Saturday, April 21, 2012

Blank

I cannot explain it but when Charlotte and I turned Carrie Rose, our 32-foot Nordic Tug, south from Canada last summer my mind went blank. I usually wait for a word to materialize before I begin to write. A story is typically attached and one finger at a time 700 to 1000 words appear. It is an automatic process remarkable for its consistency over the last half decade, but as I said the “Word” eluded me.

The Word has become a companion. It keeps me occupied. I sit and write and let my mind wander without restraint, neurons fire and the results pixelate onto the screen. It is expansive rather than absorptive.

A cup of espresso or a bowl of matcha in the early afternoon will often stimulate word smithing. The caffeine replaces afternoon languor with a creative edginess. It makes dinner seem far off and fills an otherwise empty space. I can relate to this aspect of my Italian ancestor’s life style. Around the beginning of August caffeine stopped inspiring. I have had to struggle to get even this far, but I am confidence that the Word lurks close by and will intercede if I persist.

Carrie Rose’s pilothouse is a quiet place where inspiration can be found, but that is when I am swinging on our mooring in Chicago’s Montrose Harbor. It was not a writer’s sanctuary on our extended cruise last summer. Cruisers are a gregarious lot. There are many distractions. Granted there are some loners who anchor out and live spartan lives, but even they will talk your ear off when on land.

The other quandary is Carrie Rose herself. She is irresistibly cute and conjures up all types of romantic visions. Passers-by are compelled to share these with me. At first it was a novelty. I was proud to have a conveyance that stirred so many souls. Now, after eight years of ownership it has become a bit taxing. I am polite as I divulge specifications and handling characteristics. I am careful about being too opinionated, not wanting to ruin any dreams because what is cruising about if not dreams.

And dream I do, of far off ports, bigger boats and new equipment, both the mundane and the exotic. I dream as I lie awake looking out the forward hatch at the stars. I dream while asleep, though not as peacefully. For unknown reasons my boat dreams are complicated. It may be the stress of being afloat. There are many responsibilities. Or it may be my place to work on issues I do not realize I have while on land.

My ill ease with blankness surprises me. After years spent reading and thinking about emptiness I now realize it is a foreign concept. I fancy myself an enlightened individual, but alas I am a fraud. A fraud that feels awkward without a mind full of thoughts. So I am back where I started from: a longhaired teenager groping for meaning and looking for direction. I thought I had found it in the Word but I see now this was a mistake. Dependence has lead to grief.

Of course what will it matter if I never write another word? The vast majority of humanity never wrote another word once out of high school, if they ever got that far. My father was one. He was denied an education due to what we would now call socio-economic factors, and then was called the depression, WWII, poverty and discrimination. It was a constant source of embarrassment for him even if he rarely voiced his true feelings. When he did I would try to comfort him. It did not work, so maybe I am trying to even the score with the universe.

Since my almost illiterate upbringing I dreamed of writing. I practiced in various ways, so when the time came I would be prepared. After the age of 16 I never let a word pass I did not know the meaning of. I kept a journal, which started with a type of poetry and later evolved into prose. I wrote haphazardly about travels, relationships, frustrations and milestones.

I tried to study grammar and finally gave up the didactic approach, and just read to see what more accomplished writers were doing with commas, semicolons and colons. Funny, nobody did the same thing. Once I realized this I was liberated.

Now it is time to get back to the real world or my perception of it, blank as it may be. I am grateful that anyone cares about my dissection of experience. The Word is my contribution to civil discourse and I hope it will continue to visit me for many decades. I will not bother to understand why it abandoned me last summer. Maybe it was the great expanse of clear fresh water we traversed that wiped my slate clean, now isn’t that is a pleasant thought.

April 2012

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Leaves


Green leaves, purple crocuses and red-orange robins are surely a confirmation of spring with a capital “S”. All seen, prematurely I think for this early in March, as I got out of the house and went for a walk to inspect the neighborhood. Almost a reason for a dog, but no, I will pass on that.

To make it through my 58th February is a great achievement. I cannot say that it was without foreboding. This streak of pessimism is what sets us Midwesterners apart from coastal inhabitants. My sentence this year was cut 10 days short by a trip to Costa Rica. Ninety-degree heat to languish in, wild painted birds to spy on, twisting turning roads to negotiate and hot springs to soak in; not a bad stretch in paradise.

Somehow winter vacations feel fake, like cheating fate. Try as I may I can’t help but look over my shoulder. It is as if the black-cloaked symbol of Death in Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal follows me around. I know I know it is an overreaction. This is a fault I have been working on since teenager-hood. I blame it on the disappearance of my Etruscan lineage or maybe it is my Sicilian side’s fault, probably both.

There is so much to tell while on vacation that I find it hard to just send a postcard. Sights and sounds, taste and smells, language and art are the things that make a trip worthwhile, and I want to expound on them. I have not even mentioned the inhabitants. They are the most intriguing part of the experience. Farmers and ship captains in Norway, cellist and luthiers in Italy, tea masters and potters in Japan, historians and artist in NYC, I have met them all. It is fun to lie in bed during the twilight between wake and sleep, and wonder what they are up to in their different time zones.

But back at home green leaves signal it is time to get in the garden, all 400 square feet of it. It needs raking, weed-and-feeding, soil turning and winter damage repairing. This year the garage should get new trim and a coat of paint. And the house deserves to have its cracks filled. Its been ignored for years. The cost will be astronomical but then we have to live somewhere.

It is also time to reacquaint ourselves with neighbors who disappear every year from November to March. New projects are proposed and maybe, if lucky, completed. Each year I hope for more trees and less concrete, and seem to get more of the latter. Parking pads migrate from the alley to the back steps, stone and brick decks are set into the grass, new garages appear, there seems to be no end to the construction even in the small spaces we visually share.

Green leaves also signal for the windows to be opened. I hear the house say—ahhh! Early warm spells arrive with strong gusty winds from the Gulf. This sets the local collection of chimes chiming. I am not sure why mine, the progenitor, has silently lived in the basement for the last few years. I guess it decided the neighborhood was noisy enough. I think I will pull it out of storage and add its sonorous tones to the choir.

The green, purple and reds bring vibrancy to Chicago. It endears the city to me and I am not sure if I could claim this if I spent the winters in a higher climate zone. Does this mean that I need to suffer to reap the rewards of springtime . . . I think not. That would be too soap operatic. Better to get out in the backyard and move dirt, paint trim and fill cracks, so there will be time to visit when summer comes with a capital “S”!

March 2012