Walking shoes 12/05, 09/09

It's easy to get attached to things that are old and comfy, especially old shoes. I know that I should be better about it, about trading them in when they're worn and hard on my feet, but still. We get attached and that's that.

It was a gorgeous day for a walk today, as you must know if you were out and about in it. I thought about taking in that regional trail out by the Woods but knew my time today was precious and that I couldn't really do a trail walk justice. Besides, I had my work clothes on and it seems to me that walking in that neck of the woods requires a certain "uniform". If not that, at least clothes that aren't so beat from so many messy projects.

I didn't mind being, or rather, looking so beat at the track. As a matter of fact there was nobody else out there today. I think of our fast food nation and all the folks who could have really used a good walk today, even a short one, and marvelled that the track was empty. Fine by me as I don't like the crowds, but still. It was all too beautiful to be penned up inside playing games all day. Where was everybody?

So I hit the track knowing that I only had a few minutes, as I had a five o'clock supper appointment to make on Bainbridge Island. I walked fast but not too fast, just quick enough to break a sweat by the end of my march. My shoes took to that track as if they knew it intimately, and I suppose after four years they just might. Those old shoes of mine are pretty beat now. The sole is about worn through in places, the exterior rough and stained with the paints and stains of many projects gone by. There was a time when I was mighty proud of those shoes, and I suppose I still am. They get me places, always have.

I remember their predecessors. They were off road high tops, too, and by the time I traded them smooth in the sole also. I had worn them for years, in all kinds of weather and they took care of me on the most part, but if I was hard pressed to tell the truth I would have to say that they needed to be traded in because they were taking on water. Not a whole lot of fun in a state where the rainy season lasts so long. In the end I pretty much forced to unload them because they were looking to be hazardous to my health. I almost found that out the hard way one morning back in December of '05.

I had gotten into Boise the night before. It was few days before the holidays and I was there to see the kids, do a bit of Christmas shopping, make merry. I got in late, almost too late for the season. The roads were slick with ice and it was mighty cold, black skyed, very unmerry. I found two major chain hotels standing side by side off to the side of Eagle Highway, both of them practically calling out for business. Shepherd hooks were coming out next to drag in customers. I chose the one that looked the most promising, one with a high speed internet connection off of the lobby, and got a fabulous rate just for walking in the door. My room was plush, warm and cozy. My internet connection to you fast and efficient, even if you were all the way down in Arizona. After a long, chilling ride all was well with the world.

If you remember back then I was walking fairly regularly, a real advocate of daily, long distance exercise. I got up at six the next morning, strapped on my shoes, donned my jacket and stepped outside. Almost immediately I hit black ice on the drive and started sliding. If it wasn't for a few swift moves I would have landed on my ass, maybe broken a bone or two. I took that ice rink moment as a sign that I needed new shoes, so later on that day I took the kids out Christmas shopping and one of the things we ended up getting were shoes all around. I came away with a decent pair of off trail shoes that looked smart and weren't too outrageously priced. I was happy with them then and I'm happy with them now.

Except now they look tired and ready to retire, or at least, kept home for lawn and garden work. So, what's a man to do but look around a bit and find a replacement pair. I am sure that I won't be getting in the car and doing a long drive to Boise at the outset of winter just to buy a pair of walking shoes. Circumstances have changed quite radically since that last shoe shopping excursion. For starters I won't be needing the hotel room in order to keep the peace because peace has broken out in that sector of my life in unexpected ways and secondly there is no one there at the other end of the line to write to, least ways, not on your end. My internet connect doesn't have to be quite so secure even though I have a million other folks to write to.

Yeah, I had a wonderful walk today. Funny how I was able to once again find a thread that wound it's way back to you, even if that thread was just a path that I walked along today, walked along in a pair of well worn shoes, shoes that were new back in the day when we old fashioned lovers, back in the winter, December, of 2005.

Your WHMB

"Something to talk about" 08/05-07/06

"Sparky." Hell, yes, we were.

Do you remember the day we were dragged into the boss lady's office? Summer, what was it, July? A few days before your coda to me, a few days before your big inquisition. Well, we got a taste of the upcoming supression right then and there, a taste of what back room talk could do to people in an organization that prides itself on the quality of it's back room talk . What were we doing that put us on the radar? Being ourselves. Oh, yeah, we were talking, laughing. Heavy stuff, baby. Absolutely criminal.

You were in the stacks doing a "shelf check", I was in the stacks "weeding". We sat on our haunches, snickering about this, goofing about that. Damn if that didn't draw attention. I guess I didn't read the staff manual close enough, there must of been something in there that said "having fun on the job is prohibited", that "laughter shared between a man and woman who married but not married to each other is suspect", that is requires a smart and stinging blow to correct it.

So into the office we went, one after the other. I could practically hear the chortling of the sanctimonious from behind those closed doors. I can only imagine what folks must of said before we got there, because we got "there have been rumors" speech, were told that the "sparky" behaviour had to stop. I suppose that there was another clause in the manual that I missed, that my employers were not to act In Loco Parentus with it's staff. I think that they thought it was their right and duty to hold the high moral ground and to keep us to their standards. My bad, I missed that paragraph.

The only thing I wish I had said that day is "yes, we're friends, the best of friends...heck, I consider Jane to be my very BEST friend. Now what?"

I missed my chance to stand up against the beast and well, well, it doesn't matter much anymore. We were well beyond reprisals from work, we just didn't know it yet. Those came from without only a few days later.

Yeah, for awhile there baby we really stirred it up. For over a year we sparked rumors. How grand. I heard this song the other day and thought of that long ago Wednesday afternoon and it made me smile. Sparky, indeed. Need a copy of the record call and let me know.

Your WHMB

Artist: Raitt Bonnie
Song: Something To Talk About
Album: Luck of the Draw

verse 1

People are talkin, talking 'bout people
I hear them whisper, you won't believe it
They think we're lovers kept under covers
I just ignore it, but they keep saying

We laugh just a little too loud
We stand just a little too close
We stare just a little too long
Maybe they're seeing, something we don't, Darlin'

chorus
Let's give them something to talk about
Let's give them something to talk about
Let's give them something to talk about
How about love?

verse 2

I feel so foolish, I never noticed
You'd act so nervous, could you be falling for me?
It took a rumor to make me wonder
Now I'm convinced I'm going under

Thinking 'bout you every day
Dreaming 'bout you every night
Hoping that you feel the same way
Now that we know it, let's really show it, Darlin'

chorus

bridge
Let's give them something to talk about
A little mystery to figure out
Let's give them something to talk about
How about love, love, love, love?

chorus

Let's give them something to talk about
Let's give them something to talk about
Let's give them something to talk about
How about love, love, love, love?

chorus

I long to see your face

"Kissing" by Alex Grey

The fire which ran oh so hot before is down to cinders and ash. There's still a bit of heat there because I can still see smoke, but it needs a bit of fuel to kick start it again, to warm the morning meal. Where are you, my old true love?

My travelogues, my posts, my words to you here are all lacking poetry these days. That drive I took over the mountains and the resultant posts were focused on our old days and ways but still I came away from that drive with a newfound realization that time has marched forward many leagues past that old trip of ours. And while I thought of you the entire way I realized that all I could see before me was the road. I wondered about our words, wishing for a window to the past when we took that trip, for a way to hear what we had to say, for a connection to that happiness we shared, one that gave us so much to talk about.


Today I was in the backyard, out by my car and heard a bird call out. I looked up against the sun and couldn't quite see the bird perched on the top of a nearby fir. The new neighbor lady came out and asked what can of bird it was. Outside of a pair of binoculars and my Sibley's I couldn't even begin to tell her what it was, but you, my dear, I am sure that you could have.


