of moving photography and vaudeville comedy, the 1920s began to take the fledgling film industry and combine elements of the theatrical (costumes, plot, theme). Many of our conversations about religion, the spiritual, or faith and movies, however, center around the role of clergy (Catholic priests, the absence of Protestant ministers) or the negative press Christians and faith seem to receive in movies.

Yet movies have also become a modern day parable. Seeing the Matrix was like seeing a sermon, or a postmodern messiah that combined elements of Eastern and Western thought together into a philosophical action film. The Matrix II took this analogy even further, creating further extremes of action, interrupted with sermonizing philosophy. Superman Returns also mixes strong elements of a Judeo-Christian messiah with the folklore of superheroes and godlike supermen. I haven’t even mentioned The Truman Show, Lost in Translation, Magnolia, Kinsey, or hundreds of other thoughtful, aesthetically well done movies.

The similarities between religion and the movies don’t end in just its origins or the issues many of our best films address. Culturally, the movies have become our 21st century cathedrals, the centerpoints where we reaffirm and challenge our values, come to understand the world, our fears, what makes us human and express our search for spiritual meaning and significance. With film, we are swept into something outside the normal experience, where we see life as larger than it is in our own realities, and where we can dream we are something more or somewhere else.

The movies have become our communal gathering places. The lights come down, the audience around us becomes a collective of indistinguishably shadowy silhouettes, a human but unrecognizable presence that we participate alongside, but don’t interact with. Sounds surrounds us, envelopes us, and our focus is directed to a bright light and moving images. When film was still a new phenomenon, people would even pick fights with the characters on camera, fooled by the illusion that the person was there when they actually weren’t. And now, even though we can rent movies and take them home to watch them in the privacy of our homes, we still choose to go to the movies sometimes for the larger experience.

Summer Update

A lot of changes have been happening in my life this summer, which means more living and less blogging. In June I moved from Michigan to Lincoln, Illinois. Some buddies came up, helped me load the Uhaul on a semi-cool morning, and then we drove the six hours back down to Illinois. On the way we saw a semi in the opposite lane that had clipped a minivan and small truck, before careening across a ditch and headlong into a field. From the looks of it, we guessed the driver of the semi had fallen asleep or had a major stroke. The truck was pretty buried. Traffic was backed up 5-6 miles, people were on their cell phones, kids were out of their vehicles playing baseball, and several dogs and cats were out by the side of the road "takin' care of bizness." My friend Rod and I looked at each other, grateful on the one hand that we weren't the ones driving through it, but also struck by how the actions of one or two individuals can have a dramatic impact on hundreds, even thousands of lives. And this was just one random individual, not a world leader, businessman or politician.

A couple days later I flew to Boise to see my aunt and uncle and some cousins whom I hadn't seen in 6-8 years. I don't keep track of time very well when I'm in school or teaching. A few days later I rented a PT Cruiser, and drove nine hours across Oregon to Noti--just west of Eugene--where my92-year old grandpa lives.

Before I go on, a little bit about my grandpa. Since Grandma passed away three years ago, Grandpa's lived on his own at the farm where he and grandma spent over 20-some years. There's a room there that used to be my dad's bedroom. Another one belongs to my uncle. My oldest uncle, Bruce, was out of the house when they built it so there's not a fourth bedroom that would have been his. I was conceived in that house, on a New Year's eve in 1974. Grandpa and Grandma used to have 100 acres of farmland, where they raised cows initially, and then sheep, goats, chickens and pigeons. The barn still stands, but has a rickety lean to it that shows that its best days are over. Later they sold off some of the land and kept a manageable 25 acres. Now Grandpa rents that out and cows once more roam the back fields, grazing and mooing into the night.

Even though he's 92, my grandpa still goes to the gym four days a week, eats out at a place called Dixie's where all the waitresses love him and he loves the attention, and he still has a sharp mind. The days I spent with him I felt like I was walking around with Bono. Everywhere he went people were saying hi to him, asking him how he was doing, taking care of him. Grandpa just said, "That's how people are here. They're good people." I looked at him and said, "That's how you are, Grandpa. You've left a legacy."
He thought about it a minute, then said, "I guess if you treat people well, then generally they'll treat you well too." It's certainly worked for my grandpa.

Grandma is buried on a hill just outside of a town called Veneta. From her gravestone you can look across a valley with a lake, and beyond that, the Cascade mountains. The morning we were there the sun was hanging low on the horizon and turned everything golden. I've rarely seen a view more beautiful. Every Saturday my grandpa brings roses to the grave site. First he pulls out the withered flowers from the week before, walks slowly to the trash bin to throw them away, dumps the old water from the vases, refills them with new water, cuts the bottom stems of the roses with a pocketknife, and arranges them back in the vase for another week. He stops for a moment to reflect, and on the morning I was there asked me tearfully if I'd say a prayer. I said sure. I thanked God for Grandma, for the life she'd lived and the ways she'd influenced her family and community. I prayed for Grandpa, for the loneliness he struggles with during the days. They were married over 60 years.