I think of words, of circumstance, of instances guided by love and mutual admiration and know, without a doubt in my heart that if we were still outlaws together, here in this time and place, that things like birds and music and movies and love wouldn't be much of a chore. I do know that family and money and relationships and God would be, but, then again, those kinds of things always are. We would have prevailed and the poetry would have flowed unimpeded.

I suppose, then, what I worry about the most these days outside of finding work are the lyrics to our song, to our battle cry. I sit back sometimes listening hard, waiting for those old smokey stanzas that the warriors tell around the fire to surface, for I don't hear them coming out the my stories that I write for you these days. I hear my words and they are not songs of passion but more morning stories that one tells the patient wife as she prepares the breakfast meal for her mate before he goes off into the world.

I think of my tales of late and know that I had to bank those flames because I was hounded, because you were made vulnerable, because if I didn't take the hit and keep those words to myself they would have hurt you with them. The authorities turned my words of love into something I never imagined them to be, words to hang me with. I had to make sure that they were not used against you, to hurt you or harm you in any way. So I got to swing in the breeze for my sins and those harmful files were closed. A good compact with God or the devil if I do say so myself.


I have had to keep more than words to myself, my love. Mi Novia, who has come and gone and gone again, was one to appreciate but not understand the long term impact of that old story of ours. A die cast romantic, she wanted more than I could ever give and has gone back to being just a friend. I suppose that we can never have enough of those but still. I would rather have someone close in to laugh with me in bed and in the kitchen than someone I have to call on the phone to see if she needs a loaf of bread from the market.


I think of poetry and know that we spoke it fluently whenever we picked up the phone or dropped emails to each other or gazed into each others eyes back in the day. I think of poetry and know that I dropped it by the pound just walking around the track, speaking words to you out loud as the miles ticked by. I think of poetry and know that we lost volumes of it when nwpts57@yahoo.com and lovelandtokrl1963@yahoo.com were scrubbed, but, hey, I can't say or do anything about that because that was all this Mexican's doing. I set fire to that highly flammable mixture of words and emotion and watched it all burn down to ash in a fit of pique. Too bad, as I was the keeper of that flame and instead turned it into an uncontrolled wildfire.


Jane, I worry about losing that touch. We have been apart a long, long time and that spark, that wildness, that old free wheeling nature of words I had in me to share with you has settled down to something that feels akin looking at a great painting hanging on a museum wall. Maybe I started that novel a bit too late, or maybe, just maybe, just in time. We'll see.


Nevertheless I know that those words, the ones past "good morning, M", need to be augmented somehow. And I know one thing that would do it.


M, I need to see your face again, plain and simple. That would go a long ways in helping me to bank that old fire, to warming my ragged heart, to putting a touch of heat behind the words, the poetry, that I still write for you. That's just part of our old agreement, Jane, that you would make the time and I would write the words. A little bit of your time, even minutes in the aisle of the local supermarket, would go a long ways to setting those old words on fire once again.

Yeah, just to see your face.

Ah, your face.

Miss, truly miss, that face.


Love, your WHMB

Waking in the giant's garden, 9/21/09

There is a scene in The Iron Giant when Giant is with Dean in the scrap yard, twisting away at pieces of metal, making some of own creations out of Dean's work. Those works are huge, oversized creases and crinklings of metal, delightful, imaginative, abstract in the way that pipe cleaner art would be if done up in a grand scale, say, twenty or more feet tall. That's what I experienced the other morning. I woke up, sans the Giant, in a much cleaner, wide open version of Dean's scrap metal yard, with grand oversized pieces of steel and iron work all around me. Totally and completely wonderful.

I was lucky to be able to do the trip, considering. Money was there, Sr Gadbois was there and the weather clear and sunny. It didn't seem like a doable trip at first. The car hadn't proven itself after it's crash and burn maiden cruise in June. The moneys were the last of a check that shouldn't have been touched except in an emergency and the weather, well, the day I woke up it was rainy, then misty, then tentatively clear. But I have learned the hard way that when friends come to town you have to act, you must go, and money and weather and time be damned. I know that those were some of the excuses that were used a long time ago, excuses that kept that friendship in a sort of limbo state. I knew that if I had any intention of breaking free from the past that I had to go over the mountain to see my old friend. I woke up on Sunday a bit hung over, having suffered from an early morning bout of indigestion, but I got a pot of coffee into me, showered and threw myself in the car. It was gassed, the tank full and my wallet loaded with jingle. All systems go.

You know, I had it in my head to do that trip the very same way when we took that trip to the WALE conference, but I knew that this trip up and over the Cascades needed to be different. I was not going to plug in all the old particulars as it might have made that drive a bit too much like a ride down the old nostalgia trail. I am a sucker for that kind of thing, but I want that old magic to live on in serindipitous moments, not stark and slavish reproduction. So I got on the highway and drove north, knowing that when I got to Sedro Wooley that I would be on my way.

What I wanted for this trip to be was a bit of an information gathering experience. The novel is underway and while I can't necessarily use place names I needed to see some of the places we visited again, just for atmosphere, for the sake of detail. So I found some of our old landmarks, like Lorenzo's Mexican Restaurant in Sedro. I don't think it was Lorenzo's then, but I could be wrong, but the restaurant was there, poised on the edge of the field on one side of the highway and industrial building and such on the other. I also gathered information from the Seattle City Light Museum in Newhalem, the place where we stretched our legs and took the bridge over the copper green river to discover the joys of lichens, mosses and liverworts. That path is officially called the Trail of the Cedars. Still a nice walk, still as beautiful as ever.

Got to the top of the pass and stopped to see where it was that we tasted the first snows of winter that year, but I was too high up and the road beckoned. I took the road down and into Winthrop, stopped at Mack Lloyd Park to eat a few graham crackers wishing I had a pot of coffee to knock them down. We never carved our initials into that park bench they have there under that shelter by the red barn, but it was nice to sit for a moment on something that was firm and not moving. Afterwards I walked around a bit in town, stopped at the Winthrop Gallery and got the name of the artist that did up that card you bought there and found out that the print "Red Barn and Winter Apples" was available to buy if I ever wanted one. Someday, maybe, to be included in the novel. Who knows, maybe the cover shot?

So I headed down to Twisp, cruised by the downtown and waited for that old pal of mine. He and his brother and nephew met me at the local pub where we availed ourselves of beer and pub food. The evening topped out at his friend Bernie's place, where I looked at art and thought about pieces to buy and then, when all was talked out, to crash in the back of my wagon in the middle of the field that, in the morning I would come to find out was Giant's garden.

I suppose that all of that, the narrative on the way in and all the sights seen and revisited on the way out would have been just another car trip to see Sr Gadbois if hadn't been for you. But as I told him the other day in a letter that it was all his fault, that Twisp leg of our trip. If it hadn't been for him we would have never had an excuse to do that drive, to stop at the Rest Awhile Fruit Stand in Pateros or buy cinnamon rolls and such at Cinnamon Twisp or stroll the Confluence Gallery thinking my old pal would come by. If it hadn't been for him we would have never enjoyed the passages you read out of Amos Fortune Free Man or would have never seen that outrageous green water above Diablo Dam. We would have never eaten Mexican across from each other that day or stopped and worried down time with an ice cream bar in Everett or played that last slow hand of rummy bouncing off of Vashon Island. We would have missed practically everything that our legend had to offer that day if it hadn't been for Sr Gadbois. We would have done a daytime reversal drive back to Port Orchard with a passenger or two I am sure.

There are many things in this world to be sure about, or not know a damn thing about, but one thing I do know for sure and would stake my life on it is that I know that both you and I lived that day, lived easy and hard all at the same time, in a way that says to me that day, no matter where you or I go in this world, will be worn like a brand, like a small and intimate tattoo on our souls. Professora, I can't speak for you but that was one of the best days of my life.

I woke up the other morning in the middle of the Giant's garden. I wandered around Bernie's field, touching on his works, amazed at the vistas, wishing I could wish all my worries and problems away just so I could plonk myself down with a computer in his workshop and write our story. Instead I got the approval of that man to bring myself back anytime I wanted to help him bust up wood and write. So on the way home I took notes, stopped at Campbells and got information about my old room, and stopped at that vista point where we got wild and mussed up your hair and I gathered rocks and sage to smudge later. I got out and stood on the corner by McGlinns and looked at the phantasms that would always be running across the street in the light mist, their hearts on fire and their shadows chased by street lights. I didn't walk Leavenworth or do Highway 2 as I already knew that I didn't want to replicate the whole package, but I did stop in Sumner and sat under our tree and ate a sandwich. That was good enough for me.

I woke up in a Giant's garden, and let my imagination and my heart and soul go wild. It was beautiful to be there once again, in Twisp, with my old pal, knowing he had as much of a role in our tale as anyone. It was wonderful to head out, too, to go backwards on our trail, knowing, even if nobody else did, how much love was still out there gracing the roads and rivers and rocks of the region.

Your WHMB

Going over the mountain backwards

"Washington Pass" by Trish Harding

I'm going to take a trip back in time soon, but I'll be going backwards to a place that still gives my heart a lot of satisfaction and peace. Come if wish, there will be plenty of room.

My friend Sr Gadbois is back in town, if just for awhile. As a matter of fact you met him once at a party here at the house. I had just started my new position at the branch, you were somewhat deep into your talks at home and the gang from the central library wanted to send me off with a small get together. Nick was in town that week to see his brother but made time, in fact a whole day, to hang out with me. I don't think I was I expecting for him to do that at the time but it turned out to be a fine afternoon as I had everything put together that I was going to serve that day all ready and set to go. It was easy to sit and talk and be entertained by that man as we had gone back a long ways and it had been a long time since he'd graced my home with his presence. We both had plenty of stories to tell and the afternoon fairly flew by. Before I knew it the Paging crew was at my door step and so were you. I had truly expected to see The Detective there with you considering all, but cowardly custard that he is, he could only bully you at home and not me in mine. Too bad, it would have made for an interesting afternoon.

I got an email from Nick the other day to let me know that he'd be back in town soon. But not my town. He has business to attend to over on the other side of the Cascades, back in Twisp and Winthrop and he made it clear that this time could possibly be the last time he'd be going that way. He was hoping for a big public art gig in the Methow but that didn't work out. He still has friends there in the valley and they've been holding onto a number of his paintings for him. He felt it was time to gather together all his goods and get them into storage down in New Mexico. Great idea considering the distance and the value of his work.

There was a painting of his that I've been interested in buying and so he told me that he would swing a special deal for me if I would come and get it. It would be one less thing for him to throw into the truck and one more painting of his to grace my walls. The last time I saw an image of it was the day of that house party. I only saw a photograph of it that day, but it took me back in time to the days when we shared a house in Greenlake together. I always loved that old psychedelic style era of his and here was a new version of that old school style to buy and own. Once I heard that that painting was still in storage I was on the hook, but I knew, too, that the trip was more than just going over the mountains to buy a painting. I knew from prior visits that he wouldn't make it over here, couldn't make the time because it was off his line of march. I didn't want an old friend to be so close and to miss seeing him, possibly for the last time. There have too many of those "last chance" moments in this life that have passed me by, ones that I have learned about the hard way. Painting or not I had to see him.

I woke up this morning realizing that I not only needed to see Nick but that I needed to take that trip over the mountains in order to see what we had seen one last time . I know that you are not traveling with me in the flesh but you'll be along for the ride all the same. I won't be able to duplicate much of anything that we did, as the season is off and I won't be attending WALE, but I will be able to stop and take in the view at Washington Pass, cruise the galleries in Winthrop, grab a cinnamon roll in Twisp and drive by Lake Chelan and the hotel where we all stayed at that week. I'll more than likely stop in Wenatchee and grab a bite in that pub we graced that night and then, just to stay in theme, take a rest break in Levenworth and walk about town just to stretch my legs before I take that long last drive over the mountains. I figure I'll just make the best of it, have a good time, stop when I need to, eat when I'm hungry, sip coffee when I'm tired and take moments not only to breathe but to take in the view.

My friend Nick left the party that day about a half hour before you did, just to give us some time together. He is gracious that way, a man who knows and appreciates the romantic streak in his fellow man. He has one of those streaks, one that runs a mile wide and he wishes he could exercise it more, but it's not for want of trying. He's one hell of a good man, an accomplished artist, degreed, talented. What's more he's the man who will be illustrating the book. Yeah, our book. Well, my writing, our tale. I think that he's game because he, too, is part of the story.

So I will pack my car out later today for an overnight camp on Friday. I figure on an early start and to leave plenty of food in the cat's bowl, along with lots of water and a touch more tuna than Guapo is used to. I figure to stop before it gets dark and find a campground to sleep in for the night. I can't think of when I might get a chance to do our rounds again. What's funny is the last time we went through Twisp was to see him, or, at least, see some of his work. We dropped a note off for him at that one gallery a couple doors down from the Cinnamon Twisp bakery, the place we gathered rolls for our coffee break outside of Winthrop. This time I get to see him there in the flesh. I figured, too, that I could use the drive as a refresher course, as research time to help me in my writing, so I better get hep and save my receipts. You see Jane has to do that trip again, too. She has to go back in time after she reads those posts, those notes. Something happens to her that tells her that she, too, needs to do that dance with time, forever fleeting time, in order to get her house, her life, her heart, back in order, too.

I get to take a drive later on this week, take a road trip over the mountain to see an old friend. I will also be taking one along with me as well, and that's you, my dear. Pack light, it's a short trip. And don't forget to bring along a screw top bottle of Coca Cola for the ride. We have some spillage to work into the intinerary, you know.

Love, your WHMB

To see more of Trish Harding's work:

http://bluehorsegallerycurrentexhibition.wordpress.com/altitude-by-trish-harding/

Grand stuff, Trish! Is a print of Washington Pass available to own?

Progress, 09/09

The preface and the first two chapters are written. I have an illustrator lined up. I have a proofreader ready and standing by. How nice is that?

Your WHMB

Next chapter in the novel

The first sentence is bound to be the hardest, M.

"The Librarian's Fifth Wife". The key to the story is not so much Jane receiving the wooden box that contains the satchel but the identity of the person who sends the box to her. That part of the story has yet to be discovered, lived or even imagined. I have to wonder at this point in the tale if this blog should sit awhile, stew in it's own juices. I know that the crate still needs to be sanded, lined and painted. I know that there a few more things that need to be gathered and placed in the box, and then, when that's all done, the box will need to be sealed with brass screws and fittings and put to use. I want that crate to be able to sit on the floor and look like a low end table, or, with proper padding, turned into an ottoman. I want it to blend into it's environment, to disappear for awhile into my life but be forever a constant.

So, back to characters. Here's a partial list:

Skip and Jane Waken and their daughters, Casey, Poppy and Rosemary
Roger and Colette de los Santos, and their children Bill, Porter, Martha and Joseph
Some characters: Sue (aka Snake Lady), Rosie (aka Mi Novia) and then there's the real Rosie as Jane the second. Betty (Friar Tuck) and her man Edgar, Sigmund and his darling wife JM are close friends and the rest of the cast will drop into the story as they come. The brunt of the story will take place in Morgan Bay, the county of Chinook (ie The Morgan Bay Branch of the Chinook County Library System). States are states, big cities are big cities, those names stay the same. Places like In-n-Out and Disneyland and the Effiel Tower all stay the same as well. Organizational event names will be altered slightly and bigger even names, like say, United Way or the Foursquare Church, will changed for the sake of their bean counters and law dogs.