Their marriage wasn't always great, but it also wasn't always bad either, and over the span of 60 years there's going to be a heavy dose of both. But sixty years is a long time with one person, living, loving, fighting, and when they're gone a part of you goes with them. When it's all said and done, I know he loved her.

After the visit with Grandpa I drove back through Oregon, stopping to see my cousin Nate and his family, stayed a few more days in Boise to visit family, then flew back to Illinois, only to drive to Louisville, Kentucky the next day.

The last month I've been getting ready for school, at a new place, a new office, trying to get reconnected to the community, trying to get reacquainted with old friends and make new ones.

In Honor of J. Rob: A dream

I have a lot of dreams where I'm out at sea. It's not one of these calmly placid seas with a breathtaking sunset either, but dark, stormy, swirling, like a giant stomach with heartburn, or the Perfect Storm 20 minutes before it becomes the "perfect" storm. There are always sea creatures just below the surface, big ones. Take that back . . . HUGE! They're bumping against the boat, and the water's clear enough where we can see them. No one wants to go for a swim, and we hope we won't fall overboard.

In the dream last night the ship went down and we died, or at least one person died, and because they died the rest followed, kind of like in the Matrix where one of the other gets the plug pulled on them. Next, we all wake up in a room. We're all together, except for a few people, and they materialize soon after they've died. The world that was the one we were living in is now below us. We can't go back there because we can't breathe the air. It would be like diving below the water and breathing in a lungful of water. You couldn't do it and it would hurt if you tried. The air here was somehow better, and we were still us, but in a different place. And then the dying began again. Someone got shot in this new world, which meant that everyone else, one by one, would disappear only to reappear in the next world.

One thing I noticed about the group was there was tension between us. Conflicts that had been going on in one world followed us into the other. We had to talk out the problems, work them out, or else have to deal with them in the next world. I'm not a believer in karma or reincarnation, but if the first person who thought up that philosophy on life had a dream like I had, I can see why they would begin to believe that life is one big circle, and the issues we have in one lifetime follow us into the next (karma) as we follow the cycle, the wheel, through reincarnation until something changes. The people stay the same thought the venue changes. Kind of like one big pub crawl on a Friday night.

Mind Bender

Rough stages, but will post for now and see where it goes.

Calvin T had always lived mostly in his head. His friends had called him "The Daydreamer," and he often had things turn up where he hadn't put them, or couldn't find things that he had been carrying minutes before.

First, it was his keys. He left them on the dresser, his desk, even a keychain by the door, but when he'd need them, they'd be gone. He'd search the other places where he often left them, then in a panic because he was running late (he was ALWAYS running late), he'd tear apart the couch cushions, look in closets, his running shorts, jeans pockets, only to have them turn up back in the original spot.

But it didn't stop there. Years passed, people died, friends got married. It felt like a blur. Had he been in a coma? He didn't think so but he couldn't account for the gaps in time, in memory. "You live too much in your head," his girlfriend Stephanie said. Yes, maybe that was it.

He was riding his bike. To his right a red Volvo turned the corner 200 meters away. He turned away to check left, then looked right again, turning just as the Volvo swerved, squealing its tires and blared its horn. The rearview mirror nicked him, sending him into a ditch, and as he tumbled he saw blades of grass, still glistening with dew, brown clods of dirt kick up around him like a slow veil, and red packed clay rise up to meet him in a slow, crushing embrace. His helmet cracked and he heard the cross fibers split apart as the helmet took the damage instead of his skull. Where had the car come from?

The hundred mile "rails to trails" race was coming up, and Calvin had been training for months. The day of the race, Calvin hit a steady pace, and found himself in the midst of five to six bikers that were sticking closely together. The ten mile mark came up, the twenty, the twenty-five, and the others began pulling ahead. A few other bikers had come up from behind and passed him as well, and Calvin found himself biking across a flat stretch with no other bikers in sight. His mind began to wander.

Minutes later he looked around him and noticed the road ahead. It was sloping sharply down and he was accelerating, faster and faster. Calvin ratcheted the gears to the top speed and rounded a corner, to see the finish line a 300 meters in front, untorn, waiting for the first bicyclist to cross the line. In less then a minute he had crossed it, barely noticing the perplexed looks of the passersby as they glanced at their watches, then looked again more intently. He must have picked up the pace he had thought, passed the others without noticing.

When the final results were in Calvin had won first place, but not without contest. The judges would send the results to a review board for further review . . .

The headaches began, nothing more than a low buzz at first, but growing progressively stronger and louder. The doctors prescribed medication, ran EEGs, sent him to labs, to Mayos, to the top physicians and scientists in the world, but nothing worked. After a while they gave up. And then the headaches stopped. Calvin woke up at 7:04 to find his hair receding, rapidly. He had overslept and would be late for work. He showered, shaved, stared at himself and his receding hairline in the mirror, telling himself he'd buy some Rogaine on the way home, and left for work. The clock above the kitchen sink read 7:02.