So,who will be the likely suspect to send off the box to Jane? Will they be in contact? Will they meet at the end? Will it be the Librarian's 5th wife? Will it be the Librarian's kid? Will she finally get to be with the Librarian again or will she just be meet up with that final character to toss his ashes in Red Rock State Park? So much to figure out. From here I don't see how Mi Novia could possibly be on hand to see the end of the story, but she is curious about it and wants to see it written, so know she will be written into it. Hell, it was my letter to her that really got this thing off the ground so why not? What about Friar Tuck? She's a loyal friend and was there at the beginning of the story. I think she would be interested. I know for certain that My Estranged One will play a large part of the tale, if only because of the role our children played in our end game and the way that those letters written to you were discovered. I know that she would rather eat rat poison than be the person to send that box on it's way to you someday, but she'll be a key character nonetheless. I wonder if Punkin will figure big into the story, if she'll be the one who will be tasked or will task herself to deliver the news to you, to Jane.

I know, too, that by going somewhere new and fresh that new characters will be built into the tale. New places mean new adventures, ones that will either water down or amplify all that was lived before it. What I do see coming up, though, is someone open and caring enough to bear this tale, someone who can see and appreciate what the price of this tale was, someone who can understand that while the story of the two lovers is over it has the half life of a spent nuclear rod. Yeah, it may be over but it's still "hot". Hence the box, hence the instructions for it's delivery, hence the opening chapter of the book when Jane gets the box from the Parcel Post driver.

Now, that's where the story begins. What does she want to do with the box? Has she "conveniently" forgotten everything? Will the box be filled with a backstory, the story of The Librarian's life, or just with tales of his life lived after their adventures were over? Will it contain a ledger of his travels after he leaves the state? Will she already know the price he paid for loving her (the loss of his marriage and his job due to found writings), and will she have lived a guilt filled life because of it? I see the book weaving a contemporary narrative with an awful lot of flashback, but the flashback will be told from pages of the book, or manuscript, or diary, contained in the box.

I think it's important that Jane finds her way back to some of those places mentioned, does some of those things that they did together. It's key that she gets out her heavy skillet and makes a pear clafouti, gathers the grandkids together and burns off the sugar topping of a creme brule, that she stands on the edge of the Sound and look out towards the sunset at Kopachuck, that she finds her way up to Washington Pass on the edge of autumn before the snows and then works her way down past the copper green rivers to Sumner to stand once again in the aisles of blooming dahlias. It'll all be part of her past, a past that she'll realize she buried deep, that will really swell the tragic end of the story.

Maybe it won't be a tragedy, but it'll be bittersweet. A life, or lives, squandered, a great love wasted. Knowing Jane, I have to wonder if she'll even want to bother, knowing how far it is behind her, or if a character device like a grandchild or one of her daughters will fall upon the box after she's opened it and insist that she take a drive to see those places he mentioned, to honor the man who went the rest of his days loving her. That's a big part of the story, too, M. Those kids, the ones who, in the end, discover that she traded riches and comfort for love. Or, on the Librarian's end, that he ended up the way that he did because of that hard ending to their story. I picture one or more of the characters on Jane's end not so keen about God, and that he or she will wonder what the heck were she was thinking, trading off true love for bible passages and a big house. I know, I know, I shouldn't go there but, this isn't a sweet nursey novel, not one built up to be sold to Christians as an "inspirational" romance. Baby, it's based on a true event. Autobiographical fiction, yep.

So, what to do about the next chapter of real life? I know that if things were different, if the kids were closer and I was already moving along with life, my own life, I would stay here in the Northwest, that I would try to find a way to get Mi Novia to play a bigger role in the story. She's a bit rough but she's real. As a couple we're much, much different than you and I ever were or could ever possibly be. But, you see, maybe that's the point. I know I need someone who also has spent time a bit of time dancing in the graveyard of old loves, someone who has had an equally hard time finding their way back to that place in life and relationships that says "I'm worthy, love me for who I am". One thing for sure and that's that we're both a bit beat up. Our hearts and souls are ragged and on the edge, almost to the point where love, real love, is beyond recognition.

Maybe that's important, too. Maybe I was supposed to end up here, here in this very raw and worn place, so I could write a story that really allows for tears and hurt to rise to the surface, to make all those nerve endings jangle. I want the reader to feel this story as if they are living it, or, if they haven't, at least be able to stand to the side of the tale and weep for that couple who had to set down one of the most beautiful love stories in the world just so that they could go on and live lives of integrity.

Something like that.

Okay, gotta go, it's time for a bit of storyboarding. I think it'll be a page turner.

Your WHMB

Bookends, 1988 to 09/09

One of my favorite movies to share with Toy Soldier Boy is A Bridge Too Far. It really is a geekfest for war movie fans and armchair historians, a film loaded with tons of authentic hardware and famous people and real life locations. It's thrilling in it's delivery, long in it's storytelling and beautifully shot. Always recommended, even if it's a bit much for your average movie watcher. Maybe not your kind of Sunday popcorn flick, darlin', but catch it someday if you can.

I thought about that movie's title tonight as I was walking the track. I thought of all the phrases that could apply to my life right about now.."high water mark", "Waterloo", "one bite too many", and then I let it all go. I walked this evening to let loose some tension I picked up this afternoon while I was processing my unemployment application. At first I found myself thinking too hard about what got me to this place, but then, after a few laps realized it was a long time coming, not so much the anticlimatic outcome of my job, but this wild florish of an ending, a good, dramatic, meaningful ending that put paid to my career here in the Kitsap, wrapped up my time here in this house, and truly ended my life here in the Northwest as I knew it.

Life is undoubtedly a series of choices. Good or bad, it doesn't matter, we just make them and later on see what they were really worth. I would have never thought that something as simple as my friend the Record Head heading off to Seattle in 1988 would impact my life as it stands right now. I think of that slight relationship of ours, which was strange and not too close to begin with, and how it influenced my travel plans the summer after I graduated from Cal State, and have to wonder if it was fate staring me in the face. "Come on up" he wrote and since I had a summer to burn before grad school I took him up on it. Besides, I could attend my pal's wedding in Paradise on the way home and see Z in San Francisco as well. All the way around a grand idea.
So, I took the train up the coast and stayed at his place, a funky little apartment at the base of Queen Anne. We took in Bumbershoot, rented a car, caught a ferry to Bremerton and drove around Kitsap County, caught a lot of films, ate a lot of interesting food and generally had a very good time. I was so enamoured of the city by the time I left that I completely lost interest in everything else, even Colorado, which, for me, up to that time, anyway, was God's Country. It was the sidetrip I took to SPL, to the children's floor, that really made up my mind for me to come back after grad school. I walked up to the children's librarian and introduced myself, told her that I was going to library school that fall, that I wanted to come back and work for her someday. We both laughed about that. Funny how things turn out. Really, you have to be very, very careful what you wish for, mujuer.

It took some time but I finally escaped the orbit of SoCal with The Estranged One, ended up in Oregon and then, as luck would have it, was able to bag two interviews with two different systems up in Washington state. The first one was in Bremerton, the second one in Everett. I think it was the keen interest of the interview panel, my duck hat and my unimpeded excitement that got me the job with EPL. I have to admit was happy there. I drove a bookmobile, worked a small staff, did a lot of fingerplays and could even walk to work. But I still had it in my head to work for SPL. Ended up applying in 1996 and while it took more than six months for it to happen I finally landed "the job of my dreams". The children's librarian that I had talked to years before was now a big shot in the system, but she still remembered me. That said alot about where I landed, alot about the quality of the individual I talked to years before. I thought very highly of her from that moment on and it never really changed.

But the big city wasn't where we could afford a home, so once again a ferry and a short drive took us to South Kitsap where we found a house that we could afford on my salary. But it was far from work, a long drive and an even longer public transit commute. It took four years but finally the thrill of ferry commuting and long freeway drives came to an end. But that wasn't the end of the Washington story, for in the end it came down to quitting one job only to grab another in the county, with the county, six months later. What's funny is that we were trying to get out of town at the time, trying to get out of the state, to go back home, and then, bam! I ended up working for the same outfit that didn't want me eleven years earlier.

I had a grand boss and an interesting crew when I first started that job, but sometimes life leads you astray, takes you places that you need to go in order to grow. I took a wrong turn one day and ended up with a three year probation for being late. Hard to believe but I made it through that. What's wild, M, is that I met you in the midst of all that and was late for work only once. It would of been, should of been, enough for me to stay on and do what I was doing, but I threw the dice one last time, applied for a job that closer to home, a few blocks from home, not so much because I was itching to be a librarian again but because I figured I could impress you with my drive, with a better salary, with the title that I had bought and paid for so many years before. I applied so I could work along side you, and then, once I got the job, well, that's where it all started. The end of our story and as far as I'm concerned the end of my time here in the county.

You know, life is filled with bookends. Not so much endings, or even beginnings, but brackets of sorts. You start somewhere and end somewhere, sure, but it's the action that takes place in the middle of the tale that determines how good the story really is. Applying for that branch job seemed like a good idea at the time, but no sooner than I started your talks began at home and our story pretty much ended. We had our own sort of Waterloo the night of the 28th of April. Not you against me, but you and I against time, fate and God. Nothing was the same after that.

I think of a particular instance, the first day on the job, the 2nd of May, the moment where you handed me a box of truffles and a homemade card and I have to wonder if I knew right then and there that we would go no further on our journey than that. I think of that day and know that I was supposed to see my friend in Seattle that one summer long ago just so I could land in that little town, be there in that moment, standing there before you, just two friends in the stacks, in a little branch where everything, very soon, would go up in a cloud of dust.

Waterloo. A bridge too far. That librarian I met on that trip years before ended up becoming my uber boss. That library that didn't want me in the beginning didn't want me in the end, either. That trip I took to Seattle so long ago introduced me to the county that I would live in, that I would cherish, where I would find my heart and my home and you. I think of beginnings and endings and know that I had to take that trip in 1988 just so I could learn something from it, even if that lesson took twenty years to find it's way home to me.

M, I would do it all over again, do nothing differently, for if I did, I would have never learned the hard lessons that I've learned over the last four years. You are the whole reason why I am here right now, in this house, alone, writing these words, at the end of my librarian days here in the Northwest, and baby, I have no regrets. None at all.

How can I when the price I paid for loving and losing you was the hardest and best lesson of my life?

Your WHMB

Swapping out sheets, 09/09

Nothing quite like brand new sheets, especially if you can afford them. I don't mind buying them used but one time in my life it seemed important, no, more than that, seemed like a matter of life and death to a dream to secure new ones. That I should happen upon the "scene of the crime", the place where I bought them, years later, was a wonder and a delight, even a touch bittersweet.

I went to Old Towne Silverdale the other night to take in Mi Novia's Art Walk showing and on the way over stopped at the new Goodwill on Mickleson. It's right across the street from Costco, which is a funny thing in itself, and right down the block from a major regional mall and all it's satellite stores. I have to wonder if all that commerce somehow feeds the second hand in an after-the-fact kind of way. I can see it would be very easy, if you lived close by and shopped retail regularly, to drop unwanted things off on your way to another shopping experience at the mall in order to make room for all the incoming and eagerly anticipated new things you hope to find and buy.

One thing for sure, and that's no matter how hard times are folks still like to buy new stuff. The stigma attached to used goods strikes fear into the hearts of a lot of people. Me? I'm thankful for that bit of a freakout about used merchandise. Means that the more new things they buy the less room they have in their homes for the old stuff and in order to make more room for all that new loot they have to unload that somewhat worn or barely used stuff to places like Goodwill. Grand! Keep on shopping! Shop till you drop!

The new store occupies the site of the former Linens-n-Things, a place I shopped at some four years ago in the vain attempt to change the course of our history. As you know I normally don't buy new but seek out quality used stuff at bargain prices. Why not? But there was one thing that I wanted to have more than anything else and that was new sheets. We had talked about thread count and ironing the wrinkles out of Egyptian cotton and the crispness of quality linen. All that talk made me a bit envious, and then curious, and then finally dedicated to the quest of finding some new sheets for my bed. All the sheets in my linen closet were old, had followed me around for quite awhile. Hell, some of them were leftover from my earlier marriages and I was tired of knowing that we frolicked on the threadbare weaves of leftover dreams. I wanted something better, something new, something white for us. So a trip to the linen store was planned and carried out.

I knew even then that I didn't buy top flight linen, but still, fifty-nine bucks for a couple sheets and a couple pillow cases was almost more than I could bear. I still remember telling you about it, the result being this sort of "I really don't want to hear about this" look on your face combined with one that spoke volumes of tenderness to my desire, to my thoughtfulness, to my dream. I think by that time the window to our mutual desires had since closed, that the opportunities that presented themselves early on were quashed and that that dream of blissful slumber on fresh sheets was long gone.

So I put them on my bed anyhow, a while past your first Coda, long enough for the Estranged One to find the sheets, see the receipt and question the need for fresh sheets when old ones always worked fine for us before. I had nothing to say about it, as a matter of fact, I ended up spilling a glass full of red wine on the bottom sheet and had, by doing so, as far as I was concerned, destroyed them both.

I stripped down my bed this morning for it's weekly change. As I rooted through my linen drawer I came across the lone pillow case leftover from that set. It doesn't seem like much now, but when it was new it had the power of dreams and had an energy force behind that could have altered the laws of physics. Those sheets could have taken us to the moon, past the stars, to some place in some faraway land that exists in a dimenson past all time and space. We could have rocked the world, Jane, but instead, the world as we knew it rocked us and those sheets just became some empty cotton vessel for me to stuff my dreams into .

Yeah, I came across an old pillow case this morning while I was getting ready to make my bed and it reminded me of you. And yes, my dear, I've made my bed and for the rest of my life I'll have to sleep in it. Just know that I have no problems sleeping these days, Jane, as the love we shared was the love of the just. It was our love, our dream and if I'm lucky maybe I'll find a bit more of that sweet kind of loving again someday, but, in the meantime I'll just close my eyes and dream sweet dreams of what could have been and send some of that sweet stuff on to you, another dreamer who has never stop believing in the power of fresh, brand new sheets.

Always your WHMB

The outgoing tide, 09/12/09

The air is brackish with the tang of salt water, broken down kelp and the acridness of diesel and darlin', it smells grand. The tide is turning and life promises to, once again, begin anew.

My final go round with our old employer went down a couple days ago. I know that it's finally over because my stomach feels better already, although my brain hasn't stilled yet. I woke up at four thirty and stared out the window at the clock tower for awhile, listened to transformers hum and to early morning traffic hiss by, but other than that the house and the streets were still. The cat was out and about on his evening's prowl, and once I thought I heard him spit at the local ferral tom. But that's all. Quietness reigned without but not quite yet within me. Time, baby, time, will take care of that, too.

I came away from that whole experience wondering if I would ever get the chance to say any last words. That morning they didn't ask for any and I didn't tell them a thing. I wrote the other day about the chance coincidence of our meeting, of the mutual party who helped bring us together who would be in that room with me that morning and have to wonder if she would even care to hear about, so I left it alone and kept it to myself. That day blended into another one spent waking up with Mi Novia sleeping in my bed, but before you jump to conclusions know that it was all very benign, all too cozy, kind of like the way you wake up with a ton of sleepover guests on the floor of your bedroom when you're a kid. It was all to the good, as it was a salve, another voice to share my voice with, another soul to share a coffee moment and bit of laughter with.

That morning, bookended with the one we spent together last week, meant the world to me if only it allowed for me go forward into the void with a voice and guide behind me. It's been something else having to bear the uncertainty of the charges, knowing that I am to blame for writing words, but knowing, too, that I don't feel guilty about them or who I willingly shared my heart with, and that's you, Jane, not that other silly woman that they're so all fired worried about. And really, The Estranged One is the only person in the whole, wide world who should really have a beef about you and me and any words I might have written to you.

You would have thought those folks at work, all literary types to a certain degree, would have seen that. You would think that they would have brought me in, showed me the printout and said "hey, mister, what's this all about? I thought we had an agreement". Yeah, I agreed to not pester the help and I did a pretty good job of it, but I had an awful hard time not being smitten with a gal that everyone else was smitten with, too. Ah, yeah, I'm guilty as I did write about her, but I wrote about her in a love letter written to you. Nevermind no names were mentioned. "My Colleague". Sheesh. What a bunch of silly people they are. Probably never had a love letter written to them in their lives.

"So, now what are you going to do?" you might ask. Well, my love, as you know I have the house up for sale so getting it ready for show keeps me busy all the time. I'm looking for work so time spent on the internet searching and filing applications is a daily exercise. I'll hopefully start to collect unemployment next month. I still have a number of projects to do around here so I'll attend to those starting, well, sometime later today. I have a stack of movies that I want to watch, a few bottles of wine left in my cellar to drink with friends. I want to start walking again, so now I have no excuse about that. And maybe I'll get around to selling toy soldiers again. Time is my friend. I suppose I should get my act together about my money, as that will be tight. I need to figure in a car trip or two Boise, and, most certainly I want to put in an afternoon in Portland so I can sit down and watch "the bird show" once more. Mi Novia is game to do that so away we go sometime later this month.

I think of all the things that I now have the freedom to do and know that cashflow will be the stickler, will be the thing that will keep me in place, keep me here around the house looking for creative stuff to do with my time. I think, though, that I should start on that novel I keep talking about. The experiences of being "laid off" are crisp and sharply in focus in my mind, not softened by time, not like ours are. I can already see the beginnings of this work coming together. Proper and place names are really the only thing I have to work out but otherwise I just need to get a voice and get going.

Yeah, time to get going. I think I'll go stand on my porch and watch the tide go out, watch all the flotsom and jetsom of these last few years go out and away with it. I think of that place, the library where we stood across the room from one another, and know that that time and that place are as far away from each other and our lives as they stand right now as two different planets in two completely different solar systems. I think of the little branch, the one I worked so hard to get into just so I could be close to you and know that to finally leave that ghost filled place is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Now all I have of the place is the memory of you peeking over the partition at me. I can close my eyes and watch you look up at me, and then, when I open my eyes I find that I am home once more.

I'm home and yet I have a million miles to go before I get there. See you on the road of life sometime, my dear.

Your WHMB

One of the grand "Ah ha!" moments of life, 09/10/09

Tomorrow will be an interesting day, my dear. Tomorrow I get to face down all that has been before me these past couple months, the isolation, the anxiety, the uncertainty of my work, the possible crashing of my career, all that. Then again, tomorrow will be more than interesting if only because it will bring with it a sense of clarity, a modicum of peace and will finally clear away the rubbish that has been cluttering my path for so long. For the first time in weeks and weeks I will be able to say with some certainty what direction my life is heading in. Yeah, at least for the moment.

Tomorrow will be one of those seminal moments, one of those "ah ha!" times in my life that reduce the number of options of where I'm going or what I'm doing to one or three or half dozen, one that will allow me open up a few of those sealed boxes of life, ones washed ashore like Captain Nemo trunks. I will finally be allowed me to peek inside, to rummage about, to pull out and set up the gizmos that will help me determine the next point on the map that I'll be heading to. Tomorrow will be one of those days.

But, love, just know that tomorrow wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for that day back in the summer of '03. Was it July, was it August? I sure would like for you to tell me for that is really the point behind all this. That day is the day that tomorrow is truly all about. As a matter of fact the person who hired you, the one who sat next to me during the interview, is one of the people who will be in that room tomorrow to help me see and determine and understand my fate, my next move on the board, show me what direction my compass is pointing in. If it hadn't of been for her calling you in I wouldn't be in that room tomorrow. If it hadn't have been for her calling me to help her with the interviews that day my house might not be up for sale. If it wasn't for her sorting through and culling out applications and pulling your name out of the stack I might not be painting and hustling my way through projects the way that I've been trying to to get this house ready to sell. If she hadn't hired you, well, my life would be oh so very different than it is today.

Then again, I am forever thankful that she did call you in, interview you, hire you. If it wasn't for her I would have never met you. If not for her we would have never become friends. I would have missed the joys of birding, The Kingfishers meetings in Poulsbo and pileated woodpeckers on top of telephone poles. I would have never attended WALE or the Gala and would have ignored the The Time Traveler's Wife, least ways, until my other bookgroup tasked me with reading it. I would have missed the Lady with the Big Hat, kisses on the edge of winter at the top of the pass, swooning in the dahlia aisle and seeing seals in the Sound. If not for her I would not have gone throught all the pain and agony and angst and joy and sorrow and pleasures and sheer wonderment that I've endured and enjoyed because of you these last four years. If not for her I would not be heating coffee cups for friends or collecting cookbooks or I might never have discovered clafouti or made creme brulee. If not for her my family and I might not be apart, might be together in Boise right now, or, just knowing the trajectory of things, might be in the same predicament that we are already in. That relationship already has issues long before I met you, before I interviewed you, so I might already be here in this place, or if not here, at some other point along the road of life.

Tomorrow will be a big day, another one of the seminal days of this life. Is it possible to have more than one? I think of all the important ones...chosing to go in the Navy, marrying Z, choosing to buy that house in Santa Ana with The School Teacher, picking my profession, moving to the Northwest, finding the house in Port Orchard, quiting SPL, accepting the Paging Supervisor job, all that, and know that meeting you is now one of them. I look at all the things that have transpired over the last few years and know that everything points back to that moment, the moment you saw the job opening in the paper, the moment you decided to apply, the day you sent off that application, the day we received it, studied it and called you in for an interview. All those moments in your life, the ones that brought you to Port Orchard, all of them added up, all of them guided you there to that table in the meeting room of the branch library to sit before us, to tell us about your life, to answer silly questions about library issues, charm us, and, after all that, had your destiny cross up with mine, even if that destiny was, for me, in the end, to find a different path than the one that you are currently on.

I think of rocks colliding in space and think of us, how we were both on dissimilar but similar paths and how we collided with a spectacular crash. If you hadn't met the Detective, gone to school in Durango, been raised by good, proper parents, all that, would life be different for me than it is today? If I hadn't gone to Japan, fallen in love with Colorado, had kids, run away with the Estranged One to Grants Pass, would we have ever had anything to talk about? I think of tomorrow and know that it has to happen, that I have to be in that room, that I have to take my destiny with you one step further, and then go on to the next space on the playing board without you. The person who hired you and placed your life in the path of mine will be sitting across from me, trying to make sense of all these words, these words that were written to you, not to someone else. As if I could ever find these words in my heart for anyone else but you.

If I could I would tell her that that meeting is all her fault, but, then again, it's not really. It has nothing to do with her or you or me, it just was a moment in time, in my life, in yours, in ours , that was destined to happen. Not only for the sake of our children, but for us to truly understand the power of sacrifice, the joy of friendship and the enduring power of love.

Your WHMB

The things we missed, Sunday morning, 09/09

There's a lot we never got around to doing, Professora. Every day I think of the pieces of the puzzle that are missing, of the things I get around to doing with other folks, of the little joys and sorrows of life that am not living and doing with you and I miss them. Some may say that you can't miss something that was never there to begin with, but to those who have never truly lived all I have to say to you is that those things I miss were lived in our hearts, even if they only end up here, never fully realized, in this silly open letter to love.

The tales that you find here are just that, an open ode to a love ended all too soon. But aren't the best stories all about that? About tough choices taken, about the unsettling nature of rotten endings, about the sheer joy of taking, or even just imagining, the road not taken? Yeah, these pieces are all about love, love in some capacity or another, about the love of my children, my love for you, the sheer joy and passion for living, all of that. You would think that something as open and as bold as this, something that I generally feel no remorse proclaiming from the mountain tops, that I would have it more widely available, that it would open it to all comers. I suppose at one time it was, and that time is not too far behind us.

I once mentioned this place on my "everyday" blog, on the Accumulate Man site, and through that post a few friends and regular readers eventually found this page. I've since fessed up and told a number of other friends about it, about the importance of it, of the why's and wherefore's of writing about us so openly, about the reasons I needed a place to go to other than that general purpose blog to share my thoughts with you. I know that by opening that satchel and my heart not only to you but to the world I would be risking many things, most importantly alienating you once and for all, but once I stepped out and opened up that bag there has been no stopping me. Well, to a point.

Mi Novia asked me point blank the other morning what would be my defense in the face of all this and I had to tell "autobiographical fiction". I know that I could never tell our story without fleshing it out with feelings, and feelings, like the senses, are all personal and introspective and
subjective. I could easily be clinical, pull an item out of that cotton bag, shoot a photo of it, label it, tell a bit about it, post it, but that's not a story, no more so than telling about the man who gets up out of bed one day and decides to take a drive to the ocean. It wouldn't be much of a read if all you heard about was how much gas he put in the tank, how many miles he drove, what he saw and what he ate coming and going on his trip to the seaside. There has to be narrative, there has to be built inot the story the smell of salt water, the tang of a cold beer, the fear of the crashing breakers and the awe of the unlimited vista before him. There has be something said for the anxiety of the coming of night, of the fatigue behind the wheel, of the arrival home to the mewling cat and crunching drive. There has to be more in order for it to be a timeless tale,to grab the reader, to make you want to turn the page.

This place, this blog, these words, this grand fiction, is just that. A grand story. There needs to be words to flesh out the jagged, torn photographs, the crumpled receipts, the almost unintelligible words scrawled on napkins while driving seventy miles an hour down Interstate 84 on the way back home to you. This place is where all those mixed up words and feelings and imaginings all come home to roost, to mix and mingle with all the facts that can't be denied. I couldn't go on and pretend that there was a story, a "librarian's fifth wife", without a ton of imagination behind me to push it out into this mundane world that I live in now. We haven't been an item for years, but in my heart of hearts, regardless of where the real story has gone to, I haven't forgotten you or our times and still wish things ended differently. As you put it in a letter to me back in December of '06, there hasn't been a day that's gone by where I haven't thought of you, where I haven't woken up and said "good morning" to you.

I think of this spot, these words, these grand proclamations and exhortations and think, man, what would she think if she saw what we lived splashed across the internet. I have to wonder how many folks had gone forward with reading it once they landed here, once they started to get the jist of our tale. I came across a nifty site recently, The Deadgirl's Diary, and it is much along the same lines as this, but told from a woman's perspective. It is all about the day to day, the feelings she had for her man, the angst, the joys of love and relationships and all that, all penned into an online "diary". That was sweet, somewhat peeping tom-ish, but due to the site, meant to be seen as such, to be lived as such, not too much unlike the younger brother stumbling on his older sister's diary while sweeping out her room.

Then I think of the folks that went about finding this place, who used it against me, who opened it up to photocopy posts and all that, and then sent it to a supposedly authorized office full of folks who felt they had to right to ask me about this name and that reference and all that. To that end, to those folks who felt they had the right, to those imbued with tengu spirit, all I have to say, "what the hell kind of person are you?"

Whenever I think of that kind of cruel invasion I think of that fat Mexican girl Tessie who used to pick on me in grade school, of the jerky, unloved kids who would intercept a note from a sweetheart and read it out loud to the class. Whenever I think of these words to you being printed off and bound and used against me I think, "there goes a pack of totally unimaginative and soulless people, mean spirited and full of spite as the day is long". To those who have opened this place up and have shared with it with the world in order to get back at me for having loved a very wonderful woman out of turn, well, to hell with all of you. I say to you that I have loved and Jane has loved and yes, we loved each other and now that it's long gone and over the hill and now part of the greater story of the journey, what the hell do you plan on doing about it? Taking away our birthdays?

I woke up this morning to the scent of Mi Novia's perfume in my bed. We woke and talked and laughed the other day, shared coffee and stories and life. She knows that I am going away someday soon and has wisely decided not to reinvest her heart in me, but as she and Animal Girl and Friar Lawrence have put it recently, all of this is now part of the novel. All these characters, all these quips and quotes and snippets of life, are all now part of the grand tale that I will weave and promote and tell the world about in a novel someday. A good love story, regardless of it's sad or indifferent or beautiful ending, is still a love story. My dear, forgive me for making this so public, but we were, still are, oh so very public, even if in the end the only thing we have to show for our love is a novel in Barnes and Noble flying under the flag of fiction.

We missed doing many things, and it is here that I can tell you how I feel about those many things that we never got around to doing. I hope that you don't mind too much. I have missed those undone things dearly and for the rest of my life wish we could have done more of them.

Having coffee with you after first light in a rumpled bed is one of those things I wish we got around to doing. Just know that, no matter where you go or what you do or who you choose to spend the rest of your life with.

Your WHMB

Blackberries in a porcelain cup, asking for forgiveness in the folds of a letter

The sun broke through a moment ago, shining through the last wispy bits of foggy gauze that have been hanging around the inlet this morning. The doors are open and first vestiges of fall weather are coursing their way through the rooms of my house. The Asian pear tree is shifting it's colour alliance and the blueberries are about to do the same. I see the unavoidable signs of autumn on the wing and I am rejoicing. The hardest summer of my life, bar none, is almost behind me, and I am glad.

I am happy for the reduced thicket of blackberries the neighbors maintain. It is only across the border of our yards and it has far more berries on it than they'll every use. I see their kids out there with bowls and such, fetching berries around dinner time. Do they make crumbles? Brown Betties? Pies? I have no idea since we never exchange recipes but I will go out there this morning, pad my way barefoot across the dewey grass and fill a bowl full of those glistening, overripe jewels. I love how they tear away in my fingers, some too sodden with juice to hold it together long enough to become my cereal topping. The season is late for berries and the weather has been too damp to help them carry along until deep September. It really is a now or never kind of moment. I think I'll go out picking this weekend just to fill the freezer with a pie or two's worth of sunshine for Thanksgiving.

In thinking that I am saying that I will possibly be here for Thanksgiving. I said that to Mi Novia last night after she dropped by. She said that that was putting negative energy, a wall, in front of my desire to be close to the kids. That by saying that I would somehow create a barrier between me and some interested buyers. Somehow by generating a back-up plan I was generating ill will between me and the cosmos, somehow influencing the ways and means of securing employment in Idaho. Funny, but I don't see it that way. I look at those simple words as the beginning of a fall-back plan, a sort of staged retreat back into the Puget Sound region and the walls of this house. I must be real, and picking berries for the fall is just part of that.

There is a pretty black bowl, Japanese, good for soup, that I will use this morning for gathering berries. It is not as pretty as the white cup I once found for you, the one that was decorated with blue flowers. I passed that along to you late in our season, late as in August, right before you left the library. It wasn't the day of the Cruz, the day you told me that you felt as if you lost your right arm. It wasn't the weekend that you made lumpia out in Brownsville, because that weekend I went to the Dungness Spit with the kids. No, it was a random Sunday, close to the end but not so close that you were worried about me being there. Maybe I didn't even see you. I had access to your locker, and thinking about it I believe I just left them there for you to enjoy on your break.

We had a long history of berries and giving and sharing. I think, though, that in sharing these words here I have taken those words, our times, our experiences and put them out there, have placed them in an arena that, if you were to know that others were reading them, might make you uncomfortable. I never really thought about that as I left this trail of words here for you. I never thought about anything other my joy in sharing with the world something I thought was pretty wonderful. I know that the world was pretty tuned into us, that they saw us and thought, "wow, there goes one shining couple" but they were not tuned into our internal frequency, not privy to the sweet joys that only insiders would know about. Stumbling upon this space would open that secret Eden of ours up and let the world in.

I wish I knew how you felt about it all.

Someday, though, there will be something to come out of this. Autobiographical fiction? A novel? Some sort of tricky multimedia device that mimics a blog and all it's interesting possibilities? Why have I continued to do this? Only because the flames of our times still burn hot.

I have been following the news down in LA, the headlines about the Station fire, how it grows every night, how it seems uncontainable, least ways, for the moment. I think of that fire and how it just keeps rolling along, finding niches to hide in and canyons to roam in and fuel to burn, and how it continues to be so hot after so many days of burning. I think of that fire, it's relentlessness and understand it completely. I know that fire, know that unquenchable flame, intimately relate to how it burns unceasingly as it courses it way through my heart and soul and belly. It never goes away, that fire, hence these words. They are way of corraling that conflageration, a way of hosing down some of the heat in order to live a somewhat normal life.

We shared berries years ago, fed them to each other, secreted them away in lockers, shared them in clafouties, all that. These words are like that, too. They are ripe, in the the height of their season. Maybe in a few years the heat won't be there, the dampness of time will cool the ardour, maybe they will wither or go bad on the vine, be ignored. Maybe the ubiquiteousness of them, that they are all around, never ending, perennial in their return, will make them bland, boring, easy to ignore. All the same they are there, finding their way to the surface, to a medium where they can be explored, shared, savored. To a place where they hopefully reach you.

If these words bother you, here or in any way, let me know, and I will find a way to write and put them away in the satchel without bringing in the world to celebrate our love. If they have hurt you in any way, forgive me, for I have only done it out of love. Our love, like those berries I placed in a cup in your locker, had a season. These words here, like my gathering of berries to place in the freezer for later on this year, is to preserve those times. When that pie is served up this Thanksgiving it will be like summer time all over again. Reading these missives, I pray, will help bring that summer of our love back to your heart once again.

Love, your WHMB

Rubix cube for a rainy day, 09/09

It's not too unusual to wake up early these days. It's all about my cat, you see. Guapo has a system of his own, a life and an internal clock that has nothing to do with my sleeping life and the battery operated clock next to my bed. I know, either through a gentle nudge or a persistent meow, that it's time to let him out. It's not as if his cat box is dirty or his bowl is empty, it's just that "it's time", whatever that means. This morning "that time" was five thirty. This morning's wake up call was just that, my own personal bugler for the day. I took that cat call and turned it into a movie morning. Watched Harrison Ford battle his inner demons on the Mosquito Coast. Talk about a family that knows how to stick together in times of adversity!


But that film dovetailed right into the clock tower going off and the naval station playing the national anthem. It was all good, regardless of the fact that I could have used the sleep, or, if I was inclined, knowing that I could have gone back to sleep but would have been down on myself for the rest of the day. So, instead of goofing I used that time to get to work. I hustled boxes down from The Boy's room and staged them next door in the little house. I reinforced the lock on the basement door and caulked the tub. I have a small baseboard assignment in the kitchen to knock out and the paint and brush are all ready to go. It's raining outside so that means a trip under the porch to see how my handiwork turned out. Looking for wet spots is not my idea of good time but doing so now will mean less work later on. Maybe fewer ants, too.


When I moved around those boxes I came across a Rubix's Cube. Somehow I know that it was mine at one time, one of those things that I kicked out of the house when we had that famous meltdown back in September of '06. The cube, along with that little rubber frog I mentioned ina an earlier post, all took a hike that day. Funny how they both popped up today. Maybe the cosmos somehow figured it was a day to add some things to the wooden box. To that end I also found this morning an article from a local newspaper about Debbie Macomber, and so that, along with the two aforementioned items, will be set aside to be stowed away.


I also have a Connell's flyer to put in that box, but it'll stay out as a reminder until I run that mission. I am aching to do a drive across the bridge and see Connell's farm, as their flyer mentioned that this year's show was to be their last one. I want to be sure to get on the mailing list for their catalog, if indeed they still plan on selling dahlia bulbs. I also want to be sure that you are on that list, too, if you are not so already. One more thing in the mail to you.


So I gave some thought about the meaning of that Rubix Cube as it applied to us and know that you set your's down a long time ago. Somehow seeing it today made it clear to me that I never did, that I still have that device flying around in my hands, twisting and turning it for all it is worth. Obviously that puzzle and it's ulitmate solution has nothing to do with you and me anymore. No, these days I'm just working on solutions to my own life. I think of the wrenching decisions we had to make back in the day, and know that when you made yours you stuck to them, regardless of personal cost. For me I kept those solutions of yours in the background as a reminder that it could be done but continued to look for some solutions of my own, regardless of the cost. Right now my tab is running pretty high for having maintained that search, for continuing to look for answers, for keeping the quest going on that high ideal I had about us and life and love and all that.


I think of all the women who have passed through my life over the last few years, ones that have come in and out of my life to help me somehow get over you, past you, past us, and know that, in the end, they were part of a team that helped me try to work that puzzle. They took over, tag team style, to try to help me see that setting down that cube, even without a firm answer about you and me and that love that we shared, was okay to do. Somehow when I found that that answer was unexceptable those women went away, tired of participating in my quest. They didn't want to be part of a team that somehow still had you on it. They didn't want to be involved with a man who was still trying to figure out the answers to his past that involved the ghost of a woman he was still obviously in love with.


I think of Thanksgiving and the open email box, and then I think of this last June and a post from this blog that somehow found it's way out and into the hands of some reader that had no idea what it was that they found. I think of all the friends I have that know about our story, the cost of those letters and posts not only on my relationship with my Estranged One but also my job and know that each of those transactions are one of those little colored squares on that Rubix Cube. Somewhere along the line that toy has gotten to be almost bigger than life, truly bigger than what we were working on when we were together. It has gone way past making decisions that involved our children and our lives to involving almost all facets of my life. You, my dear, even at this distance, are still impacting the puzzle. You, my love, are still somehow part of the key, part of the solution, even if after all this time I have no idea what that solution to the puzzle may end up being.


Will I find the answer once I land in Boise? Will it become clear to me and light up like one of those cartoon lightbulbs, once I have Punkin and The Boy and the rest of the kids back in my life once again? Will I see everything I need to see clear as glass once I ride up and over the Rockies and into Loveland? Will I finally be able to set that damn thing down when I see that my life is just that, mine and mine alone, to figure out and that my choices I make from here on out will dictate how and where I land?


I took boxes down from my kid's room today and came across an old artifact of our life together. I sometimes make more of that life than I should, I know, but we lived, my dear, a million lifetimes in that year. But even more that year of ours has spilled out and over the rest of my life, and for that, even with all the complications and hassles and all that, I am glad. That toy, like our love, has been a teacher, the greatest teacher I've ever had. I don't know if I will be smarter when I am done figuring it all out, but I will be a hell of a lot wiser, and nobody can really ask for much more than that.


Your WHMB